Welcome back everyone, to the first hour of the season premiere of the final season of Lost -- Darlton's final stab at remotely lobotomizing millions of people, each week. I've just watched "LA X, Part I" and I'm writing up this recaplet before I watch "LA X, Part II," so it will all be fresh in my mind; I'm sitting right in front of the wall onto which said mind landed with a splat, so maybe something useful will drip back down into the crater that was once my skull. You ready? Okay!
Jack's on a plane -- not just any plane -- Oceanic flight 815 from Sydney, Australia to Los Angeles, California. He's got the window seat, but the aisle seat is empty, so he talks to his nice row-mate (Rose!) whose husband (Bernard!) is in the loo. The flight attendant (Cindy!) stiffens his drink for him. Rose is (this time) as cool as a cucumber, but Jack gets awfully tense when they hit some turbulence. The plane shakes, rattles and damn near rolls and then... everything is okay! WTF? Don't tell me it worked. Bernard returns to his seat next to his wife. Jack decides he'll take advantage of the plane's lavatory too. While in it, he notices a bloody mark on his neck and seems so bothered by it, he forgets to change his undies. When he returns to his seat, Desmond is sitting in the previously empty aisle seat, brutha. Jack asks if they know one another. Desmond isn't sure, so he introduces himself and they exchange pleasantries. Jack seems disconcerted by the meeting, so he looks out the window, as do we. We see nothing but fluffy white clouds, and then the sound man and camera man start messing with our heads, because we hear the sound of a rapid descent, and we're led down through the clouds, to the ocean, underneath it, past the sunken remains of New Otherton, before stopping in front of the remains of old Four-Toes' foot. And remember, I said sunken remains, so THIS IS ALL UNDER THE WATER. Dun, dun, dun. DUN! Black screen. Title card. Brain shoots out through back of head.
Next, we're treated to a review of the finale moments in last season's finale, "The Incident." The crew tries to save Juliet from the big hole o' magnetism. They can't. Sawyer cries. She cries. They love each other. She bangs the dud hydrogen bomb with a rock. FLASH! White screen.
Nighttime: Kate wakes up in a tree. Her hearing is shot, as if, perhaps, she was deafened by a hydrogen bomb. She climbs down from the tree and finds Miles Straume, who is also hard of hearing. They find Jack lying in the jungle, even though he's on the plane with Bernard and Rose, or possibly under the water with Four Toes' foot. They see a gaping pit in the ground. But it's not from Juliet detonating the bomb. It's from when Des blew up the Swan hatch, which means -- they think -- that the bomb didn't go KABOOM, but does it? Next they run into Sawyer, who kicks Jack in the head and down into the Swan hatch pit, and screams down after Jack that Juliet's dead because he was wrong. Oh yeah, baby. Lost is back. Or nearly so. I don't think Jack's cried yet.
For the rest of the hour, we bounce back and forth between the alternate-reality plane trip (daytime) on September 22, 2004; and nighttime on the island, on whatever post-hatch-explosion date they've landed. They all flashed to wherever and whenever they are now. And? Juliet's not dead. She's in the lower levels of the hatch pit, covered with hatch debris (from when Des made the hatch go splodey). The rest of the time on the island involves the group's efforts (the full group is Jack, Kate, Miles, Sawyer, Juliet, Jin, Hurley, and Sayid) to free Juliet from the Hatch ruins. Okay, Hurley's not helping. He's tending to Sayid who is not helping, because he's still dying from the wounds he got last season. I should mention Hurley is also taking instructions from Jacob, who looks pretty alive, but says he is dead and that Hurley is the only one of them who can see him. Jacob says to get Sayid and the others to the Temple. Sayid will be saved and they'll all be safe if they do.
We also take a trip to the foot of the statue. Inside, Esau's still wearing his Locke Meatsuit, so I'm calling him Faux-Locke for clarity. Faux-Locke snatches a post-homicidal Ben back from the brink of catatonia and tells him to bring him Richard. Ben goes outside, neglects to mention that HE KILLED JACOB, and tells Richard that Locke wants to see him inside. Richard finds that curious, given how Locke's frigging corpse is lying on the sand. Finally, Ilana's biggest goon (Bram) says he and his crew are going in, but Ben's leading the way. The guys all go in the foot. I don't see Ilana follow, but my brain function is at an all-time low. Faux-Locke tells them Jacob is dead. Bram and crew start shooting at Faux-Locke. Ben takes cover. Faux-Locke disappears. But soon there's a rattle, rattle, rattle which can only mean one thing. SMOKEY! He wafts in and smites all but Ben, and then disappears. Ben crawls out from his hiding place, and while he's surveying the carnage, Faux-Locke reappears and confirms he and SMOKEY are one when he says, "I'm sorry you had to see me like that." Black screen.
