Lost and Loving It

Lost is the only show I have encountered that can leave its viewers scratching their heads for five seasons and have them come back for more with the start of season six on Tuesday night. The show’s mysterious nature and unique narrative style drives fans to the Internet as each episode concludes. Theories, Easter eggs, dialogues are all analyzed as if the fans’ lives depended on it. Lost is not a show. It’s a phenomenon. Never has a show garnered such a community where its fans actively participate in putting together clues and hidden meanings to figure out what is taking place on the island. Those who wait till the show finishes to watch will never realize what a week-to-week Lost veteran experienced. With the final season’s premiere on Tuesday night, I left the episode with my mind trying to wrap around the events of the two hour premiere. Did I understand everything that was going on? No. Did I enjoy every minute of it? Hell Yea!

I’ll give a heads up just in case. The rest of the post contains SPOILERS from Tuesday night’s episodes. If you have not watched them then I really advise stopping and watching the episodes first. Still reluctant or seen the episodes? Read on.

The best way in my opinion to break apart the first episode of the season would be to separate each of the three storylines taking place. The three storylines pertain to how the characters are split up across the Island/Reality. For analysis purposes I’m breaking down group one, alternate reality, into bullet point form for readers to track the alternate reality differences better.

Group 1 – Alternate Reality

• Premiere opens up on the Oceanic 815 flight.

• Stewardess only offers Jack one bottle of alcohol instead of two unlike the Pilot.

• Rose and Jack share a conversation as the plane begins to violently shake.

• The shaking which lead to the plane’s crash in the Pilot passes over.

• Rose tells Jack it’s okay to let go of the seat, which he has been clutching with his dear life. Unlike the Pilot, Rose is the confident one and Jack is scared.

• Bernard returns from the bathroom. He’s no longer in the tail section of the plane.

• Jack goes to the bathroom and finds a bleeding cut on the right side of his neck. What caused it?

• Jack returns to his seat to find Desmond occupying the empty seat next to his. Desmond is reading Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie.

• When Desmond says, “Brotha” Jack feels as if he has met Desmond somewhere before.

• Jack looks out the window and the camera pans toward the ocean floor.

• In the ocean floor we see the Others’ Village. Those quick enough to catch it can also see the Dharma logo branded onto the shark’s tail. Here’s a screencap for those that might have missed that: Dharma Shark Logo.

• Also at the bottom of the ocean, the giant foot statue.

• Sometime later Jack heads back to the bathroom causing Kate to bump into him as she emerges from the bathroom. The US Marshal grabs her as she gets out and walks Kate back to her seat. Sawyer walks down the aisle and notices Kate, who hides her handcuffs under the tray. Guess Kate is still a fugitive in the alternative timeline.

• Doc Arzt bothers Hurley to do the Mr. Cluck’s Chicken slogan.

• Hurley admits to winning the lottery when asked how he managed to become the owner of the franchise. Sawyer, sitting a few seats away, says he shouldn’t tell people the fact that he has won the lottery due to people wanting to take advantage of him. Hurley says he’s not worried. He has the best luck in the world. Interesting. No cursed numbers affecting his life in this reality.

• Sun admires the happy couple, Bernard and Rose, on the plane.

• Boone talks survival of a plane crash with Locke. Boone says if the plane crashed the chance of survival would be 0%. HA! Both characters talk about why they went to Australia. Boone went to break his sister out of a bad relationship, which she didn’t want to leave. Sounds reminiscent of season one. However, it seems Boone didn’t pay off the boyfriend since he is flying without Shannon. Locke tells Boone he went on a walkabout. Hmm, truth or lie? Boone makes another ironic statement after hearing about Locke’s walkabout. “If this [plane] goes down, I’m sticking with you.” Well we all know how well that ended up for you, Boone.

• On the plane a call is made over the intercom asking if there are any doctors on board. Jack responds and is taken by the air stewardess to the bathrooms. What the hell is up with Jack and the bathrooms? We are only twenty-six minutes into the episode and it’s the third time he has been to them. Apparently someone went into one 30 minutes prior and has not come out. Sayid offers his assistance by forcing the bathroom door open with a powerful kick. Inside? An unconscious Charlie.

