Lost: A Whole New World

I don’t even know where to start.

I just recently finished picking my jaw up off the ground and wiping little pieces of brain off my living room wall after Tuesday night’s mind-blowing episode of “Lost”

Unfortunately, I still have no idea where to start when discussing “LA X”, the show’s season 6 premiere. (If you’ve read my “Lost” columns before, you know that I dive more into the characters and the story, and leave the theorizing and obscure scientific and literal references to MUCH smarter people.)

I guess I’ll start at the end — of last season. Ever since our TV screens were consumed by that blinding white light as Juliet pounded away at the hydrogen bomb, fans have been anxious to find out what the producers had in store for us this season.

Of course, this means wey’ve been anxious in an “OMG, I can’t wait to see what happens way”, but also in a, “This better not piss me off way.” You see, if Faraday’s plan succeeded and Jack rebooted the timeline it would, in essence, mean everything we’ve watched for the last five years would become instantly negated. (Boo!) The alternative seemed to be that Faraday’s plan didn’t work and the castaways were still stuck in 1977 (double boo!) or that the H-bomb wiped everyone out (we all knew this option was VERY unlikely).

In a stroke of storytelling genius I haven’t seen since, well, season 3 finale “Through the Looking Glass” introduced the idea of “flashforwards”, the show’s writers have found a way to do both without leaving even a whiff of copout. In what producers are calling “flash-sideways”, we’re getting a glimpse at a different 2004 reality where Oceanic flight 815 lands safely in LAX, while still following our beloved castaways, who have somehow been transported 30 years into the future to 2007.

Even more impressively, “LA X” started doling out answers to some of the show’s biggest mysteries, while throwing yet another puzzle to keep our already-overworked minds occupied. (Hence my brain winding up on the walls.)

The season premiere introduced three separate, yet equally-interesting (at least, in my opinion) storylines: we had Jack, Kate, Sawyer and the rest of his Dharma crew transported to 2007, we had Jack and the rest of the class of 2004 (plus one “very special” guest) touching down in LAX, and we had Ben, Richard and the Smoke Monster hanging out inside and around the foot of the statue.

Let’s talk about that last one first because a lot of fans’ suspicions were confirmed when Fake Locke/Man in Black outed himself as the Smoke Monster with one of the greatest lines in the history of ever. After a crew of Jacob-worshipping cronies busted into the foot of the statue and tried to shoot Fake Locke, they were thoroughly thrashed by the Smoke Monster, who appeared seconds after Fake Locke vanished. (At least Bram put up a bit of a fight, though he probably should’ve made himself a bigger ash circle.)

Now, I’m sure most intelligent people would’ve put two and two together. However, there is a segment of the “Lost” fan population who (to put things kindly) tends to overthink things. As a result, I was happy that Fake Locke reappeared right after the Smoke Monster vanished and told Ben, “I’m sorry you had to see me like that.” Fake Locke/Man in Black = the Smoke Monster. It’s clear as crystal! Thank you for the bone, producers!

More importantly, I continue to be fascinated by the relationship between Ben and Locke (and, of course, Michael Emerson and Terry O’Quinn, who was OUTSTANDING last night). After Ben figured out what was going on (Emerson’s buggy eyes were bugged out more than usual last night), he whined about how Fake Locke had manipulated him into killing Jacob, seemingly blind to the irony of how Ben had repeatedly tortured and manipulated Locke when he was still alive. (Another point of interest: when Ben and Locke first met, Ben was pretending to be someone else. Ever since the power in this relationship shifted, it turns out that Man in Black had been pretending to be Locke.)

O’Quinn seems to be relishing playing an all-out villain, but I found myself angry at Fake Locke for his harsh words about Locke (I was also irrationably wishing Locke’s eyes would pop open at the end of the episode). Fake Locke also had harsh words for Richard, who he was surprised to see without his chains. (I’m assuming within a few weeks time, we’ll get confirmation that Richard came to the Island on the slave ship known as the Black Rock.) Most importantly, the Man in Black revealed his true agenda – he wants to leave the Island and “go home.” (Wherever the hell that may be.)

Meanwhile, within a firework’s view of the beach, Jack, Kate, Hurley, Jin, Sayid, Sawyer and Miles had been granted entry into the Others’ temple.

The other 2007 story had our castaways waking up not too far from the site of “The Incident.” The good news was that they had been transported back to the present – the bad news was that they were still stuck on the Island. The REALLY bad news for Sawyer (and for Jack’s face) was that Juliet was dead.

Except that she still had a bit of life in her, and I was happy to see the castaways work together to pull her out (I love when they work together). Now, I’m a big fan of Sawyer and Juliet, but I don’t really think they needed another emotional goodbye before her death. (I thought her slipping away from Sawyer’s hand in “The Incident” was incredibly effective and a fitting goodbye.)

Fortunately, their goodbye scene worked excellently in terms of advancing the storyline and creating a mystery where it might’ve failed in eliciting strong emotions from me. (Sorry, I felt a little overacted.) With her last breaths, Juliet seemed to be mumbling incoherently about getting “coffee, Dutch treat” and died before she could say something “very important.” Miles later told Sawyer that she had meant to say “it worked.” Obviously, we’re not supposed to know what this means yet, but it’s not a stretch to guess that Juliet’s mind could’ve been traveling to a different time and place (ala Desmond in “The Constant.”) The scene also gave me shades of “This Place is Death” when Charlotte told Daniel that she wasn’t allowed to have chocolate before dinner right before she died.

