Lost 5.1 and 5.2: "Because You Left" and "The Lie"

Welcome to the official Bloody Good Horror Lost recap blog. What's that you say, everyone and their mother writes a Lost recap? Well guess what, this one is going to be EXTREME. So saddle up.

Here's how it will work. I'll break things down into four easily digestible nuggets: The Happenings, where I'll describe what happened in as few words as possible; The Craziness, where I'll discuss how our mindholes have just been blown to pieces; The Verdict, where I'll let you know if the episode was any good; and The Wild Speculation, where I'll wildly speculate about the future of Jack, Kate, Locke, Ben, Sayid, Sun, Walt, the Island, time travel, the Dharma Initiative, and other Lost minutiae.

With that, let us begin.

Episodes: "Because You Left" and "The Lie"

The Happenings: "Because You Left" opens with a scene in which we see Dr. Marvin Candle and the rest of the Dharma Initiative first encountering the inner chamber of the Island that we know will be used in the future to "move" the island. From there we pick up with the gang. Jack, who has met up with Ben at Locke's viewing, is convinced by his former nemesis that they need to reunite the Oceanic 6 and return to the Island. The rest of the 6, however, are dealing with their own problems: Kate is on the run from some lawyers who have asked for a maternity test between Kate and Aaron, Sun has continued to have meetings with Widmore about killing Ben, and Sayid and Hurley are on the run after breaking Hurley out of the mental institution. Meanwhile, on the island, we learn what happens after the light flashed and the island disappeared: it happened again, and again and again. In fact, what we come to realize is that the people on the island are moving through time, or at the very least, jumping to different time periods on the island. Locke, after being shot by Ethan, meets up with Richard Alpert, who treats his wound, gives him a compass, and tells him that to bring the 6 back, he'll have to die.

In the second episode, the 6 continue to come together, with Sun and Kate meeting up in LA, and Sayid and Hurley arriving at Jack's door in need of some help. Sayid, however, has told Hurley not to trust Ben, though when they encounter Jack, they are unaware that he and Ben have joined forces. While hiding out at Hurley's parent's house, Mr. Abbadon shows up, though doesn't catch up with them. Locke's body, which Ben and Jack have stolen from his viewing, is taken to some butcher woman who is an accomplice of Ben. While Jack is saving Sayid's life, Ben approaches Hurley, who instead of joining up runs outside and into the hands of the police. Back on the island, the remaining survivors and scientists struggle to deal with the time jumps. Faraday stealthly makes contact with a Desmond of the past, and tells him to find Faraday's own mother in the future at Oxford. Charlotte has begun to get headaches and nose bleeds, which Faraday reads about in his journal, causing him to scowl. On the beach, the survivors are attacked by flaming arrows, presumably shot by the Others. While escaping, Juliet and Sawyer are captured, and look to be in serious trouble until Locke shows up and knifes a couple of dudes. In the final scene, we see a woman making crazy calculations and working with some bizarre tools to finalize work on some calculations about the Island. She meets with Ben and tells them that they have 70 hours. He says he lost Hurley and asks what will happen if he can't "get them all." Her ominous response: "Then God help us all."

The Craziness: Dr. Candle reveals that the Island's core possesses enough power to "control time," though he also says that their are rules that prevent them from going back to change things.

Faraday explains time as both a record, which is now skipping (which we saw a visual of in the opening scene), and a line, which cannot be changed.

Ben's conversation with the butcher indicates that there is a potentially large group of people who are collaborating to combat the Widmore group.

Again, this hasn't been double-checked, but I believe that the compass that Alpert offers to Locke is one of the several items that Alpert offered to a young-Locke in a particularly memorable scene from season 3.

It will likely be explained in more detail going forward, but The Others do not move through time with the survivors and the scientists. It would seem that they remain "part" of the Island.

Sawyer and Juliet's captors speak with British accents, like a certain nasty old man, and call it "their island."

Sun harbors all kinds of ill will for pretty much everyone, including Kate, though she says otherwise to Kate's face.

Hurley blames all the negative stuff that has happened on the decision that the 6 made to lie about their post-crash lives. Though I didn't have the benefit of DVR to verify, it also looked like one of the "cops" that took Hurley into custody was our old friend Mr. Abbadon.

The Verdict: "Because You Left" was a rousing start to the season, as was "The Lie," though the latter wasn't as strong in my opinion. If both of these episodes are any indication though, we are going to see the show's producers really crank the violence up a notch. There were several solid action sequences, and also a handful of funny moments. We also got a great cross-section of all the main characters, as well as some long-lost side characters including Ethan and Ana Lucia. In all, there was no drop-off from the breathless action and intricate plotting of season 4.

The Wild Speculation: Whew, this section is going to be tough to write so soon after the episode. My speculations for the time being wouldn't be all that wild. On the mainland, it looks like things will be progressing fairly normally (at least in a narrative straight-line sense). The big question will be what happens between Faraday's mother (is this who Ben was speaking to in the final scene?) and Desmond, once they get together. We're going to learn a ton about the history of the island, it would seem, for as long as the skipping through time goes on. I think that in the current time, where Juliet and Sawyer were grabbed, Widmore, perhaps a very young Widmore was actually on the Island. This would indicate that he does have first hand knowledge of the Island's inner workings. It was unclear, but I think this time predates the Dharma initiative, though it doesn't predate the Others. What exactly is the nature of the Others, and what their relationship to the Island is remains one of the really big questions. The link between the Island, Ben, Locke and Jacob also remains very underdeveloped, despite everything that we know. Who's got some wild speculation of their own? Let's stir this pot.