Episodes 1 and 2: "LA X"

Introduction

Well folks, “Season 6” has begun! I thought it was a fantastic beginning. It is confusing and crazy, but we knew to expect that. All in all, I didn’t think it was ridiculously “out there;” and I could follow most of it.

The only thing I didn’t exactly like was Juliet’s death…again. What was the point of having her “survive?” I guess the only thing we learn from her is what she wanted to tell Sawyer right as she died: “It worked,” she wanted to say.

“Flashsideways”

The writers of this show love experimenting with different methods of story-telling. I really like that about it. We have the flashbacks in the first few seasons, the flashforwards after, and the time-traveling in “Season 5;” now we have flashsideways (not that it’s a real phrase). I like the idea. It’s as if we are witnessing two alternate ways the bomb could have affected the world. In the one, the plane never crashes; and in the other, it still has, but they are transported 30 years into the future, to ’07. It’s almost as if the writers couldn’t decide on what happened after the explosion, so they’re giving us two ways of looking at it. I like the idea. I suppose that the two worlds will somehow come together, but for now, we are witnessing parallel universes.

Parallel One: 2004

In our first universe, the plane never crashes. However, it’s not quite as simple as that. This alternate world is not the same; there are some marked differences. For example, Desmond is on the flight; Boone doesn’t get his sister to go home with him; and Hurley claims to be the luckiest man alive. But I guess the world wouldn’t be exactly the same in the alternate world where the bomb goes off. For example, there would be no reason for Desmond to be on the island, since there would be no reason to hit the button in the Hatch – so theoretically he could be on the plane.

Parallel Two: 2007

The first thing I like about this world is that they brought the two timelines from last season together. Jack, Kate, Sawyer and crew jumped from ’77 to ’07. With all of the craziness of the flashsideways, this should make it a tad saner. But what has happened in this world? How and why did the bomb not kill them, but simply propel them through time 30 years? We are left with questions.

The Unknown One / The Man in Black / The Man Who Impersonated Locke: aka Un-Locke

I am so happy about the Jacob and man-in-black conflict introduced at the end of “Season 5.” Perhaps the most frustrating thing for me throughout Lost has been recognizing meaningful conflict. It originally was the survivors vs. the Others; but then Darma was introduced – then there was Widmore. Not knowing who is good and who is bad is cool and exciting, to an extent; but when you can’t ever tell if there even is a good side and a bad side, things start to lose meaning. Earlier battles that seemed important become meaningless. But the final episode of “Season 5” moved the show is the right direction. Now, at the heart of all of the conflict, all of the deaths and killings, all time-travel and flashes – at the heart of all of this is the epic battle between two Greek demigod-like characters: Jacob and his nemesis, the man in black. Has the whole thing – the plane crash and all – simply been an elaborate plan by Jacob’s nemesis to “find a loophole,” kill Jacob, and take control of the island – while, at the same time, Jacob has been working on an even more elaborate counter plan to make sure all ends well? For the answer to that, we shall have to wait.

Near the end of this episode, the man in black (heretofore referred to as ‘Un-Locke’) tells Ben that he wants to “go home.” I’m assuming home for Un-Locke is somewhere on the Island, as if he wants to be in control of the Island; or perhaps he wants to bring the Island back somewhere, since the Island can move through time and space.

The “temple people,” when they hear Jacob is dead, freak out and start building defenses; so perhaps without Jacob to protect itself, the Island can be controlled by Un-Locke.

Oh yeah, and Un-Locke is the smoke monster. I guess that makes sense. If you remember back to the beginning of the last episode in “Season 5,” the conversational conflict between Jacob and his nemesis was whether or not to have people on the island. The nemesis is against this. So perhaps all of the supernatural things on the island that kill and scare people belong to the nemesis, who desires to have the island uninhabited.

Questions:

Temple/New Others: Who are these other “others?” What is the Temple?

Sayid: How did Sayid come back to life? Bean’s suggestion was that perhaps Jacob has come back to life in his body. Cool idea…

Final Thoughts

In “Season 4” or “5,” someone (Faraday?) mentioned that changing what has already happened would cause reality to split. Perhaps this is what as has happened; perhaps the parallel universes are caused by the bomb working and splitting reality. Either way, I think there will be some meeting of the two universes by the end.