Monaghan got lost after 'Rings,' then found 'Lost'

[Anfauglir]

According to my listings there will be a recap from 8:00 to 9:00 and then the two hour premier. Can't wait.

[mik]

It's back tomorrow!!!

[lithorose]

Oh yeah...

Lost.

I have acquaintance that have recently gotten into the show, and they're super-excited, but it's been so long since I've seen any I have trouble keeping up with them. Maybe that'll change once it actually starts.

[Anfauglir]

For some strange reason my wife (who works nights) was given tomorrow night off so that means that I don't even have to wait until the weekend to watch it. Woo hoo!

[Lembas]

Watched it and really enjoyed it. At least one big question was answered, that being:

SPOILER!:

"is the man in the black that is Jacob's foe really the Smoke Monster?" and yes he is! But another question raised, "who is he really and what's 'home' that he wants to go to?"

And a big question was raised and that is:

SPOILER!:

"What's the deal with us seeing our castaways on the plane and at LAX and on the island in the here-and-now (at least the show's 'here-and-now')?" Are they split between realities now? I hope not because I was really hoping that most of this season would be island-bound. I know that's probably too much to ask.

I have an idea about

SPOILER!:

why Sayid came back to life but I'll wait and see what everybody else says.

What did everybody think?

EDIT: Here's a conversation concerning tonight's show and a mini-overview of what the season's about from the producers (I edited out some ramblings from the writer for the sake of space):

SPOILER!:

