"Namaste" again! LOST back in fine form tonight

After an absence of half a month (to accommodate basketball tourneys in some markets last week) Lost roared into high gear again this evening. Tonight's episode, "Namaste", came from the pen of scribe Brian K. Vaughn, who has previously written many of the finest episodes of the series. Tonight it was as solid as ever.

I have officially run out of exclamations and phony expletives that I could possibly used to describe how walloped I am by this show. During the course of sixty minutes, "Namaste" crossed space and time and gave us possibly the biggest breadth of the Island's mythology and geography of any episode to date. Where to begin? Baby Ethan! Radzinsky! Jack meeting Pierre Chang! The Flame! YOUNG BEN! Christian Shepherd! A smidgeon of the Monster! Frank Lapidus (one of my favorite new characters from last season)! Sun kicking older Ben's ass! Hydra Island and the runway! What really happened during the Ajira 316 flight!

All that was missing was Locke. And he's lurking somewhere in 2007.

So Jack's DHARMA job is janitor and "LaFleur" is calling the shots. I'd said last time that I've thrilled at how Sawyer has developed as a character. Tonight, there was the hint that he's finally come into his own as the leader among the Oceanic 815 bunch. Gotta wonder if he's right: that his thinking has saved more than Jack's "rushing into things" ever did back in "the old days".

Not so much an action-packed episode, but still immensely satisfying. Cannot wait 'til next week!