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In the three-hour Lost finale, "There's No Place Like Home," we finally get to see the multi-level Orchid Station, ostensibly Dharma's site for botanical research. That's where Ben takes Locke and Hugo, so they can try to "move the Island," as Jacob has directed them to do.

The bad news: Keamy and his mercenaries are headed there, too. We'll discover that Daniel Faraday already knows about the Orchid and about Keamy's deadly "secondary protocol."

We may even see more of Dr. Marvin Candle/Dr. Mark Wicklund/Dr. Edgar Halliwax, the scientist who narrated the Dharma Initiative's orientation films. The doc is best known for saying "Namaste" and for using three different aliases, numbered white lab rabbits and the occasional prosthetic arm during his cinematic forays.

The iconic four-toed statue will make its second appearance -- at the Others' refuge, the Temple, maybe? And we'll catch up with the ageless Richard Alpert, who last week turned out to have been monitoring John Locke from the time Locke was born.

We'll see what happens to Desmond and Michael aboard the freighter. With Captain Gault and Doc Ray both dead, and with Sayid and Frank back on the island, it's looking like a mighty bad time to be trapped on that boat. Will Penny come to their rescue?

In flash-forwards, we will see the Oceanic Six arrive back in the real world, to be confronted with the frenzied media and a lot of very ticklish questions. How do they get back? Not on the freighter, or so we hear. Why must the O6 lie about what really happened? We soon will know, but we suspect it must have to do with the fate of those left behind, such as Sawyer and, perhaps, Jin.

And we already know that Ben is off-Island in the future. But what about other non-O6'ers, such as Desmond and Juliet? What about the Freighter Four: Frank, Daniel, Charlotte and Miles?

We will see the funeral of Dr. Christian Shephard (or maybe it's a memorial service, since we have no idea where Christian's actual body got to, post-crash). We'll see Hugo's birthday party, and we'll meet his parents again, as well as Jack's mother, Margo Shephard.

Lost's writer-producers, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, promise we will find out how Kate came to be Aaron's surrogate mom. And at long last, we will be told just who was in the coffin at that unattended funeral seen in last season's finale. (My money is on Michael.)

The producers also are promising us a "spectacular kiss" that will happen off-island between a male and a female character. Personally, I'm hoping it's between Desmond and Penny, because their reunion would be such a great payoff, especially coming after "The Constant."

All in all, it sounds as if many questions will be resolved in these next three hours of S4 -- and the stage will be set for a whole new set of dangers and revelations in the series' final two seasons.