LA X

Wow. Now that's how you start a season! Despite weeks of hype and 8 months of anticipation, "LA X" exceeded my expectations and absolutely knocked my socks off. I really don't think I could have enjoyed the premiere more. A perfect blend of "lostlostlost" revelations and deep, engaging character moments, "LA X" set the stage beautifully for a season that I'm more confident than ever will give me and Lost fans everywhere the entertaining, mind-blowing, and – ultimately – satisfying conclusion we have hoped for.

I'll set the stage - It's Wednesday morning. I was out late the night before at the election night party, didn't get home until after eleven. I wanted to enjoy this premiere - the last premiere - as much as possible, so I didn't want to entertain even the slightest chance that I'd be struggling to stay awake at any point in the episode. So I slept on and off for about 6 hours, woke up at 6:30, worked out, showered up, waited for the P’s to go to work, and finally settled onto the couch with a smoothie, my jug of water, and a protein bar, prepared to have my world thoroughly rocked.

And rocked it was. Let's start on the Island, and then work our way through the alternate timeline (I'll call that the "LAX" group).

As a result of the Jughead explosion, the folks who were stuck in 1977 were sent forward in time to their rightful place in 2007, joining Richard, Ben, and the rest of the passengers of Ajira 316. I wasn’t happy to see Juliet die, but after she blew up the bomb last year, I kind of assumed she was a goner anyway. And her death led to what will certainly be an intriguing conflict this season between Sawyer and Jack. Just like the good old days! Last year, during “The Incident”, I was happy to see Sawyer beat the crap out of Jack during their jungle brawl. Jack’s Jughead plan was pure craziness, and he really had that beat down coming to him. But this Jack knows what he did was wrong, and clearly feels horrible about it. It doesn’t seem like the usual Jack guilt either; he’s actually empathetic toward Sawyer and sad to see Juliet die, rather than the typical pain over the blow to his ego that marked his character the past couple seasons. A sign of growth, perhaps?

With Jack busy avoiding Sawyer, Hurley took center stage in the quest to save Sayid. As Sayid lay dying next to the Dharma van, Hurley was approached by Ghost Jacob, who told him he needed to take Sayid and the guitar case to the Temple in order to save his life. After a few minutes of uncertainty, Hurley sprung into action (as much as Hurley can “spring” into anything), saying he knew a way to fix Sayid. He wasn’t letting anyone stand in his way, either, especially Jack. It reminded me of another premiere, “The Beginning of the End”, when Hurley defiantly told Jack, “I’m not listening to you! I’m listening to Charlie,” as the group had to decide whether or not to trust the freighter people. Hurley has always been willing to go the extra mile to help his friends, and it’s nice to see him showing some guts once again.

As for our big cliffhanger, I’m of the opinion that we’re not dealing with possession by the Man in Black or Jacob, but that it really is Sayid, resurrected. First, the MIB was too busy hauling Richard into the jungle to slip into Sayid like that. And second, we have only seen the MIB impersonate dead people, never inhabit their corpses. So I’m throwing that out. As for Jacob, I apply the same reasoning as for the MIB – we’ve never seen him do such a thing. It would make some sense, I suppose, since he was the one who told Hurley to get Sayid to the Temple, but other than that, it’s a pretty flimsy hypothesis.

The interesting themes surrounding Sayid this episode were that of salvation and damnation. As he slid closer to death’s door, he wondered aloud about what would happen to him after he passed, lamenting all the people he’d tortured, those he murdered. He said he deserved whatever horrible fate befell him. There would be no redemption for Sayid Jarrah. But then, once he got to the Temple’s healing pool, we got hit with a truckload of Christ-like imagery. With the healing pool acting like a baptism, these new Others carried Sayid from the pool and laid him down on the cloth, his arms extended to the sides, as if nailed to a cross. The resurrection also points in an obvious direction. So maybe there is hope for poor Sayid. But does he deserve it? I’m not so sure. He has had his chances to stop all the torturing and the murder, but time and again he goes back to it – with Sawyer, with Ben, with Widmore’s assassins. It’s what he his. He’s a killer. And no baptism will change that about him. (As always, I reserve the right to completely change this opinion after a few more episodes. Who knows, maybe this resurrection will change everything.)

At the statue, we get our first “answer” of the season – the Man in Black is the Smoke Monster! And they gave it to us in an awesome way: after ripping apart Bram and his henchman as Smokey, he returns in Fake Locke form and casually says to Ben, “I’m sorry you had to see me like that.” That’s gold, Jerry, gold!

The MIB sure has a swagger about him, doesn’t he? He’s projects a tremendous amount of confidence, and seems to be in complete control of every situation. He really seems to think he’s done the right thing by killing Jacob, because there was a theme of freedom and release about the things he said to Jacob’s followers– first telling Bram and the “bodyguards” they were free, then telling Richard it was good to see him without his chains. I take this to mean that the MIB subscribes to the “every man for himself” approach. He doesn’t recognize that, while these people might have been serving Jacob, they were doing so willingly because they wanted to be apart of something good and meaningful. The MIB sees any sort of service as nothing but imprisonment, assuming such people must have been manipulated the way he manipulated Locke all these years to serve “the Island”. If there was any doubt before that the MIB was the bad guy, it has been removed.

