"A Tale of Two Cities"

*cracks knuckles, rolls shoulders* OK, kids, let's dive right in:

Well, I don't know what I was expecting in the first five minutes of last night's premiere, but it certainly wasn't that. I figured out as soon as we saw this girl that she was gonna be Juliet, the new girl. But that's about as much as I got right. Whoever she is, (or whoever she was on September 22, 2004), she doesn't seem very happy with her life: her actions throughout that opening sequence suggest to me that she was about to experience some sort of breakdown. (Think Jessie Spano-esque freak out.) Then they cut to the bookclub meeting. I heard on the radio this morning that some of The Others we've seen before were in attendance, but that was news to me, I didn't recognize anyone in that living room. I do think, however, a few hints were dropped:

1- I don't know if it's important, or if they're just running out of names, but the man Juliet (and were they calling her Julie?) was arguing with was named Adam. Shannon's father was named Adam. Like I said, I don't know if there's significance or not, but do with that what you will.

2- The bookclub is reading some book by Stephen King. I've read that close ups indicate that it is "Carrie," but I'm not positive. This same radio DJ from this morning was talking about one of King's short stories, "The Dark Tower," I believe, and how that story is about a utopian society run amock. That would seem to make more sense to me. The opening scene did seem rather Pleasantville to me. After we see what appears to be an earthquake, everyone runs outside (uh, hello?) to see flight 815 break apart and crash into the island. We see Fenry giving orders to Ethan and Goodwin, demanding lists in 3 days. Tripp West speculates that, due the nature of their interaction, as well as some comments made during the bookclub meeting, Fenry (who will always be Fenry and never Ben to me) and Juliet are married or possibly estranged. I don't know about that, and I would be willing to go out on a limb and say that it's not Fenry and Juliet who are married, but rather Ethan and Juliet. He was the one outside her house attempting (what looked like unsuccessfully) to fix her plumbing problem. Whatever. Unimportant at this time. Let's talk about the "free will" comment, yeah? Whoa. Creepy. Juliet gets all up in arms and says something to the effect of "Are we supposed to believe that free will actually still exists?!" Hmmm....makes me wanna jump on the whole utopian society bandwagon, and claim that no one in this society has a say in what goes on, namely who they marry, when they have kids, etc. Smells like 1984 to me... My last point on this subject.... Fenry, right before LOST flashes on the screen, says "So I guess I'm out of the bookclub?" to Juliet. Uh, I didn't realize he was in the bookclub. He wasn't in the house. Did he forget to pay his dues? Perhaps forget the secret handshake? Wow, pretty Nazi-esque bookclub if they'll kick you out for missing a meeting. But then again, didn't Adam say it was Ben who suggested the book, even though Juliet, as the host, picked the book? I don't
know.

Hmm, and all that on just the first five minutes. I'll give you a potty break before I go on. Go on and grab a Coke while you're at it.

More to come....