This is why the writers of Lost are brilliant. They constantly find new methods with which to tell their story, and these methods always lend themselves to the struggles their characters face and the larger themes they mean to convey.

Flashbacks to flash forwards, to a little bit of both, to time travel to…how couldn’t I have seen this coming? — an alternate reality.

Before we get our hands dirty with character stuff, consider the following: Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (equal to the co-Popes of Lost) are creating for themselves a story that will form an unbreakable closed circle. No Lost sequels, no Lost prequels — the story they mean to tell, they’re telling, and in such a way that it’s ensured to be theirs. While our island heroes exist in their present (roughly 2007), we have seen their past, the more distant past of the island, and now — as far as the season premiere shows us — the “what could have been.”

What would have happened to these characters if they had never reached the island, if it was just a hunk of seaweed-strewn dirt and foot statues and plastic playgrounds beneath the sea? That is the alternate reality that the opening minutes of the premiere showed us. But then we also saw these same characters on the plane, now an uninterrupted flight, back on the island having it out, bloody, bruised and confused as usual. So uh…wtf, right?

Last year we were presented two options at the end of the season finale — a hydrogen bomb, ignited by martyr Juliet, was exploded in 1977 in an effort to reset the time-line that would bring the Losties to the island. This would either work or not. The season premiere instead said it did both.

So here’s what we’ve got: two parallel realities, and I believe ultimately, this season, and in appropriate form for the end of the series, our characters will eventually have to choose which reality they prefer. The island ravaged, full of death and tribulation — but also love and birth and wonder — existence, or whatever other one this season will and has slowly started to present us with.

That’s all said without mentioning, of course, the implications of blowing up an H-bomb on not one but two communities of people would have (The Others, Dharma). Could it be a little selfish for Jack to go blowing up a bomb because he didn’t like getting dumped by Kate? Probably. So look for this season to conclude with the closed loop — our heroes choosing their rightful island fates, good or bad.

What makes the parallel reality so interesting, though, is that in the first episode, it’s already proven to us that these characters would have been linked regardless. Fate is in play. See, Jack saving Charlie’s drug-induced life on the plane and thus sentencing him to jail; Kate taking Jack’s pen to escape her handcuffs; Sawyer letting Kate get away off the elevator; the implied con of Sawyer on Hurley (who, hilariously, is now “the luckiest guy that ever lived!”); and Kate hopping into a taxi with a preggers Claire.

Theory bump: the Jack on the plane isn’t quite alternate Jack. A strange cut on his neck, his vision of Desmond, his father’s missing coffin. Jack is special.  LAX Jack is going to be getting that hair-raising kind of deja vu we all sometimes get when we start wondering if the Matrix is for real. In Jack’s case, he’s going to realize eventually there’s an alternate life to live, on this island, and Desmond is going to reveal this to him.

How do I know? Desmond wasn’t actually on the plane. He blipped into Jack’s consciousness, fulfilling his promise of Season 2 which, we now realize, we should have been taking literally: “See you in another life, brother.” That life is this one — the LAX reality. And Desmond can-do said “blipping” because as Faraday told him he is special. Desmond is the key to open doors that will allow our heroes to fulfill their destinies.

Maybe you’ve noticed I haven’t mentioned my favorite character yet: John Locke. Follow me here: LAX Jack, the spinal surgeon with some hope left in his bones, thanks to never having crashed on the island, who tells Locke that “nothing is irreversible,” will mend Locke. LAX Locke will walk again. And then Jack, in a bit of irony, will attempt to convince Locke to go to the other time-line, reality, whatever, and throw-down with evil smoke monster Locke.

Now would be a good time to not just segue into what’s going on in the island reality but to recognize how ridiculous this all sounds. I get it. It sounds ridiculous. But to Lost-philes, this is scripture, and all the sci-fi kooky conceits of the show… As I said at the outset, service story and theme. I’ll prove that. But first, segue…

In island reality, Jack is a beaten man. Once a man of reason that failed him, now a man of faith — and after seeing the island around him and Juliet and Sayid’s dead bodies, that has failed him too. Kate just seems to be along for the ride. Hurley is chatting it up with Jacob because he’s the only one that can, since Jacob is dead. Jin misses Sun. Sawyer is about ready to retire from the group, an unreachable heartbroken mess, and as long as he’s so emo, Miles will be good for the quipping.

That’s at the hatch. Elsewhere, Ben Linus has just been tricked into murdering Jacob by John “Smokey” Locke, the manifestation of the dark figure who’s cynicism was contrasted with Jacob’s optimism in last year’s season finale. This dude has finally gotten his wish — he’s killed Jacob, and now he wants to “go home.”

Theory bump: Guess what, everyone? We’ve come a long, long way. We know what the smoke monster is. It’s the darkness in the woods — the shadow that knows the hearts of man, the cloud of guilt and shame that follows us. It is Jacob’s dark nemesis, Jacob representing the light and hope of possibility and redemption.

This season is their war. Since the island is steeped in Egyptian this-es and thats, my theory is we’ve got two banished or lost Gods, or similarly powerful beings/forces here, stuck on the island. Perhaps Jacob is a sinner reformed (like Locke, at one point, now having the ability to leave the island but wishing to stay), or maybe he is a personage of quiet reserve, of resoluteness and calm — or, in a word, patience. He is waiting for the right group, the right tribe to inherit the promised land. Smokey is Satan in his throne-room, as in the book of Job, arguing that there is no one to meet the test. Our 815 flight-takers are those running through the test, conclusions yet unknown.

