Lost: Recon

This is not a review, nor a summary. This is my reaction. Please comment with your own reactions.

According to the Lost Podcast With Jay and Jack, this season is broken up into three acts, the second having started last week with the Ben-centric episode, Dr. Linus. With that in mind, act one was super lame.

The addition of Dogen and the temple rubbed me the wrong way from the start. For a show where things just appear on the island whenever the plot necessitates, even a secret temple community seemed a bit random; however, I was able to suspend my disbelief. But when they started talking about how the Smoke Monster was going to slaughter the people in the temple, I had to draw the line. Perhaps I missed something in the month that I powered through seasons 1-6, but I would swear that the Smoke Monster was a security system for the temple, not an enemy.

Another thing that bothered me about the first act was the crappy flash sideways. I heard that season six was going to be linear, meaning no flashes. Perhaps I misunderstood that statement, and it only refers to the last handful of episodes. Thankfully, these past two weeks have proven that the flash sideways doesn't always have to flash suck. I'm all about taking an alternate glimpse into a characters life, but Sayid being emo and Kate being--well, Kate--isn't exactly what I'd call alternate. Ben and Sawyer's alternate lives, however, take the 180 approach and reveal sides of them that we'd otherwise never see. This definitely wouldn't work for every character, but finding out that Jack would be a shitty father wasn't very entertaining.

With the exception of the totally badass scene where Claire almost cuts Kate's throat while Sayid watches (followed by Evil Locke bitch-slapping Claire), there wasn't much worth talking about. I really enjoyed Sawyer's flash sideways, but not enough to discuss it at length. I suppose I could theorize about what Charles Widmore is hiding behind the locked door in the submarine (Desmond?), or how the producers Charlie-cockblocked us by having Liam show up (seriously, what the fuck?), but I'm kind of sleepy. The only question I have on my mind is this: How the fuck did Sawyer get out of that cave after he broke all the ladders?