"A Tale Of Two Cities"

The third season premiere episode of LOST has come and gone and I couldn't help but write my thoughts. So consider this is your SPOILER WARNING if you are not ready to hear about details from the third season of the show.

I'll leave the episode recapping to people who do it far better than I so I'll just go straight to what I liked and disliked about the premiere.

I loved the way the episode started. At first I thought we were seeing Penelope Widmore waking up the day after Desmond activated the failsafe, apparently broadcasting the island's location to the world. Of course, this is LOST so nothing is as it seems. After a few seconds, I realized that this woman was not Penelope and this was confirmed when she spoke without a British accent. So then I figured we were seeing someone in Los Angeles in a flashback and that any minute, we would see one of our familiar castaways. But minutes passed and we didn't. So then when the "earthquake" happened, I was sure that it was somehow precipitated by Desmond's activation of the failsafe, but how could this idealic house be affected by something presumably taking place on a deserted island in the South Pacific? That question was answered when this woman ran outside and was joined by her neighbors one of which was "Henry Gale." So then I was thinking, "So this is Henry's story before he was on the island." Then we see Oceanic Flight 815 breaking apart in the sky and realize that this is the island!! This is the moment that I got goosebumps.

This episode was "Jack-centric" so we started with a flashback of Jack being mopey and obsessive about his soon-to-be ex-wife. I spent the summer rewatching the first and second seasons of the show and one of the things that was reinforced was how much I dislike the Jack character. I know that every character on this show is supposed to be flawed in some way and therefore the viewers should be sympathetic, but I'm really tired of Jack. I mean how sympathetic can I really be for someone who is such an obsessive whiner? It was a nice touch to try to make us believe that Sarah was cheating on Jack with his dad. I've been thinking that for most of the summer, but I think that this pretty much puts that to rest, but as Roxi noted, since it was never definitively denied, we could learn more in a future mopey Jack flashback.

It was interesting to see so much more of the DHARMA Initiative presence on the island, but what the hell do the Others have to do with it, and why were they having a book club meeting at the beginning of the episode? Are these people a bunch of DHARMA employees who only run tests on people who crash land on the island? And where did they get a file about Jack's life? I've been thinking for a while that all of the castaways are on the island for a reason but it really doesn't make sense yet.

Finally, the episode ended with the anticlimactic reveal that "Henry Gale's" real name is Ben. I have to say that I saw that coming from the beginning of the episode. Does this mean that I watch LOST too much? Will I be disappointed this season because all the episodes will be this predictable? I hope not but only time will tell. One thing is for sure. It doesn't look like we'll be checking in on Locke, Mr. Eko or Desmond for at least two more weeks and that just isn't soon enough. I want to see my favorite characters and I want to see them sooner than later!

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