It's Goodbye Flashbacks, Hello Time Travel in Season Five of LOST

July 2007 was a momentous month for me. I expect May of 2010 will be the same. It isn't every day that a beloved series concludes, and I can honestly say that ABC's LOST has seeped as deeply into my soul as Harry Potter. It's hard to believe it's almost over. But before I settle in for the sixth LOST premiere, something tells me I'll be returning to the penultimate season for a refresher course.

Season five of LOST is a curiosity known by many as "the time-travel season". While season one focuses on basic survival, two on the hatch, three on the Others and four on the consequences of leaving the Island, season five finds the remaining contingent of Islanders leaping around through time, experiencing nasty side effects and wondering how they might go about geting back to a fixed continuum. Sawyer (Josh Holloway) finally steps up as a true leader, with an increasingly traumatized Dan (Jeremy Davies) his frazzled advisor. Meanwhile, the Oceanic Six are back in the "real world," and since Jack (Matthew Fox) has come to the conclusion that it's time to return to the Island after three years away, he has the unwelcome task of trying to round up his fellow escapees, with the help of the notoriously untrustworthy Ben (Michael Emerson). Bridging the two parties is John (Terry O'Quinn), whose obsession with destiny compels him to leave the Island he so adores in order to coax Jack and his friends back. And that's all before 316, which introduces another major division resulting in most of the characters being on the Island together, but in different times.

Structurally, season five is pretty unique, since so many of the episodes have neither traditional flashbacks nor flashforwards. Because the groups are so divided, instead of focusing primarily on one character at different points in his or her life, the writers choose to jump back and forth between the Island and the mainland, or the 1970s and the 2000s. John, Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Ben, Miles (Ken Leung) and Dan are the only characters with the sort of flashback episodes we've come to expect, while Saywer, ageless Richard (Nestor Carbonell) and enigmatic Jacob (Mark Pellegrino) have arguably centric episodes, though the execution is unusual. Lessening the focus on individuals allows the season to cover a lot of ground quickly, which it needs to do. While new questions are introduced, the season provides more answers than any previous season, and the accelerated action primes us for an explosive conclusion. (I hope I don't mean that literally.)

Back when I watched the devastasting finale of season three, the deaths of two of my favorite characters left me gutted, but I was perhaps most distraught over Jack's miserable future state, which seemed to negate any purpose behind the sacrifices made throughout the first three seasons. In season five, one of the first things Jack does is shave off his beard, the symbol of his descent into realms of haggard despair. We see him clean up his act, seemingly bothered little by his sudden alliance with the conniving Ben, who, throughout much of the season, comes across as being genuinely good-willed. Jack continues to grapple with his faith until he finally boards the plane that will return him to the Island, a process that unfolds much more quickly than I expected. His sense of purpose is renewed. But once he gets back, the situation is vastly different, and there's little for him to do but sit back and try to act inconspicuous. Not so easy for this born leader. Erratic behavior ensues. It's good to see Jack coming out of the doldrums, but he's not really at his best in this season.

Sawyer, on the other hand, is marvelous. He's his old snarky self as he leads the remaining survivors in a series of Island treks, but it's clear that these desperate circumstances have at last molded him into the hero that's been percolating all along. LaFleur, one of my all-time favorite LOST episodes, swiftly covers three years of his life, enabling us to see how the dimpled con man goes from scoundrel to respected official. The new Sawyer is perhaps not as entertaining, but while he's grown responsible, he's still got enough of his old spunk to be pretty satisfying. As the season begins, he's still smitten with Kate, who seems to be thoroughly over him by the time they finally meet again. There's a definite world-weariness to her this time around, and it seems her only concern at this stage of the game is doing what's best for pseudo-son Aaron (William Blanchette), and by extension, children in general. Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell), meanwhile, ceases to seem even a little bit sinister as she and Sawyer help one another recover from their wounds and find powerful new roles in a placid society. If only for a couple of episodes, we get to see Juliet incandescently happy. We also get to see what strong stuff she's made of.

