Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
When a rescue team reaches the island, Jack's camp divides over whether the freighter can take them home. The newcomers include physicist Daniel Faraday, Miles Straume, Charlotte Lewis and pilot Frank Lapidus, but Sayid and Ben suspect their employer, Charles Widmore, wants the island and its inhabitants. Locke leads a rival group to the Others' settlement, while flash-forwards follow Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid and Sun as the Oceanic Six construct a public account that hides the people left behind.
The freighter's purpose becomes clearer as its crew turns violent. Ben's daughter Alex is killed by mercenary Martin Keamy, and Ben retaliates by killing him even after learning Keamy's death will trigger explosives aboard the ship. Michael, Desmond and Jin use liquid nitrogen to delay the blast, but Michael dies when the freighter explodes; Jin is left behind and his fate is unresolved at the season's end. On the island, Ben sends Locke to take his place among the Others, then turns a buried wheel that makes the island disappear.
Jack, Kate, Sayid, Sun, Hurley, Aaron, Desmond and Lapidus escape by helicopter, but the vanished island leaves them ditching into the sea. Penny rescues them, and Jack persuades the group to conceal the island's other survivors. Their return story names Aaron as Kate's child and describes the six as the only survivors still alive. In later flash-forwards, Jack learns that Locke has died; Ben says Jack must return to the island with the others who left, setting up the survivors' effort to go back.