I Am DB

Although they were not made with the intention of airing back-to-back, The Lie formed a nice little two hour block with Because You Left, so much so that they did have the flow of one long episode.

Interesting that these two abandoned Lost‘s traditional flashback/flashforward structure. Though these episodes do take place years apart, the off-island activities are not flashforwards in the same sense that they were last season since the Oceanic Six are now off the island. As for those left behind, though they keep hurtling through time, their anchor period is three years earlier than the events unfolding for the Oceanic Six. Will the show continually use that “Three Years Earlier” flashcard to remind us of this, or will they assume that we get it and move on?

The Lie puts its own twist on the structure by focusing on one character – Hurley – but doing so without flashes back or ahead. So my guess is that this season will provide an assortment of these structural offerings. Some episodes will unfold as these two did, while others will still involve more traditional flashes – particularly for Faraday, Charlotte and Miles, whose backstories remain unexplored.

THE LIE TAKES SHAPE
Okay, so there was one flashback for the Oceanic Six. The episode begins on Penny’s boat in the days after the rescue, with Jack asking the others if they’re all in agreement about lying, knowing that it will affect every aspect of their lives going forward. Sayid is reluctant, but agrees to the plan. Only Hurley speaks up strongly against it, convinced that while one of them might be perceived as crazy for telling the true story, they would find safety in numbers by sticking together. But the big guy is an island unto himself in this argument. And while it doesn’t fully answer my question about Penny’s relationship with her father, we do get some insight into the Widmore family dynamic when Jack says that Charles Widmore is trying to kill everyone on the island and Hurley asks Penny why she can’t call him off. “There’s no calling my father off,” she says.

Jumping ahead to 2008, Hurley is driving an unconscious Sayid around, unsure what to do and suspected by the police of killing the men who are in fact Sayid’s victims. Keeping up his recent habit of encountering dead people, he gets pulled over by former L.A. cop Ana Lucia, who tells him to get his head on straight, take Sayid somewhere safe and above all, avoid the police. “Don’t get arrested,” she warns him.

YOU CAN CHECK OUT ANY TIME YOU LIKE, BUT YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE
Ben unscrews the vent in the hotel room he is sharing with Jack (and can we please just take a moment to enjoy the humor of Jack and Ben sharing a hotel room?) and removes a small package, wrapped in cloth, which he slips into his bag just before Jack walks in. “Where are we going?” Jack asks.

“You’re going home,” Ben replies. “And find yourself a suitcase. If there’s anything in this life you want, pack it in there. Because you’re never coming back.”

Really? Never? Jack lets this sink in for a moment, but then he seems to accept it. Does that mean he’s going to live out his remaining days – however many there may be –  on the island? Or in a different place? Or does it mean that he’ll die soon? We know the Oceanic Six have to return to the island, but can’t they just, you know, sacrifice a goat for Jacob and then go home without leaving the island angry at them?

Ben says that while Jack heads home, he’ll be finding someplace safe for Locke’s casket. “Safe? He’s dead, isn’t he?” Jack asks, in a tone suggesting that something which should be certain is, in fact, not certain at all. Ben’s answer?  “I’ll see you in six hours, Jack.”

Ohhh Ben…

SAFE HAVEN
Just as Hurley was driving around unsure of where to go, so too is Kate, having fled with Aaron from shady lawyers. But then she receives a phone call from a friend who is in town, and soon Kate is in a hotel penthouse with Sun, who says she’s in L.A. for a few days to attend to some business. I gathered that this is the first time they have seen each other since the Oceanic Six went their separate ways upon returning home. And the reunion seems happy enough.

But this is Sun 2.0, and she’s gotten in touch with her dark side. When Kate tells her about the lawyers, Sun says they were not interested in exposing the lie; if they were, they would just do it. They want Aaron, she says…and adds that Kate needs to take care of them and do whatever is necessary to keep Aaron. (Note that she says “keep Aaron.” Not “keep him safe,” but keep him, period.) When Kate recoils, and asks what kind of person Sun thinks she is, Sun stares her down and, recalling their final moments on the freighter, replies, “The kind of person who makes hard decisions when you have to. Like you did on the freighter.” The tone in which she says it, and the look on her face, is devastating, and I thought she was about to let Kate know that all was not forgotten or forgiven. But she goes on to make it clear that she knows Kate did what she had to do, and that if she had followed through with her promise to get Jin, they might all have died. “I don’t blame you,” she says, before moving on to ask, “So…how’s Jack?” And was it just me, or did her sweet, casual tone of voice in asking that question mask some unresolved ill will toward our doctor friend?

Whatever her true feelings are, I love that the writers used this scene to acknowledge Kate’s actions on the boat (actions that were largely directed by Jack, who half-pulled Kate onto the helicopter). What was that I said in the last write-up? We now know the two people Sun blames for Jin’s death?

Uhhh…do we?

