Lost: The Beginning of the End (season premiere)

(S04E01) In honor of the Lost season premiere, we're doing a live chat during the 9pm ET airing of the episode. Watch the show and share your thoughts with Lost fans in real time! The full review follows after the jump. In "The Beginning of the End," the 815 survivors' feelings about being rescued were influenced by Charlie's message.
You can still join the chat by following this link. You can also check out AOL TV's coverage of Lost .
The Beach
The beach heroes didn't have a lot of time to celebrate their recent victory. Hurley was thrilled to go home, since his cursed lottery money would likely be gone. He did the happiest, chubbiest, slow-mo cannonball in TV history, only to have the moment ruined by Desmond's return. Everyone looked genuinely sad to hear about Charlie's death, even stone-faced Juliet. Mourning gave way to confusion once Desmond told them that Naomi wasn't who she claimed to be. After some debate, the group set off to warn Jack about Naomi in person.
Hurley made an unexpected (and unintentional) stop while in the jungle. Shortly after he fell behind the rest of the group, the show's trademark wind and spooky whispers kicked in. Somehow he ended up in front of Jacob's cabin, the scariest place on earth. Hugo's curiosity led him to the front window, where he caught a glimpse of the dog painting and someone (it looked like Christian Shephard!) sitting in the rocking chair. Suddenly a blue eye (Locke's?) met his, and Hurley ran off. Unfortunately for Hurley, the cabin followed him around before it eventually disappeared. John Locke appeared in its place.
It's killing me that Hurley didn't ask Locke about the cabin, but I suppose they couldn't fit everything into this episode. Hurley's news about Naomi only strengthened Locke's beliefs about the freighties. John and Hugo agreed that the people on the freighter were dangerous, and should be avoided at all costs. Does anyone else think that Locke was using Hurley's grief over Charlie to get him on his side?
The Radio Tower
Ignorant of Charlie's warning, the rest of the 815 survivors eagerly awaited their rescue. Ben was the only person who wasn't celebrating. He begged Danielle to take Alex and hide from the freighties, but made the mistake of calling Alex "his" daughter. Hostages should always be careful in their choice of words. A call from George Minkowski brought us another huge twist--Naomi wasn't dead! She crawled off into the woods while Jack's back was turned and left two trails. Jack, Danielle, and Ben followed one trail, and Kate followed the other (with the satellite phone that she stole from Jack).
Jack and Danielle realized that they took the dummy trail, giving Ben a perfect opportunity to gloat. Even when he's tied up, Ben makes time to mess with people's heads. You have to admire his work ethic. Kate's instincts about the blood trail were correct, but they weren't sharp enough to anticipate Naomi's next move. Naomi jumped Kate, took the phone, and contacted Minkowski on the freighter. She lied about her injury once Kate told her about Locke, then died. For real this time. Her last words were "Tell my sister I love her."
The Jungle
The survivors reunited with one another in the jungle. Rose was happy to see Bernard, Juliet hugged Alex, Sun found Jin, and nobody was pleased to see Locke. Hugo took it upon himself to tell Claire that Charlie was dead. I had tears in my eyes before he even spoke. Jack's first order of business was to punch Locke and hold a gun in his face. Locke calmly began to tell Jack that he wasn't going to shoot him, but was interrupted by Jack pulling the trigger. The gun wasn't loaded, of course. I'm impressed that Jack followed through on his promise to kill Locke.
Fed up with defending himself to Jack, Locke told the group that he was going to the Barracks to hide from the freighties. Hurley and Claire joined him out of loyalty to Charlie. The rest of Team Locke is as follows: Danielle, Ben, Alex, Karl, a few random survivors, Vincent and Sawyer. Is it wrong that I was more upset about Vincent than I was about Sawyer? Some redshirt with glasses decides that Vincent doesn't want to be rescued, and that's that? To her credit, Kate was upset to see Sawyer leave.
Jack and Kate stayed behind while the rest of Team Jack returned to the beach. Suddenly, a helicopter flew over the jungle, and another person parachuted out. It was a man (played by Jeremy Davies), who will hopefully have better luck than Naomi. The freighties have officially landed!
For the record, here are the new team rosters:
Team Locke--Hurley, Claire, Danielle, Ben, Alex, Karl, Sawyer, at least 4 random survivors, and Vincent.