If you’ve seen the season premiere of Lost (final SPOILER ALERT now!), you now know the hush-hush new storytelling device for the final season is this whole notion of parallel worlds. We were presented with two of them: one in which Oceanic 815 never crashed; and another that keeps continuity with the past five years of Lost having all the characters trapped in the Dharma Initiative past magically uploaded to the Island present of 2007 where the Jacob-Fake Locke-Ben drama is all going down. I’ll have a lot more to say on this tomorrow AM in my recap. But before then, I bring you news from two guys who you probably MOST want to hear from right now: Lost exec producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. My “Totally Lost” partner Dan Snierson and I sat down with them to talk about the year’s”flash-sideways” storytelling device. Jokes Damon Lindelof: “You [had] all these fundamental mysteries going into season 6. What’s the Monster? What’s the Island? Why is Richard Alpert not able to age? But here’s this new mystery. How dare they! How dare they present us with a new mystery at this late stage in the game!” Fortunately, here are the producers to offer some assurance of answers and provide some helpful context for season 6. EW: The whole idea of flash-sideways and the plan to use season 6 to show us a world where Oceanic 815 never crashed — how long has that been in the works? Why did you want to do it? DAMON LINDELOF: It’s been in play for at least a couple of years. We knew that the ending of the time travel season was going to be an attempt to reboot. And as a result, we [knew] the audience was going to come out of the “do-over moment” thinking we were either going start over or just say it didn’t work and continue on. [We thought] wouldn’t it be great if we did both? That was the origin of the story. CARLTON CUSE: We thought just doing one [of those options] would inherently not be satisfying. Since the very beginning of the show, characters started crossing through each other’s stories. Part of our desire [in season 6] is to show that there’s still this kind of weave, that these characters still would have impacted each other’s lives even without the event of crashing on the Island. Obviously, the big question of the season is going to be: How do these [two timelines] reconcile? However, for the fans who have not watched the show closely, that’s an intact narrative. You can just watch the flash sideways — they stand alone all by themselves. For the fans who are more deeply embedded in the show, you can watch those flash sideways, compare them to what transpired in the flashbacks and go, “Oh, that’s an interesting difference.” LINDELOF: Right out of the gate, in the first five minutes of the premiere, you get hit over the head with two things that you’re not expecting. The first is that Desmond is on the plane. The second thing that we do is we drop out of the plane and we go below the water and we see that the Island is submerged. What we’re trying to do there is basically say to you, “God bless the survivors of Oceanic 815, because they’re so self-centered, they thought the only effect [of detonating the bomb] was going to be that their plane never crashes.” But they don’t stop to think, “If we do this in 1977, what else is going to affected by this?” So that their entire lives can be changed radically. In fact, it would appear that they’ve sunken the Island. That’s our way of saying, “Keep your eyes peeled for the differences that you’re not expecting.” Some of these characters were still in Australia, but some weren’t. Shannon’s not there. Boone actually says that he tried to get her back. There are all sorts of other people that we don’t see. Where’s Libby? Where’s Ana Lucia? Where’s Eko? These are all the things that you’re supposed to be thinking about. When our characters posited the “What if?” scenario, they neglected to think about what the other effects of potentially changing time might be and we’re embracing those things. That said, are you saying definitively that detonating Jughead was the event that created this new timeline? Or is that a mystery which the season 6 story will reveal? LINDELOF: It’s a mystery. A big one. CUSE: We did have some concern that it might be confusing kind of going into the season. To clear that up a little bit: The archetypes of the characters are the same and that’s the most significant thing. Kate is still a fugitive. If you were to look at the Comic-Con video, for instance, that now comes into play. There was a different scenario in that story. She basically blew up an apprentice plumber as opposed to killing her biological father/stepfather. Those kind of differences exist, but who the characters fundamentally are is the same. If it becomes too confusing for you, you can just follow the flash sideways for what they are. It’s not as though there’s narrative that hangs on the fact that you need to know that this event was different in that world, in the flashback world versus the sideways world. That’s not critical for being able to process the narrative this season. Is there a relationship between Island reality and sideways reality? Will they run parallel for the remainder of the season? Will they fuse together? Might one fade away? LINDELOF: For us, the big risk that we’re taking in the final season of the show is basically this very question. [Lindelof then explains the show has replaced the trademark “whoosh!” sound effect marking the segue between Island present story and flashbacks or flash-forwards, thus calling conspicuous attention to the relationship between the Island world and the Sideways world.] This is the critical mystery of the season, which is, “What is the relationship between these two shows?” And we don’t use the phrase “alternate reality,” because to call one of them an “alternate reality” is to infer that one of them isn’t real, or one of them is real and the other is the alternate to being real. CUSE: But the questions you’re asking are exactly the right questions. What are we to make of the fact that they’re showing us two different timelines? Are they going to resolve? Are they going to connect? Are they going to co-exist in parallel fashion? Are they going to cross? Do they intersect? Does one prove to be viable and the other one not? I think those are all the kind of speculations that are the right speculations to be having at this point in the season. LINDELOF: But it is going to require patience. We’ve taught the audience how to be patient thus far, so while they’re getting a lot of mythological answers on the island early in the season, this idea of what is the relationship between the two [worlds] is a little bit more of a slow burn. Did Jughead really sink the Island? And is it possible that the Sideways characters are now caught in a time loop in which they might have to go back in time and fulfill the obligation to continuity by detonating the bomb? LINDELOF: These questions will be dealt with on the show. Should you infer that the detonation of Jughead is what sunk the island? Who knows? But there’s the Foot. What do you get when you see that shot? It looks like New Otherton got built. These little clues [might help you] extrapolate when the Island may have sunk. Start to think about it. A couple of episodes down the road, some of the characters might even discuss it. We will say this: season 6 is not about time travel. It’s about the implications, the aftermath, and the causality of trying to change the past. But the idea of continuing to do paradoxical storytelling is not what we’re interested in this year.

Okay, I can't stand it! I totally think

SPOILER!:

Jacob has taken over Sayid's body.

[Green Man]

Great article, Lembas, thanks! What's the source?

I like the idea of what they're doing a lot! It's going to be quite a final season.

SPOILER!:

I had a similar thought about Sayyid.

[Lady Haleth]

Me too

SPOILER!:

(about Sayid). I'm glad he's alive and all, but I really hope this doesn't come down to "this has all happened before (Jacob vs Nemesis) and will all happen again (Sayid vs Fake Locke).

