Lost – “LA X”

“It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is progress.”

In 2004, Oceanic Flight 815 took off from Sydney, Australia bound for LAX. A couple hours into the flight it hit turbulence and then…well, as with everything else on this show, its complicated.

After eight months of stormy agonizing and stressed-out deliberating over what happened after Juliet smashed the bomb with a rock, Lost picked up its sixth and final season with another in a long series of meta-jokes: a peaceful, zen-like shot of clouds. “Just relax everyone,” said Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, “we got this.”

I’ll confess that despite putting up a brave face here a little earlier, I was nervous heading into “LA X.” It seems like the Lost fanbase is uniquely angst-ridden amongst television fanbases – we’re always concerned about whether there’s a plan, or if the writers are going to be able to execute everything the way they want it to be executed, or if suddenly, out of nowhere, we’re going to get another hour of Bai Ling and Jack’s tattoos. Add to that the Phantom Menace levels of hype and the fact that Lost’s season premieres haven’t typically been their strongest episodes and…well its enough to make a guy cling to his airplane-seat armrests. But I’m relieved and excited to report that “LA X” was everything I hoped it would be. It deftly initiated an endgame that moved at a brisker pace than I think any of us really thought it would while also introducing a rather shocking new form of storytelling and showing that, even at this late point, Lost isn’t afraid to rupture our realities.

And the plural of reality is a good place to start, since we began the season with a peek into an alternate timeline: one where Jack’s plan worked, the island was nuked, and Oceanic 815 never crashed. But that’s not all that’s different. Charlie isn’t sprinting down the aisle, Jack is less chatty to Cindy, and Rose is the one who is calming Jack down. Jack gets up and goes to the bathroom to find that he’s got a little blood on his neck and, when he gets back, he has a new seatmate…Desmond Hume! This all built to the mindblowing shot of The Island, sunk deep underwater.

See, blowing up the island didn’t just cause 815 to crash, it seems to have had a wide range of effects that the show mostly teased at, but were highly intriguing nonetheless (somewhat like season 5, where the two hour premiere focused mainly on the off-island action while easing us into the time travel portion of the narrative). Hurley is still a lotto winner, but now he has nothing but good luck; Boone still went to Australia to get Shannon, but she didn’t want to go back with him; Charlie’s still doing drugs, but he also nearly choked to death on a bag of heroin he was trying to swallow (and Jack’s still there to save Charlie’s life…but Charlie was still “supposed to die”). Our heroes were (mostly) still on the plane, but how have their lives changed without the island? And what will they do now that they’ve never crashed?

We’ll get back to that, but there was a whole lot of stuff happening on the island that we need to download. This year’s storytelling conceit is a parallel universes type thing: in one, the bomb causes the plane to never crash, but in the other, it simply causes or contributes to the incident…and sends the Losties back to the present day.

Unfortunately, that means we had to go through watching Juliet die all over again. Elizabeth Mitchell has been a real asset to the show, and especially in the last season, Juliet emerged as one of the strongest characters so it was really sad to see her die. Despite the gang’s attempts to save her, she was too far gone to make it, although not before getting one last moment with Sawyer and trying to tell him…something. She dies before she can tell him, so a grief-stricken Sawyer makes Miles tell him what she wanted to say, which turns out to be “it worked.”

So what is the relationship between these two universes? Was Juliet just loopy and near-death? Or is there something more going here? Given how much Lost is about shades of gray and complex, hard-to-grasp truths, I’m inclined to shy away from any theory that says either universe is the “real” one (and, from a dramatic standpoint, doesn’t it lower the stakes significantly if one of the storylines we’re following turns out to be an entirely hypothetical one). This, I imagine, will be the big question that season six turns on, and I’m excited to see where it goes.

But meanwhile, there were all sorts of big mythological answers flying around. Hurley, who can still see dead people, has a run-in with newly-dead Jacob, who tells him that he needs to take Sayid to the Temple (with the help of Jin, who visited there when he was hanging out with Rousseau) if there’s any chance to save him. They explore the caves until some mysterious people knock out our heroes and take them to the Temple…which pretty much looked like a Temple. There a whole bunch of Others that we’ve never really seen before have congregated; along with Cindy and the kids from 815 who were abducted!

Running things there seemed to be a rather serious Asian man and lanky dude named Lennon. They’re about to kill our heroes when Hurley tells them to open the guitar case that Jacob gave him. Inside is an ankh, which they break in half to reveal some kind of set of instructions from Jacob (knowing Jacob, its probably a list). They take Sayid to dip him into their healing pool (the water inside, however, is no longer clear), but it doesn’t work and Sayid appears to remain dead.

Meanwhile, things at the statue have taken a dark turn. Locke/the Man in Black tells Ben to go out and get Richard, but since they all know that Locke isn’t actually Locke, they refuse (and Ben finally gets to see Locke’s body). Bram and the other shadow of the statue people (who aren’t Ilana) go instead, and things get ugly when they try to shoot MiB, who disappears, only to return a moment later as The Smoke Monster! He then promptly kills all of those people and, in a really awesome moment, apologizes to Ben for “having to see me like that.”

Over the course of the two hours we learned that MiB and Smokey are one and the same, that he (he’s a who, not a what) and Jacob are old friends, but MiB got tired of Jacob (at least, that’s Jacob’s side of the story), and that MiB just wants to leave the island. That last bit comes out in an especially awesome scene that once again showcased how great Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emerson are together (especially devastating was MiB’s line about Locke’s last thought).

