OK Friends of Lost, you’re going to have to prepare yourself this season for some delayed recaps from Marge. I know. It is horrible, but life is hard and you don’t always get what you want. And to those of you who are dissatisfied by this, I say the following: you obviously never sat in the car in the driveway of your house as an adolescent for 45 minutes waiting to leave on a family “vacation” (read: camping in a tent and fighting mosquitoes) while your father discovered several last-minute activities that he had not thought of the day before that had to be done or else the world as you knew it would end, so you sat there, squished in the back seat of a Ford Ltd Crown Victoria with your sisters and a box of crayons and an ugly pink elephant and three pillows and three security blankets and three sets of very skinny elbows all over the place, and there goes dad across the yard with a bucket of water and then he appears with a rake—which was my dad’s nice way of saying “SUCH IS LIFE, SUCK ON IT.”
Back to the subject at hand: I’m struggling with what to say about the 2-hour premiere of Lost. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent the last 8 months deprived of critical thinking skills, which obviously I don’t use in my real life, or maybe my heart is still recovering from watching a certain someone flop around the screen like a raggedy doll, to which I say:
Dear Family Reyes: Please handle The Sexy with care. Also, Dear Team Darlton: Thank you for bringing The Sexy back into my sad, sorry life, also known as Winter. Finally, Dear Jack Shephard: Thank you for reviving The Sexy—and for shaving, finally. No wonder Kate didn’t call you: she thought you were still sporting that abomination. It was gross, but it is gone now, and please don’t ever grow it back.
And now for my thoughts. Overall, I wasn’t blown away by the premiere. There was no cha-ching! moment for me; there was no great feeling of satisfaction at 11 p.m. However, I think Team Darlton took a few blatant (admitting to time travel) and several subtle pieces of the puzzle and laid them out for us. Here are some of my thoughts:
A Skipping Record. I love how Team Dartlon will wind a theme through the seasons. They do this better than any other TV show I’ve seen. First, our opening scene gave us a fellow getting out of bed and putting some Willie on the turntable. The fellow turns out to be Marvin Candle: Family Man, Television Personality, and Bowel-of-the-Earth Scientist. His few minutes on screen left me with many questions, but I will only ask this series here: The baby he was feeding—was it born on the island? Was it possible for babies to be born on the island at one point? Did the release of energy from the special wheel somehow prevent women from having babies on the island? Because from what Mr. Candle said, it didn’t seem like the energy had yet to be released, that the special ladder to the wheel had yet been created.
Second, Faraday, still in need of a bowl of pasta smothered in heavy cream sauce, described the island as a skipping record, which was obvious from the multiple flashes that our Losties went through. I think I counted four (correct me if I’m wrong): the first jumped back to pre-camp days, then ahead to post–hatch destruction, then back to “Brotha, I only wear Hazmat when I leave the house” days, and finally to pre-Juliet’s arrival on the island, a time when punishment for not carrying the proper ID was a swift off-with-her-hand. And although this was not mentioned, were the jumps happening every 108 minutes? Furthermore, are the Losties now the only ones who can jump time? Ageless Richard seemed to suggest to John that he was staying put in his current time frame and that John was the one jumping around. Did the exit of the O6 shake things up this greatly? Will their return put the island back in order, you know, as orderly as a whacked-out, acid-trip of an island can be?
Seventy Hours. When Ms. Hawking, the least positive player on the scene (you know, Jack shaved the beard, so at least he’s moving in the right direction!), told Ben that they had 70 hours, I think she meant 70 LA hours, which leads me to wonder if the O6 story this season will be encompassed in the 70 hours between Ben lighting a prayer candle and the O6 returning to the island. Whereas the time frame for the Losties back on the island could be totally different. I mean, these folks have the distinct possibility of ending up back in the 1840s, manning the Black Rock and having a swashbuckling good time.
Brief things I’d like to mention: Best Example of Advice Taken Seriously: Sayid to Hurley: “Whatever Ben tells you, do the opposite.” Hurley then throwing his Hot Pocket at Ben and running gladly into the arms of the police rather than follow that man’s directions.
-Best Quote: Hurley to Sayid: “Maybe if you ate more comfort food, you wouldn’t have to go around shooting people.”
-Best Blast from the Past: Ana Lucia as a traffic cop.
-Did anyone else think that one of the officers who came to Hurley’s house was Abaddon?
-Large Marge Theory of the Week: Daniel Faraday’s mother I think is Ms. Hawking. I mean, doesn’t she look like someone who would hold back food as a punishment for her children?
As always, please share your thoughts, and here’s to hoping that the O6, Ben, and Locke in a coffin come roaring back to the island in a DeLorean. Now that would be sweet indeed.