Decompressed storytelling, or storytelling where the story is dragged out over an unnaturally long period of time, is a hallmark of modern comic book writing, “perfected” by guys like Brian Michael Bendis.  Lost, while in the past sometimes decompressed it’s overall arc, has always packed a lot of plot into its episodes, particularly recent ones.  Not so tonight — “316″ is incredibly decompressed.  Chris Piers told me that he felt like it was a flashback from an earlier season, and I think that’s about right.  Fans of slow character pieces definitely got their fill with this one, as Jack slowly creeps along towards his ultimate destiny.

The show opens with Jack waking up on the Island,  just as he did in the original pilot.  Except, he’s apparently uninjured,  just laying in the jungle.  He hears a call for help and stirs himself to action — rushing to a tropical lagoon, where Hurley is trying to stay afloat on a guitar case.  Reinvigorated back into a heroic man of action, he leaps into the water and helps Hurley get to a spot where he can find his footing. Then he notices Kate laying on a nearby rock — he rushes to her side only to find out that she’s still alive.

Fade to black.

46 hours earlier.

We’re back in LA at Eloise Hawking’s secret base, which turns out to be a stateside Dharma station called “The Lampost.”  Inside, she’s using Dharma’s aging equipment, including a map of the Pacific ocean and giant pendulum to predict where the Island will next appear.  See, it’s always moving — yet there is a brief window of time after each movement for the Island to be reached.  She’s predicted that the Oceanic Six’s window will be in 36 hours, when Ajjira Airlines flight 316 to Guam will pass over the Island.  For them to reach it, as many of the Oceanic Six as possible have to be aboard.

Desmond naturally thinks this is complete and utter bullshit.  “Don’t listen to them!” he warns, saying that they’ve always been puppets for people like Hawking and Ben, that they’re only going to be used for nefarious ends.  He delivers Dan’s message, and then takes off as fast as he can.

However, Jack and Sun are sold, for their own reasons.  Eloise takes Jack aside for a private meeting, where she gives him Locke’s suicide note (we learn that he hanged himself), and tells him that he has to give something of his father’s to Locke for the trip to be successful.  This freaks Jack out, and he enters a state of despair and denial again.  Just lovely.  He also refuses to open Locke’s suicide note.

There’s a brief bit where Ben tells Jack the Biblical story of doubting Thomas, who had to see Jesus’ wounds before he would believe in the resurrection.  Sometimes these kinds of metaphors are subtle, other times they really like to clobber you over the head with them.  The only thing worse than this is Ellen Tigh offering Boomer an apple.  I’ve read the Bible guys, I know Jack is Doubting Thomas.  And this episode will be the experience that makes him a believer.  Yes, yes, yes — we get that!

We are then treated to a long scene where Jack has to go talk to his grandfather, who is trying to escape the nursing home in which he lives (and why he would do that is unknown since they offer some pretty nifty magic shows).  Jack discovers that coincidentally, his grandfather has a pair of Christian Shepherd’s shoes in his possession — which I’m beginning to suspect must be Size Jeremy Benthem.  He takes the shoes from his grandfather, and heads back home for a drink.

Yet something’s amiss.  He begins searching his modest hovel, and discovers his former fiance, Kate, asleep on his bed.  He wakes her up and asks about Aaron.

“If you still want me to go the Island with you, never ask me about him again,” she says, choking back tears.  She then kisses him passionately, before the chaste camera cuts away from the real action.

The next morning he offers her coffee and orange juice, but she’s suddenly become distant and hostile.  She tells him she’ll see him later on the plane.  Typical Kate — she just can’t wait to ditch the junkie for her boyfriend back on the Island.  Poor Jack — let’s hope Juliet will take him back.

Ben calls Jack from what looks like a harbor — he’s beaten and bloody. Something he was up to didn’t work out as planned.  My money’s on an attempt to murder Penny that will be revealed in a later flashback episode.  He tells Jack that he has to go get Locke’s body and take him to the airport.  This would also be a great time for Jack to give him his father’s shoes, but that would be too convenient, wouldn’t it?

Jack drives over to the butcher shop and meets Jill, Ben’s acquaintance and a suspected Other.  She tells him that his body’s in the back and that she’ll pull around their van so he can drive Locke to the airport.

Jack makes a long, agonizing scene of taking Locke’s shoes off and putting his father’s shoes on instead.  He then tucks Locke’s unopened suicide note into his jacket.  It’s funny how peaceful John looks in the coffin — it’s almost a shame to wake him up again, so Ben, Richard and the Others can continue using him as their own personal chump.