John, always enmeshed in mystery, becomes more enigmatic than ever as the episodes progress. This season finally seems to answer the age-old question, "Just what's so special about John Locke, anyway?" The revelations are surprising and, more often than not, disturbing. O'Quinn does some of his best work yet in this season, particularly whenever he is partnered with Emerson. Every time they share the screen, it prickles with energy. Their scene together in The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham is among the most riveting confrontations I have ever seen. This season takes John in some very strange directions, and the sense of wonder is undiminished by what the season four finale revealed about him. As John has been one of my favorite characters from day one, I'm very curious about where these developments will leave him in season six.

It's hard to believe now that Ben was supposed to be a short-term character, only lasting a few episodes. Thanks in large part to the amazing Emerson, who finally earned an Emmy for his work on this season, Ben is the one character on the show who seems hardest to figure out, as evidenced by the following overheard exchange in this month's Reader's' Digest: "Girl #1: This whole Ben situation is really starting to tick me off. Girl #2: I know! I just don't know what his deal is. Girl #1: He called me like 12 times yesterday. Girl #2: He called you? [Pause.] Oh, you mean Ben your boyfriend. Girl #1: As opposed to? Girl #2: Ben from LOST." Like Snape in the Harry Potter books, Ben is probably the most complex character in the series, and the one whose motivations are most hotly debated. As the season opens, he seems to be on the castaways' side, though as he stands to gain as much as they do from their return, I wouldn't go so far as to call him altruistic. The second half of the season shows a Ben who is apparently deeply conflicted, and peeks into his past, including his youth (meaning the return of Sterling Beaumon as pre-teen Ben), help shed light on some of his methods. Some of Emerson's most powerful scenes are in Dead Is Dead, which shows how Alex became Ben's "daughter" and reveals the outcome of his vendetta against Penny (Sonya Walger), daughter of his longtime nemesis Charles (Alan Dale). Most of the season seems to support my conviction that Ben will turn out all right in the end. But st least two shocking scenes deal hefty blows to that theory. I'll just have to wait and see...

If Ben is the most inscrutable character in the series, Hurley (Jorge Garcia) has to be the least complicated. Perhaps season six will dredge up hitherto unsuspected depths of darkness from Hurley's soul. But I find that hard to imagine, since from day one he has been nothing but sweetness and light, crippling anxieties notwithstanding. Hurley is rather underused this season, but when he's around, he makes a big impression, from his heartfelt (and simultaneously hilarious) confession to his mother (Lillian Hurst) that the Oceanic Six have been living a lie to the mystical scene that leads to his decision to return to the Island. Ever the voice of the everyman, Hurley pesters Miles with all those pesky time-traveling questions the audience has been pondering; the two turn into quite the comedic pair, particularly in Some Like It Hoth, which, like season three's Tricia Tanaka Is Dead, involves male bonding and daddy issues. Unlike that episode, however, we also get copious amounts of Star Wars. Hurley continues to take nearly every opportunity to make people's lives better, whether it's helping Miles reconcile with his father or ensuring that no more passengers wind up on the second flight to the Island than necessary. But it's hard to blame him for his one act of violence: pelting Ben with a Hot Pocket when he turns up to whisk him away in the middle of the night.

Sun (Yunjin Kim) begins the season as a black widow, determined to avenge the death of her husband Jin (Daniel Dae Kim). Except Jin isn't dead. Somehow, he washes ashore in the late 1980s, just in time to meet up with a lovely young Danielle (Melissa Farman). One upside of the structure of the season is by the midway point, Jin is speaking fluent English. But as of the finale, he and Sun are still no closer to each other; though she's returned to the Island, 30 years separate the couple, and despite John's claims, no one seems very clear on how to facilitate a reunion. Both characters are seriously underused, but Sun gets one of my favorite moments of the season when she makes a discovery relating to a cherished character no longer on the show.

