Man, that was really something. As popular as this show is, for the opening sequence of the premier episode of the final season, they show some embarrassing shit like that?

I enjoyed it, though. I suppose the parallel realities are going to be pissing a lot of people off (as a perceived cop-out), but I'm interested in seeing where that goes. Worst case scenario is they both continue alongside each other to very end - with plenty of eerie coincidences peppered throughout - culminating with everyone on the island dying and everyone in the other reality being left with an *eerie feeling* and some vague flash of recollection of their alternate selves.

Anyway, this successfully revived my interest and excitement with this show, and it's great to have this little escape to look forward to every week. There's nothing else like it out there, and it's been a lot of fun so far.

Frogurt scene was awesome. I was hoping he'd catch a stray bullet.

I believe he was wearing a red shirt, too.

1. Hey, Rose and Bernard…GET A ROOM!

2. Maybe they could have joined the Mile High Club, if not for Charlie choking on a lovely heroin balloon.

3. Is there a doctor on the plane??? Well, the living one is, but his dead daddy’s casket has become lost luggage. That’s why Jack should have just cremated Christian and stuffed his ashes into the overhead compartment. Never take more than you can fit in a carry-on!

4. If do-over Hurley’s really the luckiest man in the world, how do you explain his having to endure a seemingly endless and extremely annoying mid-flight small talk session with an obnoxiously relentless Arzt? I’d have probably jumped out of the plane right then and there.

5. The most baffling thing to me about the do-over flight was the presence of Desmond. He was already on the island manning the Commodore 64 and jamming to Mama Cass long before Oceanic 815 crashed, so how did he end up on the do-over flight???

6. Somebody tell The Temple’s maintenance man that it probably wouldn’t hurt to sprinkle a little chlorine into the hot tub of eternal life. It looked like maybe Tub Girl had just gone in for a dip. (If you don’t know who Tub Girl is, do yourself a favor and DO NOT look it up!)

7. Jack is the Lucy to the football that is Sawyer’s love life, which would make Sawyer the Charlie Brown of this excruciating metaphor. It kind of makes me giggle to imagine Sawyer saying “Good Grief” or “Rats,” though not as much as picturing him in that yellow shirt with the jagged brown stripe.

8. Well, we know know what – actually who – the Smoke Monster is, though not by name. He’s apparently the so-called “Man in Black” (the anti-Jacob), who’s taken to wearing an extremely convincing Locke costume. I have a hunch, far-fetched as it may seem, that he’s not the world’s biggest fan of Richard Alpert…unless a knee to the face is some sort of ancient expression of affection on the island that we’re just not privy to as of yet.

9. As for the entity many online have labeled “Flocke” (as in Fake Locke), I have a theory that he just might be what brought Sayid back to life, since the doo-doo hot tub didn’t seem to do the trick. Think about it: it took the Temple leaders so long to find out that Jacob had been killed, they might not have put down the ash fast enough to keep “Flocke” from sneaking in and inhabiting the seemingly deceased Mr. Jarrah.

10. And lastly, what’s the deal with the island being on the ocean floor? Is it on some sort of gigantic hydraulic lift, like at Jiffy Lube, where whenever the island “disappaears” (like back when Ben turned the frozen donkey wheel) it’s actually just quickly plunged to the bottom of the ocean until it’s safe to be raised to the surface again. Or is it…ATLANTIS???

5. The island blew up before Desmond ever got there.

Fuck, this show once seemed like such a great premise. But now, instead of quantum physics we get two warring supernatural knobs. They may also toss us a scrap of Schrodinger's Cat and pat themselves on the back for being extra clever. Fuck it. This is a convenient, desperate, and unsatisfying attempt to explain a pile of random shit they apparently just tossed out without thinking hard enough.

Well, there's that...

I mean it's still a really *eerie coincidence* that he somehow still ended up on that flight, which he was never on originally. Or maybe Jack just imagined the whole thing.

Score one for "Rent It."

A lot of things about the flight were off - Jack getting one airplane bottle instead of two, Jack being fidgety about the turbulence and Rose comforting him (opposite of the pilot ep), Shannon staying in Australia and not being on the plane, Jack's mysterious shaving nick, Hurley being optimistic, Rose didn't appear to be sick, etc. Instead of going back to when the plane went down and rebooting from there, it seems as if the explosion affected earlier parts of their lives as well. I dunno.

Here's Doc Jensen's always-good recap: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,2031346 ... 11,00.html

Yeah, I felt like the "domino effect" or "butterfly effect" or whatever from having the island blow up in 1977 was pretty clearly implied. Having watched the recap beforehand, they showed that exact scene where Jack was comforting Rose rather than vice versa. It also seemed to imply that Jack was vaguely aware of something being amiss, but that he was apparently the only one.

