Lower Decks

In the past few weeks, in speaking to people about my anticipation of this season’s premiere, I found out that LOST had a lot of fans that jumped off the  bandwagon at some point.  Maybe it was during the show’s second season, which failed to capture some of the magic until the injection of the Henry Gale storyline.  It might have been season 3′s “mini-series” and corresponding delay or season four’s nine-month absence.

But, in almost every example, it seems people got tired of not getting any answers.  I never heard the argument that the show’s writing had gotten bad or that the show was too out there – it was simply that the wait was getting too long for some people.  And I’ll be honest – I feel a little bad for those people.  Because I can honestly say that last night’s premiere was absolutely amazing, and it featured one of the  biggest answers in the show’s mythos.  So if you gave up on the show, you’re missing out.

In my preview of the season, I discussed two possibilities – that Jack/Daniel’s plan would fail, or it wouldn’t.  I leaned heavily towards the former, and I didn’t really consider the latter.  I figured that, if the plan was going to fail, everyone would have been killed.

Instead, the writers did something that very few people are able to do – have their cake and eat it too.  Daniel’s insane plan to detonate a hydrogen bomb to undo history actually works, but at the same time, it doesn’t do anything but send our heroes back to the present.

And that’s the new movement for this year.  Season four introduced the “flash-forward”, season five jumped back between 1977 and 2007, and season six will jump between realities.  As a fan of Sliders (note my name), I love the idea of parallel realities on the show, and I’m very intrigued by the way they’re doing things.  I’m not sure how the two realities will interact with each other, but we know that it will at some point.  It’s just the way LOST conducts business.

So I will break up the review into two parts – the “regular” universe/timeline and the “alternate” universe/timeline because each has their own little stories that I can comment on.  Future reviews might be different, but this is how I’d like to do it for this one.

REGULAR

At the statue, Jacob is dead.  Jacob’s enemy (in Locke’s form) orders Ben to go get Richard, but instead, Bram (one of the Ajira passengers) charges inside to get “Locke” and protect Jacob.  They speak for a second, but Bram opens fire once he know Jacob is gone.  The bullets do no damage, and “Locke” hides behind a column.  When Bram and company look for him, he’s disappeared.

Then it happens.  The familiar sound of the monster rattles, and Ben goes to hide.  The monster enters the room, easily killing Bram’s comrades, but Bram is able to surround himself in ash.  The ash protects Bram for a second, but the monster wisely causes the ceiling to collapse, killing off the final assailant.  As soon as the monster leaves, “Locke” reappears with a simple remark.  “I’m sorry you had to see me like that.”

ANSWER TIME! 

With that little line, one of the biggest questions in LOST history is answered: “what is the monster?” And the answer is that the monster is Jacob’s enemy’s other form – maybe even his true form.  And while it doesn’t fully answer the question, it makes so many things so very clear.

Almost all of the monster’s mysterious actions from previous seasons make sense.  Why did it kill the pilot but spare Locke?  It seems that Locke was always part of the monster’s plan, and he needed to give Locke a reason to feel special.  And it worked – escaping the monster (twice, both in season one) made Locke think he’d passed the Island’s test, and it’s what changed him from the cautious hunter in his first major episode to the man willing to do anything to save the Island. 

And the monster/enemy makes you feel worse for Locke when it reveals (our) Locke’s last thoughts – that he didn’t understand what was happening to him as Ben was choking.  Locke has been the show’s most tragic figure all along – even when he was brimming with confidence on the Island, the show would constantly remind us that he’s had a very troubling life – from his father stealing his kidney to a general sense of abandonment to his paralysis.

And now it’s revealed that the Island that he loved so much was manipulating him the entire time, in a sense.  That the love he felt from the Island was nothing more than a trick so that his image could be distorted into something dark and sinister.  His whole life was one manipulation to another, and it finally took him down at the hands of the same two people that would eventually kill Jacob himself.

The only positive side of the John Locke story is the alternate timeline – the only place where he can find redemption and happiness.  But more on that later.

You also have to feel bad for Ben, who’s basically now the monster’s errand boy.  The man who always had a plan is now beaten and bruised to the point where he feels almost worthless.  It’s an interesting dynamic (with a hyper-confident “Locke” and a discouraged Ben), but you feel for Ben as the “Island’s former favorite, now completely forgotten” character.

Of course, you feel worse for Locke because it always seemed like John was interested in the greater good (and, well, Ben always looked out for himself above all else).  But you have to feel sorry for both characters, in a way, and it’s interesting that both characters (with the monster now thrown in) are so closely linked now.

In speaking with Ben, “Locke” gives his true motives for everything – he wants to go home.  He doesn’t really explain what that means, and I’m not really sure what to make of it.  “Locke” being the monster changes the game a little bit, indicating that neither Jacob (nor his enemy) are entirely human.  It explains the “loophole” idea, adding to the idea that each person might be some kind of god.  Nothing on the show really discounts that.  So where is “home?”  I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

So “Locke” cleans up the mess in the statue, and he joins Richard outside the statue.  They still aren’t entirely sure what’s happened when “Locke” announces his presence.   He references Richard’s past “in chains” and takes the “old man” on his back with mysterious aims.

