Season 6, Episode 1: "LA X parts 1 & 2"

Welcome back! The long wait for the final season of our favorite show is over and now we can get back to wasting hours of precious work time trying to figure out what the hell is going on. And there are oh so many questions already. How did the Island get under water? Did the Losties reboot or is this some sort of dream sequence? And who the hell is this Kung Fu Master that is guarding the Island's Temple? And what about Fate vs Free Will? Did Jack's decision to change the past to alter the future actually work?

First things first. I won't answer all of these questions. Mostly because I don't know the answers. But I think I can at least get us off to the right start on the bigger picture. The most important issue to tackle right off the bat are the coinciding story lines. One of the main reasons this show is so engaging is the fact that the writers continue to come up with innovative ways to tell their tale to the viewers. In the first few seasons, they utilized Flashbacks to give depth and context to the characters. Then, they collectively blew our minds with the sneaky switch to Flashfowards, which forced the audience to think about the narrative of the show in a completely different fashion, working almost from back to front. Then, to up the ante even more, we shifted back and forth through time, tracking the moves of our characters 30 years apart. And now, the final trick is at the same time the simplest and most confusing. Enter, the Flash-Sideways.

The Flash-Sideways, in the simple form, tracks the present narrative for the characters in a parallel fashion. On one track, we have a scenario ("the reset") in which the original Oceanic 815 never crashes, and will presumably show us how life turns out for our crew if they had never crashed on the Island. In the second, we remain on the Island and play out the seemingly never ending duel between light and dark, or more aptly between Jacob and the Man in Black/Smokie/Awesomely Evil Locke. But when trolling deeper into the idea of both scenarios, things get complicated...how can both exist at the same time? How can the Island be submerged, and if it was blown to pieces, how can certain people who were on the Island still exist in the future?

The complicated questions are likely the ones to ignore...for now. Throughout the series, in my opinion, the overall story has superseded the sometimes infuriatingly complicated logic (I mean, last year was basically one giant time paradox, but we got through that, right?). And in the opening chapter to this final arc, the story once again focuses on one of Lost's thematic constants, Destiny vs. Free Will. Is there a pre-determined path that our lives follow or do we have the power to create our own fate? While the question is omnipresent throughout seasons 1-5, we may have finally got our answer in the first 10 minutes of LAX. It's both.

Let's look at the reset scenario first. After campaigning aggressively on the "let's blow this Island up so that we change the future" party line in Season 5, Jack and his time-traveling gang of variables do just that. They change the future. Oceanic 815 stays in the air and lands safely in LAX. But some things are slightly different. Desmond is on the plane. Shannon isn't. Jack gets only one extra nip of vodka, and not two. Hurley is the luckiest man alive. Boone's a decent actor.

But what's interesting to me are the sly, yet out of context, similarities between what happens on the plane after it should have crashed and what happened on the Island after it did crash in Season 1. If you notice, even though we are viewing a separate reality in which the Losties never crashed and met, their paths are inevitably beginning to cross, in ways that are strikingly similar to their past fates on the Island. The first example is Jack's random cut on the neck. Where did that come from? No worries, just patch it up and return to business, similar to how we sequestered himself in the jungle during the opening scenes of the series to stitch up (with Kate's help) that ugly tear in his side.





Next, we find Charlie locked in the bathroom, apparently choking on his bag of smack (instead of it falling into the toilet during turbulence, this time the bag falls down his throat...an interested simile in its own right). As Jack and the stewards try unsuccessfully to break open the bathroom door, from behind we hear a familiar voice, "perhaps I can be of some assistance." It's Sayid, offering up his services, just as he offered up his services on the Island to get crucial info out of Sawyer by way of torture. Once the door is busted through, Jack goes to work on Charlie, first looking for something sharp - his pen - which is exactly what he tells Boone to find so that he can save Rose after the plane crashes on the Island in the series pilot. And after pulling the bag out of his throat, Charlie yells out to Jack, "why did you save me, I'm supposed to die." An eery prediction, seeing that not only was Charlie "supposed to die" in our original story, he eventually did so by drowning in the Looking Glass station.






The similarities don't end there. Some others are smaller; Rose and Bernard clearly still love each other, as they playfully flirt like teenagers in their seats next to Jack. Sawyer is back to old self, quipping to the flight attendant "hey Amelia Earhart where you running to" as she rushes back to assist Jack with Charlie. But others hold more striking similarities. Kate escapes her captivity once again (by stealing Jack's pen by the way...remember when she bumped into him coming out of the plane bathroom?), and gives the FBI agent a nasty blood gushing cut on his head in precisely the same spot that the overhead luggage knocked him in the original crash.




Locke still can't walk, but he has hope to do so after meeting miracle spinal surgeon Jack Shepard...after all, "nothing is irreversible." Sun will soon have to betray Jin's trust by speaking English in order to clear him of any wrong doing at the customs desk, just as she did when Jin went crazy on Michael for stealing his watch; the same watch that sparked the custom agent's interest in LAX.

