Oh man. Pandora’s box is wide open in the sixth and final season of Lost. We’re only one episode in, and we already have people coming back from the dead, an alternate reality, and six new questions for every one answered. I love it in a sick, sick way. Here’s what we learned in Episode 1: “LAX”:

Mystery #1: After the white flash: Juliet detonates an atom bomb to end season five, hoping to send everyone from Oceanic 815 back in time to before the plane crash. That’s the plan at least—keep in mind she’s also about to nuke the whole island. There’s the white flash and… they’re back on the plane bound for LAX. It worked! Everyone’s accounted for: Jack, Sawyer, Kate in handcuffs, Locke in a wheelchair, Bernard, Rose, Jin, Sun, Hurley, Sayid, that stewardess, even Boone and Charlie. And Desmond. … Yeaaaah. Desmond’s on the plane, which means he never shipwrecked on the island, and Shannon is still in Australia. Looks like we’re moving on from flash forwards and time travel to an alternate reality storyline—which, admittedly, could be fun to watch play out, especially if destiny ends up dragging them all back to the island anyway. For now, we just get reinforcement that life ain’t that great back in the States.

In Reality No 2, post white flash, we find Kate hanging from a tree on the island (introduced by a nice “eye” shot a la season 1) circa 2007. Jack, Sawyer, Hurley, a mortally wounded Sayid, Jin, and Miles were also transported to 2007. The plan doesn’t work, Sayid’s a mess, and Juliet is … alive? For a few more minutes at least, long enough to share a tearful goodbye with Sawyer and whisper, “I have something very, very important to say,” then die before she can say it. Classic. I wish Juliet would stick around, if only to avoid the inevitable love triangle between Jack, Kate, and Sawyer, but it looks like she’s starring in the new ABC show V instead. Good for her, bad for us.

Thankfully, we do find out what she wanted to say, courtesy of Miles (remember, he hears dead people). The line? “It worked.” So…if it worked, then they’re back on the plane….but how does Juliet know? Is she in a different reality altogether? That’s when my head started to hurt.

Mystery #2: Locke: Turns out Locke 2.0—aka the Man in Black, aka Jacob’s nemesis—is actually the smoke monster. And while he’s killing people left and right, he’s doing it in a bid to “go home,” he tells Ben.

Home, as far as I can tell, is the island temple, which we finally get a glimpse of. It’s inhabited by Others in Partridge Family costumes, including the flight attendant from Oceanic 815 and the two kidnapped children. Home décor is minimal: They have a random punching bag in the courtyard, and a healing pool (baptismal font?) that likely cured young Ben of his gunshot wounds back in the ’70s. Hurley speaks to dead Jacob (remember, Hurley can see dead people) and is told to bring Sayid to the temple to be healed. The pool doesn’t seem to be working (out of order?), and Sayid dies. Or does he? In the last minute of the show, he pops back up, good as new. WHAT. I wonder if he’s going to be better, worse, or possessed by Jack’s dad, Christian Shephard, in the next episode. You never can tell.

Final thoughts: It’s aggravating that there are so many new questions to answer, but I have faith in the writers. It’s like they’re writing a novel now rather than a serial—it has to have a beginning, middle, and end, and with luck, it might actually make sense. As for the end, the producers keep talking about the battle of good versus evil, and I can’t shake the idea that this struggle is biblical. So many religious references anyway (Christian Shephard??). But for now, I just like watching Terry O’Quinn master his sinister glare.

What do you think?