Not “Lost” yet
The supernatural and super-complicated “Lost” on ABC returned Wednesday night with a two-hour season premiere mercifully preceded by a one-hour recap show, “Destiny Calls,“ for people like me who sometimes lose their way keeping track of the characters and plot.
At times, it feels like you’ve gone back in time. This season emphasizes the mysteries of time travel and it’s all beyond me. So I took some notes and here present “Lost for Dummies,“ with simple descriptions of main characters and some easily-missed secrets of the Island, the show’s main star.
SOME BASICS: Oceanic Flight 815 crashed on an island and there are a bunch of survivors. After 108 days, many strange encounters and unexplained events on the spooked island, six survivors get rescued, but those left behind vanish. Now, the six survivors: Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Hurley (Jorge Garcia), Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Sun (Yunjin Kim) and baby Aaron must return to the island to save their friends. A side note: all of the plane crash survivors are connected somehow, sort of like the Kevin Bacon game.
THEY ARE NOT ALONE: Survivors of Flight 815 are not necessarily welcome here either. A sinister new-aged type group called the Dharma Initiative operated here, doing experiments trying to bend time, in the ‘70s and early 80s. Their stuff is still around on the island and their people maintain an interest in the place. Another group called “The Others,“ aka “The Hostiles,“ are the island’s indigenous people and are not friendly. The Others can leave the island at their will. But don’t ask me why.
THE ISLAND: It’s been there (somewhere) for a long time. In one episode, survivors find the remains of a 19th Century ship in the forest. And on the coast, a huge stone foot with four toes looks like something from the Mayan days. The island is invisible. The island moves through time. The island physically moves in Episode One of the new season, and the remaining survivor’s camp disappears. “Your camp isn’t gone. It hasn’t been built yet.“
JOHN LOCKE (Terry O’Quinn) didn’t make it off the island with the other six. But now he’s dead back in the real world. On the island, where it’s the past, however, he’s still alive. John Locke, previously bound to a wheelchair, could walk again when he crashed on the island and so he loves the place. He is driven to uncover the island’s mysteries and by the end of the last season had been promoted to the leader of The Others.
SAYID is back in the real world. He’s former Republican Guard and has done his share of killing. He has a dark soul and seeks redemption on the island. But after being rescued, his wife gets murdered and so he starts killing again.
HURLEY is the heart and soul of Lost. Before crashing on the island, he won the lottery but it ruined his life. After being rescued, he started seeing dead people so they put him in a mental institution.
JACK is a doctor with a dark past who used to be the unofficial leader of survivors on the island and then he got rescued and started going crazy too. “We were not supposed to leave. We have to go back, Kate,“ he tells his fellow-survivor.
KATE, aka Freckles, was an escaped fugitive who killed her father but got a second chance after crashing on the island. She loves Jack AND bad boy Sawyer (Josh Holloway), another plane crash survivor who jumped out of the rescue helicopter because it had too much weight. Sawyer is still on the shifting island, still a bully, trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Like me.
BENJAMIN is the former leader of The Others. A very strange man who pushes a giant wheel on the island to change time. He ends up on a desert in Tunsinia. There’s a big flash of light and nothing is as it seems anymore—like it ever was.
SUN made it off the island but without her husband Jin, a Korean, who has disappeared. She is raising his baby and not looking forward to returning.
DESMOND (Henry Ian Cusick) served with the British Army before he shipwrecked on the island while attempting to sail around the world. He escaped the island, but it still pulls on his dreams and memories.
“How did we get here? How did this all happen,“ Jack asks Benjamin, who responds, “It happened because you left, Jack.“ What’s with the Mother Mary icon Locke finds in the grass? And is Locke really dead? And will Jack be able to escape Ben’s pull and stop taking so many pills?
Stick with “Lost” and maybe it’ll all be made clear. Maybe not.
Posted by Allison Brophy Champion at 01:03 PM.
Couch Potato Blog is a blog devoted to Television, written by the Star-Exponent staff. They'll chat about what's on, what's going on and why they watch. Please keep them in the loop on what you're thinking and what you're watching.
