To paraphrase what Hurley's mom said to her son after his hilarious and rambling recap of all the crazy happenings on the Island the past four seasons: "I believe in this show. I don't understand it, but I believe in it."That’s pretty much exactly how I felt after last night’s two-hour mind-cluck of a season premiere.
As I’ve mentioned in this recap before, I’m just a dummy who loves to watch “Lost” for its superb storytelling, production values and (extremely underrated) acting and because I love TV. So I’m not the kind of viewer who engages in the show’s tie-in alternate reality/interactive games, nor do I spend an obscene amount of time theorizing about the show’s mysteries. I leave that work to people who are infinitely smarter than I am. (And God bless those people!)
I like watching the show because I love the characters and because I love the way the show explains themes of redemption, faith, fate and other big ideas in the context of an uber-twisty sci-fi yarn.
As a result, last night’s two-hour premiere left me feeling the teensiest bit cold. That’s not to say “Because You Left” and “The Lie” weren’t good episodes (they were very good), but it was definitely hard to get my arms around them. Hell, it was difficult to get my MIND around last night’s episodes, which left me almost as confused as Sawyer, Juliet, Locke and the rest of the crew on the Island must’ve felt when the Island started moving through time. As a result, I slightly preferred the more character-driven “Lie” (which focused more on the Oceanic Six’s mission) to the head trippy first episode (which focused more on the Island).
Still, I’m fully aware that these kinds of episodes are necessary in the show’s overall mission. And I have all the confidence in the world that the people behind the show will dole out enough bits of knowledge and answer enough questions to satisfy us viewers when the time is right.
Of course, it’s not exactly like the show is ALL OF A SUDDEN about time travel. The show’s been dropping hints ever since the season 2 finale, “Live Together, Die Alone” when Sayid, Sun and Jin spotted the gigantic unfinished (or demolished) four-toed statue. It’s just that the time travel thing appears to be all up in our faces for the first time.
It’s a good thing Faraday was there to explain to us, I mean to Sawyer and Juliet, what the hell was happening. It appears the Island is skipping from time period to time period the way that Willie Nelson record in the season’s first scene started skipping. I liked the record analogy, but I liked his “time is a street” explanation even better, despite the fact that his “you can’t change the past” credo would apparently be challenged in a little while. (Maybe during his apparent stop at the Orchid station in the 1970's?)
As a result, the castaways were first thrust to the day the Nigerian drug plane landed on the Island That turned out to not be a good day for Locke, who was shot in the leg by Ethan. Locke was having a rough episode overall, finding himself instantly abandoned JUST after assuming leadership of the Others. Shortly thereafter, he was thrust to sometime in the future (the plane was on the ground) and a quick, typically-cryptic meeting with Richard Alpert who seemed to know what was going on, gave Locke the compass (which was one of the items in the “Cabin Fever” test from last year) and notified him that he needed to die in order to save the Island. Thanks, Dick.
Meanwhile, the Sawyer, Juliet, Faraday, Charlotte and Miles hung around the hatch because it was one of the few man-made items that would likely be on the Island over the course of a long period of time. Eventually, they found themselves in the ..Island..’s Desmond-in-the-hatch era, and Faraday was able to confront him alone. He told Desmond that the people on the Island needed help and that he needed to go to Oxford to find Farday’s mother, whose name is — well, we don’t know yet, but I have a feeling we’ll find out soon.
The encounter with Faraday woke Desmond up from his dreams and we were led to believe it was some sort of recovered memory Desmond had somehow blocked out. We all know Desmond and his brain have been through a lot (hello hatch explosion), but I’m more inclined to believe Faraday WAS able to change the past and Desmond’s dream was actually a newly-inserted memory. Either way, Desmond is going to be leaving his boat and Penny temporarily to go to Oxford Meanwhile, I’ll continue to try to shake the feeling that something awful is going to happen to those two lovebirds.
Back on the Island, Bernard was trying to prove to Rose (and annoying new background guy Neil) that he could build a fire. We also learned that Miles’ ability to talk to dead people also apparently extends to dead animals as he brought a boar back to cook. (So do we think he can talk to dead MAMMALS?) If they figure out a way to clean the pork, they can always cook it over Neil’s burning body, since he took a flaming arrow in the chest at the height of his hissy fit. I guess SOMEBODY needed to die to introduce the British guys with the flaming arrows, so why not Neil? It was like the Nikki and Paolo storyline, but compacted to one episode.
Anyway, Sawyer and Juliet were briefly captured by a group of soldiers led by a young Brit accent before they were saved by Locke. This, of course, begs the question of when exactly in the Island’s history the British invasion happened. (You know, Charles Widmore has a British accent —just sayin’.)
Speaking of Widmore, he arranged a meeting with Sun (and re-established his authority) at an airport where she was en route to Los Angeles The two seem to have formed an alliance after Sun announced they both wanted Ben Linus dead. You know Sun means business because now she wears power suits as opposed to the more feminine wardrobe she favored in her pre-Island flashbacks.
The question I have is why would Sun want Ben dead? Sure, there are plenty of people who want the guy dead, but aren’t the freighter guys who Widmore hired to blame for her husband’s death? In season 4’s finale, Sun told her father that there were two people responsible for Jin’s death and he was one of them. Now we’re led to believe that Ben is the other, however, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s just getting close enough to Widmore to exact her revenge on him.
