I rewatched the first episode of LOST last night, and I have to say that it was utterly fantastic, borderline genius...

...

as long as the show is going in the direction that I *think* it's going in.

The first scene is kind of a mish mash the first time you watch it, but on the second time, it made me really excited about the possibilities that the show will go in. I like that the first scene showed the inside of Juliet's house, but as has been the pattern with LOST, it's what you don't see that makes everything cool. You see the inside of Juliet's house, but you don't see the inside of Henry Gale's house. I like to think that Henry Gale has some kind of direct pipeline to the outside world, and that he has this entire wall of computers or something that keeps him aware of "food drops," or of...oh, I don't know, a plane coming in to land on the island.

As it is now, I am starting to think that the plane intended to land on the island, but that the Desmond caused "incident" caused the plane to crash. The plane was flying way too low for it to have been crashing. Or maybe not.

But the thing with the first episode is that they are setting up the utterly jacked up scenario of "forced counseling."

That's what the first episode was all about. How do you cure Jack of his control issues? By taking away all control and putting him in a cage. How do you cure Kate of her running and gunning lifestyle? By chaining her up in handcuffs. How do you cure Sawyer of his baggage and have him reveal the good person that he truly is?

I think that what's going to happen is that the Others are going to "convince" (through unforeseen measures at this point) that she doesn't like Sawyer. And I think Sawyer's test is going to be how he responds to this lack of love once Kate has been convinced that she doesn't love him.

But last night also made me hope that we get to see flashbacks for "the Others." I want to see flashbacks with them talking about the importance of Walt. I want to see flashbacks with them realizing that a raft has been built and that the Losties were trying to escape the island. I want to see them sending out parties of people to try and capture children and other assorted "tailies."

Because the true brilliance of LOST is that each season reveals the next layer of the onion, and we get to see how these layers interact with one another. The first season was all about the survivors. The second season was about the hatch and the tailies. This season is all about the Others. I can't wait to see how high this conspiracy goes.

So yeah, I think it's on solid footing. Of course, if they choose not to go down these paths, which...this is LOST we're talking about...how can they *not* go down this path? If they even hit upon 50% of what I was just saying, the show will be amazing from week to week.

But we'll see.