At the airport, Jack buys his ticket and pays the cargo fee for his “friend” John Locke.  

Also, an Arab gentleman in line tells Jack that he’s sorry for his loss.  It’s actor Saïd Taghmaoui who some may recall as the Iraqi Captain in the movie Three Kings who famously tortured Marky Mark Wahlberg and dumped motor oil down his throat.  He was also in the French film Hate, but I’m sure no one but me has ever seen it.  He was good in that, too.

Sun is also in line — she explains that her daughter is safe with her mother, and that she’s going back for Jin.  I like Sun when she’s not being maniacally evil.  

Speaking of a Said, our Sayid is also there — in the custody of some unnamed government official!  And said government official is played by Zuleikha Robinson who portrayed the prostitute Gaia on Rome!

It’s quite confusing how so many members of the Oceanic Six are together with new actors playing new characters.  Could this be fate, or just some kind of coincidence?

Elsewhere, we see Hurley seated in the airport, reading a Spanish-language version of Y the Last Man, a comic book series written by Lost writer Brian K. Vaughn!  We soon learn that Hurley bought 68 seats on the plane, presumably to save some innocent lives.  How he came to be here is also a mystery, but I suddenly felt a ton of affection for him, as it’s just the kind of heroic thing he would do.

Eventually, everyone ends up on the plane together, including Ben, who strolls on looking pretty beaten and sporting a fine sling for his arm.

“Who told you to be here?” demands Hurley.

“Who told you to be here, Hugo?” Ben retorts.

Touche’.

One suspects that Charlie the Ghost told him, especially considering that Hurley is carrying a guitar and has never (in my memory) shown any apptitude for music.  Of course, we won’t find this out, or Sayid’s story, until a future flashback later in the season.  

One of the helpful Ajjira airlines flight attendants hands Jack one of his personal effects that had been misplaced in the cargo.  It’s the John Locke suicide note!  Jack just can’t escape it.

Ben and Jack sit in the back of the swanky first class section, and Jack takes a look back in coach at all the poor saps crammed in together like monkeys in a zoo.  He wonders what’s going to happen to all the other people on the plane.

“Who cares?” Ben replies, as only he can.

Creeped out like the audience, Jack plops down next to Kate and muses about how it’s weird that they’re all back together on the plane.  He thinks it may mean something.

“It means they bought a ticket,” Kate retorts.  ”And just because we’re all on the same plane doesn’t mean that we’re together.”

I hate Kate.  Have I ever said that?  She loves Sawyer, plays mind games with Jack, kills people.  She’s definitely a better match for Ben than Juliet.

The pilot then announces his identity over the loudspeaker — it’s Frank Lapidus!  Jack heads to the front and asks the freaked out flight attendant if he can speak with the pilot.”We’re old friends,” he tells her. 

Sure enough, a clean-shaven Lapidus comes out of the cockpit, and is a bit surprised to see Jack and the rest of the Oceanic Six together.  But always unflappable in the face of madness, Frank observes: “Wait a second, we’re not going to Guam, are we?”

No Frank, afraid not.

Jack ends up back in his seat next to Ben, and finally gets around to reading Locke’s suicide note.

“Jack, I wish you had believed me.  - JL”

Seconds later, the plane starts shaking with turbulence, and the passengers are enveloped in a white light.  We flash back to the beginning, where Jack saves Hurley and Kate.  Except this time, the sequence is a little longer.  A Dharma van emerges from the jungle.  The driver leaps out and points a gun at them.

Except … it’s Jin!  In a Dharma jumpsuit.

Lost.

This was a very unusual episode for the series — instead of showing different points of view, we’re locked to Jack’s POV for the duration.  There’s no b-story, no flashback plot, nothing.  And although some interesting things happen, this change in format is a bit unsatisfying.  Hurley, Sayid, Ben and Kate all have stories we could have learned this week, but they’re going to drag them out and likely turn them into flashbacks for later episodes in the season.  Questions have been posed, such as how they all got on the plane, whether or not the plane really crashed, and how Jack, Kate and Hurley awoke in the jungle separated from the others in their group, seemingly teleported.  But the way the questions were asked was a bit clumsy and confusing.  

Still, the Oceanic Six are back on the Island.  And next week we learn about “The Life and Death of Jeremy Benthem.”  Let’s just hope we don’t have to wait until the following week for the real action to resume.

3 out of 5 Walts.