Team Jack--Kate, Jin, Sun, Sayid, Desmond, Juliet, Rose, Bernard, and the rest of the survivors.
Flash-Forward: Hurley
Instead of an eye, the episode began with a close-up of a pile of fruit. Before anyone could figure out what it meant, a familiar-looking Camaro crashed through the pile and sped off. The as-yet-unseen driver led police on a high speed pursuit around Los Angeles, complete with media coverage. Jack caught Channel 8's footage of the chase over a breakfast of vodka and OJ (a family favorite, no doubt). He was surprised to learn that he knew the identity of the driver. Once the chase ended, Hurley emerged from the car looking extremely freaked out. He kept yelling "I'm one of the Oceanic Six!" as he was arrested. That's right--some of the 815 survivors are famous.
It turns out that Hurley's post-island future wasn't as liberating as he expected it to be. The past followed him to the police interrogation room in more ways than one. Big Mike, Ana-Lucia's former partner, was the detective interviewing Hugo. Detective Mike asked about Ana-Lucia and shed some light on the car chase. Security footage from a convenience store showed Hurley running from someone and knocking down tons of merchandise in the process. After denying any knowledge of Ana-Lucia's fate, Hurley had a vision of Charlie swimming underwater in the two-way mirror. His erratic behavior landed him back in the Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute.
During his stay Hurley had three upsetting visitors. One was Matthew Abbadon (the incredible Lance Reddick), a man posing as an Oceanic Airlines attorney who turned out to be far more sinister than your average lawyer. His offer to give Hurley an "upgrade" gradually felt like a threat. I was relieved when Hurley asked for a business card, which Abbadon forgot to bring. Before he left, he terrified Hurley by asking one question: "Are they still alive?" I'd like an answer to that question, too. Is Abbadon with DHARMA, Widmore, the group that sent the freighter, or another mysterious organization?
The second surprise visitor was Charlie Pace, who was somehow dead and talking to Hugo at the same time. This was his latest of several attempts to speak to his old friend--he was the one that Hugo ran from in the convenience store video. Apparently, ghost Charlie is big on messages in the afterlife as well. His newest message: "They need you, Hugo. You know they need you."
Hurley's final visitor was Jack, who tried to pass off his visit as a friendly one. In reality, he was there to ensure that Hurley wouldn't reveal an important secret. The Oceanic Six are hiding something, but what? Their time on the island, the circumstances of their rescue, or something worse? Hurley apologized for going with Locke, and admitted that he made a mistake. He was also convinced that they were wrong to leave the island, and believed that "it" wanted them to go back. Jack refused to listen, and told Hurley that they were never going back. Hurley and Jack sounded a lot like Jack and Kate in the season three finale. Interesting.
Final comments/questions:
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Between the mobisode and what Hurley saw in the cabin, you could argue that Christian Shephard is still alive.
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That bespectacled dog-napper is on my list.
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Jack: "I'm thinking about growing a beard." Hurley: "You'd look weird with a beard, dude."
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There were some interesting images in Hurley's flash-forward. When Hurley walked over to Matthew Abbadon, there were drawings on the chalkboard in the corner. A boat, the sun, waves, a palm tree, and a shark were all visible. In the scene with Charlie, Hurley was painting a watercolor of an igloo and a person dressed in cold weather gear holding a harpoon and several fish.
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What happened between this episode and the season finale flash-forward to make Jack change his mind about going back?
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Jack's wink to Ben as he told Hurley to pack his bags was priceless.
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I still want to know why Naomi had a picture of Desmond, since she wasn't sent by Penny.
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How cool was the scene when all the beach folks grabbed guns and set off to find Jack? They looked like one tough posse.
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Ben: "Better call the boat and tell them she's getting a really big bundle of firewood."
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Best line delivery of the episode: "Jack, with your permission I'd like to go with John." --Ben, for the win
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Locke said that he'd never done anything to hurt the 815ers. I think Boone's corpse and Sayid's head (Season One) would take issue with that.
| Naomi is still alive--wait, now she's dead. | |
|---|---|
| Hurley is one of the Oceanic Six. | |
| The 815ers split into two factions. | |
| Hurley saw Jacob's cabin (and possibly Christian). | |
| A man parachuted onto the island. | |
| Other (elaborate in comments). |

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