Meanwhile, back at the pit, the gang uses the Dharma Blue VW Bus to drag some debris off of the top of the hatch pit, and poor Juliet, who is buried somewhere beneath. Sawyer climbs down to free her. He finally gets the beams and bikes and whatever else off her and holds her in his arms as he tells her not to worry. She non-sequiturs: "We should get coffee sometime." Sawyer's no Doc, but even he knows that can't be good, so he groans that he's got to get her out of there. She adds, "We can do Dutch." He tries to break through her fog. Finally, Juliet says his name. She asks him to kiss her. He does, and then she says, "I have to tell you something. It's really, really important."
JAMES: "You tell me. Tell me."
JULIET: *dies*
I'm sorry to make light, I love her, and I love them together, but that scene just hit my funny bone. It's like commentary on our relationship with Damon and Carlton, don't you think? Anyhow, James carries Juliet's body out of the very bottom of the pit, to the upper level, where the rest of the gang can see him. Everyone's broken hearted that she's gone. Sawyer shoots bullets at Jack with his eyes. "You did this."
Meanwhile, the plan lands safely in L.A. and everyone disembarks and starts on their own ways. And you know, a lot happened on that plane, but this is a recaplet, dammit. Jack saved Charlie from killing himself, and then Charlie got arrested. Locke got to know Damon Salvatore; Hurley declared himself the luckiest man alive, and Desmond disappeared. I'll cover all that and much, much more in the full recap, but right now, I've got to go watch "LA X, Part II." I'll see you soon.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Hey, everybody -- welcome back! Can you believe it? The wait between seasons felt nearly as endless as the mysteries posed by what has to be one of the most batshit insane television programs we'll ever see. Now we're not only back, but we're on the home-stretch. No other series has ever made me feel that it has both dragged on so long, and rushed by so quickly. Since I've always experienced two realities when it comes to
Lost, it feels fitting to me that these dual realities are now canon, but I'm getting ahead of myself so let's get right to it. You ready? Okay.
Previously on Lost. Ahahahahahahahah. Right. Wait. You want me to...? Oh, okay, but only because you're so nice. Once upon a time, old Four Toes was part of a larger statue of Tawaret, but that was a long time ago, indeed. More recently (like oh say, the mid-to-late 19th century, just as H.M.S. Black Rock appeared over the horizon), the statue ruins seem to have been serving as base camp for Jacob (Mark Pellegrino: Lucifer on Supernatural), who not only exists, but wears a white tunic, and has a male companion/nemesis, who dresses all in black. I like to call him Esau, because he really hates Jacob. He also seems to hate people in general, kind of like the TWoP moderators. I mean, listen to him: "They come; they fight; they destroy; they corrupt. It always ends the same." Eerily similar, no? Anyhow, Jacob is more of an optimist. "It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress." Even more recently, Faux-Locke (Esau wearing a Locke meatsuit) tells Ben Linus that he (Ben) is going to kill Jacob. When Ben confronts him inside the statue's base, Jacob tells Ben he has a choice. Ben chooses to go all stabby stabby kill kill right in Jacob's chest. Jacob falls to the ground and with his last breath whispers, "They're coming," and then Faux-Locke kicks his dying form right into the fire. Elsewhere, Daniel and Jack formulate what I've come to call "The Jack Daniels" plan: detonate the Jughead hydrogen bomb at the construction site upon which the Swan hatch will be built. The point, and there is one, is to stop the Dharma Initiative from drilling into the ground and tapping into a hot pocket of energy -- the same energy that Desmond et al kept in check by typing the numbers into a computer terminal. Daniel figures if they blow up the pocket before it's ever tapped into, there will be no incident, which means Oceanic 815 will never crash on Craphole Island. But then Daniel is killed by his own mother who is pregnant with him, so Sayid tries to help Jack get the bomb from Dharmaville out to the Swan site. Roger Linus shoots Sayid along the way. After much argument (and Jack/Sawyer fisticuffs), the gang (Dying-Sayid, Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Juliet, Hurley, Jin, and Miles) gets the job done. The only problem is, when Jack throws the bomb down the shaft, it doesn't explode. But then Juliet gets dragged down into the shaft by the deadly combination of electro-magnetism and chains, and cannot escape, despite Sawyer's efforts (which mostly consist of crying and yelling) to save her. In the end, she picks up a big rock and smashes the hell out of the bomb and KABOOM, everything fades to white -- even the title card. Dun.