• Jack notices that Charlie’s air passage is blocked and he needs something to cut a hole in his neck with. Jack tries to find a pen, reminiscent of season one where he asks Boone to find one, but realizes the one in his jacket is missing. Jack digs his fingers into Charlie’s throat and grabs the bag of heroin. Charlie starts to cough and regains consciousness.

• Charlie is arrested and tells Jack he shouldn’t have saved him, he was supposed to die. Theories on this anyone?

• Jack returns to his seat and finds Desmond missing. Jack asks Rose what happen to him, but Rose says she never saw him since Bernard and she were asleep. Interesting. Desmond disappears as Charlie appears. What’s up with that?

• As the plane is about to land we see the characters preparing for their landing. Sayid looks at the picture of the woman he is going to see. Jin holds the box which contains the watch he is supposed to deliver.

• Before you know it Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 lands. To me this is a moving scene because this was what the characters were wishing for ever since they crash landed on the island.

• The police arrive on the plane and take Charlie away. Charlie gives Jack a dirty look before being taken away.

• John Locke is pushed off the plane in a wheelchair.

• At the airport Kate uses the pen she stole from Jack’s jacket when she bumped into him on the plane to pick the lock on her handcuffs. The US Marshal notices, but Kate manages to knock him out in the women’s bathroom and makes a dash for it. Kate encounters Sawyer on an elevator who helps her past two guards.

• Jack is paged at the airport to be told that his father’s coffin has been lost. The airlines tell him that it was never put on the plane and they are not sure where the coffin is.

• Jin’s luggage is being searched at customs. He is taken away for questioning when the customs officer finds wads of cash hidden away in one of his suitcases. When Sun is questioned if she knows English, she replies, “No English.”

• Kate manages to make it to the taxi stop outside the terminal where she jumps into a cab and tells the driver at gunpoint to start driving. It turns out Claire is also a passenger in the vehicle.

• Jack encounters Locke at the baggage claim center where it turns out Locke’s suitcase of knives has been lost. Jack tells Locke how the airline lost his father to which Locke responds, “They didn’t lose your father. They lost his body.”

• Jack asks Locke what happened to cause him to be in a wheelchair. Locke responds that his condition is irreversible; surgery won’t help him. Jack tells Locke nothing is irreversible and gives Locke his business card for a free consult. The most interesting part of this scene is that Locke is a man of science and Jack is a man of faith, which is the complete reversal of their beliefs.

Group 2 – The Swan Site

Kate awakes at the Swan site to find herself in the branches of a very tall tree. Once she climbs down she encounters Miles, who seems to be suffering the same ringing in the ears effect the Losties encountered while time traveling last season. Kate stumbles upon the Swan hatch in the current, 2007, timeline and finds it destroyed the way Desmond left it at the end of season two. Miles and Kate find Jack lying in the grass. However, the angry beast that is known as Sawyer bursts through the forest and kicks Jack in the face before Jack has a moment to figure out what’s going on. Sawyer screams at Jack for a failed plan which lead to the death of Juliet.

A small distance away, Jin, Sayid, Hugo, and the Dharma van also appear to have time traveled from 1977 to 2007. I’m not sure why the van came along for the ride, but I’ll just go with somebody was in it when the nuke went off.  Hugo overhears Sawyer yelling, causing Jin to rush towards the sound so he can find Jack to take care of Sayid, who is suffering from a gunshot wound. Jin arrives at the Swan hatch where Kate hears Juliet’s scream for help beneath the rubble. The group digs furiously for a chance to rescue her, but come across a beam they can’t move.

At the Dharma van, Hugo is paid a visit by Jacob. Revealing that only Hugo can see him since he, Jacob, was killed by an “old friend” who grew tired of his company, Jacob tells Hugo to bring Sayid to the temple along with the guitar case he has been carrying along. Jacob informs Hugo that he should ask Jin to bring him to the location of the hole in the wall which he visited with the French team.

Jin arrives and takes Hugo, Sayid, and the van to the Swan site where they use the van to remove the beam. Sawyer rushes in and retrieves Juliet, but it’s clear that she won’t live for much longer. After a few shared words Juliet dies in Sawyer’s arms before she gets the chance to tell him what she wanted to.

Sawyer and Miles stay behind to bury Juliet’s body as the rest of the group heads to the temple where Hugo leads them into the hole in the wall. Sawyer buries Juliet and then forces Miles to find out what it was she wanted to tell him. Miles, using his ghost talking powers (man this is starting to sound ridiculous), comes back with the message, “It worked.”

