Thirty Years Earlier: Lost Recapped

On the roller coaster that has been season five of Lost, "Namaste" would probably be placed amongst the good episodes. It wasn't flawless (I'll get to that in a moment), but it had enough thrills and laughs and interesting moments to make up for the fact that so much of the show still feels like wheel-spinning--if you can think of any other way to describe the Sun subplot, I'd be interested to hear it. But otherwise, "Namaste" seemed like yet-another-pilot episode: everything is different now, reset. Black is white. Up is down. Past is present. And I'm so dizzy at all the developments that I can hardly tell whether this is good storytelling or bad. After it ended, I just wanted to sit here and mutter in my best Hurley voice, "uh, what?" But I think that's a good thing.

Take Sawyer and Jack: their showdown was the first dramatic moment of the season. And it was great! Congrats, guys! There were two characters that we all know and love (for different reasons), locking horns and wits; the weight of their history bearing down on every cutting comment they made to each other. This is what the show has been missing. Because for all the coolness, for all the why-are-they-time-traveling-oh-my-goodness-Michelle-Dessler's-baby-is-Ethan! parlor tricks, Lost only works when something tangible happens. And seeing Sawyer completely outsmart Jack and render him impotent is the definition of tangible.

(Oh Matthew Fox. I wrote about him this week for the Observer, but again, I have to stress: the man is a genius. That scene with Sawyer was simply amazing. Where is his Emmy?)

And while so much of the show has been lost (pun intended) in hooey and continuity flaws and Dharma-era jumpsuits, the fact that almost all of the castaways are back together is good news. I might not have a clue what is going on, but at least I can look forward to Kate and Juliet having a bitch-off next week.

Here's some more observations. Spoilers, ho!

1.) Fun fact: Radzinsky, who made an appearance tonight constructing a model of the yet-to-be-built Swan station out of Popsicle sticks, will end up being Kelvin Inman's hatch mate, scribbling the master map of Dharma stations all over the blast door, and then blowing his brains out with a shotgun. If you don't remember this, you probably don't have Lostpedia listed as one of your favorites.

2.) Let me talk about this Sun storyline a little more. Why isn't she with everyone else in 1977? Because the only reason I can think of is that Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse want her tearful reunion with Jin to occur during the season finale. Of course, there is a slight problem with this: by the time Sun and Jin reunite, will anyone actually care? While there have been many missteps and false bottoms during season five, what Messrs. Lindelof and Cuse have done with Sun is borderline criminal. She is a terrible character now: arch, annoying and, worst of all, boring. If anyone actually liked Sun in the first place, there would be rants and raves littering talkbacks all over the internet, but since she's always been an also-ran, no one really gives a crap. Dare I say: Jin deserves better.

3.) Also: Remember when it was cool to see Christian Shephard and not just an excuse to make a trip to the fridge to grab a bottle of water? Those were the days. Enough. We get it. He's "mysterious". Reveal him to be Jacob or find a new apparition to spook us with. The next time Christian will be relevant is when he finally bumps into Jack on the Island.

4.) Where is Daniel Faraday hiding out? We know he's in the Dharma Initiative because we saw him in the season premiere interacting with Pierre Chang. But thus far, he hasn't been seen and Sawyer talked about him like he had gone off the reservation. Literally. Hmmm.

5.) Mad Men's Jimmy Barrett is going to be a problem. I know this because whenever a television show lingers on someone after a scene is over and he gives the camera a dirty look, he's usually a bad guy. The idea that he's going to narc on Jack and Sawyer to the higher-ups is already boring me to tears. It seems like something 24 would do.

6.) Speaking of 24: How about what's going on with Sayid? So he's a Hostile now. Could that feel any more like a contrived "Jack Bauer is the bad guy!" set-up? Anyway, Sayid met Young Ben during "Namaste", in yet another Lost reveal that wasn't in the least bit surprising. Is there any doubt that next week Sayid is going to break out of the jail and try to kill Young Ben? Again: boring! I'm falling asleep just thinking about it.

Bonus: Pretty cool that the runway The Others had Sawyer and Kate building in Season Three ended up being the runway Frank landed the plane on. And we think these writers don't know what they're doing...