"Lost" is Found This Season

I'm one of those people that if a show is good enough, I don't get bogged down in details...like, "who are the Others" and "why is there a polar bear on the island".  Who cares? It will all work out eventually, one way or the other, right? Now, show me Sawyer with his shirt off please!

While I still find it hard to believe that there wasn't a single gay passenger on Flight 815 (from Australia to LA! not a single one???) I will go on record of agreeing with the greek chorus out there that Lost has indeed found its way back from the path of red herrings and twisty/turny plotlines that bogged it down (most notably, Paulo and Nikki - although I do have to say I loved the buried alive ending). We're only three episodes in and we're zipping along, mostly thanks to the new flash-forwards that show life off the island for the rescued Oceanic 6 - the six that actually do make it off the island (spoilers lay ahead if you are behind on your Tivo.)

So right there we know that 40+ of them don't make it off the island. And who comprises the Oceansic 6?  We learn who, and their "current" state of affairs in the flash-forwards: Jack is a drunk, Hurley is back in a mental hospital and Sayid embraces his dark side and works as an assassin. We also know from last season's finale that Kate is rescued - and next week's episode shows her off the island, despite Sawyer's implorations for her to stay on the island and "set up house".  *sigh*

We also know that the rescuers aren't necessarily there to rescue the survivors, but it's unclear that they know the full magnitude of their mission, as their leader Naomi was killed by sexy John Locke (Lost's equivalent of Lord of the Flies' Jack, or is it Ralph?) One of the rescuers, Miles (you might remember him as Uncle Junior's violently intense looney-bin pal on the last season of The Sopranos) is a ghost-buster, and confirms what Ben has been saying all along when he pulls out a picture of the Others' snaky leader, in a vest and slacks no less, standing in front of a computer. The question then looms, how does Miles have a picture of Ben, presumably taken OFF the island, when Ben has lived his entire life ON the island?

And in one of Lost's signature endings, last night's episode revealed that Sayid is doing his dirty work for none other than Ben himself. Wha-wha-what?? Again...whatever. I love the journey Lost takes me on every week, and however they want to explain it to me is of secondary importance. The creators have already discounted the popular theories that the survivors are in Hell or Purgatory, that they are on a "Truman Show" type reality series, or that they are the creation of someone's imagination, a la St. Elsewhere. With those painfully obvious explanations out of the way, I'm pretty willing to believe anything. And with the show's newly found energy, it feels like the writers are intent on bringing as many of the plotlines together as possible.

Now, if you'll indulge me, I do have one theory, which I'm sure is completely fallible, but we did learn last night that Naomi had a bracelet on with the inscription "I'll always be with you  R.G.". Sayid's love interest/assassin also had that bracelet on. Both of these women represent threats to Ben, so we can assume that this R.G. is THE threat to Ben, who back in Season 2 used the name Henry Gale (btw, this is the name of Dorothy's uncle on The Wizard of Oz). Could R.G. be a Gale himself? A quick Google doesn't yield much in terms of Richard or Robert Gale's (most of the names on the show are deliberately chosen, for example, of the new characters, Charlotte Lewis is C.S. Lewis of "The Chronicles of Narnia" fame, and Daniel Faraday is a reference to Michael Faraday, a 19th century physicist considered one of the most influential scientists in history.) So who knows...but it's fun to think you might be only one step behind the writers.

Finally, interesting trivia: the creators initially wanted Jack to die in the first episode, and they wanted MICHAEL KEATON to play him. Seriously.

Image courtesy ABC