First of all, I loved this episode. It really provoked me to think a lot about what we’ve seen until now. I know I’ll spend the next nine months really chewing on this, but here are my thoughts fresh after watching.

The episode opens with Jacob and Jacob’s Enemy, who a lot of the fans are calling “Silas” or “Esau.” Whoever he is, he looks a LOT like the quick flash of a character we saw way back in “Cabin Fever.” The circle of ash around the cabin suggests a barrier used to contain a demon, and the fact that it was broken suggests that the demon escaped. Illana was not looking in the cabin for Jacob — she was looking for his enemy. She knew the enemy was heading for Jacob, and that’s why she ordered the place torched. She understood it was an evil place. Ironically enough, while season 3 suggested that Horace built the place, it looks an awful lot like the hut Rose and Bernard had built for themselves. But since the blueprint was in Horace’s pocket, this is probably just a coincidence.

The dog painting in the cabin suggests that the inhabitant (the Enemy) is the Cerberus — also known as the smoke monster. The various apparitions that have manifested have been the Enemy trying to manipulate events forward to create the “loophole.” The Enemy poses as things that have died on the island, because it is a creature that is somehow involved in death (hence the picture of Anubis and the monster in the temple). The reason the monster allowed Ben to live was so it could manipulate him into killing Jacob. For some reason that has yet to be explained, Ben is able to break the rules that the monster cannot.

When we first see the Enemy in the opening scene, he comes to the beach to see the ship that is coming in. That is yet another clue that he is the monster — the defense system for the island. We know that the ship is the Black Rock, and that it’s probably captained by Magnus Hanso. I suspect that this adversary influences the Hanso  to go back into the real world, create the legacy that becomes the Hanso Foundation / Dharma Initiative, and initiate the situations that will lead to the conflict.

You see, these two have been playing this game for some time now. Jacob and the Monster have been playing a giant game of Backgammon since the beginning of the show. John Locke explained to Walt in the first season that it’s an old game, the oldest game, of good versus evil. As Desmond explains in season 5, all of the people on the island are just pawns in this game. In the past, Jacob visited those he would send back in time when flight 316 came in. He was monitoring the lives of his pieces, and ensuring that they would fulfill their destiny. The finale in season 3 included these same players. Jack, Kate and Sawyer were taken to Hyrda Island, Hurley was sent back to the camp to tell the others what had happened, and Sayid, Jin and Sun were on a rescue mission. Juliet was the only player in this final drama who was not visited by Jacob — but since she lived as an Other, it’s likely that she was influenced and monitored directly.

We should also consider that when the resurrected John Locke made Alpert speak to the time-traveling John Locke, he told John that he would have to die. This bit of knowledge was convenient… for the Enemy, which clearly needed Locke to be dead so it could impersonate him. Alpert was apprehensive about this, but didn’t realize that he was speaking to the Enemy, so he went along with it. All in all, Alpert doesn’t seem like a very smart guy. He even played a hand in helping Locke become the leader of the Others by helping Locke find a means to kill his “father.” Alpert is acting on Locke’s claim from 1954 that he is meant to be the leader, not Jacob’s guidance.

All in all, I like where things are going. The mythology of the show is finally beginning to unravel, and we’re beginning to see that the conflict here is between a force of good and a force of evil. But there are still some questions that will require pondering:

Why did Jacob disregard Ben? It’s clear now that the “Others” are followers and protectors of Jacob, and that Alpert is one of Jacob’s devoted followers. But why was Ben placed in charge of the Others if he was such a great pawn of the enemy? Was Jacob trying to keep his friends close, and his enemies closer? Was Ben the least threatening when he was distracted with leadership? Jacob must have given Ben the same kind of gift of eternal life that Charles Widmore and Richard Alpert seem to have. (Ben indicated that Widmore couldn’t be killed, and Alpert seems to never age). I also suspect that Illana is older than she looks since she has no idea who Benjamin Linus is when Sayid asks her on the plane, but knows her way around the island.

Still, it’s unclear why Jacob is so cold to Ben, knowing that Ben will kill him if he doesn’t explain himself. Maybe it’s because he knows he’s already won, and doesn’t want to give his Enemy the satisfaction. Or maybe it’s because Ben is not in a position to understand.

What is Jacob’s purpose on the island? Jacob seems to be immortal, unaging, and powerful. He is not Egyptian himself, but he seems to be at home with all of the Egyptian ruins on the island. He indicates that he has had the time to weave a complex tapestry by hand, and he doesn’t seem to have a sense of urgency in anything. He can leave the island if he wishes, and he is aware of the events in the lives of his “pawns.” Clearly, he’s intruding on the island (since the monster wants to kill him), but some mechanism is in place to make him unkillable. It’s an intriguing mystery!

Why did the scene with Juliet getting yanked down the pipe so closely resemble the Monster trying to pull Kate into a hole in season 1? Was this foreshadowing, or is the monster trying to recreate events that have already occurred on the island? Maybe the monster was trying to make Kate hesitate down the road so Juliet would die?

What did Juliet’s setting off the bomb accomplish? Fans are already saying that the discharge propels the Losties into 2007, and that when Jacob says, “they’re coming,” he’s referring to Jack and crew. I’m not so sure about this myself. Why should the Enemy be afraid of them? But since the last electromagnetic discharge we saw (in season 2’s finale) made the sky change colors, yanked Oceanic 815 out of the air, and sent Desmond traveling in time, we should assume that something unusual is going to happen. As it happens, the events of the finale coincide with future events, so it’s hard to believe that the past can be changed. The tunnel into Ben’s future Dharma house is opened, Pierre Chang’s arm is injured, Radzinsky causes the Incident, and the non-essential Dharma personnel leave the island (including Miles and Charlotte).  So, if the bomb changes history, none of these things should have ever happened in the first place.

