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Totally 'Lost'

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We got this mystery-expanding glimpse of the Statue in ''LaFleur's'' opening sequence, which picked up with the Left Behinders (Sawyer, Juliet, Jin, Miles, and Faraday) at the end of ''This Place Is Death.'' They spotted the Statue, then — strrrrrrrrrrrrrretch — The Island slung them into 1974, with unprecedented force and a sense of finality. ''I think it's over. I think John did it,'' Juliet said. And as performed by Elizabeth Mitchell, flashing active thinking and using quiet understatement, I totally bought it.

I also think that 1974 is when/where the castaways were always and immediately supposed to have gone when Ben turned the donkey wheel last season. They didn't because of two mistakes that required elaborate course correction: Locke not turning the wheel, and the Oceanic 6 (plus Desmond and Lapidus) leaving. From there, ''LaFluer'' toggled between separate arcs in separate time frames: 1974, which showed how the Left Behinders came into contact with The Dharma Initiative; and 1977, which revealed that the Left Behinders had seamlessly integrated into Dharma society. We shall deal with each year separately — after this slight digression:

Note how 1974-1977 = the 2005-2008 (the off-Island/Oceanic 6 years) years. I wonder if we can/should tease out that symmetry even further. The Left Behinders' Dharma drama very much echoed the O6's off-Island ordeal, complete with cover-up lie, a dead body to haul around, and a con man-turned-shepherd. (Ben = Sawyer here.)

Moreover: Have you noticed how Season 5 of Lost resembles Season 2 of Lost? Season 2 emphasized the Man of Science/Man of Faith conflict and introduced us to the Dharma Initiative mythology. Season 5: Lots of faith/reason; lots of Dharma. When you consider that Season 4 mirrored Season 3 (split group story lines; a climactic attack on the castaways; similar Coffin/''We've got to go back'' cliffhanger), what you have is a saga that's doubling back on itself.

SO...

Does this mean Season 6 will emulate Season 1? And given that we're now dealing with time travel and paradox, might Season 6 literally follow in Season 1's footprints due to some looming reboot of time? Will Season 5 culminate with an event that will alter all of Lost chronology, setting up a Season 6 that will reveal the scope of those alterations by retelling the entire saga from the very beginning? How's this for the opening sequence of next year's premiere: Jack wakes up in the jungle, right after the crash of Oceanic 815. He races around the beach, saving people, just as he did in Lost's pilot. Except this time, things are little different. Boone, Shannon, Michael, and Walt won't be there — but Miles and Faraday might. Maybe Locke will still be a paraplegic; perhaps his magic legs were a temporary gift lent to Locke so that he could accomplish what he needed to do for the Island? And all the flashbacks? The same — and yet, significantly different, too. Call it ''The Rough Draft to Final Draft Theory of Lost.''

Ending digression; commence coherent recapping in 3-2-1...

NEXT: If she's here, does that mean Jack Bauer is on his way?


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