So, I thought it was a good episode. I laughed, I cried, I screamed "I've been there!" A few of those deep in the forest scenes I'm pretty sure I was where those were filmed because we were taken deep into the forest at the nature preserve and at Turtle
Bay and told they filmed parts of season 4 there. It was also fun to see the clip show at 7:00 because that
really showed places I've been: the pier, the waterfall, the crash site beach. In that clip show they didn't cover season 2 at all.
They kind of referenced a few things that happened, but it was really heavy on season 1 and especially season 3 (that's
kind of how I feel about season 2, I don't remember it all that well and I remember not liking it as well).
Don't read the next paragraph if you haven't watched the episode yet.
I was a little disappointed that we knew from the start that Hurley's story was a flash forward. I thought they were
going to disguise it a little more than that. I suppose they'll either be obvious or not so obvious and there won't be any in
between. Some of the mysteries they've now set up for season 4 are: 1) Who are the Oceanic 6? 2) How do the Oceanic 6 tie into who took Jack's side and who took Locke's side? 3) 6 isn't a whole lot of people, were all the rest killed or left on the island? Hurley's vision of Charlie said that "You know they're still alive." So there was a certain amount of ambiguity
there when they left, does that have to do with whether they were in the Jack camp or the Locke camp? That last question was kind of answered because we know that Hurley went with Locke and he is off the island as one of the Oceanic 6.
Also, in Jack's flash forward he was pretty crazy and wanted to go back to the island but he seemed very put together in Hurley's flash forward and didn't want to go back so we know that Hurley's flash forward is chronologically before Jack's. We know what caused Hurley to go nuts: Seeing Charlie. What caused Jack to go nuts? It wasn't just the death of the person in the coffin, because he was pretty far gone before he found that out. And we can assume that we know who 3 of the Oceanic 6 are: Jack, Kate and Hurley.
Some other interesting points we learned last night are that Hurley could hear Jacob. Hurley can hear/see Jacob (because we could see Jacob really clearly rocking in the chair, clearer than what we saw before). Also, how did Locke seem to know all that he did about what was happening on the island? He wasn't with either of the groups except for when he killed Naomi and then
he left again. He seemed to know about Charlie and stuff when he had no reason to know. And yes, I think that was Locke's face Hurley sees in the cabin. So my answer is... Locke has been staying with Jacob and Jacob is all-knowing when it
comes to the island, so that's how Locke knew everything. I think Locke has officially replaced Ben as Jacob's right-hand man. Also, the way Hurley was "seeing" the cabin was very interesting, he saw it and then he could close his eyes and it was gone, so it presented itself like one of his crazy visions (i.e. Charlie and Dave). Is Hurley's vision of the "moving" cabin like the smoke monster in that it senses the thoughts of the person it's presenting itself to and adjust itself accordingly. This ties in with my idea that Jacob is the smoke monster and therefore he has the same abilities that the smoke monster has demonstrated.
Another question to ponder is who is the black man who visits Hurley at the psych ward? I think the black guy is either an Other representative, a guy with Widmore (Penny's Dad), or from Naomi's group that attacks the island (from the freighter). Personally, I think he's from Naomi's group. Or I suppose since he says "they're still alive" he could be an Other since the Others were so concerned with Naomi's group coming to the island.
Another question is why are the Oceanic 6 being so secretive about the island (Hurley lies to the cop about Ana Lucia, etc.) My
answer to that is: Naomi's people (from the freighter) want the island for nefarious purposes so they want the island to remain a secret to the outside world. They struck an agreement with the Oceanic 6 that said that they could go back to their lives, but only if they never talk about the island and they never try to get back to it. That's why Hurley (and eventually Jack) go nuts because they realized they sacrificed the other survivors so that they could be let off the island. And why does future Kate seem so content with being off the island (in Jack's flash forward)? Because she has been pardoned for her crimes, she has a child (that's who I think the "him" is) and she's made peace with leaving the island. I think in order for Jack, Kate and
Hurley and the other 3 Oceanic 6 to agree to leave the island without the other survivors is that Naomi's people arriving on the island created a whole war/genocide (like Ben suggested they would) and conditions were so bad that the Oceanic 6 has to assume the other survivors were killed off and they have to save themselves by making this agreement.
I think they will be continuing to do both flash forwards and flash backs and time them out so they start to work towards each other to create the final climax when the show ends.
It's also interesting that Jack and Locke became the two leaders of the opposing sides. It's the Science versus Faith argument all over again. It's also interesting that people follow Locke when he's been acting so nuts for so long. It looks like from what I can tell that the people who go with Locke were the ones who were on the beach when Desmond came back and told them about Charlie and what Charlie said about it not being Penny's boat.
So those are my gut reactions to the season 4 premiere episode of Lost: "The Beginning of the End." That episode title makes me sad because this is truly the beginning of the end of Lost. The writers now have the end of the series in sight and now when they get back to writing after the strike is done they can really focus on pacing out the remainder of the episodes until the end of the series.
Labels: Lost
