Lost: LA X Parts 1 and 2

03Feb10

[Total spoilers ahead-Do not read until you have watched the episode]

Lost season six starts where season five ended with Juliet banging on an atomic bomb in hopes destroying the island so that flight 815 never crashes, but also so that she can wake up safe in bed in Miami never having been recruited by the Dharma Initiative. The bomb goes off, and the screen goes white. The next scene is of Jack sitting on Oceanic 815, which is the same scene that has been shown time and again on Lost of flight attendant Cindy slipping Jack another bottle of vodka. Then the turbulence hits. Jack talks to Rose to comfort her. And then the turbulence passes. Oceanic flight 815 doesn’t crash. The camera pans down to the ocean and there’s the four-toed statue and the rest of the island under water.

The bomb worked. Jack, along with Kate and Sawyer are going home.

Lost comes back from commercial, the scene of Juliet banging on the bomb to make it explode is shown again. (Did ABC screw up their biggest season premiere ever?) But after the white flash, there is no cut to flight 815. There’s an eye. Kate’s eye. She’s in a tree, passed out. After some crafty gymnastics, Kate gets to the ground and discovers that she’s still on the island. She’s joined by Miles, Hurley, Jin, a bleeding-to-death Sayid, a confused-looking Jack, and a Sawyer furious that the bomb idea didn’t appear to work.

Wait. What?

Parallel universes.

I’ve long been fascinated by parallel universes, the idea that there are multiple nows. And it appears the exploration of these parallel universes is what will make up the storytelling for the final season of Lost. We’ll get to find out what would have happened to Kate, Sawyer and Jack if flight 815 landed safely at LAX. But we’ll also get to find out what will happen to them on the island. Well, maybe.

The creators of Lost seem to be prepared to answer the largest question throughout the entire series? “Are the survivors of Oceanic flight 815 better off stuck on the island?”

There is Kate, the never-happy-in-one-place beauty, who would have undoubtedly been convicted for murdering her stepfather had she not come home a celebrity. There is Sawyer, the lonely con-man, who had just killed an innocent man and whose life was definitely on a rapidly descending spiral. And finally, there is Jack, the meaning-to-do-good spinal surgeon who was going home to bury his father and drown his loneliness in a bottle of vodka.

And they weren’t the only ones.

Rose will probably be dead from cancer within the year.

Charlie will spend some time in prison after being busted on the airplane from trying to smuggle heroin.

And Jin and Sun clearly do not love one another as they do on the island.

However, the fortunes for Sayid and Hurley seem to be very different.

Hurley is “the luckiest man in the world, dude,” as he tells Sawyer. And Sayid seems very content with his life as he’s meeting up with a lady-friend (was that Nadia?) in Los Angeles.

Perhaps their lives take very different turns with no island in existence after the 1977 explosion.

I am done trying to predict how Lost will end. It’s like being in an airplane and having to place all of your trust that the pilots know what they’re doing. I have to trust that Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse know what they’re doing. All I can say is that I loved the premiere for season six and am completely flummoxed as to what will happen next.

Questions Answered and New Questions

• The man in black, the new John Locke, is the Smoke Monster. He’s just capable of taking the shape of dead people, it appears. But does that mean he’s also Christian Shepherd? Remember, we’ve seen the dead bodies of both Yemi and Locke, two people the Smoke Monster took the shape of, but Christian’s body was not in the casket. Perhaps Jacob can use the bodies of the dead?
• Was that Nadia in Sayid’s picture? If it was, it wasn’t the same photo that we’re used to seeing. Why?
• The crew carrying dead John Locke’s body were Jacob’s bodyguards. Why weren’t they with him?
• When Sayid woke up, was he still speaking with an Iraqi accent? Or is Jacob now using his body?
• The black ash keeps the Smoke Monster, or the Man in Black, away. That’s why the cabin was surrounded by ash in season four.
• How does 2004 Hurley still win the lottery without playing the numbers?
• Who is the Japanese leader of the Others? Did he replace Ben?
• Richard Alpert was in chains? Was the Black Rock a slave ship, or was it taking prisoners somewhere?
• Why the hell was Desmond on the plane and what happened to him?

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Tags: Lost, season 6