Now: Dr. Jack Shephard is sitting in his window seat aboard what appears to be Oceanic Flight 815 and looking about uneasily, almost as if...he's been here before. It's only when the flight attendant (Cindy Chandler) stops to inquire about his drink that he snaps out of it. When he admits his drink is kind of weak, Cindy gives him a nip-sized bottle of vodka (note: on the original flight, she gave him 2 nips). As Jack adds about half the vodka to his drink, the plane hits some turbulence. Jack fastens his seatbelt and then takes a belt. The two seats next to him are empty, but across the aisle, a nice woman (Rose Nadler) notices Jack's unease and reassures him. This is the same conversation the original version of Jack and Rose had, only they've swapped lines! What fresh hell is this? They hit more turbulence -- so violent that bags fly out of the overheads. Oh, I think I see Locke, but the shaky-cam is making me ill, so I won't look too closely. As the turbulence continues, Jack white-knuckles his armrests, but his face looks serene and expectant. And then...then...then it stops. Rose tells him he can let go now. Jack releases his death grip and says, "Looks like we made it." Rose says, "Yeah, we sure did," and Bernard returns to his seat grumbling about picking the wrong time to hit the head and how he almost died thanks to that turbulence. They both say they missed each other and share a smooch. Charmed, Jacks watches them with a smile and then heads to the loo, undoubtedly for his first cry of the night. But no! He doesn't cry at all. Instead, he checks himself out and notices what's either a red bruise or bloody raw spot on his neck. It's clear from his face that he's surprised and/or disturbed to see it. He dabs at it with some tissue and returns to his seat where he finds...
Desmond! Now, Desmond wasn't on the original flight 815, on account of he was too busy *not* saving the world down on the island -- which is what caused 815 to crash on Craphole in the first place. Could it be...did the Jack Daniels plan work? And if it did work, is Desmond still a constant or whatever kind of unique and special snowflake he's always been? I can't start drinking this early. I'll never get through this damned thing. Des says the flight attendant told him he could switch seats, because his seat-mate has been snoring since they left Sydney. He asks Jack if he minds, which he doesn't, and then takes the aisle seat. "Thanks, brother." At that, Jack seems more out of sorts than before, and Des (who at some point in here is reading Salmon Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories) catches him sneaking sidelong glances at him. Then they make out. Okay, no they don't. I must have drifted off there. Jack asks if they've met before. Desmond isn't sure. They introduce themselves and shake hands. "Nice to meet you, Jack -- or to see you again." Jack laughs but his heart isn't in it. He looks out the window, and...
We see nothing but fluffy white clouds, but then the sound man and camera man start messing with our heads, because we hear rapid descent fx and the camera pans down through the clouds, to the ocean, and then beneath it, past the oddly intact but sunken remains of New Otherton, passing by the Dharma Shark -- Ezra James Sharkington -- before stopping in front of the remains of old Four-Toes' foot. And remember, I said sunken remains, so THIS IS ALL UNDER THE WATER. Dun, dun, dun. DUN! Black screen. Title card.
Theme Song!
Now, one thing that's brilliant about this show is that you look like an ass if you nitpick -- because how can you nitpick this insanity? So heehaw and this isn't a nitpick so much as a question blah blah blah donkey-cakes. But...if the original flight 815 was 1,000 miles off course when it crashed, why is this flight from Sydney to L.A. flying over the sunken remains of the island? Or is it not? Or did the sunken remains drift? If the Jughead bomb caused the island to (and possibly drift), how did the buildings, swing-set, fence and all manner of stuff remain intact? I mean, I saw upright, green trees under there, y'all. When Locke moved the island, did he move it through space as well as time, but if so, why didn't season 5 play out under water? If he did move it through space, how was Eloise Hawking's magic
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