The last season of Lost premiered Tuesday, and I was there with bells on to watch it. I’m late to the game on Lost, so I’ve been playing catch-up this last month, watching seasons 1 through 5 in one long marathon burst. I think the show actually suffers some in my opinion for this, because watched in large chunks, it becomes a very tedious little show.

With the exception of a few, the characters are largely unlikeable, which makes it difficult for me to have any real sympathy for them. The main characters are whiny, stupid, and ineffectual. They don’t stop to think, consider the consequences, plan anything, ponder over the information they already have in their possession, or utilize their resources — in short, they don’t do anything but react to events. They rarely, if ever, set their own events into motion, and when they do, it’s because of an overly-emotional outburst of rage and doesn’t result in anything but more trouble for them.

Another problem I have with these characters is that, again with the exception of a few, these people balls-out refuse to learn from their mistakes and exhibit some character growth. Right up to season five, Jack never once learned that emotional outbursts don’t solve problems. In the first half of season five, he was much calmer, but only because he’d completely given up and gone all fatalist and self-hating on us. Then, once back on the island, he “discovers his purpose”, IE, decides to blow up the damn island with a hydrogen bomb, and turns back into the loud-mouthed, self-righteous, overly-emotional prick he’d been the whole time.

I could complain about these characters for hours, y’all, but on with the reviewing, already. Actually, less blow-by-blow reviewing of the episodes, since I’m going to assume anyone who’s reading this has already seen them, and more a discussion of the maelstrom of new theories these episodes have provoked.

So, LA X 1 picks up with the bomb going off in a bright white flash, and suddenly, we appear to be dealing with alternate realities. Down one leg of the Trousers of Time (thank-you, Terry Pratchett), we have the Losties on the island, apparently back in their proper timezone, dealing with the consequences of their bombsplodey. Down the other leg, we have the Losties back on what appears to be Flight 815, only the plane doesn’t crash, and our heroes land safely in LAX.

Over at the Lostpedia, there are two competing theories over what we’re seeing in the show. One faction holds that the LAX scenes are an alternate universe created by the bombsplodey. The other claims that the LAX scenes are actually an epilogue to the show. What I don’t understand is why these seem to be mutually exclusive theories. I’d posit that the bombsplodey created the alternate timeline, scenes of which are indeed an epilogue of sorts, and the season will deal with how the Losties achieve that epilogue. (Just, please, writers of Lost, can we avoid the whole “merging of alternate realities” cliche? It’s a bit worn out.)

The premiere was also kind enough to answer a few questions. The impostor Locke, revealed last season to be the mysterious Man in Black, does in fact seem to be the smoke monster. I’d suspected as much, but it does beggar the question of what, exactly, Jacob might be. Some folks over at Lostpedia claim to have noticed a white smoke in several scenes, and are wondering if Jacob, too, has an alternate, smokey form. Or possibly a “light” form, as a lot is being made of real Locke’s description of meeting the monster and it being made of white light.

Another thing I noticed is that, apparently, the Swan was never built. When our Losties were in 1977, the Dharma Initiative were in the process of building the Swan. Then the Losties show up and blow up the hydrogen bomb. There’s a flash of white light, and suddenly, the Losties are — presumably — in the future. (It seems likely they’re in the future, as out on the beach by the foot of the Statue, fake Locke and the beach crowd, whom we know are residing in 2007ish, see the flare that was set off at the Temple, where our heroes are hanging out after taking Sayid there.) Our heroes come to at the crater site, which is very clearly not the same crater Desmond caused when he set off the failsafe. That crater was a deep hole with steep, rimless sides that appeared to have melted and solidified. This crater has a sizable rim, and a deep, drill-style hole still filled with all that metal/drill wreckage from when the pocket of magnetism was sucking everything down the drill hole. So, obviously, the Swan was never built. Also, the site was apparently never cleaned up after, either. Makes one wonder what exactly happened in the aftermath of the magnetism/bombsplodey incident. The island was in the process of being evacuated, so maybe the remaining Dharma Initiative folks died in the blast? Curiouser and curiouser. If I were a Lostie, I’d be taking a moment to quiz the Others at the Temple about the last thirty years of history. It might prove enlightening.

I doubt the Losties will think to do that, though. If they were bright enough to put that much thought into something, they wouldn’t be in the fix they were in. Just sayin’.

So, impostor Locke is Jacob’s mysterious island buddy is the smoke monster. We have yet to determine who the good guys and bad guys are in this equation. We have no real proof yet that Jacob is a good guy. (Although, I rather suspect it’ll go that way. No proof, just a hunch.) It also seems likely that impostor Lock/beach buddy/smoke monster has also been appearing as Christian, and I don’t give a damn what color shoes everyone’s been wearing. (It’s JJ Abrams, people. The man lives on Surprise Buses of Doom and red herrings.) In fact, I’d be willing to bet that every appearance of a ghost/vision/horse/Walt/etc, with the possible exception of Claire, who may be just a prisoner for some reason and not dead, has been the smoke monster. There’s no real proof that Jacob has been impersonating anyone. I also find it very unlikely that Jacob was ever in the Weird Mystery Cabin. It seems much more likely that the Man in Black (and I don’t mean Johnny Cash) has been using it the whole time.

So, all in all, the season premiere managed to answer a few — very few — nagging questions, while simultaneously introducing an entirely new can of worms for us to explore. That’s about what I expected. It seems to just kill these writers to actually answer a damn question. Still, I’m looking forward to this season, and having this mess tidied up and put away.