Ladies and gentlemen of the press, meet the Oceanic 6.

And please, immediately start poking holes in their cover story.

Wow, anyone else literally jumping up in down in frustration when you realized that we have to wait TWO weeks to find out what was teased so brilliantly last night?

“Lost” always presents questions, of course, and I’m sure the show’s final two hours on May 29 will leave us with some hum-dingers. But it seems that the finale will indeed answer a few things that have been killing us since the season began—heck, since last season ended.

How do the Oceanic 6 make it off the island? Why were these six castaways the chosen ones? And why do they have to tell a boatload of lies about the crash?

It’s like we’re about to finish the second leg of a triathlon: We’re so excited about completing most of the race, but the finish line is still way off in the distance.

Anyway, let’s kick off our recap with a rundown of what happens to each of the Oceanic 6 after they’re rescued.

The episode opened with the group in the back of a cargo plane, on their way to a military base in Hawaii. Jack tells an Oceanic flunky that they’ll talk to reporters when they get there, and once she leaves, he turns to the rest to get their stories straight.

Earlier in the season, I thought that Widmore’s people or another shadowy organization may have forced the O6 into their cover story, possibly by threatening those left behind on the island.

But now it seems that Jack is the one urging everyone to lie, and they’re all happy to go along. Which is way creepier than if they didn’t have much of a choice. What on earth happened to them to make them seemingly betray their friends?

Once at the base, the reunion scene was poignant. First, the relief to be home was so evident on all the Sixers’ faces.

And the fact that no one was there to greet Kate and Sayid was heartbreaking. But they seemed to be embraced by the others as part of their families: Hurley dragging Sayid over to meet his parents was sweet.

Bittersweet, though, because as the episode went on, you realized that all this togetherness, this friendship, is eventually going to go terribly, terribly wrong.

Back to the press conference.

The reporters immediately latch onto the flaws in the Sixers’ story, wondering first why they all look so healthy if they were stranded on a deserted island for three months.

Kate lies and says that she gave birth to Aaron on the island, which one questioner points out would have made her six months pregnant when the U.S. marshal arrested her.

(What is it with this show and thinking it reasonable that a woman in her second trimester would have a completely flat belly? Locke’s mother in last week’s episode was supposed to be six months along, too, and she wasn’t showing at all. BTW, anyone else notice that both women were almost to the point of their pregnancy—or pretend pregnancy in Kate’s case—when the expectant women on the island would die?)

Sun also lies when asked if Jin was one of those who made it out of the plane. (We still haven’t found out the identities of the two others who supposedly survived the crash, then died, and why that detail is so important.) Sun says he died on impact—confirming what we already knew from the fake date she put on Jin’s tombstone.

Shortly afterwards, the Oceanic rep tells Sayid there’s someone outside who claims to know him: Nadia.

Again, their embrace was quite a moment. Even my husband said, “Awww.” Then he remembered, “Aw, man, she gets killed, right?”

Yup, another moment turned bittersweet because we know that Sayid’s not going to be happy with Nadia for long.

As for Hurley, he goes back to living with his parents, who end up throwing him a surprise birthday party. His dad gives him the restored Camaro that they had worked on together. A touching father-son scene, until Hurley notices the numbers on the odometer. He freaks out and runs away, the first step towards the disturbed mental state we know is in store for him.

Just as a side note, the Hurley scenes had a bunch of Easter Eggs!!

One, Hurley hears the whispers when he gets out of the car to go into the house.

Two, he was carrying a take-out bag from Mr. Cluck’s Chicken Shack, which Hurley once worked at, and then bought with his lottery winnings, before it was destroyed by a meteorite.

Three, the keychain Hurley’s dad gives him has a rabbit’s foot attached, just like the one the aircraft pilot was rubbing for luck while bringing the O6 back to the mainland.

And four, Hurley picks up a statue of Jesus to defend himself before the party guests yell surprise. Similar statues of the Virgin Mary stuffed with heroin were found in the small airplane that crashed on the island with Eko’s brother. Heroin addict Charlie—who will later haunt Hurley—threw the statues into the ocean when he kicked the habit.

Sun goes back to Korea, where she uses part of the whopping Oceanic settlement to buy a controlling interest in her father’s company.

She tells ol’ Mr. Paik that she knows he hated Jin, and he was one of two people who killed him. Who was the other? Was she referring to herself for leaving him behind?

This plot twist was really interesting, since I’m guessing that this new corporate Sun will find out what Daddy Dearest has been up to with Charles Widmore.

And Jack?

He gives Christian a proper eulogy at a memorial service, where a surprise mourner is Claire’s mom!

When we last saw her, she was still in a coma after the car accident she was in with Claire. She reveals that Claire is Jack’s half-sister, which is likely the guilt-ridden reason why Jack hadn’t been able to look at Aaron until long after Kate’s trial.

Perhaps it’s for leaving Claire back on the island, and perhaps it’s because he can’t tell this poor woman that Aaron is really her grandson.

That seems to have covered the off-island adventure. Now, back to the island and the freighter.

To sum up, everyone is running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

Jack and Kate run into Sawyer and Miles in the jungle, when Sawyer passes off Aaron to Kate and explains what happened to Claire. Miles, Kate and the baby head back to the beach, while Sawyer and Jack follow the sat phone signal to the helicopter.

They free Frank, who’s handcuffed to the chopper and tells them that Keamy and his men are headed for the Orchid station and set to kill them all. Sawyer realizes that they can’t leave the island without Hurley, who’s on his way to the Orchid with Locke and Ben.

Jack utters Sawyer’s favorite line, “Son of a bitch.”

Back at the beach, the game of musical Aaron continues, as Kate gives the baby to Sun while she heads into the jungle with Sayid to help Jack and Sawyer. Yet that crafty Richard Alpert appears with a band of gun-wielding Others and takes them captive.

Meanwhile, Daniel takes over for Sayid on the raft and ferries Sun, Aaron, Jin and a few random survivors to the freighter. Sun and Jin have a tense exchange with Michael before Desmond shouts for help. He’s found a room full of explosives that could blow about 10 boats.

And what about the Orchid station, which will be further revealed in the season’s last two hours?

Ben, Locke and Hurley make it there – and Ben gives Locke very specific details about how to get inside. Telling Locke he “always has a plan”—as if to say, you dope, you’re supposed to be the special one and you never know what to do—Ben gives himself up to Keamy, who pistol-whips him unconscious.

Lots and lots of questions, people, some of which will be answered when the show returns for its finale in TWO WEEKS.

And the biggest one I have is this: If Sun and Aaron are on the freighter, Sayid and Kate are with the Others, Jack’s in the jungle and Hurley’s at the Orchid, how the HELL do they finally get together on that raft to rescue?

And what happened to the others they were with?

I’m guessing it’s going to be an action-packed finish. Until May 29, Lost-philes….

(Photos courtesy of ABC)