Fresh off its first Emmy nomination for Best Drama since the first season, “LOST” is set to return on Jan. 21st on ABC with a three-hour season five premiere event. The third season revealed that at least two characters, Jack (Matthew Fox) and Kate (Evangelline Lilly), had gotten off of the Island. The fourth season revealed that four others from flight 815 also made it off of the Island. The only problem is that they have to lie about what happened to them and where they were.
And now, as the fifth season opens, they have to go back to the Island because some very bad things have happened since they left.
“LOST” is a show about the survivors of Oceanic flight 815. The plane was 1000 miles off course, and rescue was looking for them in the wrong place. The survivors eventually gave up the idea of rescue and tried to get used to their new home on the Island.
However, the Island is no ordinary island.
It is a place where a man paralyzed for four years can walk, a place where a woman with cancer and no hope of a cure is cured, a place where a sterile man is no longer sterile and is able to impregnate his wife. It is a place of miracles as John Locke (Terry O’ Quinn) tells Jack in the fourth season finale.
The Island also has polar bears, cows, and black smoke that likes to judge people, manifest into deceased loved ones of the survivors, and every once in a while it likes to kill. The Island is a special place.
The survivors of Oceanic 815 had frequent run-ins with people who have been inhabitating the Island for a long time. These people, termed The Others, are led by the enigmatic Benjamin Linus (Michael Emerson), and sent two of their own into the camps of the survivors to make lists. With those lists, the mysterious Jacob chose the special ones, and this mysterious Jacob lives in a cabin which does not stay in one place. The Island is no ordinary Island.
The Island will continue to be at the forefront in the fifth season.
In the fourth season, the audience learned that Charles Widmore (Alan Dale) owned the freighter that was supposed to have rescued the survivors of Oceanic 815.
However, the Freighter had a mercenary team on board and their job was to follow the secondary protocol in case something went wrong. The secondary protocol was simple: kill everyone. Widmore, according to Ben Linus, planned to kill everyone on the Island because he wanted to exploit the Island’s special qualities to the masses.
The Freighter’s science team informed the survivors of the conspiracy theory: that the survivors of Oceanic 815 were all dead and that the wreckage was found at the bottom of the Sunda Trench. However, this raises one of the questions to be answered in season five or six: who planted the fake wreckage along with bodies?
Widmore’s boat claimed that Ben planted the wreckage but the Others claim, and have files, proving that Widmore is behind the conspiracy. Off of the Island, Ben has Sayid, one of the Oceanic Six, working for him to help fight Widmore.
Charles Widmore and the Freighter objective is the reason why the Oceanic Six are forced to lie about what happened to them after the crash.
They have to protect those who remain on the Island. However, the biggest danger for those on the Island may not be Widmore’s people.
It may be the results of what happened in the season four finale: the Island moving.
With the knowledge of the Freighter having the intention of killing everyone on the Island, Ben and Locke visited Jacob’s cabin.
In this cabin, Locke was instructed to move the Island. Ben later comments on moving the Island as a last resort because it is dangerous and unpredictable.
Judging from the season five previews and the tales John Locke as Jeremy Bentham told to the Oceanic Six in flash-forwards, a lot of bad things happen.
The fifth season will also continue to answer the questions raised throughout its fourth season.
The fourth season introduced three members of the Freighter science team. These characters will answer questions in the show regarding the Walking Dead, the history of the Island, and the nature of time-travel. One of the initial questions of the season will be: where did the Island go? However, the question should possibly include the word ‘when.’
Essentially, the fifth season is going to build on the narrative of the fourth season.
As the premiere looms, here are a few questions to ponder: what happened to Claire? Who, or what, is Jacob? Did the Island move back in time? What is Charles Widmore’s history with the Island? What is the history between Widmore and Ben? Will Sun side with Widmore? Who exactly are the Others? Why doesn’t Richard Alpert age? What is the four-toed statue? And, of course, how did John Locke end up in a coffin in Los Angeles California?
“LOST” is truly labyrinth narrative. There are many elements of the story which are slowly, but surely, coming together as the show now has only two seasons left until its conclusion. The fifth season premieres Jan. 21st on ABC at 8PM.
Chris Monigle is a fourth-year student majoring in literature. He can be reached at CM660983@wcupa.edu.