PRIVATE PRACTICE
With Sayid not waking up and the police staked out in front of Hurley’s parents’ house, Mr. Reyes follows Hurley’s plan to take Sayid to Jack for medical attention. Jack, in turn, takes Sayid to a hospital and manages to avoid everyone else around while trying to revive his old friend, which he does successfully. Meanwhile, Hurley is back home with his mother, who uses her maternal magic to break his resolve and tell her the truth about the plane crash and its aftermath – albeit, a fractured, confusing truth which hilariously condenses the last four seasons of the show into about a minute. But as he has shown over the years, Jorge Garcia has a gift for mixing humor and heart, and Hurley facing down the guilt over all that’s happened and the part he played in it makes for a scene as sad as it is funny.

JILL THE BUTCHER
Ben enters a butcher shop and, after its lone customer exits, converses with a…butcheress?…named Jill, who he seems to know well. He tells her that he has something he needs her to keep an eye on. Is it what she thinks it is, she asks? He says yes. (Is it what we think it is?)  “He’ll be safe with me,” she tells Ben. (Yes, it is. Ewwww, gross!! Remind me not to buy my meat there.) Ben then asks if Gabriel and Jeffrey have checked in.

Uhhh…sorry? Whobriel and Whofrey?

Jill says yes, everything is moving according to schedule, then asks how it’s going with Jack. Ben says Jack is with them, prompting her to ask if Ben bribed him with pills. “Cut the man some slack,” Ben says. “He’s been through a lot. We all have.”

“We all have” meaning the Oceanic Six and Ben? Or “we all have” meaning the Oceanic Six, Ben, Jill, Gabriel, Jeffrey and whoever the hell else is part of this operation? Has Jill been to the island too, or she is part of some kind of mainland-based cabal? Hmm. He tells her to keep “him” safe, because if she doesn’t, everything they’re about to do won’t matter at all.

TRUST THE MAN
The funniest scene of the episode – even funnier than Hurley’s abridged story of life on the island – comes when he removes a burrito or something from the microwave, gets startled by Ben, who walks right into the kitchen, and as if by reflex, throws the food at him. Not too funny when described like that, but it cracked me up in real time. Anyway, Ben explains that he’s there to pick him up and take him to Sayid and Jack, but Hurley doesn’t trust him, especially after what Sayid told him outside the safehouse. Ben insists that he can help Hurley, that Sayid and Jack are with him because they all want to return to the island (though I haven’t heard Sayid say that yet), and that he can bring the lie to an end. Hurley’s not buying it, and is so resistant that he runs out of the house and right to the cops out front, confessing to murders he didn’t commit and begging to be taken away. Ben watches from the front of the house, unseen by the police, and Hurley gives a triumphant smile as he’s handcuffed.

TROUBLE IN PARADISE
Let’s switch gears and pick up the action on the island. Faraday returns to the beach two hours after the others left him at the hatch. Another time shift has occurred since then, and when Sawyer and Juliet suggest using the zodiac raft to try and find a shipping lane, Faraday says leaving the island is unsafe until he calculates a new bearing…which he can’t do without knowing when they are. That night, Charlotte tells him that she doesn’t feel right – not only does she have a headache she can’t shake, but she had the odd experience earlier of forgetting her mother’s maiden name. He tries to tell her it’s nothing, but his expression says something else, and she asks if he knows what’s wrong with her. They are interrupted before he can answer.

Doc Jensen of Entertainment Weekly has a cool, McFly-ish theory about Charlotte’s symptoms. He writes, “Here’s my theory. Somehow, time is being altered, and Charlotte is being erased from existence. Yes, Faraday did say the past can’t be changed — but what we’ve seen on the show suggests that fate is both fixed and flexible, willing to renegotiate certain details of its predetermined plan. (Example: History will kill Charlie, there’s no stopping that, but it’s open to any number of scenarios to do it.) It could be that some people’s whole lives could count as a negotiable detail. Sorry, Charlotte: The cosmos just isn’t that into you. But she’s a pretty girl, and so I hope I’m wrong.”

Things just keep getting better for the islanders when out of absolutely nowhere, they fall under attack from a barrage of flaming arrows, the first of which fatally skewers poor fretful castaway Neil, aka Frogurt (whose presence in these first two episodes connects to one of the minisodes that were created during Season Four. Feel free to go digging for the link. And I guess technically, the first arrow doesn’t kill him. He takes two more before he dies. Grisly…).

Everyone runs into the woods as fiery spears rain down from the dark sky. Some people fall, but most seem to make it, including Sawyer and Juliet. As they make their way to a rendezvous point after the attack subsides, they are seized by a small group of armed, uniform-wearing men. One of them, whose outfit bears the name Jones, demands to know what Sawyer and Juliet are doing on their island. They are about to cut off Juliet’s hand when another surprise attacker arrives and kills the would-be-assailants. Juliet, now in possession of their gun, lowers it when Locke emerges from the brush.

