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Lost Report: "Because You Left"/"The Lie"

By Joe Bardi on Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 2:30 pm

Time travel can be confusing. It's bad enough when Lost presents us with strange new locales to decipher. In last night's double-dose season premiere, the castaways were sent hurtling through space-time, with each bizarre flash of light depositing them in a new, undefined "present." When were they, exactly? You're guess is as good as mine. In the episode's closing moment, as Sawyer and Juliet encounter the army men looking for a hand, I put the time frame as "World War II era." Of course, perhaps those army guys were skipping through time right along with everyone else …

Hurley's parent's homestead is a triumph of nouveau riche art design. With a gaudy Jesus on seemingly every wall and huge caviar sandwiches enjoyed from a barcalounger, the Reyes homestead is a delight every time it is visited.

Speaking of Jesus, it seems that John Locke is being set up as Lost's savior. The key part of the Jesus mythology is the whole death/resurrection bit, and Locke (aka Jeremy Bentham) is currently in a casket but seemingly well on his way to a new life. Can curing a plague — say a whole group of people suffering from "time sickness" — be far behind?

Loved the Michelle Rodriguez cameo. "Stay away from the cops." Great line. Better line: "Libby says hi." Has any show in the history of television had a better sense of its own backstory and the willingness to wink at the audience with references to it?

Did Hurley do the right thing turning himself into the cops to escape Ben? Hurley was just following Sayid's advice to do the opposite of anything Ben told him, but I have a hunch Sayid is in for a painful season. After all, he's been doing an awful lot of living by the sword lately, and that can only end badly. I suspect Sayid's days are numbered. Of course, if I'm right about Locke, he'll probably just bring Sayid back from the dead when the moment is right.

More Richard Alpert!

The mysterious woman with all the computers and mapping equiptment (I think she's Ms. Hawking); you think she's Faraday's mom? It's got to be, right? Of course, if she was in Oxford talking to Ben (when she told him he had 70 hours to get everyone ready to go back), that begs the question of how he got from LA (where most of the landlocked action took place) to Oxford, England in such a short amount of time. Is Ben jumping through time? Is Ms. Hawking not Faraday's mom? Is there an Oxford in California? Were the scenes shown out of order? I think I may be reading into this too much.

Speaking of Faraday, I think he may have stolen that handy reference book he always runs to when in need of an answer. Whenever he flips through the book's pages, it seems he doesn't know what he's looking for until he finds it. Would someone who wrote all those notes not know what notes he had written? Seems unlikely. Of course, he might not be right in the head either, due to radiation exposure during his experiments. (Props to Brian Ries for pointing this out to me.)

Sun is evil. She clearly plans to kill both Ben and Jack. Only one person can stop her, I think. Too bad he "died" in the freighter explosion at the end of season four. Or did he? I will not believe Jin is dead until I see a corpse. After I see a corpse, I probably still won't believe he is dead — but I might have some doubts.

Was it just me or did Sawyer have a little bit of a pot belly going? Lay off the Dharma beer, dude!

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After what seemed an eternity, ABC's Lost has finally returned for another 16 episode run. When last we saw the castaways on TV's funkiest island it was May 29, 2008. Hillary Clinton was still alive for the Democratic nomination. The Dow was above 12,500. On a personal note, I've gotten engaged and bought a house since the island vanished before our very eyes. Time marches on.

Of course, Time (with a captial T) is what this season of Lost is all about. Rather than give a full recap of each episode (CL Intern Michelle has her take here, and I highly recommend Entertainment Weekly's Doc Jansen as well), I'll focus on the things that captured my imagination or made my head spin — often simultaniously. It strikes me that much of the fun of Lost comes from sorting through everyone's theories, and then finding out exactly how far off we are when a new episode airs and changes everything.

One final note: If the season premiere of Lost is sitting on your DVR until you have a free moment, you'll probably want to stop reading now.

Still with me? Good. Click below and check out my quick hits on last night's season premiere …