Thanks for posting that conversation, Lembas. It makes more sense now about where the writers are going. I like it (I think). I was shouting a lot of those questions at the tv myself. (Such as,

SPOILER!:

why is Desmond on the plane and not Libbie or Eko?

) It was great seeing a lot of the old cast, even people we barely knew (like

SPOILER!:

Artz and Cindy

). And we are finally getting answers to old questions even as new ones come up. I think I may watch again for more cool details. Did anyone else notice the Dharma shark at the beginning?

SPOILER!:

RIP Juliet.

Some pretty fantastic acting last night, especially Holloway and O'Quinn.

[Babidi Buu]

By golly! How could they be so cruel!?

SPOILER!:

So happy to see Juliet alive.. And she dies on us!! I hope Kate doesn't brown nose on Sawyer. "Know that im always with you Jack." Pssh, we all know how long that lasts..

SPOILER!:

YES! Merry is back! Err, Charlie.. But how long? I was happy to see him back, but i didn't expect his grand return to be like that..

And im as stumped as everyone else about

SPOILER!:

Desmond being on the plane.

SPOILER!:

Boy, i sure wouldn't be caught dead going in that water! Err, no pun intended..

SPOILER!:

Is it me, or with the whole Plane not crashing scenerio, do things seem worse for characters like Kate, Charlie, Clare and some of the other survivers?

[Green Man]

Yes it seems like the point of this whole "flash-sideways" thing for the rest of the season is

SPOILER!:

to show that their lives would have gone horribly wrong, and none of them would ever find redemption, but that fate is still intertwining them, as seems to be happening.

The question is, which reality is, well, "real?" Or, are both of them?

I love how each season has come up with a different theme, a different narrative technique. Truly, some brilliant story-telling.

I will greatly lament the end of this series, but it looks like it's going to go out on top, as it should. I admire them for having the integrity to end it, and do so while it is still strong, instead of milking it for 3 or 4 more years and having it lose all of its strength and power.

[lithorose]

I'm ready for this to be the last season, actually. It's been a blast, but you can only stretch out a show as tense and intricate as this one so long before you start to lose people.

Good observation about Sayid, Lembas. It would be interesting!

Kudos to all the actors on the show, and to the writers for being able to weave such a story even if they still tend to give us rather improbable situations

SPOILER!:

such as how long they spent at the Swan site when Sayid was clearly minutes from death, and why Jacob couldn't guide Hurley to the temple on his own, stuff like that.

They're both real.

SPOILER!:

Makes me wonder if the entire season isn't some "Lady or the Tiger?" which will leave fans to argue which is better.

[Tim Benzedrine]

Originally Posted by lithorose

I'm ready for this to be the last season, actually. It's been a blast, but you can only stretch out a show as tense and intricate as this one so long before you start to lose people.

[/s]

Yup. If they tried to stretch it out any further, they'd end up in an X-Files situation. That was another show that built an intriguing mythology that ultimately collapsed on itself because it seemed that they really did not bother to plan it all the way through. And Lost would probably be in even greater danger of doing the same if they tried to push it too far. In fact, I won't be shocked if it is not too late already. Can they really tie in all the mysteries they proposed from day one?

[mik]

I'm not even going to ask any questions anymore, or try to figure anything out. I'm just going to enjoy the crazy ride.

[Lady Haleth]

That's probably the wisest course, mik.

[Lembas]

Sorry, it was an article from Entertainment Weekly's website. It's what I get from posting so late/early!

Lady Haleth, I don't know if you realized it but you've quoted from both

SPOILER!:

Battlestar Galactica and Heroes with "but I really hope this doesn't come down to "this has all happened before (Jacob vs Nemesis) and will all happen again (Sayid vs Fake Locke)."

I'm watching it again right now with my wife and she's picking up stuff right away that I had to think about or see for the second time. How does she do that? Oh, that's right---she doesn't type while watching television at the same time.