And then there's maybe the most obvious connection - Jack's father is missing. That's kind of a big deal, right? And to drive the point home even further, we have Juliet's post-mortem confirmation of the plan..."it worked." Before her death - and in a very Charlotte-esque manner - Juliet floats through consciousness and speaks of going dutch on a coffee date. Maybe she knows the plan "worked" because what she saw was a coffee date with Sawyer, when the two inevitably meet once again for the first time in a future Flash-Sideways.



Not surprisingly, I'm guessing that we will continue to see these familiar story lines and connections progress as the 'reset' story continues. Which all supports the notion that while you can use free will to change even the biggest of life's moments, fate will play its hand in one way or another and correct its course, no matter how far off the path it may be. These people are meant to cross paths, and whether it be as crash survivors on a far away Island, or in the mundane dimension of the real world, it will happen. And maybe most importantly, regardless of context, the characters are all still dealing with their own demons. Jack looks just as lost as he ever did, Kate is a fugitive, Locke is ashamed, Sun and Jin have fallen out of love, and Sawyer's already working how to con Hurley out of his money. The act of free will changed everything and nothing at the same time.

But enough with the reset, what's going on back on the Island? Awesomeness, is what. Locke finally reveals himself as both the Man in Black and Smokie after taking care of Bram and company and afterward utters another amazing Lost line to Ben; "sorry you had to see me like that." Soon after, he scolds both Richard and the rest of the crew, sighting his disappointment in all of them...an interesting line for someone that should expect no loyalty due to his, you know, evilness and all. Unless of course he's not the evil one. After all, he just wants to "go home." Where is that? Or more likely, what is that? Maybe MIB's motive for getting rid of Jacob and therefore the rest of the Others is to get his home back. Smokie has been on the Island far longer than any of them. Maybe the MIB is simply trying to reclaim what he feels is rightly his own?


And then we get to the Temple. A ton of questions arise in this sequence (who is the Kung Fu Master? And what's with his squirrely interpreter? Why don't the Others always live there...seems pretty nice), but I'm going to let those lie in hopes that future episodes will provide some answers. The most important clues in these scenes revolve around what happens to Sayid. Hurley receives an urgent message from Ghost Jacob to get Sayid to the Temple, but when they finally get him there, the situation looks dire. Sayid looks like he's beyond saving, and the Temple folk see that their little fountain of life is not as clear as it should be. In fact, it looks a little red, as if blood is flowing through its depths. Kung Fu Master's sliced hand doesn't heal immediately, and in the end the magic water fails to save Sayid's life. But in a last second surprise, Sayid springs to life and the all too familiar L O S T thump-to-black hits us like ton of bricks.

How could Sayid be alive? After all, "Dead is Dead," right? Not only did Doc Jack confirm Sayid's passing, but so did the Kung Fu Master; and I think we all know that when a Kung Fu Master says someone's dead after waving their hand over their head, they're fucking dead. Well, the explanation could be pretty simple: Jacob resurrected through Sayid's body.


Think about it, Jacob was insistent that they get Sayid to the Temple asap. And the fountain water was running red with his own blood due to his death two hours earlier. And hell, if the Man in Black can take the form of others, why can't Jacob? Who's to say that the "original" Jacob and MIB weren't just the bodies of some dead Black Rock visitors? They could simply be Island Spirits that inherent the human form when necessary...you know like Jesus and fallen angels and...

Alright, I'm not going down that path, but you get the point. But with Jacob's resurrection complete, his counterpoint to the MIB's "loophole" is a success. He brought the O6 back and the table is set for one last showdown for ages. And I for one, can't wait to see how it goes down.


Tidbits:

We finally see exactly what the gray ash is for as both Bram and the Temple dwellers use it to (try) and protect themselves from Smokie. While it's certainly not full proof (lookin' at you Bram), the ash will work if administered properly. This also explains how Smokie accessed Jacob's Cabin, since we saw a break in the ash circle when Ilana's team approached the area last season. This confirms that Locke's first encounter with "Jacob" was the beginning of the manipulation by the MIB...the start of a very long con that was the impetus of MIB's "loophole" plan. (Another theory is the ash was used to KEEP Smokie within the Cabin, but since Smokie has long been used as a security system of sorts, I tend to agree with the former theory.)


So what was that thing in Hurley's guitar case? Well, it was a familiar symbol in the Islands' mythology - an Ankh - which is a symbol for Eternal life that the Four Toed Statue holds in both hands (and was also worn by Amy's late husband Paul). Within this Ankh was a message - from Jacob - to save Sayid at all costs. If my theory of Jacob taking over Sayid holds true, what better carrier for this note than a symbol that reflects eternal life?



Dharma Shark still kickin' it (look at the tail fin area).




Also, that little space between the "A" and "X" in the episode title above is not a mistake. Is it a clue reflecting how this reality is just a bit altered from the original? Check your DVR's for the show's title and you'll see the space is there. Those loony writers.



And finally, the best line of the night (of many to choose from):

''Hello, Richard. Nice to see you out of those chains.''



Awe-some.



We're off to a great start folks, and I know I left a bunch of stuff out so chime in with your thoughts below!