Meadow is a foot shorter than Tony. He would in fact have shot over Tony.

But the guy in the MO jacket - a hitman never in a million years would have sat in front of his target where his target can see him, he never would have walked by him and gone to the bathroom, losing sight of him, and he never would have banged into the diner so hard it caused his target to jump.

That guy is a red herring. If he was shot in the diner, it was by someone who chose to sit behind him. You want to be where the target can't see you.

"It's safe to assume that since Tony never goes to prison, there's only one other way out for him."

Tony's lawyer is all over that final episode in blazing red letters saying that Tony is going to prison, a 90% chance. That they knew this day would come. That it's over. That suggestion is just as much a part of the final episode as the target on Tony's back (which is gone after Phil is murdered with his own family's permission to Tony).

It is just as likely that while he's having that beautiful final meal with his family, and Meadow is about to come in and maybe tell him something wonderful... the screen goes black. It's just as likely there's an FBI agent and another blackout panic attack right in the diner. The show started out with Tony ing out.

The real mystery is why the creator of probably the best TV series of all-time would be so sociopathic that he would abuse his audience the way Chase did. Whether you love a main character or hate a main character, you want to know what happens to them in the final episode. To have blacked out whatever happened - if anything did - that's the Tony in Chase. The evil.

"Holsten's would be a place where Tony would let down his guard."

He doesn't. For a moment. In the entire run, this is the first time he's ever gone to Holsten's. There are dozens of other places he's more comfortable, including home, casino tables, and hotels.

I've never understood the soap opera "Penny/Desmond" connection. From what was shown of their relationship, it was 40 year-olds in a high school type romance with little substance. Lost did romance really, really bad.

The characters were way too one-dimensional and PG for it ever to be a serious character drama. They did set it up as a fantastic survival drama in the first season but later on went completely went away from everything that worked and started throwing any nonsensical thing in the book at viewers to try to keep them watching.

Lost the first three seasons is kind of magic. The last three, it's network magic, a bunch of writers tap-dancing in the hopes that faux complexity will keep the pseudointellectuals watching. And it did. Lost was brilliant at marketing. "Only the smart people will get it guys, wink wink."