LA X - Drawing Sides

Just like in season one, Jack finds himself back on Oceanic 815 sitting next to Rose and getting an extra drink from Cindy the flight attendant - only this time he gets one bottle of vodka, not two. And Desmond is on the plane with them! And what's with that cut on Jack's neck? Welcome to our first flash sideways. Incredibly, I first used that phrase in September, so it was a thrill to hear Damon Lindelof describe it that way after the show!


Before the big premiere, I predicted that (much like the Oceanic 6) we'd see the LA X (as in ten) land safely and carry on new lives. We saw: Locke, Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Sayid, Rose & Bernard, Jin & Sun, Boone, Charlie, Desmond, Claire...well OK. That didn't work out.

So what's with the X? A variable? I think LA X is a comic book joke, referring to the fact that they didn't land in the LA they knew - it's a slightly different world. LA plus an X factor.

Something is way off, but in another way things are back to usual. We start our season with a Jack episode, and as usual Jack needs to fix something. On the plane he's not quite sure what it is. Saving Charlie? On the Island, he can't quite pull it off - Juliet is dead and the Losties didn't land in LA like they had hoped. Much like Locke & Ben before him, Jack is facing a crisis of faith. He's transitioned from the Man Of Science into the Man Of Faith, but it didn't get him where he expected to go. I feel like we're really getting at the heart of the Jack character and he's totally stymied - after months of Live Together Die Alone he had an awesome "Who cares" rebirth as a slacker in the 1970s. Then Jack thought he had found his purpose - to carry out Daniel's plan and reverse all the suffering. He fought, and people died, for the idea that he could set it all right. Boy was he wrong.

Just as Daniel once said, "What Happened, Happened" and the Losties couldn't change the past. Instead, they created a pocket universe where "Jack X" "Kate X" and the rest live out parallel lives. In that tiny universe (think Donnie Darko), not only did they prevent the creation of the Swan Hatch and the crash of 815, they totally altered the DHARMA Initiative and the lives of everyone connected to the Island. Maybe Jack never saved Sarah, and since the Island sank Penny was never born and never met Desmond, so Jack & Des never met that night running steps in the stadium. In season two when they met in the Swan, Jack and Desmond recognized each other immediately - now they are barely remembered fragments of another life. What will happen to this universe - will it converge with true time, or will it collapse and threaten all of reality?

There was so much great stuff in this episode. I loved the start with deaf Kate in a tree - totally awesome stuff. The sound design was incredible (and Evangeline Lily belongs in a tree!) and I was also psyched to see pissed off Sawyer. Josh Holloway totally delivered. Some of the lines they fed him weren't great (I'm going to kill him!!) but some scenes were pure gold. I loved crazy manipulator Kate touching his arm and trying to "be there for him" but Sawyer totally shut her down. Then he brought Miles along for some tough work and major emoting. It was great to see Sawyer fightin' mad and kicking ass left and right - from booting Jack into a pit to taking out four Others single-handedly - but I also liked how sensitive and raw he was. He was just torn up when Miles told him Juliet's last thought wasn't a sweet romantic thought about Sawyer. She was thinking, "it worked", and she would never have to meet Sawyer after all. So what else never happened?


Damon Lindelof called the characters arrogant for believing that they would only change one thing by detonating Jughead - what they did in 1977 changed a lot more than the crash of Oceanic 815. Where were passengers Libby, Micheal & Walt, Mr. Eko, Ana Lucia, Nikki & Paulo, etc? Also, Charlie X behaved totally differently, and so did Rose and Bernard. Shannon was missing (this was due to a scheduling conflict, but hey what are you gonna do?) Most drastically, Sun X was not married to Jin X at all and doesn't speak any English - she never had that affair in this universe. The customs agent calls her "Ms. Paik" not "Mrs. Kwon" and they don't have any wedding rings. In this univers Kate X is still a fugitive and she runs into Claire X in a taxi. (Is this an opportunity for course correction? Will Kate deliver Aaron in this universe too?) It's also interesting that Cindy was on the plane in this timeline - will her experience as an Other help her "remember" the pocket universe? Could that bridge some connection?

Meanwhile, as all this unfolds in an imaginary side universe, there's a war building on the Island. Two sides (or more?) are bringing together their forces for a conflict over...what? Who's even on what side? It seems that Jacob and his Nemesis represent a duality - black and white, Fate and Free Will. So, on one side we have Jacob who has just been killed but somehow lives on, thanks to the Island. Obviously Richard Alpert is on Jacob's side, along with Ilana and Bram (til he gets killed) and Ben sorta. They've all been trying to recruit people, from Locke to Miles. It's now clear that Fake Locke is literally the Smoke Monster (as speculated way back in April 2009). But is he on a side all his own?

