After hearing Rousseau's transmission at the end of the first ever episode of Lost, Charlie posed the infamous question, "Guys, where are we?" After last night's episode "This Place Is Death" I think the question has now become, "Where are we going?"
This episode contained so much information. To me, it's amazing how much was fit into 43 minutes. For starters, we got all the juicy details of Rousseau's early days on the island within the first half of the show! I was thinking for sure that we would be stuck in Rousseau's early days for at least a full episode - if not more. If you need a prerequisite to this episode, go watch "Solitary," the first season episode that first introduced us to Danielle Rousseau. It took 4 years but we finally got most of the answers posed from that episode. How did Montaund lose his arm? The Smoke Monster ripped it off. How did Rousseau's crew get sick, but not her? They were stupid enough to go down the hole after Montaund and none other than Jin himself was the one who stopped her from going down as well. We found out how Rousseau knew that the smoke monster was a security system. We got confirmation that Charlotte grew up on the Island and have been led to believe that Faraday was in the past, warning a young Charlotte not to return to the Island once she and her mom left or else she would die. We found out that Christian Shephard may be more ghostly than human, but he seems cognitively aware of who he is by telling Locke to "Say hi to my son." Why was the island skipping? The frozen donkey wheel was dislodged by the ever conniving Ben, leaving John Locke and his life of sacrifice to clean up the mess. Sun's daughter is alive and well. Speaking of Sun, while she seems on board with Jack and Ben, everyone else seems to be in opposite directions. As Eloise Hawking so eloquently said, "I suppose it will have to do for now."
The time travel was given firm ground to stand on. The major debate has been whether or not they are creating time paradoxes by going back in time. The answer after last night's episode is no. Jin's run in with Rousseau was a part of her story when we first met her in season one. The information she knew (or thought she knew), as well as her immunity to the "sickness," were both based off of her encounter with Jin. Now it's time to go back and look at all of the scenes between Rousseau and Jin.
The other big reveal was that Faraday tried to interfere with the future by telling a young Charlotte never to return to the island or else she would die. With the confirmation that Faraday was always in her history - and that even with Faraday trying to interfere with the fate of her death on the island - it still happened. So finally our minds can rest at ease. There are no time paradoxes; everything that has happened is going to happen. There is no changing it...unless maybe if you're Desmond.
With so many answers coming so fast, the question I had for myself after the episode last night was, "Where are we going?" Now I know that this has been a thought by many viewers of the show throughout its run. My question is this: Now that they are answering so many questions and getting right to the nitty griity of the story, what's left? This season is supposed to be about the O6's (Oceanic Six) return to the island. What are they going to do once they get there? We have a whole season left after this one. I want to know what you guys think. What's next?
If you crave even more Lost Talk check out my podcast, "The Lost Podcast with Jay and Jack" or on iTunes.