Random Initial Thoughts: "Because You Left" and "The Lie"

Time travel conundrums, minor characters you're supposed to remember from two seasons ago, answers that are somehow also questions -- it's good to have Lost back. Notes on the first two hours of Season 5:

-The very first sequence was tops. Who is it? It's Orientation Guy (whose real name was revealed in this video to be Pierre Chang), doting father and loving husband. Tying his Dharma tapes, the Frozen Donkey Wheel, and the surprise Faraday appearance at the end was top-notch Lost pulp.

-This is the first time a pre-credit sequence to open a season has actually been a bunch of different sequences -- after the Faraday reveal, the episode jumped to the island post-disappearance as well to three-years-later off-the-island Kate before that familiar LOST title floated past us. Translation: we're in for a fractured, messy season. In a wonderful way.

-Charlotte's nose is bleeding. It's the early stages of disorientation Desmond felt when he jumped in time. That means she needs to find a constant, or die, right? And how come it's not happening to anyone else? I should know this. I feel rusty.

-Speaking of Desmond, let's talk about the scene in which Desmond comes out of the hatch with his gun trained on Faraday, and Faraday tells him to go to Oxford and visit his mother. (So many hints were dropped about future episodes that I'm sure I've already forgotten a couple.) Desmond wakes up three years post-island-disappearance and suddenly remembers. Why then? Wouldn't you remember something like that before? A friend I was watching with posited that Faraday actually did "change" the past -- it didn't "always" happen like that, and thus Desmond would only start remembering it once Faraday actually did it. But that doesn't work -- even in their own consciouses, it's still 2005 for Faraday and about three years later for Desmond, so by my friend's logic, Desmond would start remembering while he was still floating in the ocean about to get rescued by Penny's boat. Still with me? Anyway, it's a tiny bit of sloppiness, but that's going to happen when you do a time travel story.

-The Sayid/Hurley plotline was handled well: Sayid is always the guy who can fix everything, so what's Hurley to do when he's completely incapacitated? Why, get a visit from Ana-Lucia, of course. The cameo was a little cutesy, but it was satisfying in that her advice was exactly what you were yelling at the screen: don't pick up the gun! Don't pull over for the cop! Change your clothes!

-So are they setting up Locke, Sawyer, Juliet et al to be the hostiles? While it would be a cool twist to have the mystery people the Dharma Initiative was fighting all along to simply be the time-traveling castaways, there was a group of people, Richard included, guiding Ben to do the Purge. So that doesn't work. How about the whispers? The whispers would definitely seem to be some kind of time-travel residue...it'd be interesting if they tied in a conversation Sawyer or Juliet or whoever were having to an instance of whispering from an earlier season.

-Speaking of Richard, it was good to have him back, albeit for his brief cameo. I'm looking forward to the future episode in which Locke tells him to go to the drug plane and take the bullet out of his leg.

-It's interesting that the bullet -- and for that matter, everyone's clothing -- time travel along with them. Well, interesting to me, at least. Just one of those things -- like why the Hulk's pants always stay on.

-Richard and the Others didn't travel along with Locke because only people from off the island time-traveled together, right? So what happened to Richard & Co. when the island disappeared?

-A little too much face-hiding tonight. Sure, hiding the face of the Asian guy was cool because he was the character to open the season. But then they hid Faraday's face in the tunnel, which was pointless because it was obviously him, and then at the very end of "The Lie" they hid the old woman's face until she talked to Ben. Two problems with that. One, if you recognized her, you could tell it was her pretty quickly. And two, I'm guessing not enough people even did recognize her. She's only appeared in one episode, explained the rules of time travel to Desmond in Season 3. (And her name is, appropriately enough, Mrs. Hawking, by the way.)

-The above complaint aside, I'd like to spend plenty more time in her basement lair where she can apparently chart the island and hasn't bothered to ever upgrade her computer. And it was awesome to see Ben sweat a bit. Obviously, there's a network off the island that he's a high-ranking member of, but which he doesn't lead -- she does. Sputtering nervously that he "lost Reyes" was a highlight. Because even though it could be construed as a mistake on Hurley's part -- the one time he should listen to Ben, he doesn't -- Hurley doesn't seem to care in the slightest.

-Why does Ben only have seventy hours to round everybody up? What happens then? And is he really going to break Hurley out of prison? And does Walt have to go back too? It's time to get that kid back! The only reason they jumped so far ahead in time is to explain why he looks so much older, right? Get him back!

Next week's episode, on in its regularly scheduled 9 p.m. slot, is called "Jughead." Should we take this clue literally like "Frozen Donkey Wheel"? EW's Michael Ausiello, who has seen it, says the episode involves both a birth and a bomb. If you were watching the post-episode teaser, you may have caught a clue about the first thing.

TAGS: Because You Left, Premiere, Recap, Season 5, The Lie
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