LOST: "Because You Left" *Spoilers*

This is the first part of the season premiere and here goes this year's coverage of Lost.

It all begins with an alarm clock; 8:15. A man gets up, puts on a Willie Nelson record (and who wouldn't at 8 in the morning?) and goes to warm a bottle of milk for the crying baby. He rocks it in it's crib and gets ready for the morning. And Willie starts to sing, "If you can't make a record, if you can't make a record, if you can't make a record...he's skipping. This makes some sense later on in the episode. He leaves his house and walks through the Dharma camp into a building where they appear to be filming something. It's Dr. Chang and he's filming a video for The Arrow station (goes with some stuff later too). As he's talking in bursts a man who says they have a problem down at The Orchid.

A man tells him, down in the bowels of The Orchid, that they were drilling to his exact specs and that's when the drillbit melted. Chang seems astonished! They went through six bits and then the operator grabbed his head and started freaking out! He also tells Chang that they sonar'd the wall and there is a chamber back there. Why, it's the chamber where Ben turned the little wheel and moved the Island. Chang is getting that look at being terrified again! The man tells Chang that they only way to get to what ever is behind the wall is to lay charges. Chang gets mad and says the station is being built there because of it's proximity to what they think is an almost limited energy and once they harness it they will be able to manipulate time. The other guy looks skeptical...as well he should be. This Chang guy is a mysterious bastard! He tells the man that there are rules that can't be broken and if they drill just one centimeter further, they risk releasing the energy; if that were to happen only God could help them (He says 'us', but whatever). He tells the man to do nothing and stomps away. On his way out he bumps into a man, who turns out to be Twitchy (aka Daniel Faraday, aka Jeremy Davies). The driller guy talks to Faraday and says, "Did you hear that? Time Travel. How stupid does he think we are?" To which Faraday glances at the wall with the holes drilled in it and looks down-right terrified and scared.

A.) What the hell is Faraday doing back when Chang was alive? This is before The Others went all killer on the Dharma people.
B.) Did he travel back in time? Or is he out of time in the current timeline? WTF people, W.T.F?

Jack and Ben are in the funeral parlor (and in a quick aside, had I not already seen the Season Finale last season and then watched GMA the next morning, where they REVEALED who was in the fucking coffin, I would have been SERIOUSLY angry). Ben tells Jack they have to hurry up and get the rest of the people, Hurley is next. Jack says Hurley is in a mental institute and Ben says it should be easy to recruit him. Ben says they have to get the rest of Jack's friends and Jack says they aren't his friends anymore, and why did this happen? Ben says it happened because they left. We know that Jack went all drunkard on us because of all that went on, but we don't know it all yet. I'd like to see that.

Oh good, Jack shaved. He no longer looks like a crazy homeless person. I like my Matt Fox clean-shaven. Jack asks Ben when he last saw Locke, to which Ben replies it was in The Orchid station. Jack says that Locke told him that everyone left on the island would die if they didn't come back. Ben asks if he said what happened to them and when he says no, Ben says he guesses they'll never know.

**Three years earlier**

Back on the island. Ben turns the wheel and the island goes bye-bye! Suddenly Locke is standing all by his lonesome with no more creepy-Richard. Daniel and his raft-mates (consisting of people who never appeared before, you know at least some are going to die) are floating near the island. Daniel concludes that they must have been in the radius. Weird, how do you know this Daniel? Juliet and Sawyer are on the beach and notice that the freighter is no longer there. Odd...Bernard and Rose come running out looking for each other. Sawyer says they don't need to panic, they'll just go back to the camp. Bernard says, rather panicked, that they can't go back to the camp; it gone! Yep...it's gone. Daniel shows up and says it isn't gone. He asks to be taken to something manmade. Juliet suggests the hatch of the station they blew up. Daniel says it's perfect and says they better get going before it happens again; Sawyer grabs his arm and says, "before WHAT happens again?". What indeed Sawyer, what indeed. Daniel says it isn't gone, it just hasn't been built yet. WTF? And awesome!

Oh Kate is making breakfast in her home. There's a knock. She answers. It's Dad-from-My-So-Called-Life and some other dude. They say they are there on behalf of their nameless client to relinquish some blood from Kate and her kid (not her kid). She says she doesn't understand and they will have to come back with the sheriff. Ruh-Ro! She panics, grabs her shit and bolts. Typical Kate, though I don't blame her.

