LaFleur

Tonight's was a pretty good episode of Lost -- but better, I think, if your mind starts to fill in the blanks.

We now know that three years passed for the five still on the Island after the departure of the Oceanic Six. (The same three years that passed in the 2000s for those Six themselves -- surely not a coincidence.) Think about what things were like for those five, and it's an intriguing picture.

The survivors of Flight 815 lived on the Island for a period of just over three months. So Sawyer, Juliet, Jin, Farraday, and Miles all spent over ten times that amount of time together among the Dharma Initiative in the 1970s. That's a whole lot more time to form tighter friendships than any of the other main characters had in the first four seasons. And of course, we saw that in particular between Sawyer and Juliet. Indeed, in Sawyer's touching speech near the end of the hour, he admits to barely even remembering Kate anymore.

Of course now, that'll be put to the test. But that's a matter for the time ahead.

Along the way were some other great character moments. Farraday's complete collapse at the loss of Charlotte (her body, following her true loss), and later bittersweet "reunion" of sorts at seeing the child incarnation of her. Juliet's joy at finally, successfully delivering a baby on the Island. Even just the realization of a now fully-English-fluent Jin. Nice stuff.

But as always, questions. What did happen in those first few weeks to make everyone agree to stay on the Island?

What about any other Flight 815 survivors? Say, specifically, Bernard and Rose? They weren't impaled on the beach by flaming arrows... did they not end up in the 1970s with the other "major characters," for some reason? And where did Sayid and Sun end up? Perhaps in the same not-1970s time?

Then there's that giant statue we saw for a few seconds in the teaser. Ordinarily, I don't go too much for Lost mysteries that aren't more rooted in character. But now I suddenly think this mystery actually is. That old four-toed foot Sayid spotted back in season two appears to have at some time long gone had a whole statue attached to it. And I think it was very deliberate that we saw only the back of it tonight.

I think it's a monument to someone we know. With time travel part of the show (and since our 1970s bound characters have to eventually reunite with the rest of the gang, it has to be again at some point), it could easily be. Perhaps someone is going to lose a toe? Or maybe we have yet to see a particular character with their shoes off? In any case, the possibility that this statue could be a familiar face has me caring about it more than the average Island-centric mystery.

It's strange, but we now have more of a road map to upcoming episodes of Lost than we've probably ever had before. We have to pick up the thread of Ben and Locke in the present. There's probably more of the missing three years on the Island to tell. We need to know of the missing 24 hours in 2007 for Ben, Hurley, Sayid, Kate, and Desmond. That seems like enough to take us nearly all the way to the end of the season.

And despite the sketch of what's to come, I actually find myself no less interested in seeing it. Cool.