Whereas Juliet was gone (“Dead is Dead”), Sayid still had a few breaths left in him and Jacob (sans stab wounds) appeared to Hurley and suggested he be taken to the Temple. I’ve said time and time again, that the cast of “Lost” is one of (if not THE ) best cast on TV, and I think Jorge Garcia is probably its most underrated actor. Sure, Hurley always brings the funny (“If I were to mention a hole near a fall and a French team, would you know what I was talking about?”), but he’s just as good in the moments when Hurley steps up.

And last night, the castaways needed a leader with Sawyer too stricken with grief, and Jack too stricken with guilt (I can see how maybe it’s your fault Juliet is dead, but there’s no need to take responsibility for Sayid getting shot, man). Hurley led the castaways to the temple, where they met some new and familiar faces.

So far, I’m liking their mysterious leader. More specifically, I love that the guy who “hates the taste of English on his tongue” has to communicate primarily with Hurley, who says “dude” every other time he speaks. I’m also curious to see how a hippie-ish nerd like Lennon came to be histranslator. More than that, I’m curious to learn a bit more about these Others. If you’ll recall, the Ben-led Others had some sort of relationship with the people in the Temple, but had lived in the Dharma houses after the Purge. Are these Temple Others more hardcore Others than the Dharma Others (who seemingly dressed themselves up to look like the Temple Others.) Also, hi again Cindy the flight attendant and a few of the kidnapped kids! Nice to see the show didn’t just forget you!

Turns out Hurley’s guitar case contained a note hidden inside an ankh (like the one that statue held in its heyday) granting the castaways temporary entry to the Temple. The Others tried to save Sayid’ life presumably the same way the Others saved Ben’s life when he was young, but it didn’t work. Except that there was Sayid sitting up and asking what happened in a daze.

Although I wasn’t exactly shocked (I didn’t really think Sayid was dead, so I felt almost nothing when he “died”), the moment was definitely chill-inducing. So is Sayid really Jacob resurrected? Or is he alive the same way Ben was brought back to life after Sayid almost killed him (nice job again, writers), without innocence and with no memory of what happened? Obviously, I’m curious to find out, and I’m curious to learn a bit more about the Temple (which really looked GOOD on a TV-size budget.)

Lastly, (and certainly not leastly) there’s the seemingly alternate reality with Jack and Co. safely landing on LAX. I saved this for last on purpose because this storyline certainly begs the most questions. However, I’m fairly sure that we’re not SUPPOSED to know what the hell is going on, so I’ll keep my thoughts here brief until we get a bit more info.

Despite this appearing to be a fully-formed separate reality, these flash-sideways seem a bit off, almost like a dream. I’m not just talking about Jack having a mysterious cut on his neck or Hurley being incredibly lucky instead of cursed.

I loved the way the events we’ve already seen were slightly tweaked and sort of given a semi-surreal, dreamlike quality. (Matthew Fox’s subtle, disoriented performance helped things a lot.) The best example, of course, is Desmond’s cameo in which Jack couldn’t quite place him. (Was Jack remembering their brief meeting in that stadium years ago or their time in the Island together?) Talk about “seeing ya in another life, brutha!” Also, this “things aren’t quite right” quality help explain the fact that almost everyone’s hair is wrong.

Of course, the VERY best part of these flash-sideways is their element of surprise. You see, when Faraday came up with his plan (and when Jack executed it), they never really considered that, by detonating the hydrogen bomb, they wouldn’t JUST be altering the lives of everyone on Oceanic 815 at the exact moment it was flying over the Pacific. They would be affecting every single person who had contact with the Island between 1977 and 2004.

As a result, it’s going to be fun to reassemble the pieces we already thought we had figured out. Sawyer appears to be a con man (watch his eyes light up when Hurley mentioned he’s a lotto winner), but he seemed cheery for someone who had committed murder in the original timeline. Kate is still a fugitive, but did she still kill her father? Can Sun still secretly speak English? Is Claire even pregnant in this scenario? I can’t wait to find out!

My favorite part of this storyline (other than having old favorites like Charlie, a refreshingly non-whiny and charismatic Boone and a voice cameo by Greg Grunberg of “Heroes” as the pilot) was the scene between Jack and Locke in which the two sort of dug into each other’s hyper-sensitive business (Jack’s dad, Locke not being able to walk) yet ended the conversation with a handshake. Maybe in this reality, these two are well-adjusted individuals.

So what’d you think of this episode? Where do you think Desmond disappeared to? (I think people repeatedly telling him he was “very special” means he can somehow exist in more than one reality and be aware of it.) Where IS Christian’s body? How many times is that U.S. Marshal going to get his ass kicked by Kate? Do you think the 2004 flash-sideways will end with the castaways coming together and trekking to the Island in 2007 (I kinda hope not.) What ACTUALLY caused the castaways to travel 30 years forward in time AND survive a bomb blast? Finally, WHY IS THE ISLAND UNDERWATER?