Lost, Series 5, Episode 3

With the penultimate series now appearing on our screens I wasn’t entirely sure where the writers were going to take us. At the end of the last Season we discovered who the 815 Six were, the island disappeared and took all those left behind with it and John Locke mysteriously ended up in a coffin. But with Jack, Kate, Sun, Hurley, Sayid and Aaron off the island where else was left to go.

Well they answered our demanding questions as we entered the new series. The Island, not happy at losing valuable members of its population is in a state of time flux, Ben, turning that great wheel underground has sent it spinning and our castaways are now busy spinning through time with no idea where they’ll end up next. Not that there’s actually many of them left, the original 40 or so survivors and with the exception of Juliette and the three scientists only Locke and Sawyer seem to be left.

The problem with spinning through time is enemies that have become allies soon revert to their original status as many of the survivors found out when they were attacked on the beach with fire arrows. John, once leader of the others, finds himself unknown to them though thankfully one of them had the sense to seek him out in the future and give him a message to relay back to him for trust issues. To a certain extent this seemed to work but of course, just as Locke might be getting any answers they shifted through time again and all was lost.

Charlotte’s head aches and nose bleeds are getting worse with each time trip and though we as the viewers discover much (including that both Daniel Farday and Charles Widmore were also once members of the island’s community) the cast is dwindling to perilously small numbers – will anyone be left to continue the series?! Daniel, his mind a mathematical mess, seems to be only one who has any clue at what is happening and in a stroke of desperate hoping manages to discover Desmond, still in hatch, still pushing numbers.

Faraday seems to be the only one who understands

Off the island Desmond is happily getting on with his life. Sailing around the world with Penny and now their son Charlie, doing their best to avoid Charles Widmore. Then suddenly he wakes one day with a memory – a memory of Daniel Faraday insisting that everyone on the island is in danger and that he must go to Oxford to seek out Daniel’s mother. The only problem with this is that when he gets to Oxford there is no record of the Faraday’s on the universities computers and the lab that Desmond once visited is now locked up, shrouded in a cloak of mystery. Following a tip off from the caretaker who discovers Desmond rooting around and tells him that Daniel was trying to transport a rat’s brain through time, the next stop is a suburban house where the discover is a little more sinister – a bedridden woman who’s brain seems to be constantly flicking back and forth through time. After discovering that it indeed Charles Widmore that is funding the woman’s medical care Desmond has no choice but to face the man that had been trying so hard to kill him and his friends.

Desmond's blissful life is about to go down the drain

Widmore, being more tame than I remembered informed Desmond that Daniel’s mother was now in LA but not to go there, but to stay in hiding with Penny, to keep them safe. Of course, it wouldn’t be Lost if Desmond didn’t completely disobey the instructions and by the end of the episode he, Penny and child were heading to the states to discover just what was going on.

After an hour of that my brain was just about fried. Whoever writes these elaborate stories I do not know but this rather than this series acting as a wind down its bring even curious and curiouser questions into mind. The original but quickly tiresome flashbacks have finally gone and are replaced with something more extraordinary, actual time travel but I repeat my earlier observation will anyone actually make it alive to the final season?