Theories on LAX

First off, let me say I can imagine Abrams, Lindelof and Kurtzman sitting at a table laughing their heads off right now.

LINDELOF: "Those saps spend nine months trying to figure out if the bomb reset the timeline or not! Hahahaha!"

KURTZMAN: "There's no way they saw this coming! Two alternate realities, both interweaved throughout the premiere? Stroke of genius, J.J."

ABRAMS: "I just figured if time travel made our fans' heads explode, adding in alternate concepts of the world would be enough to really drive them crazy. How's our stock in Strait Jackets R' Us doing?"

Jerks.

So here we are, experiencing two different realities, both hinging on the single event of Faraday's plan working or not. For all intents and purposes, the two realities are happening at the same time. Flight 815 landed in September of 2004, while Ajira Airways Flight 316 crashed on the Island in 2007. A three-year difference isn't enough to really construe time travel, at least not by Lost's standards.

For the sake of simplicity, we'll refer to the world where 815 crashed as Reality A, and the world where it did not as Reality B. Reality A is essentially the the standard timeline of the show. Flight 815 crashed, Cindy the flight attendant joined the Others, Ben kidnapped and otherwise harassed the Losties, Smokey rampaged throughout the jungle, etc.

As part of this standard timeline, the Oceanic 6 went back to the mainland and then returned to the Island on Flight 316. The ones who were left in 1977 after all the timeshifting madness ended (Sawyer, Jack, Kate, Jin, Hurley, Miles, Juliet, Sayid) are whomped back into 2007 with the regular timeline. What happened, happened. The work they did as part of Dharma is all part of the past. Jacob's nemesis put into motion the plan to kill Jacob, and succeeded.

After this point, things got fuzzy. Were Jack, Kate, etc. on the Island at the same time as Richard, Lapidus, Sun, Ben, etc.? Then Dogan set off the warning rocket, and it was seen at the beach just after Jacob was killed. This is an important event, as it ties the two groups together and establishes that they are sharing the Island at the exact same time. I repeat: that rocket was very important.

So that's the normal. On to Reality B, the abnormal.

Differences:

1. The Island is underwater, complete with the foot of Tawaret's statue, the Dharma barracks and who knows what else? This implies the Island sank after Dharma arrived, which makes its current state a rather new one. Insane.
2. Christian Shepard's body never made it onto Flight 815.
3. Boone was not successful in attempting to bring Shannon home.
4. Desmond is on Flight 815. Assuming everything prior to that is normal, he probably successfully navigated the globe in Libby's ship, passed over the Island instead of crashing into it, and made it home to marry Penny.
   
5. Hurley is the luckiest guy alive.
   
6. Sun and Jin are not married, as neither are wearing wedding rings, and the airport employee in Los Angeles calls Sun "Ms. Paik." Sun also appears to not understand or speak English.
7. Walt and Michael don't appear to be on the plane.

I'm not counting anything that would have normally happened had 815 not crashed, ie. Locke is still paralyzed. However, Rose's cancer is not healed because she never ends up on the Island. Charlie is also still a heroin addict, though presumably he'll get over that in prison or some rehab program. There are countless other examples of how this alternate reality will change things.

But back to Reality A, the reveal that Jacob's Nemesis, Smokey and New Locke are all the same was a big one. It seems to me that if Esau's view of humanity is pessimistic, it makes sense that Smokey would judge new arrivals and kill them if he found them unrepentant or unworthy of redemption.

Now as to what Esau wants, that's a little murkier. He tells Ben that unlike John Locke, he wants to go home. Is he held captive on the Island? Was Jacob his jailer? Esau does cut out a piece of the rug inside the statue. That may be significant.

Esau takes Richard prisoner and starts heading towards the Temple, we can presume. Once Hurley tells Dogan that Jacob is dead, the Others start spreading the ash around the perimeter, sending up the warning rocket, etc. I'm guessing Esau is heading straight for the Temple, with Richard as a hostage, in order to negotiate with them. He needs something they have.

"Hello Richard, it's good to see you without your chains," Esau says. Are these literal or physical chains? Is Richard from the Black Rock? Was he a slave? Are the chains representative of how Richard must serve the leader of the Others, and now that Jacob is dead, that subservience is absolved?

And then there's the Temple; As I wrote earlier today, this is the first time we've seen the Temple, and the first time we've witnessed a healing at the fountain. The murkiness of the water is probably due to Jacob's death... is it possible the water's color signifies who is in control of the Island? Esau: black and murky, Jacob: clear? And considering Sayid is, in fact healed, does that mean Esau saved him?

The Others at the Temple seem to be more multicultural than the Others we've seen before. Some look Indian, Dogan is obviously Japanese, etc. It is apparent that these Others live exclusively at the Temple, or we would have run into them before now. They had no part in Ben's living in the Dharma barracks, and had nothing to do with the kidnapping of Walt, Zach and Emma, etc. I wonder if Ben went rogue and a contingent of Others followed him, leaving the rest loyal to Dogan.

Sayid's death and subsequent resurrection are interesting. He is dead to the world when the Losties arrive at the Temple. After being fully submerged in the water, he wakes up and starts to fight and struggle. I'm not sure he has the strength to do that after losing that much blood... was the healing process working? Does the process require the full body to be immersed for that long in order for a part of Jacob/Esau to enter the person? After he's pronounced dead, Miles is checking him out with a weird look on his face. And then, an hour or so later (?) Sayid revives. Just weird.

Finally, this is the first time we've seen a list as a stamp of approval from Jacob. The Losties at the temple were dead before Dogan read that note and asked them to identify themselves. Since Jacob wrote the note, we can only assume it reads, "Don't kill the following:" And it also told them Sayid needed to be healed, or dire consequences would follow. That'll be interesting to watch.

Phew. Two-hour premieres are hard to tackle. I'll post more later this week as I think of more theories/ideas.

But bottom line, the premiere didn't disappoint me at all. Very interesting, good writing, kept my attention throughout. Here's hoping for an epic sixth season.