Whew. So now who the hell were these guys? Those were not Dharma uniforms they had on, so what gives? Are we in the past or the future? Was this small band of bad guys with the arrow-shooting forces, or are these two separate groups? Hopefully we’ll get answers soon, because if I’m not mistaken, Jones is still alive – albeit getting his ass kicked by Sawyer.

COUNTDOWN
The episode concludes with a cloaked and hooded figure in a room that looks like a cross between Faraday’s Oxford lab and the computer room in the hatch where Desmond pushed the button. The figure is drawing equations on a chalkboard, making calculations, typing into a computer which displays a crude map of the world and text reading “Event Window Determined.” A pendulum-like device with chalk on the end swings all around, making marks on floor – some kind of diagram. The figure exits through a hatch-like door, ascends a spiral staircase and comes into a church where Ben is waiting. The figure removes her hood, and reveals herself: Mrs. Hawking.

Ben asks her if she had any luck, to which she says yes. She tells him he has 70 hours, but he says he needs more time. “What you need is irrelevant,” she tells him. “70 hours is what you’ve got.”

“Look, I lost Reyes tonight,” Ben says. “So what happens if I can’t get them all to come back?”

“Then God help us all.”

Yes, God help us all if Ben can’t get everyone together in 70 hours, and God help us all if the energy in The Orchid gets released. You know what? God help them all if I don’t get some damn answers soon. What to make of Mrs. Hawking’s reappearance? Well first of all, my suspicion is that her work down below involves figuring out when the island will next be visible, or at least accessible. So if that’s true, does Ben have 70 hours to get the Oceanic Six and Locke back there? Or is it 70 hours to depart L.A. for a journey that will take them close to the island, in time to be there when this “event window” takes place? And is this the only opportunity they have to get back, or will there be others? And who the hell is this woman? How does Ben know her? I’m not sure how she connects up to what’s going on, but my guess is that when Desmond goes to Oxford looking for Faraday’s mother, the search will end at her doorstep. And if I’m right, will he be able to do something that will buy Ben the time he needs to reconvene the Oceanic Six?

LINE OF THE NIGHT
“Why there’s a dead Pakistani on my couch?” – Mrs. Reyes

FINAL THOUGHTS
None, except this – can we just take a moment to acknowledge that Aaron is super-adorable? Oh my God, I want his cute little voice to be on every voicemail I ever call. Maybe then I won’t get so annoyed when I’m told to stay on the line and leave my message at the beep, like I’m a moron who has never used voicemail before….sorry, what was I talking about?

Tonight’s Episode: Jughead

It’s actually back!!! Oh sweet relief…

DHARMA DHARMA DHARMA DHARMA DHARMA CHAMELEON, YOU COME AND GO, YOU COME AND GO
Season Five began much like Season Two did, with a man waking up and getting ready for the day – showering, eating breakfast, playing a record – his face unseen the entire time, and the location unclear to us. In Season Two, we turned out to be witnessing Desmond in the Hatch. This time, it was the inconsistently-named Asian doctor from all the Dharma orientation videos, whose real name we learn to be Pierre Chang. He emerges from his house into the cluster of homes that will later be used by Ben and The Others. He goes to work, recording the orientation video for a Dharma Initiative station known as The Arrow. (Have we seen that station yet? I’m not sure we have…) What he says in his introduction to the video is worth paying attention to.

“Given your specific area of expertise, you should find it no surprise that this station’s primary purpose is to develop defensive strategies and gather intelligence on the island’s hostile, indigenous population.”

Think about that. From what we know so far, each Dharma hatch had a purpose that involved scientific research and experimentation. But this station, The Arrow, seems to be dedicated from the beginning to preparing for battle with the island’s original inhabitants. The effort to “develop defensive strategies and gather intelligence” doesn’t appear to be reactionary. Does that mean the Dharma Initiative, from the beginning, posed a threat to those already on the island? Were the “hostiles” intended as experimental subjects for some kind of Dharma project? Who are the hostiles, and are they really the island’s original inhabitants, or one group in a long line that came to the island and tried to build a life?

Before Chang can continue, he’s interrupted and told of a problem in The Orchid station. Once there, a construction foreman informs him that while drilling on specs provided by Chang himself, his team hit an obstacle – something behind the rock wall that has melted six drillbits and mysteriously injured a worker. He shows Chang a sonar image of the wall, and buried in the rock, partially obscured, we see what appears to be the wheel that Ben turned to move the island. The foreman suggests blasting through the wall to get at it, but Chang puts the kibosh on that. “This station is being built here because of its proximity to what we believe to be an almost limitless energy. And that energy, once we can harness it correctly, is going to allow us to manipulate time.”  He instructs the foreman to stop the work, saying, “If you drill even one centimeter further, you risk releasing the energy. If that were to happen, God help us all.”

