First of all, I recommend watching the finale of Season 5 before you begin Season 6. This episode literally picks up immediately after Juliet bangs against the bomb with a rock to make it explode. Everything whites out and then switches scenes to Jack sitting in an airplane.

Oceanic 815

This is the scene that the first 2 minutes were released on ABC’s website. It seems like Jack snaps out of a daydream and kind of looks confused as to why he’s there. Maybe Jack is reading our thoughts? Why is Jack on this plane? As it turns out, he’s on the very same flight – Oceanic Flight 815 – that he was on in the pilot episode of Season 1. However, as the scene progresses, there are minute differences between this scene and season 1’s scene. The real biggie is that the plane does not crash this time. Everything’s fine (and Rose says so).

Slight aside… I wonder if this will be Rose & Bernard’s final appearance on Lost? I think we’ll be seeing small cameo appearances from pretty much everyone who’s ever been on this show. Although you’ll notice throughout the episode that Shannon (Maggie Grace) doesn’t make an appearance next to Boone in the airplane scenes. Reportedly, she was too busy filming a few movies to come back for a small appearance on Lost.

Jack goes to the bathroom in the airplane and comes back and Desmond is sitting in the aisle seat of Jack’s row. Ok. This was not in the pilot of season 1. Did the bomb cause Desmond to never have been on the Island and now he happened to be on Oceanic 815? They seem to recognize each other but just can’t place how they do.

So why does Jack only get one bottle of vodka from the stewardess in this version? Why is Desmond on the plane? Why did Shannon/Boone’s story suddenly change to make it so she was never on the plane? Do any of the Losties on the plane have a slight memory of being on the island?

EW’s Jeff Jenson theorizes on Desmond: “Desmond could be flickering in and out of this world, like Pariah in Crisis on Infinite Earths…Maybe there’s something not quite ‘’set” about the Sideways reality, that it’s still in flux, and Desmond is an element moving in and out of the mix”

Through the Ocean: A “What?!?” Moment

Staring out the Oceanic 815 window, the camera view plummets down, into the ocean, through the water, through a school of fish, past a shark and stops on the four-toed statue. Under water. Woah.

FYI – Look at this screencapture to see that the shark was indeed a Dharma shark (it has the Dharma logo near it’s fin)

Out of the 70’s

Kate wakes up in a tree. Her ears are clearly hurting her, she can’t hear herself well and she keeps touching her ears. She gets out of the tree and runs into Miles. His ears are ringing too. Kate finds evidence that they are back in their rightful time frame and no longer in 1977. They also come across the twisted metal of the Swan Hatch. They also find Jack.  Didn’t we just see Jack in the airplane? Yes. Two Jacks! Also, Sawyer is pretty pissed that Juliet is dead and nothing seemed to be fixed by the bomb. Blah, Blah… lots more Jack-Kate-Sawyer drama. You’ll know from Season 5 posts that I’m just really over that love triangle and all their drama and therefore, any storyline attached to it. Its all very predictable and repetitive.

Back on the Plane…

Kate has some interactions with Saywer & Jack. The passengers of this airplane are quite talkative, huh?  A Hurley comedic relief break is taken when a fan of his Mr. Cluck’s chicken commercial is asking him to do some impressions.

The Injured on the Island

Sayid & Juliet are still alive, but hurt. Kate, Jack, Sawyer, and Jin are digging twisted pieces of metal out of the hole that Juliet is in. Meanwhile, Hurley is tending to Sayid. ”When I die, what do you think will happen to me?” asked Sayid to Hurley. Hurley hears someone in the jungle and looks around with a gun to see who it is. It’s Jacob. He says, “Hi Hugo. Remember me?”

There’s a scene with some plane chatter between Sun & Jin and then Boone & Locke. I didn’t see much relevance to either.

Verizon Sneak Peek Promo

This scene was shown exclusively to Verizon Wireless subscribers. Watch it here.

Locke is cleaning Jacob’s blood off a knife. Ben is pretty freaked out about what they just did (season 5 finale they killed Jacob and burned his body in the fire). Locke sends Ben out to get Richard Alpert.

Outside, the passengers from the Ajira Airways flight are milling around. We see Frank Lapidus, Illana, and Sun. They show Ben Locke’s dead body that was dumped out of the coffin that was on the Ajira Airways flight (in Season 5). Ben looks pretty shocked.

Meanwhile they’re still digging Juliet out from underneath the large pile of metal.

To the Temple

Hurley is following Jacob through the jungle. Jacob stops and squats down by Sayid. He’s not listening to Hurley. He tells Hurley that he’s dead but that he needs to save Sayid by bringing him to the Temple.

Charlie in the Bathroom

Charlie has gone unconscious in the airplane bathroom. He had swallowed his bag of drugs. Of course, Jack and Sayid are to the rescue and Jack pulls the bag out from the back of Charlie’s throat.

It’s funny how character roles and situations played out very similarly on the plane ride with and without the crash.

Locke = Smokey = Locke

Failing to get Richard Alpert to come in to see John Locke, Ben is followed in by some mean dudes with guns. It turns out that these dudes are supposed to be Jacob’s bodyguards (some great bodyguards, huh?). Locke tries to tell these guys that Jacob is dead, so therefore they’re free! They respond by shooting at Locke. A fight ensues and suddenly Locke dissappears and the smoke monster comes in and kills everyone except Ben. One guy surrounds himself with a circle of grey ash (we’ve seen this around Jacob’s Cabin) and the smoke monster cannot cross it… but it can blow the guy out of the small circle, so it does :) Suddenly Locke appears again and says, “I’m sorry you had to see me like that”. BOOM – first big reveal of Season 6! I think this issue deserves it’s own post. Check back for that…

Episode 1 Wind Down

A few more things of note happen in the final parts of LA X. Nothing to elaborate on though.

Juliet dies. :( Sawyer is mad at Jack for it.

Desmond isn’t in Jack’s seat aisle when he gets back from dealing with Charlie… what happened to Desmond?

On the airplane, characters are interacting with objects that we know have significance to them – Hurley has his headphones, Sayid looks at the photo of Nadia, Jin looks at the watch.

Oceanic Flight 815 lands safely. Charlie is arrested for drug possesion.

Arrival – on with life

The people on Oceanic Flight 815 that we have come to know and love and who have made such interesting interactions with each other on a mysterious island simply pass by each other while gathering their luggage and get off the plane never having experienced anything that we have seen in the last 5 seasons.  Presumably in this version of reality these people will go about their lives as if nothing ever happened… because it didn’t.

It will be interesting to see if destiny causes their lives to cross anyway. We will see in the next hour of LA X!