Meanwhile, across the Island, Jack and company wake up in the jungle.  They’re right beside the imploded Hatch in 2007, implying that the bomb’s explosion did nothing but send them forward in time.  I found it a bit odd that none of them are relieved, despite the plan failing, that they all survived the explosion of a hydrogen bomb, but I digress.

Sawyer is mad, especially at the realization that Jack’s failed plan ended up getting Juliet killed.  Even though Juliet survives long enough to say goodbye to James, she ends up succumbing to her injuries.  It seems like the relationship between Jack and Sawyer is going to be very rocky all season.

I felt like the Juliet goodbye scenes were a nice touch, although I never really felt like Juliet could make it, particularly with her role on ABC’s V revival.  I also found it a little odd that no one asked if Juliet could be taken to the Temple to be saved.  Especially with how vague Hurley’s explanation was for how Sayid was going to be saved.

Jacob appearing to Hurley was definitely cool, even though I didn’t feel like Hurley really understood the magnitude of what was going on.  I did feel like Hurley was pretty heroic in the episode, though, and I really like it when they give the big man some responsibility.  The scene in the season 3 finale when he saves the day is one of my favorite moments from the show.

So after leaving Sawyer and Miles to bury Juliet, Hurley and company head towards the Temple (using Jin’s knowledge obtained when he was with Rousseau’s team) to follow Jacob’s command to save Sayid.  However, inside the Temple, our heroes are attacked and captured by the Others.

And I had to laugh at that.  With all the different groups on the Island now, it’s almost easy to forget about the main adversaries of the first couple of seasons.  I can remember being so afraid of the Others, who seemed to have supernatural powers to hide and get from place to place, way back in season one.  Even after Ethan died, I feared him.  Finally meeting Henry Gale was so exciting because it was someone with this vast array of knowledge that could be tapped.

But now the Others are an afterthought.  And people still think the show hasn’t made any progress.  I smile at that.

 So Jack and company finally get to see the Temple, where they meet two new characters.  The leader is Dogen, who understands English but chooses to speak Japanese through the aptly-named Lennon (who resembles the Beatle in his later years), and he orders the execution of Jack’s group until Hurley mentions the magic word: “Jacob”.  Hurley reveals that Jacob told him to come to the Temple, and he offers the guitar case as proof.

Inside, there is no guitar – instead, there’s an ankh with a hidden note from Jacob – save Sayid or everyone is in trouble.  So the Others take Sayid into the temple to some kind of “lazarus pit” – seemingly the same one that saved Ben after he was shot (ironically, by Sayid).

Although Lennon immediately comments that the water isn’t clear (it’s almost blood-like reddish color), no one really wonders why.  In fact, it’s never directly mentioned, but you have to think that Jacob was powering the healing pool.  But despite all this, the Others try to save Sayid with the pool, but it doesn’t work.  After their attempt (which looks like a drowning), they declare Sayid dead.

I never really thought that he was dead – unlike with Juliet’s death earlier in the episode, there’s no musical accompaniment for Sayid.  There’s simply the bold fact that Sayid is dead, and Jack is left with the idea that he’s caused at least two deaths with his plan to save the timeline.  Even Sawyer, who vowed to kill Jack after Juliet’s death, sees Jack suffering and realizes that his own personal Hell is a better punishment than death.

Sawyer, along with Miles, was also captured by the Others, but Miles later says that Sawyer took down four of them before he was finally knocked unconscious.  I would’ve loved to have seen that scene.

Soon, though, the Others learn that Jacob is dead, and they begin to defend the Temple against Jacob’s enemy.  They seal the doors, set off a signal to the others, and surround the Temple’s walls with ash (which seems to keep the enemy/monster at bay).

And in the midst of all the chaos, Sayid raises himself up, and he asks what happened.  And while this is interesting-enough news for me, there are a couple of other things that surround this apparent resurrection.

First of all, if Sayid was truly saved by the pool, the Others claim that there are risks involved.  When Ben was saved by the pool, it turned him into the Ben we all used to fear – if the same is true for Sayid, what changes could he experience?

Then there’s the question of whether or not the pool has been “corrupted” by the enemy.  If Jacob was controlling the pool, is there a chance that “Locke” now controls it?  Is there a chance that the monster/enemy will now control Sayid?

Or, is the opposite true?  Is there a chance that Jacob, like his enemy, has now found a body to inhabit?  We know that the monster can take the form of dead people (Locke, Yemi, Alex, etc) – does Jacob have the same power?  Will we see a final confrontation at some point this season between Sayid/Jacob and Locke/Monster?

One person who knows something, I think, is Miles.  Right before Sayid woke up, Miles looked confused about something.  Did he know that Sayid was alive because he couldn’t “hear” him?  If someone possessed Sayid, did he hear the struggle to take over the body?  Or did Miles hear Sayid say something?  Whatever it was, Miles kept it to himself.