So what can we take away from this scene?

1) Chang is kind of a dick. Seriously, is there anyone this guy doesn’t snap at?

2) The Dharma Initiative has designs on time travel from early on. The island’s ability to enable this is not an accidental discovery.

His description of “an almost limitless energy” ain’t much of a description at all. What does he mean, specifically? What is it about this energy that makes time travel possible? And what would releasing the energy do? When Ben turned the wheel, did that release the energy? Is that what causes the island to do…what it’s now doing?

A WRINKLE IN TIME
When Ben turned the wheel and the island was engulfed in a blazing white light, we only saw the reaction of others to its disappearance. Now, we learn what happened to those still on it. Sawyer and Juliet notice something wrong when the smoke from the freighter, visible on the horizon moments before, is gone. Then Bernard and Rose emerge from the trees and tell them that the camp is gone – the tents, the kitchen table, the Dharma food – all gone. Luckily, their friendly neighborhood physicist – the delightfully twitchy Daniel Faraday – shows up to explain. And by “explain” I mean “make things impossibly more confusing.”

The camp isn’t gone, he says; rather, it hasn’t been built yet. He asks Juliet to lead him to something man-made on the island, so she and Sawyer make for the blown-up hatch, with Charlotte and Miles in tow. (Strange as it seems, this is actually the first time Faraday and Sawyer have met.) Sawyer insists on an explanation, so Faraday attempts to give him one by describing the island as a record spinning on a turntable; now that record is skipping (a metaphor nicely foreshadowed in the opening scene when Dr. Chang’s record exhibits that exact behavior). Faraday says that whatever Ben did in The Orchid station, it seems to have “dislodged” the island from time; either the island is moving through time, or they are, and such movements will continue. When the next wrinkle occurs, accompanied again by that blinding white light, Juliet suggests seeing if they are at a point in time when they can stop the helicopter from flying to the freighter (as they all assume that Jack, Kate and the rest were onboard when it exploded). Faraday says it doesn’t work that way. He describes time as a string (or did he say “street?” I couldn’t tell). He says you can move backwards, you can move forwards, but you can never create a new string/street. If you try to change the past, it won’t work. Whatever happened…happened.

This is similar to what Desmond was once told by the kindly but creepy woman who guided him through his initial flashes – the lady from the jewelry store, whose name I’ve since learned is Mrs. Hawking. She explained to him that fate can not be tricked or avoided. If someone is destined to die, they’re going to die, no matter what interference tries to prevent it. The circumstances of the death may vary, but if it’s meant to happen…it happens (Exhibit A: Charlie. Awww, Charlieeeee!!!!)

Faraday also says that he knows what’s happening because he has been studying space-time for his entire adult life. He pulls out his notebook and says that it contains everything he’s learned about The Dharma Initiative. “This is why I’m here,” he says. Okay, Faraday has long been learning about Dharma’s interest in time travel. So if that’s why he’s on the island, why are Charlotte and Miles there? Knowing that Miles’ talent is communing with the dead, was he chosen for this mission to find a specific deceased individual or group of individuals and learn about the circumstances of the death? Perhaps to change those circumstances (since stopping them altogether is apparently not possible) through the miracle of DING DING DING!!! Time travel!!!

The next flash puts the islanders sometime in the past again, when the hatch is still intact. Sawyer wants to attract the attention of Desmond, who he assumes is inside, but Faraday convinces him that such a meeting can not occur. Sawyer, Juliet and Miles head back to the beach, as does Charlotte – though not before Faraday notices her nose is bleeding. She dismisses it as nothing, but Faraday knows – as did the freighter’s communications officer George Minkowski – that in this place, a bloody nose can be more than just a bloody nose.

Despite having insisted to Sawyer that he can not meet Desmond at this point in time if a similar meeting didn’t happen before, Faraday tries himself to rouse Desmond once the others are gone. Praying for his efforts to work, Faraday bangs on the hatch door until it opens and out comes Desmond, sealed up in a hazmad suit and gas mask, brandishing a gun at the unfamiliar intruder. Desperate to impart his message before the next flash unfolds, Faraday tells a bewildered, paranoid Desmond that he’s the only one who can help them all because the rules don’t apply to him; he is, Faradays says, “uniquely, miraculously special.”  (Do the rules not apply to Faraday either? Is he able to connect with Desmond because both of them have time-tripped?) Faraday gives Desmond his name and tells him that everyone he left behind after the helicopter took off to safety (if it took off to safety) is in danger. By this time, the white light is ramping up and the next flash is imminent. Faraday just barely has time to tell Desmond to go back to Oxford, where they met, and find his – Faraday’s – mother, whose name is…and flash. He’s gone.

Desmond immediately wakes up three years later, in bed with Penny on her boat, and knows that what he experienced was a memory. To Penny’s confusion, he immediately changes the boat’s course…for Oxford.