Meanwhile, back in the alternate reality, Oceanic 815 lands at LAX, but things aren’t exactly peachy for the Losties. Jack’s dad’s coffin has gone missing and no one at Oceanic can seem to figure out where it is, which is going to make for one awkward funeral. Meanwhile, Kate immediately launches another escape plan, knocking out the Marshall and sneaking through the airport (with a bit of an assist from Sawyer, who clearly sees that she’s up to something, but also clearly sees that she’s very hot and stalls the airport security guys for a second) before ultimately hijiking a cab and taking the driver and the stunned passenger hostage. That passenger? Claire Littleton, making her triumpahnt Lost return! As that was happening, Jin and Sun get stopped by customs, who find that Jin is carrying way more money than he should be and send him off for further questioning (Sun, if she spoke English and wanted to help Jin, could have. Which half of that statement prevented her from doing so?).

But perhaps the most intriguing part of the new timeline was Jack and Locke, meeting again for the first time. Locke, despite telling Boone that he went on the walkabout (which may or may not be true), is still in the wheelchair. What’s interesting about their conversation is the subtle role reversal: Locke is the realist who doesn’t think its worth even getting his hopes up for a miracle, while Jack believes that maybe he can still fix Locke. What’s interesting about this is that it perfectly gels with their pre-crash personalities (Jack is trying to fix everything, Locke is too beaten down to believe he can be fixed), and yet it is Jack who is trying to get Locke to take a leap of faith. And I get the feeling that Locke may do exactly that.

Back at the statue, Locke and Ben emerge, and Ilana seems ready to shoot the hell out of everyone, but Richard stops her. Then he recognizes MiB, who makes a comment about Richard being out of his chains before beating the crap out of him.

And, at the Temple, Hurley lets everybody know that Jacob is dead. The ashline is drawn, Sawyer and Miles are ushered inside and reunited with the rest of the time travelers, and, oh yeah, Sayid comes back to life (as alternaJack says to alternaLocke, “nothing’s irreversible”)!

I enjoyed pretty much every second of “LA X,” which did a really great job of setting things up for the rest of season six, while also peeling back the layers of mythology and starting to give us some big picture answers. But the biggest question of this season isn’t going to be “What is the Smoke Monster” or “Why is Richard Alpert ageless.” Instead its all about our crew of Losties. Why them? Are they just pawns in a game that is too big for them to comprehend. Like Locke, are they doomed die with understanding why? Or, do they have the ability to change things and control their own destiny? I can’t wait to find out.

Jonah’s Score: 92

Tangled Up in Wires Grade: A

Some Theorizing:

-Let’s start with the parallel timelines. The obvious takeaway is that a world in which the island isn’t around to cause 815 to crash causes a lot of other changes in the lives of the Losties. Everything is still basically the same – Locke’s paralyzed, Kate’s a fugitive, etc – but the details…we’ll have to see about those.

-Also interesting that, for at least Desmond and Shannon, the island’s presence affects whether or not they were even on 815.

-In case anyone’s interested, someone edited together the first couple of minutes of “LA X” with the scene that matches it from the “Pilot.” Here’s the video.

-Could anyone tell if Claire was still pregnant?

-One other thing to think about with regards to Jack’s plan: just because we saw the island underwater doesn’t necessarily mean that it was the nuke that sunk it. Is it possible that something else caused that to happen? And, either way, there sure were a lot of people on that island who probably died as a result of that nuke.

-What do you guys think about the parallel timelines? Are they totally parallel? Or do they somehow co-exist with each other?

-Does MiB’s line about Richard in chains confirm the long-standing fan theory that Richard was on the Black Rock? And could that mean MiB is the man who was captain of that ship…Magnus Hanso? Honestly, I thought that both the theory that Richard was on the Black Rock and that the Hansos were somehow super important was just silly fan theorizing, but I’m starting to rethink that position.

-Also, it seems my earlier theory about Jacob and MiB was wrong…oh well.

-How cool was it to see inside the Temple? Anyone have any thoughts on the pool of water? Maybe Jacob is a manifestation of the island’s healing capabilities, while MiB is a manifestation of its electromagnetic properties?

-I’m going to keep calling the Man in Black MiB until we find out what his actual name is, but I could be talked into switching to calling him UnLocke if he keeps using Locke’s body.

-My friend who I watched the episode with thinks that the revived Sayid is actually going to be Jacob in Sayid’s body.

-Anyone have any theories about why it was called “LA X” (with the space)? I like the Lostpedia creators’ theory that its a reference to the notion of people as variables.

-If you get a chance be sure to check out this interview with Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. It doesn’t tell you too much, but it at least points you in the direction of what questions to ask.

-Finally, just to let you know, this is just the beginning of our Lost coverage. We plan to have a collection of theories and reactions from around the web up tomorrow at some point. Then, each Thursday or Friday, check back here for a TUIW Conversation where Mike and I, after having a couple days to digest everything, will work together to more thoroughly unpack the episodes.

-And if you don’t like Lost (and yet, for some reason, have read all the way down to here), don’t worry. We’ll still be posting about music, movies, other TV shows, and whatever else we feel like just like usual.