“Lost” Season Six Premiere: “LAX”
HELL YEAH! “Lost” is back! My full write-up is after the break.
Quotes of the week:
- Man in Black (Locke) to Ben: “Sorry you had to see me like that.”
- Jack to Locke: “Nothing’s irreversible.”
Mini Recap:
The episode focuses on two separate timelines. One in which the crash of Flight 815 never happened and another where the Losties managed to time travel from the 70’s to the present.
Overall Thoughts:
I’m torn. As a season opener it really wasn’t that big of an episode. There are always talks of “Game Changers” but at this point I found the whole second “what if” timeline or whatever we are calling it more annoying than exciting. That being said, I LOVED finally seeing the temple and getting hints of what’s to come. It seems to me that war is brewing and when it hits it’s going to be badass.
Time Lines:
What we are watching is the end of “Lost.” Sometime later this season The Losties manage to do what they failed to do in the season finale: They reverse the plane crash so it never happens. So this alternate timeline where the plane never crashed is what happens to the characters after they undo everything. The largest hint to this is the cut on Jack’s neck at the start of the episode. There is not hint or clue where it came from which suggests that it simply hasn’t happened yet.
The Alternate Timeline:
Whether the alternate timeline is a flash forward to the future or whatever, one thing that seems clear is that it already mirrors what happened. The US Marshall got hit in the head in the exact same place he did in the pilot. Then Jack restarted Charlie’s heart like he did in the pilot. So my guess is that as we move forward there will be more fate/destiny like incidents.
One of the biggest things that jumped out about the new timeline is Jack’s missing father. It’s long been speculated that one of the reasons Flight 815 was able to get to the island is because of the Jack’s dad, just like Flight 316 was able to get there because of the dead Locke. So what if the WHOLE reason this timeline is different is because Jack’s father was never on the plane?
Smoke Monster:
As we all suspected, The Man in Black is the Smoke Monster and he has taken on the form of Locke. I have to say the whole fight scene was pretty badass. Specially the part where the guy drew a circle of ash and thought he was safe, but then BAM! Smokey knocks the ceiling down on him. Freaking awesome!
The real issue with the Smoke Monster is that we finally have a hint of what he wants. He wants to go home. This begs the question, where is home? The most obvious answer is The Temple since it seems like The Others are stationed there protecting it, but I think that’s a cop-out. The MiB and Jacob have been playing a game for centuries. As of now we really don’t know which is actually the “good guy” and which is the “bad guy.” But since the two of them have been going at it for so long, I’m guessing home is something much more complex than The Temple. Maybe MiB is a time traveler and home is a different time? Who knows, but wherever “home” is I have a feeling that MiB getting there will in some way or another be bad for our Losties.
The Real Locke:
I’m calling it now. The real Locke is bound to return in the present. Here are just some of the things that hinted to it:
- There were several transitions in the episode that cut from Locke’s body to Sayid’s body. This of course ended with Sayid being resurrected foreshadowing that the same would happen to Locke.
- The Man in Black spends a large chunk of dialog talking trash about Locke. From a writing standpoint the dialog was a waste of time… unless it’s a set-up. If Locke is resurrected and comes back fighting then the dialog becomes bittersweet in a very good way.
- In the alternate timeline, Locke gives a speech about how just because a body is gone it doesn’t mean that the spirit is.
Sayid:
So there are three possibilities for Sayid’s resurrection.
- Sayid is Sayid and back from the dead.
- Sayid is dead and Jacob has taken over his body.
- Sayid is dead and the real Locke has taken over his body.
If I were a betting man, I’d put my money on theory three.
The Rules of Time Travel:
Before ending, I want to re-visit the rules of time travel. The rules are simple. You can’t change the past. The only exception to this is Desmond because he was inside the hatch when it exploded and got bathed in electromagnetic energy. We then saw Desmond change things when he kept saving Charlie’s life several seasons ago.
The interesting thing to note now is that if Desmond became an uber time-traveler who can exist outside the timeline and change things then there is a damn good chance that all our main Losties are now the same way. They were there during The Incident. They were all bathed in electromagnetic energy. So my guess is that now since they too can change the future/past they will do something later in the season that will undo everything (my guess is pull Jack’s dead father from Flight 815). This will, as I suggested above, result in a re-setting of the timeline.
Other Odds and Ends:
You know it. I know it… Desmond was doing something sneaky on the plane, most likely time-traveling!
The smoke monster mentions Richard being in chains. Is this a reference to The Black Rock? Was Richard a slave?
Where did Jack’s cut come from? Will we see this happen later in the season (I’m 100% sure we will)?
The real Locke was in the box.
That was an ankh in the guitar case.
The MiB cut a piece of Jacob’s tapestry.
The return of the Dharma shark!
FINALLY! We got to see The Temple.
Yes that was so a Lazarus pit in The Temple.
Did you notice Greg Grunberg’s quick voice-over cameo as the pilot of Flight 815?
