Lost – LA X, Part 1

Well, the waiting is finally over, the final season of Lost has begun!  Part 1 of the premiere started where last year’s finale left off.  We’re taken back to Oceanic Flight 815 in mid-flight.  However, this time around, the turbulence does not cause the plane to crash.  Instead, it was made out to be a “rough patch of air”   As the episode progressed we saw what looks to be two different possible outcomes that follow the Incident.  We’re shown how things would have happened if Flight 815 never crashed as well as what could have happened after the hydrogen bomb went off.  Part 1 ends with the death of Juliet and the eventual landing of Flight 815.

It was kinda cool to see what happened on the plane after the crash didn’t happen, but at the same time it was strange.  To me it was sad to see Jack interacting with fellow “survivors” as if he didn’t know them.  The relationships that they formed were gone.  When Jack saves Charlie’s life, he gets a little help from Sayid who’s just a random passenger to Jack now.  They’re unaware as to how well they really could work together.  As long as we’re on the subject, how sad was the storyline with Charlie?  Yeah, Jack saved his life, but Charlie is escorted off the plane by police officers.  He never meets Claire or John Locke, who were profound influences on the person Charlie became on the island.

There were some very interesting aspects to this episode too.  It was almost like foreshadowing, but not.  When Boone was talking with John Locke on the plane, he jokingly remarks, “If this thing goes down, I’m stickin’ with you.”  We all know that on the island after the crash, they worked together to unbury the hatch.  After Jack saved Charlie’s life, Charlie thanks Jack by saying “I was supposed to die”.  Hmm, where have I heard that before?  Apparently, in this new time line, Hurley thinks he’s the luckiest man alive…weird.

It’s the age-old question, if you could go back in time and change one thing in your life would you?  In this alternate scenario, they did change their past.  But it also changed who they were and would become.  These aren’t the same people we’ve come to know and love.  Without their shared experiences, they never become the people we know them as.

One thing that’s tough to fully understand is how the survivors on the island managed to survive a hydrogen bomb explosion.  In thinking about it, maybe the blast from the bomb was canceled out by the sheer force of the electromagnetic pocket. Jin alludes to the fact that they must have traveled through time again; he’s experienced the blinding light and loud noises before.  This is an appealing idea, maybe they jumped back to 2007, where they ultimately belong (one possible 2007 anyway).