Fans were left to wonder last season on the future of the characters, two in jeopardy of dying, but would history be rewritten and save them all? 

 Lost started its sixth and last season with a bang literally, continuing where it left off last season with the detonation of a hydrogen bomb.  Fans were left to wonder last season on the future of the characters, two in jeopardy of dying, but would history be rewritten and save them all?  The plan concocted by Daniel Faraday was to blow up the island with the intent to stop the impending ‘incident’ and cause them to move back in time (or rather forward since they were in 1977) to before Flight 815 ever crashed so that it could continue on its original journey to LAX.  So does the plane still crash?  Yes and no. The episode shows two timelines – two parallel universes – in one the plane arrives at its destination, but in the other, the characters are left on the island for the aftermath, albeit ‘blooping’ into the same time as the rest of the characters.

For those on the island, they awaken to realize that Juliet, who detonated the bomb by smashing it with a rock, is somehow still alive, and the rest of the characters are unharmed except for being knocked out. It’s not clear if the bomb actually went off in this universe because of the lack of devastation, but either way, they obviously think it didn’t work.  True fans will also notice at least one inconsistency, because a lot more traveled through time with the characters than what they were touching.  Juliet stays alive long enough to tell Sawyer goodbye and that she has something important to tell him, which Miles later reveals after she dies is that, “it worked,” implying that she somehow knows of the other universe.

Most of the rest of the two-parter that takes place on this side of the island is about trying to save Sayid, who had been shot last season.  Hurley is visited by a dead Jacob who tells him to bring his friend to the temple to be saved.  At the temple they meet a new group of Others, with a few old faces, such as Cindy, the stewardess from the plane, who had been abducted by the Others earlier in the series.  Eventually they submerge Sayid in the spring, drowning him in order to save him, but are unsuccessful, at least at first.  Much later Sayid wakes up, but it’s not clear if it is really him in his own body.  Once the Others are told by Hurley that Jacob is dead they start setting up posts to defend the temple – not to keep them in, but to keep *him* out.

We are to assume that they are talking about Locke, or rather someone who looks like Locke. The unnamed “Man in Black” it seems is the one who has taken the shape of Locke (whose body is still on the beach) in order to kill Jacob, which he could not do as himself.  This entity it turns out is also the smoke monster, who enjoys taking out some of Jacob’s security guards and freaking out Ben.  He talks to Ben about Locke and how confused he was when Ben killed him, and that although Locke was weak, he was admirable because he was the only one who didn’t want to leave the island because he realized how pitiful the life he left behind was.  He says that this is ironic since he wants what Locke didn’t – to go home.  The Man in Black eventually leaves the foot of the statue and knocks out Richard (after making an implication that Richard may in fact be from the Black Rock) and carries him away, saying he is disappointed in everyone - for what is not clear.

Meanwhile, in the other universe, the plane does land in Los Angeles as scheduled, but some things have changed from the original timeline.  Whether or not these are integral to the storyline is anyone’s guess, but some seem more important than others.  Two of the smaller examples are Cindy giving Jack only one bottle of vodka on the plane and the fact that Jack seems scared of flying as opposed to Rose.  Other changes are much more noticeable, such as the fact that Desmond is on the plane, Hurley has good luck, Shannon isn’t on the plane, Charlie almost dies on the plane (but Jack saves him), and most importantly, the island is submerged under water.  Of course there are more differences after the plane lands safely, since everything is then moving in a new direction.