One reason I think that

SPOILER!:

Sayid has got Jacob in him, is that the hippy-looking dude that is the Japanese guy's "second-in-command" said, referring to the paper, "It says, if your friend here dies, we're all in a lot of trouble." Leading me to believe that Jacob told them that he was going to take over Sayid's body. But that would mean that he saw everything coming when he gave Hugo the guitar case and planted the note in the case way back then.

In which case we should just do what mik says and enjoy the crazy ride. Either way, it's all good.

However, I'm going over to Entertainment Weekly's site and read Jeff "Doc" Jensen's take on the episode. It's always fun and he always takes things really too far, but notices a lot of stuff I don't.

Two last things for now:

SPOILER!:

Claire was in the cab that Kate hijacked. Does that mean she was on the plane also?

And, how about

SPOILER!:

the pencil-necked geek that berated Kate for trying to nab his taxi? Remember him from last season when he got the flaming arrow-kebab? This second time watching it, I noticed that he was on the plane, sitting between Boone and Locke, albeit with a sleeping mask over his eyes.

[Tim Benzedrine]

I didn't notice myself., but somebody on another board said that they thought that the cab driver was Doyle, the puppet-master guy from Heroes.

If that's true, not only did the bomb cause them to cross realities, it caused them to cross networks!

Come to think of it, that could make two interesting shows even MORE interesting. All that would be left to do is somehow introduce the cast of Chuck into the mix and we would then have the perfect show. Wait! Not quite. Stir in Buffy the Vampire Slayer first. THEN we'd have the perfect show.

[Túrin Turambar]

I've got it! "Jacob" is really Gandalf the Grey,

SPOILER!:

Sayid is now Gandalf the White

and The Man in Black is Sauron!

Or

Jacob is Treebeard and The Man in Black is Saruman!

On second thought, maybe I should follow Mik's advice...

[lithorose]

I quit theorizing a couple of seasons ago. The writers double back on themselves too much to accurately predict anything.

Can they really tie in all the mysteries they proposed from day one?

I think they'll solve it at least reasonably well. There'll probably be a few red herrings left, but the pieces are falling into place better than I expected.

Re: Sayid-

SPOILER!:

Does that mean they really, really killed Sayid to get his body for Jacob?

And Hi Turin!

[Lady Haleth]

If by "they" you mean the writers, yeah. Then again

SPOILER!:

"they" really, really killed Locke too.

Lembas, yes, that "before... again" quote was deliberate.

[Imahobbitgirl2]

Haven't been on in a while. Sorry. Ummm, hey.

I won't go much into my take on the premiere, but I will say one word, to quote our friend Hurley: "Duuuuude."

SPOILER!:

Jacob has taken over Sayid's body? That's an interesting theory, which does seem to make sense, but what about Christian Shephard? My theory from the very beginning was that Jacob has taken over Christian Shephard's body. If Jacob isn't Christian, then who's Christian? Why is he back to life? And will we ever see him again on the Island? (I do believe that in the -- what are we calling it now, flash-sideways? -- they couldn't find his body is because he somehow materialized on the Island because that's where he needed to be, and he's now underwater.) Or is he like Richard and is immortal?

LOL, I like your theory, Turin!

Interesting to see my dear beloved Charlie again (though, I know that he'd cut his hair but they couldn't have given him a wig? I like him with longer hair.)

SPOILER!:

though I was surprised that he said he was supposed to die. Did he want to kill himself? Is that why Desmond was there? (He did disappear after Jack had returned to his seat after saving Charlie's life and nobody had seen where he went.

This looks to be the final season to end all final seasons!

[Lembas]

Lembas, yes, that "before... again" quote was deliberate.

Okay, but was

SPOILER!:

calling the man-in-Black by the name of "Nemesis" deliberate? Just asking because that's what Hiro on "Heroes" called the girl who could run very fast, and whose name I cannot remember because although I still like "Heroes," it never reached even a quarter of the potential that Lost has.