The group makes their way deeper into the construct where they quickly become separated. The whispers reappear and the group gets kidnapped by the temple people. We find the Oceanic 815 flight stewardess and the kids taken from the tail section of the plane to be a part of this group. The Templites? Temple People? Templars! I’ll call them the Templars for now.

Anyway, the Templars look like hippie pirates, which could possibly mean they are the crew of the Black Rock. That is just speculation for now. The leader, a wise looking Asian man, appears from within the temple and orders the Losties to be killed. Hugo tells them Jacob sent them and to open the guitar case. Inside they find a wooden ankh, which when broken reveals a note that says if Sayid dies they are all screwed.

The Templars race Sayid inside to a spring, which one of the Templars notes to be contaminated since the water is no longer clear. They hold Sayid’s body in the spring, but it seems to be too late. Sayid is dead. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

The Templars collect Miles and an unconscious Sawyer, who wouldn’t go down without a fight, from the forest and put them with Jack, Kate, Hugo, Jin, and dead Sayid. Hugo is led to see the leader of the Templars where he informs them Jacob is dead. The news of Jacob’s death sends the entire camp into DEFCON 5. One of the Templars fires a huge firework into the air, which is seen by the group on the beach. When the Losties ask what is going on, they are told they are being protected. The episode comes to a close when Sayid rises up from the ground asking, “What happened?” Wouldn’t all of us like to know?

Group 3 – Beach

The internet community seems to be calling the Locke we see at the end of season five Flocke, which I’m guessing stands for Fake Locke. Sticking with the general populace I shall refer to him as Flocke in the recaps till a name is given to this character.

Back inside the foot statue, Flocke is seen cutting a piece of a rug to clean off the blood from the knife Ben used to kill Jacob.  Flocke tells Ben that Jacob is gone. He then orders Ben to retrieve Richard from the beach as Flocke would like to have a word with him. Ben emerges onto the beach and tells Richard Locke wants to talk to him. When asked about Jacob, Ben lies and says that  both Locke and Jacob are alright and that they are inside. Ben then says, “John just… wants to talk to you.”

This leads to one of the best scenes of the premiere where Richard grabs Ben and drags him across the beach saying, “I’m happy to talk with John, but before I do I think you should talk to him first.” Richard then pushes Ben towards Locke’s dead body that Ilana’s crew carried to the beach. The look on Ben’s face is priceless as he gazes upon the face of the man he killed off the island.

Ben returns to the statue, but not with Richard. Ilana’s gun toting guards come in and open fire on Flocke, who disappears behind a pillar. Everything gets quiet for a moment till our favorite smoke monster busts through the front door and violently kills all the guards. Ben stands shocked and turns around to see Flocke standing behind him. Flocke responds, “I’m sorry you had to see me like that.” So that pretty much confirms that Flocke is Smokie.

Flocke tells Ben that Locke’s last thoughts were, “I don’t understand” before Ben had killed him off the island. Flocke goes on to say that John was the only person who wanted to stay on the island. Unlike John, Flocke “wants to go home.” What on earth is home for a smoke monster?

The beach scenes come to an end once Flocke walks out of the statue with Ben. The group on the beach is uneasy when Richard warns them not to shoot. Flocke approaches Richard and tells him it’s nice to see him without chains and proceeds knock Richard unconscious. Flocke informs everyone he is very disappointed in all of them as he carries the unconscious Richard away.

Richard in chains? Perhaps he was a slave aboard the Black Rock. Just a theory for now, but let us see what happens.

With that I conclude this massive wall of text that I refer to you as the Lost season six premiere. I enjoyed both episodes quite well and cannot wait for what the rest of the season has in store. I promise I’ll try to keep these shorter from now on, but with such a show it seems like every detail matters.

My Theories so far.

- The alternate reality is either a prologue or an epilogue for the show. The events that take place set before season 1 or take place after the events of the island.

I’m trying to keep it simple for now. What theory do you readers have? Leave them in the comments. =)

For another opinion on these episodes, check out This Don’t Look Like LOST by Liz Cooper.

Season 6, Episodes 1 and 2:  LA X (Originally Aired February 2, 2010)

For more on Lost, click here.

Wednesdays, 9/8c on ABC

Photographs courtesy of ABC