ALTERNATE

In the alternate timeline, Jack is on the plane from Sydney to Los Angeles.  We’re immediately reminded, through the conversation with Cindy the flight attendant, that it’s Oceanic 815.  But, also immediately, we’re shown differences.  Some are subtle (Jack is only given one bottle of alcohol instead of two), some are probably continuity issues (the length of Jack’s hair, for example), and some are major (Desmond appears on the plane).

And we’ll start there.  We know, right from the start, that this isn’t history repeating itself.  Other major changes include the fact that Shannon isn’t on the plane (which means the con that she was pulling in Australia was either a real relationship or Boone simply fell for it this time), and Hurley claims to have always had great luck.  Locke also claims that he went on his walkabout, but I have a feeling he was lying about that.

This seems to buy into the idea that the Island chose these people – because with the Island at the bottom of the ocean, the future was changed in several ways.

Let’s talk a bit about Desmond appearing on the plane.  It’s not completely out of the ordinary because without the Island, Desmond would’ve completed his race around the world with no issues. 

That is, if that race even happened.  Because we don’t really know how the people on the Island reacted to the bomb going off.  There’s a chance that Widmore (on the Island at the time) was killed in the explosion and sinking of the Island.  If that’s the case, there would be no one to stand between Penny and Desmond, and the race around the world wouldn’t have been necessary to prove his worth.  It would certainly explain why Jack and Desmond didn’t recognize each other – if Desmond didn’t train for the race, he never would’ve met the good doctor.

Of course, Jack feeling a sense of memory might mean that the two timelines are connected in more ways than one.

Back to the Island, though.  If Widmore is dead, surely Eloise (who was pregnant with Daniel) is dead.  Ben, the Others, all the Dharma folk, and Richard would be dead.  There’s even a chance that good old Jacob was killed in such a blast.

We know most of the Oceanic people on the Island are okay.  Everyone else is pretty iffy at this point.

Another major change is Charlie (also with a different haircut) - who makes his first appearance on the show since the season four premiere.  Instead of flushing his heroin down the toilet, it seems that Charlie swallowed the drugs in an apparent suicide attempt.  Jack is able to save Charlie’s life, but the rock star is upset about this.  He claims that he was “supposed to die” – another potential connection between the two timelines.

Outside of that, the plane lands at LAX as usual.  The big off-plane storyline was Kate, who landed with Edward Mars.  She is able to get use of a bathroom, and in the process, is able to escape from the US Marshall.  She’s able to escape the airport, with a little help from Sawyer, and she escapes LAX in the same cab as Claire – another character who wasn’t seen in season five.

Other interactions at the airport happen between customs and Jin/Sun – Jin failed to declare a large pouch of money, and he’s going to be questioned over it.  We knew, way back when, that Jin was on the plane to deliver a watch to a client of his boss (Sun’s father).  I don’t remember the money playing a part in that delivery, but we know that Jin was planning on starting over his life with Sun in America.  Perhaps the money isn’t anything sinister – maybe it’s just Jin’s life savings.  Either way, however, the Korean man is in trouble.

Then there’s Locke.  On the plane, Locke tells Boone (full of confidence and vigor) that he participated in a walkabout in Australia.  Taking him at his word, I thought that the new timeline would’ve allowed him to walk.  Instead, however, it’s revealed that John is still paralyzed.  So either John was lying, or the walkabout allowed him to participate from his wheelchair.

I’m guessing John was lying.

We do see Locke and Jack meet in the lost baggage department at the airport.  John has lost his suitcase full of knives, and Jack has lost his father’s body.  Considering what big parts these two items played on the Island, I don’t think those items were coincidentally lost.  I’m guessing both items are significant.

But unlike their first meeting in the original timeline, they seem to be on good terms here.  Noticing John’s wheelchair, Jack offers to give Locke some free consultation on his paralysis.  After a troubled relationship on the Island, it seems Jack and Locke are starting off on the right foot in this timeline.

And that’s the fun of this timeline.  We’re starting over fresh with brand new ways of connecting.  Jack and Locke are already connected, Claire and Kate (connected on the Island by Aaron) have already been thrust together, and there’s already something between Sawyer and Kate.

Then there’s the changes.  Without Jacob to impact their lives, things could be totally different.  Perhaps Kate’s crime wasn’t simply trying to save her mother – without Jacob to tell her not to steal, maybe Kate became a more sinister criminal.  Without Jacob there to help James write his letter to Sawyer, maybe Sawyer let go of some of his anger and hate.

That’s what I’m most interested in.  Alternate history stuff that will also impact the alternate timeline in ways we don’t even know.  It’s almost like LOST’s answer to the mirror universe – they’ll be the characters we know and love…just altered.

And that’s what I loved most about the episode.  The show has found yet another way to reinvent itself – to make itself relevant and new and fresh all at the same time.  I was just so impressed by the way the writers were able to do all the things they did, and I left the episode with so many things to think about.

I can’t tell you how many times I watched the episode and muttered the word “interesting” – during commercial breaks, my roommate and I discussed all the minor things we’d just seen.  There was so much to think about, so much to talk about, and so much to speculate on.

It was such a great way to open the season, and I can’t wait for the next episode.  And I’m guessing you can’t either.  Until next week…