Ima, I'm kind of thinking that

SPOILER!:

Christian is maybe not good. It really seemed that way when Locke visited Jacob's cabin and Christian and Claire were there, and they didn't seem to be acting very "nice" at all---not mean, but creepy, ya know? I was thinking maybe that the MIB had taken over dead Christian's body and when he saw Locke, he saw a more suitable shell for his spirit/smokiness/whatever. It seems Jacob is far-thinking, but is the MIB? Maybe he could see far enough to know that Locke was going to die somehow. He, as the Smoke Monster, can scan people's thoughts seemingly, so maybe when he scanned Ben (right before appearing as Alex, his daughter) he fixed on Ben's murderous intent on Locke? Wasn't Ben already off the island, having turned the Donkey Wheel? And didn't Locke turn it again, at Christian's behest? I really can't remember what came first. I remember Ben definitely doing it, then Locke doing it with a broken leg, but I honestly can't remember at this moment which came first. I'm thinking Ben. But then that begs the question of why Christian would send both of them off the island, when MIB could wait for Ben to kill Locke on the island? Oh yeah, Ben tried, and Locke wouldn't die! Maybe MIB knew that Locke couldn't die on the island so he arranged for them both to leave so Ben could do it in the "real world."

I don't know! My brain hurts. But it's still fun to guess.

As for Sayid,

SPOILER!:

maybe he will live in the "sideways universe" and stay dead on the island. And maybe Jack will perform surgery and heal Locke in the "sideways universe." Some will be redeemed there and some won't, maybe. Maybe real Locke will resurrect on the island...but, if the healing waters, which may give the island its healing power, are tainted, then maybe Locke won't come back to life on the island. Maybe some things they do in the alt-universe will affect what happens on the island or vice-versa. Too early to tell.

But the producers have hinted

SPOILER!:

that the island underwater maybe doesn't have to happen. They said there will be no time-travelling this last season, so they can't prevent the sinking that way. But I believe they did hint that the sinking doesn't have to happen or affect what's going on the island right now. I have no idea what they're talking about on this one.

I just can't wait to see them write their way out of that one!

[Lady Haleth]

LOL, your speculation is making me dizzy.

As for Nemesis, I used that term because the show has never referred to the man in black as "Esau," but in the recap they called him "Jacob's nemesis."

So who was Christian off the island? Was that Jacob trying to lure Jack back? What about the various dead people Hugo saw last season? Esau can't leave the island, but did he project images to off-islanders?

I wonder if we'll see Ben off island now.

[Imahobbitgirl2]

I still think Jacob can leave the Island in some for or another. And I believe he took every form that Hurley and Jack saw to get them back on the Island (not to mention the dream Kate had about Claire). Why, I have no idea, but Jacob probably needs all of them to help with this upcoming war.

I don't know where Ben stands in all this, but I'm hoping what with discovering that he was just a pawn for Anti-Locke he might decide to fight for Jacob's side. I still think that if Christian isn't Jacob, he's at least on his side. I wonder who else, besides Anti-Locke, is on the other guy's side?

[lithorose]

If Tim can embed YouTube videos, I can too...

maybe.



Ha! Glad no one saw that one in the works, or you'd all be laughing!

[Lady Haleth]

LOL, not bad.

Apparently the toy maker hates Matthew Fox. What a dumb expression on his face.

[Imahobbitgirl2]

Do the LOTR one next!

[Lembas]

That was funny, lithorose!

Lady Haleth, sorry I made you dizzy---I gave myself a headache trying to think it through!

What did everyone think of the latest episode, "What Kate Does." Well,

SPOILER!:

Sayid did come back, so I'm trying to remember why I thought that maybe he'd stay dead on the island?

And if

SPOILER!:

he is "infected" as the new guys have said, why did Jacob send him to the Temple? Some have theorized that it wasn't Jacob but Not-Locke/MIB that appeared in Jacob form. I don't think so because he was busy with all his business back at the statue.

And if Claire is

SPOILER!:

"infected" as they've said, why did she show up looking all like Danielle at the end, but halfway normal? When real Locke encountered her with Christian at Jacob's cabin, she was definitely all smirky and acting weird, nothing, seemingly like she was at the end of this episode.