While we’re hanging around the statue, I’d just like to say that I’m having trouble watching the Benjamin Linus of the past two seasons. He’s completely emasculated. The cunning and manipulative leader is gone, replaced by a weak and pathetic pawn. He used to be eight moves ahead of everyone else, setting up long cons, getting his way at every turn, always in command of the situation and acting effectively and decisively to respond to any impending crisis. Now, he’s sitting on the beach with this woe-is-me attitude that makes him no better than Roger Workman. Season 3 Ben would smack the shit out of this guy. I don’t think we will ever see old Ben again, but I hope he gets a little bit of that edge back this season.

Now, on to the LAX group. There’s not a ton of story going on with these people yet. Rather, scoping for interactions that differ between this timeline and the original has become the most compelling aspect of it. I loved the scene where Boone and Locke have a little heat to heart, with Locke (I think) lying about being headed home after finishing a walkabout. Maybe the best line of the episode was Boone telling Locke, “This thing goes down, I’m sticking with you.” Just like the story where Kramer falls down in mud, ruining the very pants he was going to return, that’s perfect irony!

There were plenty of other brain-tingling moments with the LAX group – Jack saving Charlie and Charlie’s response afterward that he “Should’a let that happen man”, Kate escaping from the marshal with help from Sawyer and barging into a taxi already occupied by Claire, security detaining Jin as Sun sat back and watched – all of which were very entertaining. But maybe best of all was the scene between Jack and Locke, where both seemed to offer the other the hope they needed to get through a tough time – Jack with his missing father, John with his irreversible paralysis. That one capped off with another great line, with Jack telling Locke, “Nothing is irreversible.” It’s great just seeing these two acting cordially toward each other. I can’t wait to see more of them. If somehow Jack finds a way to fix Locke’s paralysis, I don’t think I’m going to be able to control myself. I’m already getting the tissues ready.

I'll admit, I was skeptical about the prospects of a reset. I did not at all like the idea of wiping away 5-seasons-worth of action and character development. But the format they’ve chosen has the opposite effect. By juxtaposing the "real" timeline against a world without the Island, they have taken the traditional "flashback/flash-forward" dynamic in a new and very exciting direction. It illuminates different aspects of the characters in a remarkably fresh way, especially considering we're going on the sixth season of the show and thought we knew everything there is to know about these people. Not only does it reinforce how "lost" each of these people were before coming to the Island, it highlights how far (or in some cases, not far) they have come as human beings. I absolutely love it.

Notably, it pushes the Island to the forefront, almost like another character. This LAX group has experienced life as if the Island never existed, and after the brief glimpses we've taken into this alternative world, we can already see a couple obvious differences. For one, Boone is returning to Los Angeles without Shannon. For another, Hurley now considers himself the luckiest guy in the world. And maybe most glaring, Desmond is on the freaking plane! I'm positive other differences will come to light soon as well. Maybe Sun can't speak English. Or Jin can. Or Sawyer never killed Duckett. The possibilities are endless. These changes will highlight how the destinies of each character have always been hopelessly intertwined with the Island, which will once again prove that it really is a special place.

Or not. The opposite side of that coin could be that the Island had no impact on the destinies of these characters at all. They will meet the same fate whether they had landed safely at LAX or had crashed on the Island. This could be a cool way to tie together the on-Island and LAX timelines, and tip the scales more toward the “fate” side of the “fate vs. free will” debate.

The events surrounding Sawyer are what put this idea in my head. "LAX" Sawyer appears to be the same sarcastic, angry conman that we saw in the first few seasons of flashbacks. He's spiteful, and lives by the code of "every man for himself". On the Island, we saw him move past those issues, but I fear that Juliet's death - and what Sawyer sees as Jack's responsibility for that death - might send him right back to the angry place he was pre-crash. Maybe he ends up angry and alone in each timeline. So Season 6 would be tracking how, like Sawyer, each character ultimately came to meet the same fate whether they crashed on the Island or not. Maybe Jack finds peace of mind and moves past his daddy issues in both cases. Or Kate actually learns how to settle down and be happy. I think that would be a pretty interesting story to see play out.

Most likely, I think this season will end up as a mix of both. Some characters will end up the same in both versions of the timeline. Others will end up in entirely different places, in both positive and negative ways, based on whether they went to the Island or not. Maybe Sayid will find nothing but damnation on the Island, but will live happily ever after with Nadia after landing in LAX. Kate could settle down and live a comfortable, stationary life on the Island, but live out the rest of her days stateside running for the law. Lost never likes to give definitive answers on the big questions like “science vs. faith” or “fate vs. free will”, and I don’t see them treading in that water now either.

No matter what, it’s sure to be a great final season of Lost. I’m just going to sit back and enjoy the ride.

Until next week…