Musings on the First 3 Episodes

Record Breaking Blizzards sure can throw out your schedule...especially when they come in pairs. On the other hand, with the city shut down in the white-out and the wind howling outside it was sort of nice to spend a day on an island.

I went back over the Season 6 Premiere and realized that I missed some very key points. I had missed, I confess, that the group I call Island One - Jack, Sawyer, Kate, Jin, Hurley and Sayid - did NOT land back in 1977. Doc Jensen at EW.com gave me the heads up...but he thinks they landed in 2004. A safe assumption until episode 6.3 "What Kate Does". During the sequences with Kate and Jin in the jungle with Others guards Justin and Aldo we get a couple of key references. First, that the French woman has been dead for several years; second, that they know about the Ajira plane landing. Also, Othertown is pretty deteriorated, and as I recall in 2004it was in good shape. Icing on the cake, are those 2 kids Cindy had get food and drinks for our Losties at the Temple, Zack and Emma. Aren't they the same ones taken off the beach in the Tailies episodes, that we later see tracking through the jungle with their Teddy Bears? If so, they have aged...about 3-4 years. So...That puts them in a good position to be reunited with the other Losties, Island Two (Sun, Ben, Lapidus) at some point. Of course, it creates a problem with the Alternative (ALTS) Non-Crash Losties who are in 2004...so to speak.

What does it mean? No idea, yet.

I have been reading some of the recaps. I worry that Doc Jensen has really gone off his meds or that too many time leaps did him in, like Charlotte. Right now I am still putting together what I saw. But some things did strike me:

In the ALTS universe the Island is submerged. IF this is a result of the Jughead demolition (the time shift, not the explosion) and if it happened back in 1977 it would mean a lot of people who were on the Island at the time might not have gotten off, might not have lived. Charles Widmore and Eloise Hawking come to mind, not to mention Penny. If Charles never got off to sire a child... Alex was about 5 or 6 years old when Charles was banished by Ben.... which would put it around 1992 or so.

I have to say at this point I don't see one timeline as better or worse IN GENERAL than the other. Jack thought it would be better if the crash never happened, and for him, maybe so. But we know something he doesn't, that Rose has terminal cancer and will die soon. Until told otherwise, I am going with her still being sick. After all, Locke is still crippled and Charlie is still an addict. We don't know what fates await Frogurt or Arzt.

Oh, hit the pause button here. I was channel surfing a bit during my dinner and what do you suppose was on AMC? The Fugitive (1993) with Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford. And what do you know...there were Rose and Arzt as part of Jones' US Marshall team. What a hoot! Little did THEY know what was coming.

Ok, unpause. Though apparently the producers are pushing the idea that there is no RIGHT timeline, I am suspicious that the same people are in 2 time strands, slightly off kilter, at the same time. AND one group has memory of "before Jughead" and the other doesn't. I know we all look for signs to support our theories, so the exchange between John Locke and Jack at LAX at the end of the season premiere really struck me... John tells Jack his condition is irreversible. Jack (JACK!) tells him "Nothing is irreversible." Even this fracturing of time...perhaps?!?

Another little tingle for the LAX Non-Crash reality is the little item of Oceanic Airlines losing Christian Shephard's body! Ah, call me a suspicious little person but I think this is the equivalent of those rockets going off at the Temple. It was imperative that conditions be matched as closely as possible when Ben and Eloise were rounding up the LOSTIES for the return to the Island...including having a dead body on the plane...a dead body that had to have something of Christian Shephard on him. (see the Season 5 episode 6: "316" - Eloise tells Jack that the Ajira flight must mirror the Flt 815 as closely as possible and that he has to get something of his father's to give to Locke, whose standing in as a proxy for Shephard Sr.) So...I can't help but wonder... if ole Dad's body wasn't on Flight 815, does that make things a little dicey? Was this loss an accident or was someone in this timeline attempting to undo Jack's "go back" strategy?

Ok, there are other very big questions, which, I think, is OK since its the start of the Season and we don't really want this to become all clear and de-mystified this early in the season do we? Where is the fun in that?

I do wonder why, for the first time as far as I can remember, that when the gang time shifted solid objects went with them...the VW bus to be exact. I mean, it was the same nice working VW bus in 2007 (or so) that they were driving in 1977. Just sayin', Dude, that it has me curious.

Oh, and Miles is awesome. Josh Holloway is an incredible actor - what an arc this guy has had on this show. Ben, poor Ben, the universe just kicked him in the gut again.

Namaste for now.