Lost - "LaFleur"

Back in the heady days of seasons 2 and 3, Lost would begin each season by devoting entire episodes to tracking each individual cliffhanger. So, for example, Season 3 started by showing what happened to Jack/Kate/Sawyer, then followed Sayid/Jin/Sun, and finally went back to the beach for everyone else. They dropped this structure in season 4, mercifully, since that structure slowed things down, frustrated everyone, and contributed to the now mythic Slump. However, in a way, it made a reappearance as the last three weeks basically tracked what happened to the three separate groups (O6/Locke/I5) to bring them all to the same point. However, I'm pleased to report that, while they've all been generally good, this last one was especially awesome.

We begin with the Island crew at the well again. We see the flash that sent Locke tumbling down and it turns out that they went back. Way back. We know this from the fact that the camera revolved to show us A MASSIVE STATUE!!! The four-toed foot statue? I'm thinking so. It looked vaguely Egyptian, which fits the with heiroglyphs and stuff. Frankly, if you didn't gasp when that happened then you're watching the wrong show. So then we saw Locke turning the wheel (again) and it turns out that finally locked the island into one time. That time? We're not quite sure yet, but Sawyer says there's going to stay there as long as it takes. Cut to a graphic that says three years later, where there are two low-level Dharma employees (including the comedian from Mad Men) watching their fearless leader, Horace Goodspeed, drunkenly blow things up. So that means they've got to get Lafleur, the head of security, who looks a lot like Sawyer. All in all, it was a stellar, mind-blowing opening sequence that made me exclaim that I wanted to take this episode behind the middle school and get it pregnant.

"Lafleur" confirmed that the Islanders who were left behind were stranded in the Dharma era (1974-1977 to be exact) and that they assimilated into the Dharma Initiative. We found out all this through two separate, but connected stories. The first took place in 1974, as the gang tried to figure when they were and what was going on. They encountered a woman who was being threatened by some Others and saved her by killing them, inadvertently messing with the Dharma/Others truce. The woman, Amy, takes the gang back to Dharmaville, where Sawyer meets with Horace and tells him the islanders' variation on The Lie, an interesting parallel with the O6. According to Sawyer's story, his people were on a salvage vessel looking for the Black Rock when their ship crashed and they washed up on the island.

At first, it doesn't seem like this lie has bought them anything more than the right to escape the island to 1974 America with their lives (where they'll presumably become cops who are frustrated by the 1970s low-tech policing methods and lack of respect for rights of the accused), but then Richard Alpert storms into camp looking for answers (the sonic fence, it seems, can stop "other things" but not the Alpert-style Others). Sawyer goes out to deal with him (after a nice meta-joke about Alpert's eyeliner), which he does by tipping Alpert off to the fact that his people aren't like the Dharmas and namedropping Jughead and John Locke. Thus, the day is saved and Sawyer et al can stay. If they want to.

Meanwhile, three years later, Sawyer retrieves Horace, but there's a problem. He's now married to Amy and Amy is going into labor, right now. They're supposed to take people off the island to give birth, but because its premature, they couldn't do it. The doctor is pretty much useless, which means its time to haul Juliet out of retirement. Despite her understandable hesitance, Juliet does it, and Amy gives birth to a baby boy. So this is apparently pre-birthing issues. Oh yeah, and Juliet and Sawyer are happily shacked up, in what is clearly the most stable and mature relationship this show has ever produced (I am officially on Team Suliet). Sawyer's also over Kate, which he tells to Horace when the latter asks if three years is long enough to get over somebody (Horace worries that Amy still has feelings for her dead hubby).

But, alas, all that's about to come crashing down when Sawyer gets a phone call from Jin. Sawyer goes out to an open field where we get the reunion we were all waiting for: Sawyer and Hurley, together again! Oh, and Kate and Jack are there too.

Some may complain that we didn't get many answers this week, but I'm beyond pleased with this episode. After all the mind-bending weirdness, it was nice to slow things down and spend an hour with these characters again. It was also a thrill to see the real, functioning Dharma Initiative and the prospect that we're actually going to get to live in it and spend some time there is a promising and exciting one. But mostly, as Noel Murray pointed out, it was nice to get some stories that end kind of happily. Sawyer was clearly thriving in the DI and Juliet had carved out a nice life for herself. If there was a sad point, it was the ending, since it seems like the return of some old friends will send them back into chaos.

A

P.S. Next week, there's no Lost (boo!), but in two weeks, we're getting "Namaste," which looks to be very exciting. In the meantime, don't be surprised if some kind of Lost-related essay pops up in lieu of a recap.

The Theory Down
5. Everyone's speculating about who Amy's baby is? I'm going to go out on a limb and say its somehow we haven't met yet or someone who's inconsequential. I think there's plenty of other stuff to worry about. Or maybe its Sawyer!

4. Since Amy successfully gave birth (and presumably conceived her child) on the island, that means we're pre-baby issues. Yay! Any guesses about what's causing it? I think it may pertain to Ben's rise to power, his own parental issues, and maybe the fact that he took power through corrupt/questionable means.

3. Speaking of Ben, where was the young, sad version we all remember from "The Man Behind the Curtain?" I imagine he's going to show up at some point, but it would seem like at least one of the Losties had to have run into him during the three years they spent together in the Dharma Initiative.

2. Crazy Egypt stuff this week, huh? That statue definitely looked like an Egyptian god of some kind. And Horace is a homophone for Horus, an Egyptian god. So what do all these ties to Egypt mean? Are the original Others travelers from Ancient Egypt? I haven't got much here, but its some food for thought.

1. Changing the future, week 7. Sawyer and Juliet decided to intervene and help Amy, even though Faraday thinks you can't change the past. So was she always going to be saved? Or did they change the timeline? Did Sawyer's pow-wow with Alpert change anything? Or is this actually planting the seeds of the Dharma purge? I think we're getting to the point soon where people are going to start trying to reshape the past. All this stuff feels like its starting to come to a head.