Whose eye opened at the end of the teaser during the credits? Good question. The eye was green, though. Since the producers have said that the time-traveling will end in the sixth season, we can assume that wherever the Losties have wound up, it’s somewhere (or somewhen?) where everyone will be reunited at last… and where the final conflict between Jacob and the Enemy will be fought. It’s going to be a long 9 months….

LOST is one of the best shows on television, period.

LOST is back for its fifth season, and like many people, I made a point of getting together with some other LOST fans and watching it. I’ve been keeping up with the show since the middle of the first season, which means I’m all too aware of its brilliant moments… and its slumps.

As it happened, the premiere hit on a lot of the strengths and the limitations of the show. So, while it’s fresh on my mind, here are a few observations I have about LOST overall:

Five things I HATE about LOST:

1) The characters never talk to each other about anything. So much in this show could be solved if these people would just sit down, ask, “what do we know?” and compare notes across camps. Instead, every time someone’s about to make a revelation, it has to be in the most dramatic manner possible, and generally accompanied by the line, “there’s not enough time to explain this to you!” This device has been so overused that even the writers seem to be bored with it; watching Sawyer slap Farraday in the face when he said it in the Season 5 premiere was funny, but it was also a reminder of how often it’s used as a way out of explaining the show’s mysteries.

2) Many of the show’s original mysteries still haven’t been resolved. The producers keep promise that the answers are coming, but it seems like they’re continuing to stretch things as long as they can. When you sit down and outline all of the mysteries that were raised in the first season, only a handful have actually been solved. Most of the mysteries that have been solved are those that arose later when, instead of offering answers, the show brought up more questions.Some answers to the big questions this season would be a welcome change.

3) The show has become mired in its own fan culture. Did you play the last several years’ worth of LOST alternate reality games? Did you read The Bad Twin, or play the video game? No? Yeah, me neither. And while I like the idea of the extended universe giving the hardcore fans a little extra bang for their buck, I feel a little left out when I’m not keeping up on the podcasts, monitoring Lostpedia or seeking out cryptic interviews given by the producers, writers and cast. Isn’t it enough that I watch every episode? Do I really have to scrutinize deleted scenes or watch all the extras on the DVDs?

4) The show has too many red herrings. This is particularly true of the constant allusions to literature, mythology, and popular culture. Often, things that seem to be significant aren’t, and it’s hard not to feel like the people involved in the show are using it as something of a vanity project to constantly tip their hats to their favorite influences. Granted, LOST goes beyond the typical stale literary illusions to things like The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but when you look at the fan-made liner notes for some episodes, you have to wonder if the show’s got a little too much padding. Speaking of which…

5) LOST still has too much padding. It’s a lot tighter now than it was in the second and third seasons, but it’s still brimming with scenes that aren’t necessary and that serve as little more than overly complicated ways to get characters from point A to point B. Even the 2-hour premiere for season 5 probably could have been cut down drastically if some of the slower scenes with Hurley and Kate had been left out.

Five things I LOVE about LOST

1) After five years, it’s still intriguing. While questions may still be lingering from Season 1, the show has done a darn good job of explaining later mysteries without destroying the mystique of the show. LOST producer Carlton Cuse worked on another show in the 1990s that involved time travel called The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., and once that show wrapped up its main mystery with the John Bly gang, it quickly ran out of steam. LOST hasn’t made that mistake. It can be maddening to realize the lengths that the show goes to not to answer questions, but at least the mysteries are still interesting in light of the other revelations that have been made.

2) The characters have depth. You can’t say this about other serialized shows, like Heroes or Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles, where the characters are mere caricatures. LOST’s characters aren’t dumb, and they have motivations for the things they do. They’re all people who have been beaten and broken in some way, and even when their actions are mysterious, they don’t seem like two-dimensional morons who make the wrong choices for the sake of sticking with the plot.

3) The show’s not built on ridiculous twists. LOST does have twists, of course, and lots of them. Some have been well-received, while others have been criticized for being too convenient and easy. But the twists aren’t what make the show entertaining… it’s the perceptions that viewers build up of characters, only to see the characters in a different light at different points in time. LOST isn’t as much about twists as it’s about shifts in understanding. It’s very hard to predict what some characters will do because we don’t know enough about their motivations. Twists only serve to further illuminate LOST’s characters.

4) LOST has big moments that are hard to forget. Think about a network television program that has had a major moment that you’ll forever associate with the show, like the episode of M.A.S.H. where Henry’s plane is shot down as he’s heading home, bringing a somber reminder about the costs of war to the audience. Most shows have one of those moments per season, and generally, in the finale. LOST has one of those moments at least four or five times a season. It’s easily one of the most dramatic shows ever made for television.

5) LOST is intelligent. I don’t think I’ve seen a show that’s this smart since The Prisoner. Sure, there’s some pseudo-science, and there are moments where the show reveals that it’s not written by scientists. But in terms of its scope, its characters, its plotlines and its literary allusions, this is a show that reaches around the world and brings in all sorts of ideas about culture, philosophy, theology, metaphysics, and other heady topics. Many shows try to be this smart, but fail miserably. LOST, on the other hand, is the real deal.

Anyhow, with all that said, I’m sure you know now where you’ll be finding me for the next few months on Wednesday night. LOST might have its drawbacks, but the show’s so good that I can overlook them.