Lost Recap: The Beginning of the End (Season Premiere)
by lostofficehero on Jan.31, 2008, under tv
The Season Four Premiere of Lost left off where Season Three had ended: flash-forwards, rescues and more divisions within the castaways. Many questions were raised, which will account for millions of theories, and quite a bit of light was shed on the future of the show. There was a tremendous amout of hype built around this premiere and I must say, I am thrilled that Lost is back. Here’s a recap of this Hugo-flash-forward-centric premiere.
The writers continue to try and keep us guessing, and that’s why we love the show. The small tricks they play with our eager minds are like the blood trail that Jack and Kate were following in this episode. Whose blood trail? Naomi’s. Locke stabbing her didn’t actually kill her. She was able to get away while the rest of the castaways were preparing for their rescue. She also managed to leave a false trail before escaping. Jack, Rousseau and Ben (being held captive by Jack), went on this trail. Kate was to lead the castaways back to prepare for the rescue. Instinctively, she knew that Naomi might leave a false trail, so she found the real trail and followed it. She did ultimately find Naomi who reprogrammed the phone so that they could be rescued before she died.
Back at the beach, Desmond returns from The Looking Glass with two bits of information:
1. Charlie’s dead
2. “Not Pennys Boat”
Sawyer, Jin, Sayid, Bernard and Desmond are trying to decide whether or not they should tell Jack over the radio about the rescue boat being a fake when Hugo steps in and throws the radio into the water to prevent them from being able to tell Jack. Why? Because he believes Sayid’s inclination to err on the side of caution with radio transmissions. If this boat is nearby and they really are bad guys, then they might be able to pick up the radio signal and know that the castaways are onto them. They decide to go about it the old fashioned way: walk back to where Jack is and tell him in person.
As they are walking back, Hugo falls behind and eventually loses them. He starts seeing and hearing things and ultimately ends up at what looks like a cabin. Is it Jacob’s cabin? There is a rocking chair with no one in it that is rocking and then he sees an eye that scares the hell out of him. He falls back and when he looks up, it’s John Locke. Locke had disappeared after having stabbed Naomi with the flying dagger. He and Hugo have a conversation and now they are on the same page. It’s very interesting the way they positioned Locke and even insinuated that he might be Jacob.
While all of this is going on, we’re seeing flash-forwards of Hugo’s future off the Island. We’re led to believe that he’s gone crazy. In fact, he may well have. He’s institutionalized and he continually sees things. It’s almost as his life has regressed to where it was prior to the Island. What we do see in the future tells us a lot about the events that may have led up to it. First off, Hugo, after having been captured in a high speed car chase by the Los Angeles police, keeps telling them that he’s one of “The Oceanic 6.” Who are the Oceanic 6? Theories on that tomorrow.
We also see Jack in the future. Watching this car chase on TV. He has no beard. We find out later that this may be before he grew the beard (he goes to see Hugo at the mental hospital and he tells him that he’s considering growing a beard. Maybe to disguise himself? Because he is a celebrity now). Jack seems to be at peace. Hugo, on the other hand, is not at peace. The car chase was prompted by a vision he had of Charlie in a convenience store. Yes, Dominic Mognahan made a future cameo in this episode. He tells Hugo that “they need your help.” Who are “they?” Is it the people that keep visiting Hugo to get information out of him? There apparently is a secret. A big secret. Maybe one that the Oceanic 6 are hiding between each other and the airline. We’ll theorize about that in another post. Back to the recap.
On the Island, everyone convenes by the fuselage and it’s time for the Locke vs. Jack showdown. Before that happens, there is a touching moment when Hugo tells Claire that Charlie is dead. It’s just one of the many times that Lost has given me goosebumps. I’m looking forward to many more.
Jack is hellbent on getting rescued, Locke is trying his best to convince everyone that this is not a rescue team. From the commercials we’ve seen, we already know that Locke is right. Hugo steps up to support Locke, though. He makes a speech that talks of Charlie’s heroics and how, at the last minute, he changed his mind. Something happened that told him that no matter what, the last thing he’d do is get this message to his friends. The message that it was not Penny’s boat. That means something to Hugo and his speech ends up dividing the castaways into two groups – those that are going with Locke into safety and those that are going with Jack to get rescued.
What was most telling in the flash-forward was a twist that the writers had up their sleeves. That little trail for us viewers to follow and then the clue that it might be a false trail. Yes, we saw in the commercials that the rescue boat was not really there to rescue them. But what we saw in the flash-forward was Hugo admitting to Jack that he shouldn’t have gone with Locke. This bit of doubt screws it all up for us, doesn’t it? And if you flash even further foward, to the bit we saw in “Through the Looking Glass,” Jack eventually realizes that he made a mistake in leaving the Island. So maybe going with Locke was the right thing to do and Hugo doesn’t realize it yet. But that all depends on what it even means to have gone with Locke! It might be a separate incident altogether.
Nonetheless, as the episode ends, rescue does arrive. And we’re left with the man descending from the helicopter asking “are you Jack?”
The Lost puzzle just grew to be twice the size it had been just one episode ago. Now we are to put together what has happened between the present time and what we know of the future. What we do know is that there is a big secret that the rescued survivors share. This secret may be one concerning the livelihood of the other people that were on the Island. At one point, Hugo is asked by a man who looks like a government agent (actually, he looked like Mr. Eko’s priest brother) impersonating an Oceanic representative: “Are they still alive?” Clearly, there is a conspiracy surrounding the events that take place in the future. As Season 4 unfolds, we’ll be sitting at the edges of our seats yearning for more answers and happily being frustrated with more questions.
Welcome back, Lost.
Who do you think are the Oceanic 6? More importantly, what is that all about? Did everyoen get rescued or did some people stay behind? What’s the big secret? And what ever happened to smokey the monster and the polar bears? Send us your questions, answers and theories: contactus@bobbysketch.com.