So who is Faraday’s mother, and how can she help? I have a quasi-theory as to who she might be…but that will have to wait.

Oh yeah – before everyone leaves Faraday at the hatch and returns to the beach, Sawyer asks how they can stop what’s happening. Faraday says they can’t. He doesn’t answer when Sawyer asks who can, but as if to answer the question for him, the scene cuts to Locke.

DE PLANE! DE PLANE!
While Sawyer, Juliet and the rest are experiencing the island’s time shifts together, Locke is facing them alone. When the first flash occurs – the one when Ben turns the wheel – Locke is with Richard and the other Others. Then they’re gone. We get a cool nostalgic experience when Locke sees the cargo plane carrying Mr. Eko’s former comrades crash onto the island, complete with heroin-filled Virgin Mary statues.

(Slight pause whilst I bow my head for Charlie, Eko and Boone.)

Umm, anyway….Locke also has an encounter with Ethan, who shoots him in the leg before the next flash whisks him away to the future. (Ethan…what a jerk. Somebody should really kill that guy.) Soon Richard finds Locke, rushing to tend the bullet wound and give him some important information before the next time shift. Richard tells Locke that the only way to save the island is to get the people who left to come back. Locke assumes they died on the freighter, but Richard says no, they made it to civilization. And in order to get them back, Locke will have to die. That’s all he has a chance to say before the next flash, though he does give John a compass, telling him that the next time they meet, he won’t recognize Locke and to give the instrument back to Richard, as if that will make him understand. Is this the same compass that Richard once offered to Locke many years earlier, in a mysterious visit to the boy’s house?

BACK TO THE FUTURE
And so it goes on the island. But what of the Oceanic Six, livin’ the dream back in the real world, three years after Ben turned the wheel? Sorry, did I say livin’ the dream? Perhaps I misspoke. The action picks up right at the Season Four finale, with Jack and Ben in the funeral parlor staring at Locke in his casket. With Jack having agreed to go back to the island, Ben’s plan is to take Locke’s coffin, and one by one collect the rest of Jack’s friends. Jack doubts they’ll be able to do that, and says, “They’re not my friends anymore.” I know in print that reads like the statement of a petulant child. But it worked on the show.

In a hotel room, Jack shaves the Beard of Insanity and tries to get his head clear for the task ahead. Ben says that Locke, aka Bentham, must have made an impression during their visit. He asks what Locke said that made him such a believer. Jack says he was told that those left behind would die too if he didn’t come back. That still doesn’t quite add up with what else we’ve been told – that bad things happened on the island after they left, that those things happened because they left, that going back was the only way to keep Kate and Aaron safe. But I suspect we’ll be learning more about Locke’s agenda before too long.

Kate, meanwhile, is home with Aaron when she receives a troubling visit from a pair of attorneys, one of whom introduces himself as Dan Norton. He explains that they’ve come with a court order instructing Kate to let them take blood samples from her and Aaron to determine their true relationship. Kate asks who it’s for, but Norton says he is not at liberty to divulge the identity of his client. Kate refuses and sends them away, knowing they’ll be back with a sheriff. I wondered briefly if this could be a set-up by Ben to blackmail her into joining the trip to the island, but I suspect something more sinister is at work. Not about to be forced into the blood test, Kate packs a bag (and packs some heat), takes Aaron and leaves the house. Will she ever be back?

Halfway around the world, Sun attempts to check onto a flight bound for Los Angeles, but she is detained and locked in a security room. In comes Charles Widmore, displeased that their last meeting took place in public in front of his business associates. He asks Sun to elaborate on her comment that she and Widmore have common interests, so Sun makes it plain: they both want to kill Benjamin Linus. Now it looks like there’s no doubt as to the second person that Sun blames for Jin’s death (the first, we already know, is her father).

And then there’s Sayid and Hurley. When last we saw this wonderfully odd couple (seriously, after Lost ends, can we resurrect these two characters on a sitcom?), Sayid had killed a man outside Hurley’s mental hospital and come to take the patient to a safe place. Sayid informed Hurley than Bentham was dead. He was clearly uneasy about this, and so then was Hurley. We pick up the action with Hurley and Sayid arriving at the latter’s safehouse. Unfortunately, they quickly learn that it’s not so safe; a pair of bad guys are there waiting for them. Sayid manages to toss one over the balcony to a fatal smack on the pavement. The other would-be-assailant meets his end on a set of steak knives, but not before shooting a tranquilizer dart or the like into Sayid’s neck. Hurley comes in to help him, but Sayid can only tell his friend to get him into the car before he loses consciousness.

So who were the attackers? The same people responsible for Bentham’s death? What danger do Locke, Sayid, Hurley and the others pose? Who is trying to eliminate them?

Before the attack, Sayid tells Hurley that he’s been working – killing – for Ben. And interestingly, he now seems to express regret about that, saying to Hurley, “If you have the misfortune of running into him, whatever he tells you, just do the opposite.” What soured Sayid on his arrangement with Ben?

