O joyous day of days!

Caution: Thar be spoilers ahead, yarrr.

As someone who barely turns a tv on, let alone actually has Favrit Shows, I was really a bit leery about the season premiere of Lost. I mean, season 1 was awesome, season 2 kind of fell on its face a lot (much like Kate, more on that in a minute), and season three left me asking more questions than it had answered. In fact, the finale of season 3 contained a new twist on the flashbacks we'd been seeing for the previous three years... flashforwards! In that episode, we learned that Kate and Jack and one other person (who died later on) made it off the island, and Jack was a drunken hot mess who still pined for Kate.

So last night, the new season began. It was everything I had hoped for. Again, a flashforward, this time with Hurley's story... and no one does crazy quite like Hurley. Now we know that he survived the island... but wait, what the hell is Charlie doing visiting him in the nuthouse? And why is the scary black guy from The Wire on there, claiming to be from Oceanic Air?

Meanwhile, back on the island, Naomi disappeared (guess Locke didn't stab her hard enough), everyone's excited about getting rescued, and Desmond (take off your shirt!) emerges from the sea to let everyone know (a) Charlie's kicked the bucket and (b) oh by the way, the rescue boat isn't what we think it is.

All the castaways reconvene at the beach, but not before Naomi drops out of a tree onto Kate and holds her at knifepoint. This is very important -- it means Kate really is the same Kate we saw last season and not an android or something. You know it's her because she always gets snuck up on/falls down while running/cries.

Hurley tells Claire that Charlie's dead, and then Locke gets into a confrontation with Jack. Best scene?

"You know you're not going to kill me, Jack."

:::click:::

That was sheer magic.

Once again, Locke and Jack are at odds, and the Losties are divided into two distinct camps. One group stays on the beach to await the rescue, the other goes off to the bunker. Best Line Ever award goes, naturally, to Ben Linus: "Jack, with your permission I'd like to go with John." No one masters the Snark like Ben Linus.

So here's the puzzler: Hurley went with Locke's group, not Jack's. Kate went with Jack. So at some point between now and when they (the Oceanic Six) eventually do get rescued, Hurley gets back to the same place as Jack and Kate.

Totally awesome episode, although I nearly wet my pants when Hurley was looking into Jacob's hut. Jesus. Who was that in the chair? It looked like Jack's dad... but who peeked out the window?

Only complaints: not enough Sawyer/Desmond/Sayid... I want my eye candy, damn it.

And who's the new guy who jumped out of the helicopter and says he's there to help?