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So, it’s finally here. Final sea­son, sea­son 6 of Lost has started on Tues­day, Feb­ru­ary 2 2010 with 2 hour episode called ‘LA X’. I don’t remem­ber that any show has ever cre­ated so much ten­sion and antic­i­pa­tion over the past sev­eral months as Lost did. Hav­ing the end date set 3 years ago was highly ben­e­fi­cial and Lost will end this year on its own terms, build­ing to long-​planned end­ing with this sixth and final season.

Sea­son 5 ended with mind blow­ing cliffhanger episode that fol­lowed two dif­fer­ent time-​lines: New John Locke with Ben killing Jacob, and Juli­ette in the hatch shaft with the nuclear bomb that should explode and change the events that caused Oceanic 815 to crash in the first place.

Beware: fol­low­ing text con­tains spoilers!

Major ques­tions of the sea­son 5 cliffhanger are the nuclear bomb inci­dent and new John Locke. And with nuclear bomb writ­ers did the only log­i­cal thing.

Bomb is what caused the inci­dent in the first place and every­thing that hap­pened to our sur­vivors. This is done to avoid the time para­dox that so many fic­tional work falls into by allow­ing events to be changed with no logic at all. But, in turn, inci­dent also caused cre­ation of new par­al­lel time-​line, based on the­o­ries Fara­day dis­cussed in pre­vi­ous sea­son. And after flash­backs, flash­for­wards and time travel, we have new nar­ra­tive ele­ment in form of the two dif­fer­ent time-​lines. Main time-​line remains on the island, and every­one is back in 2007. Sec­ond time-​line takes us back to 2004, on the flight that started it all, but there is no island (it’s on the bot­tom of the ocean, to be pre­cise). And back on the shore with foot of the ancient statue, min­utes after Ben killed Jacob, we will learn a lot about new Locke, or should we call it Man in Black? All sur­vivors are now in the same time, in 2007.

I am not going through all the things that hap­pened in this episode (or episodes), because there are too many events, all of them impor­tant. It’s great how the writ­ers con­structed alter­nate time-​line, how many sub­tle changes were added and how some of the rela­tion­ships changed. But, the most impor­tant ques­tion is: what is the sig­nif­i­cance of this par­al­lel uni­verse? How does it relate to every­thing we have seen so far, and where it will lead us?

In the same time we got few very impor­tant rev­e­la­tions. We have seen the famous Tem­ple, another res­ur­rec­tion, we meet few new char­ac­ters that are in charge of the Tem­ple. This answered some old ques­tions: how Ben was healed, where are the chil­dren from the plane and few more. But the biggest rev­e­la­tion is what the Smoke Mon­ster is, or rather who. New and trans­formed John Lock, Man in Black will show some of the secrets and his motivations.

All the ele­ments of the story in this first episode, all fit together per­fectly, and the great story is again matched by the per­for­mance of the actors. Terry O’Quinn has once again proved that he is an amaz­ing actor, and that his per­for­mance in Lost is truly great. Just watch the scene where he talks to Ben or the last scene when he talks to Jack in other uni­verse, you will be mes­mer­ized by the char­ac­ter and per­for­mance. Josh Hol­loway is star of the first part, and the process his char­ac­ter went through over the last 5 sea­sons is amaz­ing. The rest of the cast is again great and there are few wor­thy addi­tions that will hope­fully be recur­ring dur­ing the final season.

In many ways story has come full cir­cle and is back at the begin­ning. Leg­endary scene from sea­son 1, when John Locke explains the backgam­mon to Walt, two stones, one white and other dark are finally tak­ing it’s shape. From what has hap­pened so far, it’s hard to see who is good and who is evil, but over the next 16 remain­ing episodes, I expect that this will be answered.

It’s hard to find many other series that have done what Lost did for the tele­vi­sion, for the way the story is told, for the sus­pense and mys­ter­ies that cap­ti­vated devoted view­ers. Num­ber of view­ers is not as high as when the series started, but that’s say­ing more about view­ers than series. Lost is more like a long movie that is aired over the last six years, and it requires ded­i­ca­tion to fol­low the story, requires fate in writ­ers that they know where the story will go and how will it end. Lost is not some­thing you can watch to pass the time, it will make you think, it will make you won­der and will always leave you want­ing more.

The end of Lost begins with LA X episodes, and is not too late to catch up. Get the ear­lier sea­sons and watch them, because with­out them, see­ing new episodes will be both con­fus­ing and frus­trat­ing. And if you are patient, I promise that you will not regret the time spent watch­ing Lost.