The Unfiltered Ramblings of a DVR Addict

Finally, Lost is back.  We’ve been waiting for this moments for months, and it is finally here.  Let’s jump right in.

The season premiere begins with the new white screen as it fades into Jack and the gang on Oceanic 815.  Ironically, the first people Jack speaks to are Rose and Bernard, perhaps the people most negatively affected by his decision to detonate Jughead (assuming that he actually was able to change the future).  They went from a happy couple dealing with breast cancer to a happy couple living a simple life on a tropical island, and Jack ruined it all.  I was definitely confused by the diving scene that took us from the plane to an underwater statue foot.  Are we to believe that the island is now gone the way of Atlantis in this new arc?  Interestingly, the first scene closes with the traditional black screen and white logo, leading me to believe that maybe things haven’t changed after all.

That thought seems likely to be a theme for this season.  We’ve had flashbacks and flashforwards and time traveling.  This season appears to be going the way of parallel universes.  I think we will be following the cast in two separate story arcs simultaneously, but not separated by time.  I couldn’t help but think that the title LAX referred not only to the airport, but was also referring to the term “parallax.”  Check out the Wikipedia discussion of that term here.  I think this is exactly where this season is headed. 

Back on the island, everyone has advanced to the present, and Juliet and Sayid are both in bad shape.  For whatever reason, everyone seems to think that saving Juliet is far more of a priority than saving Sayid, so they focus all of their attention on her.  Meanwhile, Jacob (now apparently dead) is seen by Hurley and instructs him to get Sayid to the temple if he wants to save him.  I guess if the temple can bring a gut-shot Ben back to life, it should be able to do the same for Sayid.  The attempt to save Juliet is apparently unsuccessful, but from the grave she is able to tell Miles that “it worked.”  I can only assume that she is referring to the detonation of the Jughead, but they are obviously still on the island, sort of, so we’ll have to see what this means. 

After basically letting Sayid bleed to death, they finally do follow Hurley’s (Jacob’s) advice and get him to the temple.  They are greeted by the Others and they’re Kung Fu master.  Hurley proves that they are sent by Jacob and they agree to try and help Sayid.  They seem scared of Jacob’s wrath, but aren’t yet aware of his death.  Of note, all of the people that Jacob touched in the last episode are here at the temple, and their names appear on a list.  The attempt to heal Sayid originally appears to have failed, but he returns to life at the end of the episode, much to everyone’s surprise.

As for the storyline that continues on to LA, we are reunited with a few characters – Desmond, Boone, Hurley, Kate, Sawyer, Locke and even Charlie.  Charlie barely survives asphixiation via small baggy of heroine, but of course Jack saves the day.  Kate manages to escape from the agent trying to bring her back to the US.  Hurley comments that he has nothing but good luck.  After everyone else has deboarded the plane, only Jack and a wheelchair-bound Locke remain.  Locke is then loaded onto his wheelchair and exits the plane.  They meet again at the baggage claim office.  It seems that Oceanic has misplaced Jack’s dad, Christian, or as Locke puts it, they didn’t lose the man, they only “lost the body.”  We also get to see Sun and Jin back together, although not particularly happy, in this storyline.

Finally, the third piece of this story takes place under the statue.  Ben has killed Jacob, but when he goes to get Richard, he is shown Locke’s dead body.  He was led to believe that Jacob’s nemesis was actually Locke, but we all know better.  When Jacob’s gang, Bram and friends, go to check on Jacob we find out a couple of very interesting things.  Jacob’s nemesis is not only bullet-proof, but he is also the alter-ego of the smoke monster!  That’s right, we finally have an answer (sort of) as to the nature of Smokey.  Jacob’s nemesis and Smokey are like Superman and Clark Kent, we’ll never see both of them in the same place at the same time.  Apparently the only thing that can stop him is a ring of ash.  It’s like his Kryptonite.  The nemesis pointed out something that was made apparent throughout this episode, which is that for many of the survivors life on the island was better than their fate back in the real world.  But, unlike Locke, he “want(s) to go home.”

There you have it, my recap and thoughts on the season premiere of Lost.  This is the beginning of the end.  Hopefully this seen won’t have too many double episodes because this is a lot of typing.  Here are some interesting thoughts to close with:

• Charlie’s first words were “Am I alive?”
• Sayid, much like Locke, looked awfully Christ-like when being carried out of the healing springs.  If he’s really dead, could someone (Jacob) be in his body?
• Jacob put up minimal resistance and then his body disappeared.  Very Obi-Wan Kenobi-like
• This was the first time we have seen the temple
• Who is the Kung Fu master and his Jim Morrison side-kick/interpreter?