LOOSE ENDS
You probably watched the recap special that preceded the season premiere, and I always think those specials are helpful for highlighting some of the mysteries that we should be keeping in mind as the show goes forward. So do not take it for granted that the show mentioned the four-toed statue seen by Sayid, Sun and Jin in the Season Three finale, or the two corpses Jack discovered in the caves way back in Season One – the ones Locke referred to as “Adam and Eve.” Every indication is that those two decomposed figures are a key to one of the show’s central mysteries.

The recap show also cleared up two minor things that I had been questioning. One, that the island is in fact invisible to those flying over it. And two, that the freighter crew did consist of two distinct teams: Keamy’s military crew and the scientist crew of Faraday, Charlotte and Miles (and by extension, Frank…though he seemed to be at Keamy’s service too).

The one thing that happens in this episode out of context, time-wise, is the opening sequence that takes place during the Dharma days…a sequence that ends with Faraday revealed down in the Orchid as Dr. Chang leaves. How did he get here? Is he here via another flash on the island? And if so, how long after the other flashes we witnessed does this flash take place? Are Sawyer, Juliet and the others lurking about too?

Now then, as you may now, there a lot of Lost-themed websites and blogs out there. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot. I don’t have the time or patience to go to most of them, but I do tend to visit the recaps on the Entertainment Weekly website. Their writer, Jeff “Doc” Jensen is insane and sometimes annoying, but also spins some pretty good theories. So from now on, I’ll be including some of his content that I find especially interesting or noteworthy. Here are a few things he had to say:

1) On Faraday’s encounter with Desmond outside the hatch: “I initially thought ‘Hey! Shouldn’t Island Desmond remember Daniel Faraday?’ After all, in The Constant, we saw Pre-Island Desmond visit Pre-Island Daniel at Oxford. But that was an example of mental projection time travel, not physical time travel, and I’m guessing Lost adheres to the controversial perspective that memory resides not in the physical structure of the brain, but in the electrical currents of consciousness.”

2) On Sun and Widmore: “And another burning question that stems from the fact that Sun told Widmore she wants Ben dead. But do you believe her? Sure, Ben is a bad man. But was he responsible for Jin’s death? No. That was Keamy the Merc whose bomb blew up the freighter. Which belonged to Widmore. Who wanted everyone on the Island dead. It should be Chuck’s blue blood that Sun should want spilled. Maybe she’s playing double agent, pretending to be a Ben Hater but really a Ben Friend tasked with spying on their mutual enemy. Maybe she’s just getting close enough to shiv him when he’s not looking.”

3) He pointed out a detail which whizzed by me, but which could prove significant. When Charlotte asks Miles if he thinks Widmore is looking for them, Miles says he’s not holding his breath considering that it took Widmore 20 years to find the island the first time. (But does the first time mean this time, with the freighter? Or some time before that?)

4) This is from the piece he published the day this episode aired, and involves his latest theory on the big picture. I don’t fully buy it, but like a lot of his theories, I do find it intriguing. If you’re interested, scroll down and start reading at “The Competing Timelines Theory of Lost.”

LINE OF THE NIGHT
“You know maybe if you ate more comfort food, you wouldn’t have to go around shooting people.” – Hurley

FINAL THOUGHTS
I don’t think Faraday, Charlotte and Miles have had a change of clothes since they got to the island. That’s disgusting.

…..aaaaaaannnd exhale. Welcome to the jungle, everyone. The wait has been long and difficult, but hours from now, we’ll be watching the first new episodes of Lost in seven months. I’ve completed re-watching Season Four, and I’ve got enough questions to fill a Dharma hatch or two. Some of these will likely be addressed this season, while others will probably just get more complicated before their answers come in the sixth and final season. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. As we get rolling, here are some of the things on my mind; my sad, obsessed, freakish little mind. To whatever degree I ever aim for eloquence of prose in these messages, you’ll find little such aim here. This is just a down and dirty, catch-up message; a sort of “what-the-fuck-is-going-on-with-this-show,” if you will.

The last thing we saw at the close of Season Four was John Locke, aka Jeremy Bentham, lying in a coffin. So let’s start there. It seems Locke came off the island to try and convince Jack and the others to come back. He tells Jack that some very bad things happened on the island after Jack left, and that those things are his fault for leaving. This is what Jack tells Ben as they stand near Bentham’s coffin. So Bentham somehow got off the island and visited the Oceanic Six one by one, trying to convince them to return. Kate said she knew he was crazy, but Jack believed him. “Yes, Kate, I did because he said that that was the only way I could keep you safe. You and Aaron.”  Keep her safe from what??? In fact…okay…wait…

Breathe, stop, collect your thoughts:

• How did Locke get off the island?

• What things happened that could have been prevented had Jack and company stayed?

