Christian has shown himself to Jack in LA so he isn't limited to the island. He could have appeared on the freighter. I don't see how his words to Micheal could mean anything other than "time to die"... If the island were going to protect him wouldn't it just stop the bomb from going off?

As for Jin... He made it far enough to jump or be thrown from the ship. He could have caught some floating debris and arrived on the island before he left the ship ala the Doc Ray...

I don't think this was a flash back. I think it was made to look like a flashback but really was a flash forward like Sun's. I think Jin somehow got off the boat and because of the whole conspiracy wasn't able to have his old life back, and so got stuck in the same work he previously was involved in.

I agree with all of this, except for the part where Jin could have reached the island before he left the ship. If he made it to the island just as Doc Ray did then wouldn't it make sense that the helicopter would have made it along with him, since it was in front of him (going toward the island the whole time). If Jin were to make it to the island ahead of normal time, then the helicopter would have made it there before him but it didn't so he could not have made it back to the island.

Kateliegh, it was clearly shown that Jin had an old cellphone, where Koreans are always way ahead of the curve tech wise. Jin may not be dead, but that was definately a flashback of his. Plus, if he did have to get back to his old way of life, that would be with Sun.
I bet Jin is still alive, and I agree with some thoughts that 'You can go now' is even way too vague for the show, so vague, that it could actually be NOT vague, as in, 'Hey Mike, you know this boat better than anyone, get to a side deck quickly and you'll be off here before the explosion'. But that's way too long, so Christian said, you can go now. At least, that's what I'm hoping happened. Everyone is always hating on Michael, I like the guy, he's had some hard ass luck.

The helicopter followed the bearings to the island which I think at least greatly reduces the time distortion. If Jinn floated randomly towards the island like the doc did he might have arrived at a different time.

And the biggest clue that Jin buying the toy for the kid being a flashback is when he said he'd only been married for two months. They threw that in there right at the end to kind of tell the audience "hey, this is a flash BACK"...

i know hes probably not coming back but i really hope we see him at least a few times as a ghost cameo haha. i am willing to bet there will be some kind of resolvement with walt and michael. Maybe Walt comes back to the islad with the oceanic si and sees his dad as a ghost or something like that. The fact that john, Desmond, Ecko and charlie survived the blast from the hatch does give me some hope for michael.

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We don't know what caused the blast from the hatch besides the fact that it had to do something with magnetism. Dynamite was clearly right in front of Michael a half of a second before we saw it explode. I doubt that Michael could get away from that blast in .5 seconds from when we saw him stuck in the room. And dynamite clearly will blast you to pieces so I do not think that he could have ran down a staircase into a air vent and be harmlessly thrown out of the freighter into the water at the last moment in less than half a second. Jin was clearly at a point where he could jump off of the freighter when it exploded. He might have lived or might not have, but I don't see how he would have managed to live unless he jumped and swam to land somewhere. And even if this were so, how will the writers let us know that this is what happened since Jin can't speak english well enough to tell anyone how he escaped. (unless he can speak fluently in the next season!!)

Hurley: "Dude, how'd you survive?"

JIn: "Jin...jump...from boat...then booom!"

Sawyer: "That's amazing, Captain Blastobritches"

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not too hard.
what if he survived the blast, though, only to be eaten by sharks?

when i said he wont be able to explain how he "escaped" i meant not the obvious part that he jumped, but what happens after that since I'm guessing there was no land for miles that he could swim to.

He floats to the island on a different bearing and arrives before the boat blows up.