Man, I hate reading Doc Jensen.

ahhh, so that was sol star from deadwood. that was bugging the shit out of me and i couldn't put my finger on it.

The most impressive thing about the episode was how Locke can stay in his seat for the entire flight from Sydney to Los Angeles. That's fortitude.

Also the brother from East Bound and Down

Wheelchair peeps almost always catheterized for stuff like that.

I pretty much gave up on trying to follow all the details, and am now just watching shit blow up.

i thought it was great. be interesting to see how this whole thing shakes out. guess the time/space continuum didn't like them blowing up a nuke and thereby creating a paradox by their very existence at that in location at that time.

My theory is the island is a space ship. Jacob and the man in black are both aliens and "smoke monster" is their true form, or at least something they can both turn into. Space ship explains the island sinking, being able to move and having a weird magnetic/energy burst/whatever under the surface.

I wish I could put money on this shit in Vegas.

Finally got around to watching the episode.

Hmmm..... I won't say that I was disappointed with this episode because I enjoyed it a lot. However, I'm starting to think that Lost could end up like Stephen King's Dark Tower series. The explanations behind all the mysteries end up being much less interesting than the questions your mind comes up with while the mysteries are still unanswered.

I saw a great theory on darkufo about how the very first segment of each season has pretty much came out of left field and forshadowed the end of that season. Season6: I think we saw the final shot.. the island at the bottom of the ocean and the plane crosses over it, and it's over... how it gets there? It only ends once, and progress was made with the losties.

1. Where exactly did Sawyer manage to find a Zales on the island? Was it on the other side of the food court?

2. Hey, Kate…next time you’re in the midst of one of your frequent fleeing fugitive situations, you might want to go one step further than just changing your clothes and consider DITCHING THE STOLEN TAXI. I’m just sayin’.

3. I wonder if my HMO will let me switch my prescriptions from Walgreen’s over to Samurai Pharmacist. Sure, they’d all be poisoned, but there’s never a line at the pick-up counter.

4. Speaking of deadly medicine, has there ever been a creepier obstetrician than Dr. Ethan Goodspeed?

5. It’s always weird to see Mac from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” as one of The Others. I keep expecting Green Man to leap out of the jungle. Next week, I’m going to look closely at the people in the background during scenes at The Temple to see if maybe The McPoyles are lurking in the background.

6. And while on the subject of people from other shows, I just realized that the translator guy is the older brother from “Eastbound and Down.” I wonder if the scene with Samurai Pharmacist spinning a baseball was some sort of homage to Kenny Powers.

7. I’m not saying Jin’s English has made an implausible leap in quality, but he’s gone from Long Duk Dong to Gary Owens in about 1/1000th of the time it’s taken Antonio Banderas to go from El Mariachi to The Nasonex Bee.

8. I’m also impressed by how quickly (at least within the hour of this episode) Claire went from hysterical cabjacking victim to Lee Harvey Oswald. Nice aim!

9. I’ll bet Sayid would rather get jabbed with a hot poker than be stuck on the island. Um…

10. Note to recently abandoned wives in the midst of a pending adoption: DON’T FORGET TO CALL AND CANCEL YOUR SURROGATE!

Here's an interesting theory from, of all places, Best Week Ever:

Perhaps. I definitely think Smokey/FLocke is the manifestation of the other guy who was sitting on the beach with Jacob last season. I'm sure we'll figure out why he's so damned pissed off.

Also, Claire closely follows Charlie as THE MOST ANNOYING CHARACTER EVER ON A TELEVISED SERIES.

Kinda boring episode last night, and I do not like this parallel universe/timeline storyline they have going on.

Yeah that was a big nothing of an episode last night.

We found out a bunch of stuff we already knew or at least strongly suspected: Claire is, in fact, dead and is "possessed" by the smoke/MIB as is Locke, Christian Shepherd, and, we're led to believe, Sayid. And yeah, the parallel reality thing with Kate and Claire was pretty tedious. Do we really need this kind of aimless plodding in the final season where we're supposed to get all our "answers"?

I feel like a lot of the flash-sideways moments don't add much to the development of characters, plot, or anything. Most of it is just stuff you already know about the characters. ie, Jack is a surgeon who will run around to help anyone (like Charlie), Kate is a criminal with a heart of gold, Sayid can bust a door down, etc.

On the other side, I am always very interested in the events on the freaky island. Though Jin and Sun better find each other soon; I want them reunited.