Then again, the other person she blames for her husband’s “death” (Daniel Dae Kim is in the credits) is neither Ben nor Widmore. What if it’s Jack? One of the very best scenes in last night’s two hour premiere was her tense confrontation with Kate in L.A. Kate had done what she does best (RUN!) after two shady lawyers asked for a blood sample to prove she was Aaron’s mom. She met with Sun, who quietly, but devastatingly seem to admonish Kate for not retrieving Sun in the freighter like she said she would. Kate tearfully apologized before Sun told her that she didn’t blame her for Jin’s death. She then added “How’s Jack?” Except that there was absolutely no trace of friendliness in the inquiry.
In case Sun is interested, it turns out Jack’s not doing too well. Sure, the beard is gone and he’s got a new suit, courtesy of Ben, but he may or may not soon be going through drug withdrawal after Ben flushed his pills. I thought the first couple of Ben/Jack scenes dragged a bit other than the shocking way Ben is so firmly in charge and Jack is firmly a mess when you consider their relationship on the Island Things picked up considerably when Ben continued to make his plans regarding Locke’s body, Jack asked him if Locke was really dead and Ben conspicuously ignored the question. Hmm.
You can’t really blame Ben for not stopping to chat. Thanks to help from Mrs. Hawking (you remember her from the jewelry store in season 3’s “Flashers Before Your Eyes”, Ben learned that he has 70 hours to get everyone together for their return trip on the Island. Mrs. Hawking either knows where the Island is now or where it’s going to be in 70 hours thanks to some typically freaky-looking machinery in the basement of what looked like a church. I thought Fionula Flannagan was excellent as Mrs. Hawking and I’m glad she’s back on the show, especially since there’s a decent chance she’ll turn out to be Faraday’s mother. (The meeting between her and Desmond at Oxford would be interesting.)
Ben’s going to have a problem getting everyone back together since Hurley (pictured, left) got himself thrown in jail for four murders (or was it three? Whatever).
Of course, super paranoid and super-icy Sayid is the person who really killed those people, two of whom had been waiting at his not-so safe house after he busted Hurley out of the mental institution. The fight scene with the two thugs was excellent (my girlfriend Erica doesn’t buy Sayid being able to fake being tranquilized) and I especially loved the use of humor (the picture of Hurley holding the gun at the hotel) to balance things out.
In fact, the second episode could probably be classified as “Hurley” episode. With all the time-jumping, I wondered if the show would continue to be able to focus on one character’s story and work off of that. After all, the flashbacks and flashforwards gave us a vision of the past and the future, so I wasn’t sure how things would work now that there’s actual time travel on the show.
As they did with the season 4 premiere, the writers decided to showcase the Hurley character first and it was a smart decision. He’s the comic relief of the show, but he’s also the heart. I also happen to think Jorge Garcia is definitely one of the better actors on the show, equally capable of handling the lighter and heavier moments.
That’s why he can pull off having a fun, cheeky conversation with Ana Lucia’s ghost (who has bangs for some reason and was more helpful in two minutes than she was in all of season 2) and wearing an “I Heart Shih Tzus” shirt just as well as he can having an emotional scene with his mom and his dad. I thought it was kind of sweet that, after Ana Lucia advises him to go to someone he trusts, he went to his dad’s house. Or maybe he just went to his mom’s house and his dad was the only one home. Either way, it was nice to see Hurley’s dad step up and show concern for him.
The one thing I didn’t buy so much was the lie itself, which was the basis of the episode. We opened with the Oceanic Six (and Lapidus and Desmond and Penny) all but agreeing to lie about what happened on the Island The only person who was against lying was Hurley, who didn’t want to deceive anyone and didn’t understand why they had to lie. I kind of agreed with him.
Jack explained that they had to lie to keep their friends safe from Widmore, who had sent people to kill them. However, Widmore clearly already knows about the Island and what it could do, and he appears to know that Oceanic 815 crashed there, which is why he staged the fake wreckage — so he could search for the Island himself. There’s no way Widmore would believe the Oceanic Six’s lie, so what’s the point? Personally, I would lie, but not because I was scared of Widmore hurting my friends (have fun trying to find the disappearing Island, buddy). I’d lie because I’d be afraid of sounding like a maniac.
The moment where Hurley went after Sayid a bit also felt a bit forced and phony. The part where he tells him that one day Sayid is going to need his help and Hurley was NOT going to give it to him seemed out of character and was clearly only placed there to set up the show of Hurley frantically racing to save Sayid’s life.
In the end, Ben caught up to Hurley at his parents’ house after Jack helped revived the “Pakastani on the couch” at a nearby hospital. Unfortunately, Sayid had warned Hurley not to trust Ben, who actually made a super convincing pitch to come back to the Island I knew Hurley wouldn’t buy it since Hurley simply going with Ben would make things to simple. Sorry Ben. At least you didn’t get hit with that hot pocket.
So what’d you think of this episode? Would it be racist of me to assume/think that Dr. Chang’s baby in the season-opening sequence could be Miles? Who do we think those lawyers who came to Kate’s house work for? What do you think makes Desmond so “miraculously special”? Why did the Others disappear (but not Locke) once the Island moved the first time? Is there any way nose-bleeding Charlotte’s not a goner? Is there any way that Sawyer and Juliet DON’T hook up at some point this season? Finally, could this recap had been ANY longer?! (Thanks for reading.)
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