IMHO "Lost" 501 & 502: Shirtless time travel!

As we learn in the season premiere of ABC's Lost, there are rules to time travel. The most important? You can't change the past. Whatever happens happens. So if you were hoping to revise the storyline of the previous four seasons to make Lost a bit more gay-inclusive, you can forget it.

No matter. Impossibly straight (and hopelessly confusing) though it may be, Lost is still a very entertaining show, and the new season got off to a great start with the airing of two full episodes, "Because You Left" and "The Lie." And by "great start" I don't just mean the entire episode of shirtless Sawyer:

We offer a brief recap (including spoilers) after the break, but mostly we want to hear from AfterElton members who are also Lost fans. What did you think of the premiere?  Do you have any theories about what you saw last night?

Let us know in the comments!

*****SPOILER ALERT******

Previously on Lost we are reminded what happened to the Oceanic 6 once they made it off the island: Kate is raising Claire's baby as her own, and Sun has joined forces with the evil Charles Widmore in order to get revenge on Ben for the death of her husband, Jin. Meanwhile, Jack is addicted to painkillers and miserable, Hugo is in a mental facility, and Sayid has become some sort of hired assassin. If things weren't bad enough, Ben shows up with Locke's body in a casket and convinces Jack that all of the Oceanic 6 have to return to the island. 

The episode begins in the distant past (the 1970's?) when the Dharma Initiative controlled the island. We witness the Initiative's finding of that mysterious wheel (which Ben used at the end of last season to move the island). That Asian guy we've previously only seen in those old Dharma Initiative videotapes explains that the wheel is very dangerous, but if the initiative can harness its power they will be able to travel in time. 

Then in a big reveal we discover one of the Dharma Initiative construction workers digging out that wheel is none other than Daniel Farraday in disguise!

Daniel Farraday makes a less than convincing construction worker

Okay, so the big question is, what is Daniel Farraday doing in the distant past? Perhaps more importantly, when's the last time that guy had a decent meal? He is skin and bones.

Before we can find out answers to these questions, the next scene takes us off the island and well into the future where Jack and Ben are at a funeral parlor stealing Locke's dead body. 

Turns out Ben is trying to collect up all the Oceanic 815 surivovrs— and Locke's dead body— so they can all return to the island.

Cut back to 3 years earlier when Ben turned that mysterious wheel and the island disappeared in a flash of light. At last we get to find out what happened to the folks who were stuck on the island when that happened (Sawyer, Juliet, Daniel Farrady, Locke et. al).

Daniel explains that they are all skipping through time. Now this is all quite confusing and makes your head hurt if you think about it too much, but Sawyer has his shirt off the entire episode so hey, I'm on board with this time travel stuff.

To be honest, this show is practically impossible to follow for those late to the game, but if you've been watching Lost since the beginning, the time travel plot twist explains a lot of the previous weirdness on this show. All those ghosts who randomly appeared and disappeared on the island? Maybe they weren't ghosts at all, but various people "skipping" through time.

The only person who seems to fully understand their plight is Daniel. He is desperate to stop the time traveling because his lady love, Charlotte, has developed a rather ominous nose bleed (a symptom of lethal time travel sickness). 

Charlotte needs some dramamine stat

During one of their "skips" into the past Daniel tracks down Desmond in the hatch and begs him to go find his mother at Oxford University. I know boys often want their mothers when things get tough, but exactly what Mama Farraday is going to do to fix things is a mystery to me.

The show ends well into the future with Desmond (now off the island) waking from a dream and remembering what Daniel asked him to do.

The second episode centers primarily on Hurley. Sayid has busted him out of the mental hospital and the two of them are on the run both from the police and some random bad guys. (I think these baddies work for Widmore but who knows, maybe they are Ben's lackeys. Anyone have a theory?)

Hurley gets pulled over by a cop and — okay, this is weird — the cop is Ana Lucia (played by Michelle Rodriguez). We all know Ana Lucia died back on the island so not sure whether this is her ghost, or a figment of Hurley's imagination, or maybe even Ana Lucia time traveling.  Whatever this apparition is, she gives Hurley some advice about staying away from the police. "What if I'd been a real cop that pulled you over?" she says. 

Ana Lucia appears to Hurley — lets him off with a warning

Hurley is the only person who sees Ana Lucia because Sayid got hit with a tranquilizer dart and spends most of the episode snoring.  Before he passes out he warns Hurley not to trust Ben. "Whatever he says, do the opposite!"

At the end of the episode Ben approaches Hurley and tells him he is working with Jack and that Hurley has to come with them back to the island. But Hurley remembers Sayid's warning from earlier in the ep and instead of going with Ben he gives himself up to the police, thereby frustrating plans to get everyone back to the island.

So what's your take on the Lost premiere? I thought I had a pretty good handle on what was happening after the first of last night's episodes. But the second episode and the appearance of Ana Lucia has me totally confused again. Would love to hear from other Lost fans. What did you think about last night's season 5 kick-off?