The island group is walking through the woods on the way to the station and Daniel tells Sawyer to move it. Sawyer tells him to give him his shirt. Daniel says they have more pressing issues than giving Sawyer a shirt and says to explain the situation they are in would be difficult for a physicist to understand. Sawyer slaps him and threatens the ginger too (classic Sawyer!). Faraday explains that the island is like a record and whatever Ben Linus did, it seems to have dislodged them somehow. Miles asks what they are dislodged from and it appears to be time. Either the island is moving or they are. Daniel asks is everyone is accounted for, and they say Locke isn't (of course!). Locke is still out in the jungle and climbs a hill. A plane crashes and a little statue falls out. Why, it's Eko's brothers plane. So Locke, at least, is back whenever the plane crashed. Cra-zazy! Locke starts to climb up to the plane and starts getting shot at, eventually being hit in the leg. Oh it's Ethan. Creepy, creepy Ethan! He demands to know who Locke is. Locke says he knows him and Ben Linus made him (Locke) their leader. Ethan says this is ridiculous (probably because Ben is still a kid?) and is going to shoot him when the island goes *bloop* and Ethan is gone and Locke is sometime else in the darkness. The rest of the island gang are in the dark too. Daniel says they are either in the past or the future.

Sun is in the airport and she gets detained. Apparently by Mr. Widmore. He tells Sun that he had her brought here because she disrespected him. He asks what she meant by them having common interests and she says they both want Benjamin Linus dead.

Ben and Jack are off to get Hurley but there is a snag. It appears that the police are looking for Hurley because they think he escaped the mental institution and killed two people. We know he didn't, that Sayid did (poor Hurley, he just can't catch a break. Sayid and Hurley, meanwhile, are off to an apartment. Hurley asks who the guy Sayid killed was. Sayid says he doesn't care who he was, he was after Hurley. Sayid says he became so paranoid after spending two years working for Ben Linus, doing the things he asked him to do. He informs Hurley that if he ever runs into Ben, to do the exact opposite of whatever he says. Two men attack Sayid and one gets thrown over a balcony, the other meets some knives in a dishwasher (Owweee!). Sayid also got shot by some darts. Hurley, of course, picks up a gun and looks over the balcony at the guy who fell. People are gathering and they see him and take a picture.

The islanders, minus Locke, find their original hatch still blown up, so they are in the future. Sawyer says he is going to go back to their camp and Daniel says he can't. They don't know when the island will jump again. He says it could happen before they get back to the beach. Sawyer says what if that doens't happen? What if the helicopter hasn't left yet? Daniel says they can't change anything. Time can go forward and backward but not in any other direction, if they try to change anything they will fail every time. It can not be changed. Sawyer asks how he knows all this and Daniel shows him his journal. He says he's spent his entire adult life learning everything he can about the Dharma Initiative. They can't stop this. But who can...?

Locke is laying in the jungle, he's shot, bleeding and he's fucked up again. He hobbles over to the plane, which is now laying on the jungle floor. He makes himself a tourniquet and someone ambles into view. It's ol' Richard, or actually ol' yet looks young Richard. Richard tells Locke that he has to take the bullet out of his leg. Locke asks how he knew he had a bullet in his leg, and Richard says you told me. Locke didn't tell him, but Richard says he will. Locke says Ethan shot him and is told what comes around, goes around. Richard tells him that when he is is all relative and that Locke was the one who went somewhere when the light flashed. He tells Locke that he doesn't have time to explain what's going on right now, Locke is going to be moving on soon. He says the next time Locke sees him, he won't remember him and hands him a compass and says to give him that. Richard says the only way to save the island is to get all the ones who left back on the island. He says they are fine and are at home. He has to convince them to come back, he has to die. *bloop* daytime again. It looks like it's right after the plane crashed, as it is smoking up in the trees.

Island group: Night time and still blown up station. Miles asks what it was before they blew it up. Juliet says it was a Dharma station where a man named Desmond (whooo) would push a button every 108 minutes to save the world. *bloop* jump! It's before they found the hatch. Sawyer says he's going in the back door for supplies. Daniel says it's not a good idea, Desmond didn't know know him then. Daniel says it won't work and Sawyer is determined to get the door open. He can't change the past. Sawyer says everyone he cared about just blew up on the freighter (Sawyer cares about someone?) Most of the group goes off back to the beach and Daniel and ginger are still at the hatch. Ginger has a nose bleed and Daniel (and us) know why (remember :The Constant?) He tells her that he forgot his pack (he did) and runs off to get out his journal. Since Desmond is his constant, he can interact with him and possibly change things. Desmond answers and Daniel tells him that he does know him in a way and that the rules don't apply to him. He is uniquely special. Desmond, of course, thinks he's off his rocker. He tells him that if the helicopter made it off the island and if he got home...he has to listen or people will die. He tells him his name and says that all the people he left behind are in serious danger, he needs to go back to Oxford University, back where they met and find Daniels mother, her name is...*bloop*
Desmond is in bed, now, and wakes up. He says he was on the island and Penny says he's been off the island for three years. She says it was just a dream but he says it was a memory. Desmond rushes up to the deck and says they are leaving for Oxford. Weird.

So how long have our fair islanders been boppin' around? If the guys who got off have been gone for three years, how is the stuff happening only now to those on the island? Where were they for three years? I have to say it wasn't the most fascinating episode of LOST but it was good. And Desmond and Hurley were prevalent, so I'm good.

Part two will follow tomorrow!