Among the original main castaways, that leaves just Sayid, who starts off the season with a killing spree and never loses that violent streak. Some of his actions are motivated by self-defense, but as the season goes on, it becomes harder to find the moral, conscientious side that was so prevalent in the first season. Sayid is as much of a train wreck as Jack was, and probably more. He's Our You finally delves into his childhood with a scene reminiscent of Eko's youth, prompting us to wonder if he is noble for sparing another the trauma of killing or if he simply gets a charge out of the act itself. Vincent (Madison the dog) and Rose (L. Scott Caldwell), other characters who've been with the show from the beginning but who have never been given as much attention as I'd like, disappear after the second episode, along with Rose's husband Bernard (Sam Anderson). I've been very displeased with the way these characters have been neglected, especially since the end of season two, but at least the the writers eventually acknowledge what happened to them after their separation from Sawyer and the gang.

Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick), having finally achieved his happily-ever-after with Penny, hardly seems like a part of the group anymore, but in response to a sudden memory cleverly planted by Dan, Desmond takes his seafaring little family on a trek to fulfill the mad scientist's request. Aside from Jughead, in which he unearths some unsettling facts about Dan's tenure at Oxford and, with a single word, delivers one of the most touching moments in the season, Desmond is present for only a scene or two in the few episodes in which he does appear. More compelling reasons for the curious kinship between Dan and Desmond are revealed, but it's unclear whether that relationship will ultimately be good for the wandering Scotsman. Penny's fate is tied to his, so while it's exhilarating to see them together at last, there's occasion to wonder whether her husband is unintentionally leading her into danger.

Since the four newbies introduced in season four's Confirmed Dead managed to survive to the fifth, we have a chance to get to know them all a bit better. Charlote (Rebecca Mader) begins to remember her hazy past, even as she loses her grip on the present in the wake of time-travel sickness. Her connection to the Island is intriguing. Miles, too, has unexplained ties to this place, and the sharp-tongued ghost whisperer becomes more sympathetic as his vulnerabilities are exposed. At first, it seems crusty but trusty pilot Frank (Jeff Fahey) may have little more to do with the Island, but he is reincorporated brilliantly, and in 316, he gets to utter what is quite possibly my favorite line of the season. None of these characters get as much time in the spotlight as I might have preferred, but given the constraints, I'm happy with their representation.

I particularly adore Dan, who won me over immediately in season four, though I wasn't entirely sure I could trust him. He vanishes for several episodes, but boy, when he's there, he makes an impact. In the beginning, this brilliant but absent-minded theoretical physicist has to explain to Sawyer and all us ordinary folks at home the scientific principles behind what is going on. Dan knows his stuff, but conveying that to Joe Schmoes isn't so easy for this severely socially stunted fellow. Since he's really the only one who has any idea what is going on, the burden is on him to find a way to stop it. The situation is made all the more urgent by the fact that Charlotte, with whom he is in love, is affected so adversely by the time travel. Largely, Dan serves as a liason between the inner workings of Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse's Stephen Hawking-drenched minds and the baffled viewers, but he is also fascinating as an individual, and the profoundly moving The Variable finally firmly cemented him as a character I love every bit as much as Hurley, John, Desmond and the late great Charlie (Dom Monaghan).

We are introduced to surprisingly few new characters this season. Almost everyone we meet is somebody we already know or know about, though we might not realize it at first. Ms Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan), who, in her one previous third-season appearance, seemed likely to be deeply involved in the inner workings of the Island, resurfaces with an intriguing connection to one of the characters. Like Charles, she is a Desmond flashback character who has gone on to become vitally important in her own right. She and Charles are both fleshed out considerably this season, and glimpses of their earlier years reveal a great deal about the Island's history and their roles in shaping it. Like Ben, these are shadowy characters with plenty of evidence both for and against the idea that they are "good guys", as is the soft-spoken Richard. While it takes several actors to give us a complete view of these two, Richard, while having his most significant role in the series to date, is still played solely by Carbonell, even though we see him in a number of different years stretching all the way back to 1954. One of my major hopes for the sixth season is that he will finally get a proper flashback that explains his unique position on the Island.