Maybe

SPOILER!:

Claire is like Danielle, in that she's all paranoid now, not knowing who to trust, and that's enough for the new Others to call her "infected." Maybe they mean she's "affected" by her time with Smokey, if he was hiding out in Christian's body. Not really evil, but difficult to trust. Either way, I liked that Claire has essentially taken Rousseau's role on the island.

Very unexpected.

How about Kate

SPOILER!:

doing something redeemable back in the sideways universe? Maybe we will see everyone (the main Losties) do that after all.

But the biggest "What?" for me was

SPOILER!:

Ethan showing up as Claire's doctor. Shouldn't he still be on the island, no matter what? I'm confused. I know once Flight 815 made it past the "crash" zone, they showed the island sunk. I wonder if that means that in the alt-universe, even the bad peoples' fates have changed or at least what they were doing.

Interesting and mind-boggling.

[Lady Haleth]

I think you are right about

SPOILER!:

the lives of the Others being changed by the bomb too. Ethan Goodspeed was evacuated before the incident and apparently grew up to be a nice guy in the alt universe. He can't be on the island because there is no island in this universe. Wonder what that means for Ben if his father never took him to the island?

I agree that

SPOILER!:

Claire doesn't seem "claimed" any more than Danielle was, although it's hard to judge from the quick glimpse we got of her. So the "sickness" = "claimed by Smokey?" What happened to Claire between the time we saw her in the cabin and now? I guess she didn't jump around in time like the rest of the Losties.

Going back to last year and the flashback we saw of Danielle and her crew. Smokey was inhabiting the temple back then. He pulled the one French guy into the hole. So how did Dogen and the Others gain possession of the temple? Did they wait for Smokey to go for a walk then surrounded the place with ash? But then Smokey appeared as himself and as Alex to Ben under the temple, so maybe it still holds that Smokey is forbidden to kill the Others? But anyone else is fair game? I hope the writers have this all sorted out and will give us answers soon.

[Lembas]

I wonder if Smokey was actually inhabiting the Temple itself or just dwelling beneath it, in the tunnels. Perhaps the Others (Dogen and Lennon and Co.) kept Smokey out of the Temple proper with the ash. I remember that to call Smokey, Ben emptied some drain in the tunnels, and that somehow called Smokey. I hope they lay it all out.

[Lembas]

For those of you who have read and enjoyed them, here's another brain-twisting recap of Tuesday's episode of Lost, from Jeff "Doc" Jensen, the resident Lost/mythology expert at Entertainment Weekly. Warning: this sucker is eight pages long! But it's never dull, and some of the stuff he theorizes about on "What Kate Does" (the episode) actually make you think.

But before you read (or don't) the recap, I've heard a great big rumor involving Hurley that I'm definitely going to have to put in spoilers:

SPOILER!:

Cynthia Watros, who played Libbey, Hurley's almost-love before her death, is coming back to the show for a short period and says that she's very glad they gave her a chance to perform the material she did with Jorge Garcia. Some have theorized that in the Sideways Universe, Libby and Hurley are married, hence his saying, "I'm the luckiest guy in the world." I think that would be totally cool.

Anyhoo, here's the recap link:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,2031...343202,00.html

[Imahobbitgirl2]

Sorry it took me so long to comment on last week's ep, but I just couldn't think of anything to say about it. It seemed like such a letdown after the exciting premiere. I did, however, wonder about Claire and Sayid.

Oh, and Lady,

SPOILER!:

Ben was already on the Island when the Incident happened. I'm wondering if he was evacuated with the other kids and if he was, what's he like now in the alternate universe? Heck, I wonder where the Others are now? Did they drown when the Island sunk? Was Daniel even born? Was Penny? Is Juliet still alive since she never went to the Island? Where is she now?

WILL THEY STOP GIVING US QUESTIONS AND ANSWER THEM ALREADY!!!

SPOILER!:

Anti-Locke ep tonight! Hope we get some answers as to who and what he is and WHAT THE CRUD IS GOING ON!