Lost Cubicle Chatter: LAX (Parts 1 & 2)

In an effort to focus our attention on something besides Phish for a change, we’ve decided at HT headquarters to (hopefully) drum up some good chatter about the final season of the greatest television show in the history of the idiot box. Check in on Wednesday of every week during Season 6 to share your thoughts, theories, complaints and assessments of the previous night’s episode. Big time SPOILER alert for anyone didn‘t watch yet.

Synopsis: The Lost crew wasted no time getting deep into the thick of it with the season opener. In classic Lost fashion, we didn’t get answers, but instead more new characters and more new questions. Ugh.

At this point, the hydrogen bomb appears to have worked (sort of) as Oceanic Flight 815 did in fact land at LAX, but concurrently a parallel island world still exists with the Losties right back where they started before any of the time travel ever happened; at the hatch right after Desmond blew it up. Looks like we’re in for some sort of dueling alternate reality.

The big plot events include killing off Juliet so she can go star in that dumb show V, the introduction of the temple and its people – including a caricature hippie guy and a leader who makes decisions via Kung Fu – and the interactions of several characters back in Los Angeles sans plane crash.

Finally, we got some more hints: the winks regarding Richard and the Blackrock are solidifying, a big quote from Jack to Locke regarding his inability to walk, “Nothing is irreversible,” suggests a lot, and Ilana and company seem to have a big future in Season 6.

Lost Two Hours of My Life Moment: The soap opera crap acting between Juliet and Sawyer right before she finally died. Sorry for the snarkiness, but frankly all the love story plotlines just suck.

Epic One Liner of the Week: This week’s best quotable came courtesy of Locke with his force fed nod to Sully Sullenberger. “We could survive a water landing with a good pilot, and the turbines are buoyant enough to keep us afloat for a few hours until the life rafts arrive.”

Overall: Totally weak in terms of Lost openers, but bad Lost still beats everything else on television. The openers in the past have been gold, but we came up short this year. There is only about 15 to 16 hours of Lost left and they’d better start delivering more answers as opposed to adding more characters and raising new questions. However, it’s never fair to question your faith in this show if you’ve hung around for so long.

Discussion Points: Why is Desmond on Oceanic Flight 815? Why did Charlie eat (and choke on) his bag of junk instead of sticking it in his shoe? Who is this smoke monster guy who inhabits Locke’s body and what does he mean when he says he wants to go home? Did Sayid die? Why was Jack’s neck bleeding on the plane? Is the smoke monster scared of circles? Why didn’t Jacob fight back as opposed to succumbing to an easy demise? Was that foreshadowing the love triangle when Kate and Sawyer caught each others attention both on the plane and again on the elevator?