Ok, I dunno if this is really gonna be a regular thing or not, but I have this urge to write about Lost some more, so I’m thinking I’ll do follow-ups on each episode for this final season. So let’s get started and see how this goes! I tried to split things up by subject to make it easier to read, but still I apologize for the length. 

The 2-hour premiere wasn’t terribly exciting, and really didn’t have as many surprises as I’d hoped. The finale last season set things up to go in a certain direction, and this just continued from there. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot to talk about.

ITEMS OF INTEREST.

1)    Dual Realities: This is probably my favorite turn of events. Some people had thought the bomb would do nothing, others thought it would erase everything. I had expected the bomb to have worked, sending everyone back to normal 2004 (or whenever), but have them remember the events of the island, or something like that. But rather than go one way or the other with the result of the bomb, the writers decided ‘you know what? Fuck your theories. We’re gonna do BOTH.’ Which is awesome. How this is gonna turn out, I dunno, but I do have a theory which I’ll get into later (bottom of the page). Definitely interested more in the non-island, Los Angeles based events now, though. 

2)    More Factions: Having mysterious groups of people had been done effectively earlier in the show, but in my opinion there are a few too many factions at this point. Jacob’s people always seemed pointless additions last season, and havinganother group of Others seems a bit much. Naturally, watching Smoker Man ‘waste those motherfuckers’ was immensely satisfying. And while I’m not sure what to think of Others that actually wear old timey clothes, and not just as costumes, I am a big fan of their leader. Rather than be an infuriatingly mysterious evil dude, this guy (whom I have named Mr. Shogun) has a wonderful ‘fuck you guys’ attitude that is very refreshing.

      ‘Hey boss we found these dudes’ ‘ Don’t care. shoot em’.

       ‘Jacob said to save our friend!’ ‘Are you fucking... fine. Whatever.’

       ‘Hey, you know English!’ ‘fuck english’.

           Also, Mr. Shogun’s translator dude reminds me of Dennis Hopper from Apocalypse Now, which is kind of awesome. And that made me realize how much the whole temple has a similar vibe as the one at the end of Apocalypse Now.  Anyway, I have named him Dennis Hopper.

      Still, how the 2 groups of Others are connected doesn’t make much sense. If they’re separate, why is the stewardess with them? Are these just the people who decided to follow badass Mr Shogun rather than creepy Ben? I’m only saying this because I feel like the explanation there isn’t gonna be a good one. The Ajira flight folks are still chilling around on Alcatraz, but Smoker Man already said he was gonna kill them, so it doesn’t bother me that they’re being ignored for now.

3)    Smoker Man: Ok, so I guess the ‘big reveal’ was that Fake Locke was the Smoke Monster. But I’d already figured that out, so I wasn’t too surprised. How did I gain this knowledge, you ask? Simple! I went back and watched older episodes. After the first season, the monster didn’t show up too often. But knowing what we know at the end of season 5, the scenes it’s in take on a whole new meaning. Remember Mr. Eko? He saw his brother in the jungle, ended up disappointing him somehow, and promptly got Smoked. To put it simply: Every time someone  who’s dead shows up walking and talking in the jungle, that’s not the dead person. That’s Smoker Man trying to influence them. All of Hurley’s visions of dead folk are really Smokes manipulating him (remember Miles telling him that his visions aren’t how ghost whispering really works?). When dead Alex tells Ben to do whatever Locke says, that's really Smoker Man making sure Ben will kill Jacob. When the Smoke first appears before Eko, it flashes some light and disappears. If you slow down that scene, those flashes of light are scenes from Eko’s past (I discovered that by accident. I had to go pee and paused at that part). So we know Smoke can read minds. Smoke must have wanted something from Eko, but couldn’t get it. Now we know he wanted the loophole he talked to Jacob about, and eventually found it in Locke. So he dressed up as Jack’s dad and told Locke to get ‘em all back. Which was actually irrelevant (I think), Smoker Man just wanted to get to use Locke’s body so he have Jacob killed.

4)    Smoker Man Part II :Anti Smoke. Ok, this REALLY pissed me off. One of Jacob’s men puts down a circle of powder around him that Smoke can’t get through. Interesting idea on it’s own, if it wasn’t ripped directly from another TV show.Supernatural is a show about two brothers who fight monsters. These monsters include demons. In the show, demons usually possess people, but when they aren’t in a body, they are visible as a cloud of black smoke. Now, I don’t know who came up with the smoke monsters idea first, Lost or Supernatural, but Supernatural definitely had the idea of ‘anti-smoke’ first. Demons can’t move through salt, so if it is placed at entrances, or in a circle around a person, they are blocked from entering the building or circle. Thankfully, Jacob’s men died anyway (pointless douches. Fuck those guys), but still this is a glaring a rip-off, and really kind of a dumb idea anyway. 

5)    Jacob: He looks exactly like the Shepard I made in Mass Effect 1. Makes watching him really weird. Anyways, apparently he has the same show-up-as-a-dead-dude power Smoker Man has, only this is more legit cuz he’s dead. So does that mean some of the dead people who’ve appeared weren’t all Smoke? Were some of them Jacob? Probably not, but we’ll see. I mean, considering how he talked to Ben, he obviously planned on being killed, so maybe he’s not actually dead dead. Or only mostly dead. Honestly, I'm not finding his part in all this very interesting. I was kinda glad when he 'died', because I thought that meant we were done with mysterious puppetmasters.

 6)    Sayid: (Speaking of dead). Ok, so Sayid isn’t dead. The magic healing water (which explains why Richard is immortal) no longer works now that Jacob’s dead (or weakened. Whatever.), so I can think of only one explanation for him to be alive. I mean, maybe no one can die so long as their alternate in Los Angeles is alive, but that doesn’t help the story much. I think Sayid has switched bodies with his alternate. That at least would help them learn about the alternate worlds, and make for some awesome freak out scenes.

Speaking of alternate worlds, I already said I find the LA-verse more interesting. It’s less obvious what’s happening there. It seems like only minor things are different, and nothing like you’d expect. Shannon stayed down under, Hurley’s blessed instead of cursed, Jack’s hair is longer (technically that’s just a real world problem for the actor, but still), and Charlie is choking down shrooms instead of snorting heroin. My only complaint is that Sawyer should still be brooding over killing the Shrimp guy, not cracking wise. Unless that didn’t happen now. Also, seeing Kate on the run again is much more fun than I would have thought. Can't wait to see how that goes terribly wrong, like you know it will.

   Anyway, that’s all I can think of. This probably won’t be as long next time (if there is a next time), but since it was a double episode there was more to talk about… Who am I kidding. No one’s gonna read all this. But just in case you have, thanks. We'll see if I can keep this up.  

 Note: Reviewing what I say here, this all sounds insane, but when I watched it happen it all seemed so normal. Ahh, the magic of Lost.