I'm not sure if Charles Widmore counts as "the other side" in this war. Once married to the Leader of the Others, and then Leader himself, Widmore was deposed by Ben in the late 1980's and has been struggling to get back to the Island. His team included Matthew Abbadon, who threatened Hurley, and sent Locke on his walkabout and later drove him around as Jeremy Bentham. Also Naomi, who had to work together with Charlotte, Lapidus, Daniel Faraday and Miles. Keamy and the freighter folk seemed pretty evil, but those who ended up traveling with the Losties seemed OK. They were even fated to travel to the Island. In fact Miles, Charlotte and Daniel had all lived there before - did Frank Lapidus as well? What's his story? But none of them really seems to be on the side of the Nemesis.


So back to the Smoke Monster. Like Ammit from Egyptian myth, it casts judgment and carries out a death sentence. The Monster takes the form of a wisp of smoke, a dark cloud, the Man in Black and the dead of the Island. Speculation has it as everything from Christian Shephard to Kate's black horse. From the spider that bites Nikki and Paulo to Walt's dog Vincent. Who knows. It does seem like the Others have a burial ceremony designed to protect from being taken by Smokey - they send a burning pyre out to sea.

The Monster manipulated Locke using the image of Christian Shephard, and took advantage of Locke to bring Ben to his lowest point. Ben saw Locke take his place as the favored one, and finally turned over leadership of the Others and left the Island. The Monster was able to twist the situation until he put Ben in a position to finally kill Jacob and close the loophole. The Smoke Monster presides over the world of the dead, so what will become of Jacob?

I thought it was pretty cool how this episode gave the Speakers of the Dead their moment in the sun. Both Hurley and Miles can talk to the dead, and had an opportunity to really take advantage here. It was a great reaction from Miles when Sawyer asked him to help bury Juliet , and I loved the exchange calling Sawyer "boss". But it went up a notch when Sawyer cornered Miles, who was all "that's why you brought me?!" Just to speak to the dead. Totally cool how you could hear the sounds of the Monster while Miles used his powers. And meanwhile, Hurley proved his talent is truly something special by meeting Jacob for the first time - about an hour after Jacob was murdered. It seems to me that Jacob planned to get killed, and having Hurley there is part of his plan. So the next step of sending them all to the Temple is what it's really all about.


Guarding the Temple is a new group of Others led by Dogen with his interpreter Lennon. It's not really clear whether this is part of the same group that's with Richard at the Statue, or whether they're the opposition. But it is totally clear that Jacob wanted Sayid taken there for a good reason. What's up with Jacob's list - the one hidden in an ankh and found by Dogen? I think it's a list of names and numbers. Locke = 4, Jacke = 8, Kate = 15, and so on. Daniel theorized that humans were variables in an equation, and he was almost right - they're the constants! Each of these people represents a fundamental value of the Valenzetti Equation and their destinies are tied to the fate of all human kind. So, when Sayid finally sits up after being declared dead we should breathe a sigh of relief. But what if that isn't Sayid?

The spring inside the Temple has gone dark. When Dogen slashes his hand and puts it in the water, it fails to heal him. They don't even seem concerned when Sayid stops struggling, and they deposit his body on the side. And am I crazy, or did the spring start running clear after that? Was the water primed with a soul, ready to take over a body?


With the Monster able to take on the form of the dead on the Island, my first thought was that he would take over Sayid too. But isn't the Monster still in the form of John Locke? And Sayid was revived at the behest of Jacob - so I'd guess Jacob's the one using Sayid's form. Will this lead to the reveal that there are two monsters - one white, one black? This has been a theory ever since Locke said he saw the heart of the Island and "it was beautiful!" But Mr. Eko said, "that is not what I saw."

One thing you can count on with Lost is a "game changer" moment where what you thought was happening isn't what's really happening - and the entire season can flip over. Who's good and who's bad - or does it even really matter? To quote a great movie, "There aren't good guys and bad guys, it's just a bunch of guys!"

For now, they're all running around shooting off flares and pouring rings of ash for protection. I'd guess we'll get into the conflict pretty quickly next week. That will be a Kate episode - "What Kate Does". Yuck.

Down the road we can probably expect "Everbody Loves Hugo" and other spins on previous episode titles. And traditionally the third episode was Locke-centric. Wonder what will happen?