• How will the return of the Oceanic Six, not to mention Bentham’s corpse, fix things?

• Why was Locke traveling under the name Jeremy Bentham?

• Why does his death lead Sayid to fetch Hurley from the mental hospital and flee to somewhere safe?

• Why did Bentham go to see Walt, and does Walt need to return to the island as well?

• Why did Jack believe whatever Bentham told him, when he’s never believed any of the “crazy” things Locke has said before?

The questions about Bentham off the island lead me to questions about Locke on the island. Mainly, what is the relationship between these two? From the time of his birth, the island has had an interest in him, particularly in the form of Richard Alpert, who seems to have been watching over him since he was a baby and trying to get him to the island. Ben has always tormented Locke with the idea that he is important, that he shares a connection to the island, and Locke has believed as much himself since he first encountered the Black Smoke. But what is this connection? Locke has a dream in which long-deceased Dharma worker Horace is chopping down trees to build what will become Jacob’s cabin. Horace tells Locke that Jacob has been waiting for him for a long time. Why? And if the Oceanic Six and Ben bring his body back to the island, will he come back to life? 

Can the island return life to the dead? When Jack found his father’s coffin shortly after the crash, the body was missing. But we’ve seen Christian Shephard on the island several times now, most notably last season when he took Claire’s baby – his grandson – and then when Locke encountered him in Jacob’s cabin (remember that Hurley spied him in there too, earlier in the season). So what is Christian’s state? Hurley has seen him, Locke has seen him, Claire has seen him and we can infer that Miles has seen him too. But Jack has also seen him, off the island, at the medical office where he works. This is the stuff I’ve been trying the hardest to wrap my head around, come up with a theory…but I’ve got nothing. Jacob…Christian…Claire…I should let it all go for now, because I don’t think we’ll get any answers until the final season. And remember, Claire is off the show until then. Short of a possible surprise cameo, we won’t see her this season.

So let’s turn our attention to some things that are more likely to get answered in the short term. Where…or more appropriately, when…is the island? Last we saw it, Ben was deep below its surface, turning some big frozen wheel and transporting it somewhere else…in time, if not also in space.

• Is it in the future or the past?

• Did the small island where Jack, Kate and Sawyer were once held captive by The Others move too?

• What did moving the island accomplish?

• Is the move supposed to protect it from being discovered by Charles Widmore?

• Does that mean Jacob doesn’t want Widmore to find the island?

• How many times has the island been moved before?

• Does the time travel explain Richard Alpert’s agelessness?

• Where does the Dharma Initiative factor into the island’s history and any previous movements?

We still don’t really know what happened to the Dharma Initiative. I mean, we know Ben gassed their asses into the next life, but why? What were they really doing? What is with all those creepy videos featuring the Asian scientist?

Other things I expect we’ll learn more about soon: Daniel, Charlotte and Miles. And maybe Frank. The writer’s strike that interrupted last season meant we didn’t see the backstory episodes intended for at least two of the four freighter folk. We can expect to start learning more about them soon, and there are plenty of questions.

• What is Charlotte’s connection to the island?

• How did the skeleton of a Dharma polar bear come to be excavated in Tunisia, and how did Charlotte know to expect it there? Was she on the island at some point in the past when it was moved?

• What is wrong with Daniel? Has he been leaping through time, like Desmond?

• Why did he have a note indicating that Desmond would be his constant?

• Why doesn’t 2004 Daniel remember his meeting with Desmond from 1996? What has happened to him in the interim?

• Why was he crying when he learned that Oceanic 815 had been discovered on the ocean floor?

• Why did the freighter’s doctor and that glorious son of a bitch Martin Keamy react so defensively to him talking to Desmond on the phone? Why did the doctor say “he can’t even help himself?”

• Now that Miles’ plan to get paid off by Ben is moot, what is his interest in the island?

• Why didn’t he return to the freighter when Daniel gave him the chance?

• Why did Frank not pilot Oceanic 815 on the day of the crash, as he claims he was supposed to?

Questions about these four still-mysterious newcomers to the island feed into the larger puzzle of how they were brought together in the first place. Matthew Abbadon, the creepiest man alive, told dear departed Naomi that each of them was chosen for a specific reason, and that she was responsible for getting them in and out of the island without them coming to harm. By the end of Season Four, Daniel had admitted to Jack that they never intended to rescue the survivors. And though Miles says early on that they came to the island looking for Ben – which was clearly Keamy’s mission – it never seemed that Daniel and Charlotte were there for that reason. They always appeared to have another interest in the island.

• What was it?

• Why did Abbadon bring these four together? Is he in league with Charles Widmore, or does he have his own agenda? Naomi asks him what happens if they find survivors of Flight 815, but he insists there are none, even though she knows that that may not be the case. What do Abbadon, Naomi and the freighter’s Fantastic Four know about the plane and the island?

• Why does Naomi have a picture of Desmond and Penny?

