Lost - "The Beginning of the End"

Lost is definitely back. I was a little worried after how the last season started out, and I needn't have been. As always, the first hour of the "premier event" was a recap episode to re-familiarize us with the events of the first three seasons. Some people dismiss or even dislike them, but I always enjoy seeing everything laid out in a different order from how they were aired. Links between people and/or events wind up highlighted, sometimes in ways I hadn't seen before. Plus, it's been such a long time since the last season ended that I flat didn't remember everything that was going on. I'll definitely need to get ahold of the third season DVDs to refresh all of the details of the season. I didn't really get anything new from the recap, but it did get me back into the Lost-watching mood. I'd forced myself to forget over the months how much I enjoy watching the show. Now, let's get on to the premier episode. Spoilers, obviously, will follow: Let's just start with a big sigh of relief. Instead of dipping back into the love-triangle-centric themes of the early part of last season. Instead we actually returned to the future last episode's flash-forwards showed us. Near as I can tell, tonight's flash-forwards come before the ones we've already seen, as evidenced by Jack's contemplating growing a beard at the end. Hurley is seeing Charlie and assumes he's hallucinating. He probably is, given he has a history of it, but this is Lost after all. I am completely open to the possibility that he really is seeing Charlie, or at least Charlie's ghost. The island's power could well extend back to the rest of the world through Hurley. On the other hand, the other patient who seemed to see Charlie could also have been a hallucination. This was really Hurley's episode, and he thoroughly came into his own as the heart and conscience of the survivors. It was heartbreaking to watch him learn of Charlie's death, and doubly so to watch him tell Claire. He was surprisingly cold and hard when he started the beach group on the path to go warn Jack and the rest. I think Hurley is the real chosen one the Others had been waiting for, not Locke. Hurley accidentally found Jacob's cabin on his own, and saw Jacob, something, as far as we know, only Ben has been able to do. Hurley, too, is the one who has been cursed by the numbers since the beginning. I've long suspected he was the true center of the show, and tonight seemed to confirm it. No one in the group was going to follow Locke after he personally blew up every chance they'd had to get off the island up to that point. But once Hurley gave his speech, only Kate remained willing to follow Jack. So the big question now is what is going on? The flash-forwards seem to indicate they really do get off the island. Or rather, six of them do, the Oceanic Six. Jack, Kate, and Hurley are half of that group, and I suspect Sawyer is one of the others. Who are the final two? And why only the six of them. Did the others remain by choice? Were they even still alive? Here's where I think things are going. Depending on how many seasons we have left (I've heard they're still shooting for six total), either at the end of this season or the end of next, the present and future timelines are going to merge. They are going to get off the island, either through the group that just found them, or Penny Widmore's people. That'll be a season finale right there. The following season will have them return to the island, clearing up whatever unfinished business is left there. "They need you," Charlie told Hurley. They is whoever was left behind on the island. We saw in the last episode that in the end, even Jack knew they needed to go back. So who are the supposed rescuers? I'm betting a faction of DHARMA. When the Others wiped out the DHARMA encampment and, apparently, started up the jamming system, DHARMA would have lost the island entirely. It can't be found from outside unless the beacon is active and transmitting out. As important as it seemed to be to them, I would imagine they had spent the next few years trying desperately to find it, but unable to do so until the hatch blew. I think they're coming to reclaim their island and take their revenge on the Others. As Ben said, they'll kill every living person on the island. We'll see if I'm right. It feels really good to get back into the show, but the next week of waiting is going to make me crazy. So until next time, see you in another life, brother.