IT WORKED

"It worked."

Juliet said that after the Incident where the bomb or EM energy pocket imploded the Hatch during its construction in the flash time of 1977.

Many assumed that she meant that whatever happened brought them back to the present time period. But in reality, how could a severely injured Juliet, trapped under rubble, know she had time skipped to the present?

In the last big scene, there is a clue:

[Flash sideways - Sawyer is walking down the hospital corridor. He stops Jack has he passes by.]

SAWYER: Hey, you know where I could get some grub around here?

JACK: Uhh... the cafeteria's closed, but there's a vending machine down the hallway.

SAWYER: Thanks, doc.

JACK: Yeah, no problem.

[Sawyer looks on as Jack walks away, pausing for a moment. At the vending machine he flattens out his dollar bill and inserts it into the machine. He presses the buttons for an Apollo bar (G23), but it gets stuck in the machine.]

SAWYER: Oh, come on...
[He shakes the machine but the bar doesn't budge.]

SAWYER: Unbelievable.
[He attempts to reach inside the machine to grab the bar. A woman approaches.]

JULIET: Can I help you?

SAWYER: It's okay... I'm a... I'm a cop.

JULIET: Mmmm. Maybe you should read the machine its rights?

SAWYER: [laughing] That's funny.

JULIET: Mmmm... Can I tell you a secret?

SAWYER: Please.

JULIET: If you unplug it, and then you plug it back in again... the candy just drops right down.

SAWYER: Is that right?

JULIET: Yes, and it's technically legal.

SAWYER: Oh... give that a shot...
[He unplugs the machine and all the lights in the room go off.]

SAWYER: Oops...
[Juliet laughs, grabs the bar from the machine and gives it to Sawyer.]

JULIET: It worked. 

[Sawyer grabs the candy, but as his hand touches Juliet's, they both begin to see flashes of their time together on the Island. They jump back in surprise.]

JULIET: Oh...

SAWYER: Whoa... did you feel that?

JULIET: We should get coffee some time.

SAWYER: I'd love to but the machine ate my dollar, I only got one left.

JULIET: We can go dutch.

[As she says that last line we see her on the Island, they flash to her dying in Sawyer's arms as she says the same line. Juliet holds Sawyer's hand and they begin to experience more flashes of their 1970's DHARMA life; Sawyer holding up a daisy, them hugging, spooning in bed, more hugging and kissing, Sawyer holding Juliet from falling in The Incident, Juliet falling.]

SAWYER: Juliet? Juliet it's--it's me. Ju--

[They embrace and Juliet begins to sob.]

We have to ask ourselves "What worked?"

Juliet's plan to help a stranger game a vending machine worked as Sawyer got his candy bar. But was her phrase "It worked," coupled with a touch the "magic spell" that unlocked their repressed memories of their island life? We still don't understand why the characters in the sideways purgatory after death cannot remember their island past. Or when they do remember the trials, tribulations and good memories of the island they get all euphoric.

But if we take a different perspective on Juliet's "It worked" in the hospital, we may get a different understanding of the sideways world.

Island Juliet could have been remembering how she and Sawyer found happiness in the after life when she said "it worked." Her mind flashed to the hospital vending lounge. She understood her place in the universe. She knew everything would be okay in the end.

This again puts the sideways world earlier in real time than the island world. Considering the time itself was a nebulous concept throughout the series, this is a possible connection between the two worlds. It may hint that one needs to know in the island realm that things will be okay in the sideways afterlife in order to actually die in the island world. It may sound strange, but Christian's explanation of the sideways world (something the main characters created themselves) was actually referencing the characters creating the sideways world to work out their purgatory problems in order to move on. The purgatory characters were using their dreams, fears and fantasies to escape to the island (and not escape from it as shown in the pilot episode) to work out the issues that kept in purgatory.

Perhaps, Juliet was stuck in purgatory because she could not move on in her past relationship with her ex-husband. Her inability to give up her feelings for her ex-husband in Florida mirrored her loneliness in the sideways existence with her cordial but distant relationship with Jack. It was only throwing her subconscious spirit into the island world could she work through her personal demons of clinging emotional behavior to find a new love of her life. She just happened to stumble upon another desperate spirit in Sawyer who also had learn to let down his guard to overcome his commitment issues. They became soul mates because their after life souls found each other in the spiritual proving ground called the island.