• Do Daniel, Charlotte, Miles and Frank know why they were chosen for the mission?

• Do they know anything about Abbadon, or were they recruited through Naomi?

Continuing with the Abbadon thread, what is his interest in the survivors? Post-island, he approaches Hurley at the mental institution. Pre-island, he pretended to be an orderly tending to Locke during the latter’s physical therapy. In that encounter, Abbadon suggested that Locke go on a walkabout – something Locke eventually attempts to do, which is why he was in Sydney. Is Abbadon actually on Ben’s side, trying to get Locke to the island? Trying to keep tabs on Hurley and the rest of the Oceanic Six post-island so that it will be easier to get them to return? Before leaving Locke in the rehab center, Abbadon tells him, “When you’re ready Mr. Locke, you’ll listen to what I’m saying. And then, when you and me run into each other again, you’ll owe me one.”

My head is spinning anew, and the damn season hasn’t even started yet. I could go on and on and on, but I do have other things to do you know, including making my final predictions for tomorrow’s Oscar nominations. So here’s a random assortment of other questions and thoughts that are gnawing at me after re-watching Season Four:

• Why is it so hard to find the island? Is it invisible to the outside world? The Season Four DVD includes a feature called Lost in 8:15, which humorously breezes through the first three seasons’ events in 8 minutes and 15 seconds. In covering the Season Two finale, the narrator says that the two people on the boat in the arctic – the ones working for Penny – locate the island on the radar only briefly. We already know that when Desmond neglected to push the button in the hatch, it caused a huge electromagnetic burst that brought down the plane. Lost in 8:15 makes it sound as though that same burst caused the island to momentarily appear on radar, when otherwise it would be hidden. I hadn’t considered that before…

• When we last saw Sun, she had taken over her father’s company and was apparently looking for an alliance with Charles Widmore. Was that for real? What is she up to? (Bringing up the Season Four DVD again, there’s a deleted scene in which Kate and Hurley arrive at Jack’s father’s funeral service and meet up with Sayid and Nadia outside the church. Kate asks if anyone’s heard from Sun, to which Sayid replies, “No. And I don’t expect we will.” But sometime after that, Sun gives birth, and Hurley shows up to visit Jin’s grave with her and the baby. When he arrives at her apartment, he asks her if anyone else is coming. She says no, and he replies – rather oddly, as if he’s relieved by her answer – “Good.” I still think there’s something more to that.

• Juliet’s ex-therapist Harper appeared out of nowhere on the island to give Juliet a message from Ben. Jack saw her too. And then she disappeared. How do people materialize on the island like that? What is the whispering that seems to precede appearances by The Others? Was Harper really there?

• How did Ben know where Daniel and Charlotte were going when he was being held captive by Locke? How did he get Harper to deliver the message to Juliet? Is it all based on time traveling he’s already done?

• We learn that Ben sent Goodwin undercover at the tail section of the plane as punishment for his affair with Juliet. Why was Ethan sent away to go undercover?

• Who are the people Sayid is killing for Ben? Ben tells him that killing them is helping his friends. How is killing these people helping Sayid’s friends and achieving Ben’s goal? Why is Ben pleased to learn that his enemies know he is after them (after Sayid’s cover is blown with “the economist”)?

• Desmond knows that the freighter was Charles Widmore’s. Now that he’s off the island, with Penny, what will he do with that info? Will he try to find out why Widmore was looking for the island? Will he talk to Penny about it? How much does Penny know about her father’s activities? When they parted ways, Jack said to Desmond, “Don’t let him find you.” Was he talking about Penny’s father? Or Ben, who told Charles that he was going to kill Penny as revenge for the murder of his “daughter” Alex? And why would Jack tell Desmond to be safe from either of them? What does he know about it?

• After Regina, a crew member on the freighter, takes a fatal suicide plunge, the captain tells Sayid and Desmond that some of his crew has experienced a “heightened case of cabin fever,” most likely due to the proximity of the island. That explanation is left hanging. Why would he think the island is causing this strange behavior?

• When Ben breaks into Widmore’s house, the latter asks if Ben has come to kill him. Ben replies, “We both know I can’t do that.” Why can’t Ben kill Widmore? And does it work both ways? What is the relationship between these two?

• After Keamy kills Alex, a stunned Ben says, “He changed the rules.” The “he” is Widmore, but what does the remark mean?

• How does Ben manipulate the Black Smoke? And enough already – what is the Black Smoke?

• What favor is Kate doing for Sawyer?

And so it goes.  I suspect that come the beginning of Season Six, I’ll be listing more than half of these questions again, with a slew of new ones as well. But for now…Season Five. If you can’t remember anything that happened last year, tune in at 8:00 for one of those recap episodes that will likely highlight some of the storylines to be addressed sooner than later.

Enjoy the kickoff.

Tonight’s Episodes: Because You Left; The Lie