Because the end of the time-skipping means that Sawyer and his friends are stuck in the 1970s, several of their new colleagues are folks we met in Ben's first centric episode, season three's The Man Behind the Curtain. Much to my delight, hippie-ish Dharma official Horace (Doug Hutchison) becomes a fairly major player, and Ben's despondent dad Roger (Jon Gries) gets more screen time, appearing both more reprehensible than before and easier to pity. We're able to see Pierre (Francois Chau), the man of many pseudonyms from the Dharma filmstrips, off the job, and the long-overdue introduction to loose cannon Stuart (Eric Lange), first referenced in the season two finale, begs the question of the correlation between unhinged behavior and communications duty. Much to my disappointment, however, there is still no mention of Annie (Madeline Carroll), the childhood friend who meant so much to Ben. I trust that season six will offer some closure on that front.

Of the new characters, only a couple seem likely to have much significance. There are several bit players in Dharma times, including one played by Kevin Rankin of Friday Night Lights, but I rather doubt we'll be seeing them again. Modern-day, the most interesting addition is Ilana (Zulekha Robinson), a dangerous but perhaps virtuous woman with a long-standing alliance with Jacob, who might almost be considered a personification of the Island itself, or at least certain aspects of the Island. Though it takes a hundred episodes before LOST finally assures us that this murky figure truly exists, he's been stitched into the fabric of the show all along, first explicitly mentioned midway through the second season but hinted at in some ways from the first episode. I suspect that he will be the central figure of season six, though whether or not we'll actually see him again is anybody's guess.

LOST has a lot of questions to answer, and little time in which to do it. No doubt, some of those mysteries will remain when the series ends, but I believe the stage has been effectively set for the most pressing concerns to be addressed. Seasons five is a head-scratcher, full of confusing concepts that aim to make amateur scientists of us all. But then one of the plusses of the show has been the way it challenges its audience intellectually. Wrapped up in the science are ethical debates, with the chief question being whether it is possible to change a seemingly fixed future and advisable to try. Add to that wide-ranging discussions, from religious topics - often, curiously enough, instigated by Ben - to pop culture phenomena - in season five, usually courtesy of Hurley - and you've got a show that's constantly encouraging its audience to explore new areas of study. In Namaste, Sawyer coolly tells the newly-arrived Jack that his leadership style involves reading and thinking, mulling things over before he acts. This seems like a good way to describe the most invested LOST viewers as well. Incidentally, I was disappointed that, although so much of the season is set during the '70s, the ol' Dharma record player never spun anything by Simon and Garfunkel, John Denver or any of my other favorites of the era. I can think of a couple of episodes in which Jim Croce's Time in a Bottle would have felt particularly fitting. Oh, well. At least I got It Never Rains In Southern California.

Of course, I don't have the complete inside scoop on the DVD set, since it doesn't come out for another couple of months, but anticipation over Monaghan's appearance tonight on Flashforward, a show that explores so many of the same themes as LOST, has whetted my appetite for season six so much that I decided this review just couldn't wait, especially since I rarely pay much attention to special features beyond deleted scenes anyway. The season five DVD includes those, along with Lost on Location, A Day with Josh Holloway, Los Angeles crew tribute with Michael Emerson, the 100th episode, Time Frame and Continuity and Bloopers. The Blu-ray's list price is 20 bucks more, but right now, Amazon is selling them for practically the same price, so if you're as high-tech as all that, the Blu-ray is probably worth it, especially since it includes a tie-in to Lost University, the Alternate Reality Game meant to tide fans over for the last month before the new season starts. For those of us who still think of DVD players as newfangled, I hope there will be a way to participate; I'm already enrolled and looking forward to sitting in on a lecture by Jeremy Davies! In any event, I know that the fifth season's episodes are ones I will want to return to, especially as I gear up for the final season. Oh, the anticipation! Darlton, you'd better not disappoint me.