But this I know for certain: John Locke, the long-suffering, trusting, but repeatedly broken man who worked for a box company, will save the island and be the ultimate hero of the show. Why do I know this? Exhibit A: in season one, someone said that Locke would be the one to save them all. And this is before Gods and monsters — just when they wanted a comfy place to sleep and rescue. This is the writers saying, “Locke would be the one to save them all.” As much as Locke’s backgammon game with a young Walt told us we were aiming for a dark side/light side God-sized throw-down by series end, we were being told what we were getting. Second, and a little more reaching, Locke worked for a box company. To show co-creator JJ Abrams, boxes are a favorite, representing imagination and possibility. (See the hatch.) Locke working with boxes isn’t a coincidence.

Finally, the evil that has taken on the form of Locke has made the one mistake that drives real Locke to almost hopeless determination: saying what he can and can’t do. Smoke Locke, in his cynicism, told Ben real Locke was a sad and irrepairable man. But as LAX Jack told Locke, nothing is. Look forward to this showdown and vindication for Lost’s man of faith. And thereby, in turn, Jack, the Mr. Must Fix It, finally will.

As for Jacob: A friend of mine hit a theory at me that, since Sayid died, he has inhabited his body much like Smokey did to Locke. This is interesting, but there are a few things that might disagree with said theory: it’s not Locke’s literal body that Smokey’s in. And would Jacob, a supposed figure of good, go body joyriding anyway?

Maybe. That will be the central thematic conflict of this season. Is Smokey truly evil, or just right about the nature of the world? Is Jacob good or naive? And do his ends justify his means — and by “means” I mean all the suffering and hurt those who’ve visited the island have endured. People will take sides, but Jacob, perhaps after some conflict of his own, will win, simply because it’s a better story and because if Smokey escapes his island prison to “go home” and terrorize the world with his darkness, this is not only an unsatisfying conclusion in general but to our characters. It makes them worthless, trivial and sad things. LAX alternate reality already seems to be telling us a fate is in play that promises this isn’t true.

A few Locke quotes show us where we are in the show today. In season two, arguing with Jack about faith after Jack asks Locke how it’s so easy for him to believe, Locke: “It’s never been easy!”

Last season, after Sawyer asks Locke, when they’re back in time, why he wouldn’t change events to avoid pain: “I needed that pain to get where I am now.”

I believe that, eventually, this will be the realization of our characters, that with lack of ease and abundance of pain, their island life was necessary, beneficial, and ultimately fulfilling, even redeeming.

And the brilliance of Lost is using genre tricks like sci-fi time-travel and parallel universes to make compelling drama for characters that have the questions we all do. Do all the little coincidences in my life have meaning? Do I have meaning? What could I have been if I’d done something differently? Is there fate? And is it good? And that is why Lost is compelling to us and why it’s been one of the best shows ever put on television.

It also proves that, to the skeptics’ chagrin, most of Lost has been planned out from the get-go and the writers aren’t just making it up as they go. Knowing the smoke monsters have been a manipulative force from day one changes the perspective for the whole series but proves its design. Making Jack a spinal surgeon so that, in the final season, he could repair Locke in an alternate world — wow-wee. And there are plenty of little details like that.

A few quick thoughts and then a quote to cap us off:

• Richard likely came on the black rock but potentially was not a slave. I believe the “chains” Smokey refers to are the result of some previous battle between Jacob and Smokey. Anyway, I just think this is some misdirection to make us certain, only to surprise us later.
• It’s interesting who we didn’t see in the LAX parallel, but some of it is logistics. Walt is too old to play young Walt now. The actor who played Mr. Eko hated filming. But the question is: What’s logistics and what’s storytelling?
• Fill this space with what I’ve failed to mention: temple intrigue, the exact nature of Jacob’s existence, why Smokey doesn’t like dirt, etc.
• The truth behind Ben Linus: he’s not good or evil — he’s caught in between. As Smokey further spares him his wrath and implements him, Ben will be tempted to fully go dark…but in some Darth Vader-like twist. His fall to darkness, defeat, and return to light could restore balance to the island.

This episode ruled but had a whole new vibe. The island stuff came off almost as too out-there and beyond mental reach, while the LAX alterna-side-story proved much more compelling. This is, in fact, a compliment to the actors and writers of Lost. These characters are beloved, and the show hasn’t purely been about a spooky island. The mysteries are great, but the characters are the beating heart. After Jack decides island life was always their fate and the show closes on what was its opening shot, the show will be re-watchable because of the story of these characters.

And a quote, taken from a friend on Facebook, that really gets to what Lost is all about for all of us lost in it:

“I feel like watching Lost has been like John Locke’s life before 815. It was, at times, confusing and hard. I’ve lost things along the way, had my back broken, lost my faith. I’ve known sacrifice and loss. But even in my darkest hour, I never gave up. I kept fighting. I knew it was my destiny. On the eve of Season 6, I feel I’ve just crashed on the island. Things are happening, my legs can move, I’m being rewarded for my faith and perseverance. The island is my reward. Season 6 is my reward. I’ve Lost my f*cking mind.” – Megan Dunlap

I agree, Megan. But I’ve lost my heart too. Left it on lost island.

See ya next week for another mind-blow.