Lost: "Confirmed Dead"

"Lost" is the best argument for escapism as artistry and the most consistently convincing evidence that, just as football has overtaken baseball as the American pastime, so television has replaced the movies as the primary pop culture medium. It's not just that a season of "Lost" is more expansive, more dark, more funny, more skeptical, more generous to slow-burning plot developments and more wry with its treatment of a huge cast than most big screen movies. It's that practically every EPISODE of "Lost" is all those things, and beautiful enough to justify an HD TV but not so concerned with aesthetic surfaces that it can't be devoured, like an impeccable desert or digestif, on your iPod Nano.

An episode of "Lost" is satisfying in a different way than an episode of "The Sopranos," because you know, as the "Previously On" fades out, that in under an hour a storyline will have reached some kind of climax, that there will be a catharsis, and that out of that catharsis will spring more mystery. Every episode of "Lost" takes a cue from Scherazade - it always ends right in the middle of something, daring you not to keep watching.

In its second and third seasons, "Lost" started off slowly - finale cliffhangers had left our castaway gang scattered across the island, and Lindelof and Cuse usually took three or four episodes to map everyone out. Many fans didn't like this, particularly in season 3, which started off with six episodes of Jack, Sawyer, and Kate - three of the most dynamic characters, trapped in a love triangle that demands proximity - in separate cages, with the other characters across the island, with no bare attempt at an explanation for what happened to the hatch. (Almost two years later, all we know is that 'the sky turned purple.') One of those six episodes, "The Cost of Living," was one of the series' best, yet its telling that it focused entirely on a character, Eko, who had barely appeared in the season so far (being attacked by a poorly-animated polar bear does not count as an appearance), and who would never appear again - his unexpected death was the first castaway death that really hurt.

Things are different now. Lindelof and Cuse have, with "Confirmed Dead," the second episode of a fourth season which god willing will not be cut off midway, vindicated those of us who admired the slowering rhythms of seasons 2 and 3 - with this episode, even moreso than in the nimble premiere, you can sense just how splendidly all the pieces have fallen into place. You know right from the opening scene - we are underwater, staring through a camera, hearing voices we have probably never heard before. Is any other show on television so consistently willing to utterly confuse its audience? And yet it's not confusing, because we have faith in the writers - we know that, if we are in a submarine under the sea, then what we are about to see is not just important, but explosive. Sure enough, there is a plane in the ocean - flight 815. Funny, we thought it crashed on that island.

Skip scene - we are watching Flight 815 on television. A man is crying. He doesn't know why. Skip scene. That man is inside a helicopter, and three people we have never seen before are throwing him out into an electrical storm. We parachute down from his POV - we look up at the helicopter, and we look down at the island, and it is like we are seeing it for the first time. The man hits ground. He hides a gun. Jack and Kate run over to him. "Are you Jack?" he asks.

It is an archetypal "Lost" opening - shattering what you thought you knew, conjuring entire characters and storylines out of thin air; there is instant mystery, and the possibility of violence. What follows is very nearly a perfect episode of "Lost" - the more I think about it, the more I am convinced that Lindelof, Cuse, et al, are at the absolutely height of their storytelling powers here. Four new characters introduced in the span of an hour - we know them all without knowing anything about them, suspect them all but have already begun to love them.

Their arrival makes us look at our old favorite characters in strange new ways. The best scene is almost certainly Charlotte's sit-down with Locke's rebel-breakaway group. Here we have a scene that would have been unthinkable back in season one, when we were all convinced that the island was purgatory or a dream or some other mesmerizing cop-out - someone from off the island sitting around with our castaway friends, promising escape. And that is the last thing they want, because they believe - the know - that she is lying.

Another great thing about this episode - whereas the overall outlines of season 2 and 3 only became clear over time (season 2 was all about the Hatch; season 3 was all about the Others), it now seems clear that season 4 is going to be all about Jack's team versus Locke's team. This can only be good news. Another difficult thing about season 3 was how often important overarching themes like the Jack/Locke split got lost in the shuffle of new characters - how strange to think that Jack and Locke only actually shared screen time in two scenes last season. (This is the blessing and the curse of huge casts - so many expansive options, but also so many potential potholes.)

Good god, though, such scenes! Locke blowing up the submarine and ruining Jack's chances at going home; Jack phoning the ship and ruining Locke's chances at staying on the island. When, at the end of season 3, Jack said, angrily, "You're done keeping me on this island," you could feel the show finding its footing all over again. Jack and Locke, man of science and man of faith. Amazing, that even three and a half years after the premiere it's still not clear which one is the hero - or, indeed, if there is anyone on the island we can truly root for (aside: obviously, we can all root for Desmond, because he is the greatest character in TV history.)

Well, everything has changed. "Lost" knows where it is going, or if not, it knows how it is going to get there. No other show has ever inspired so much conversation - not just admiring "did you see that," but genuine, rambling, meanderous chit-chat. "Lost" is where Smart meets Fun, falls in love, and decides to never part ways again. Haters can hate - years from now, when all the questions have been answered and the long wait between weeks is far behind us, the world be divided into those who watched "Lost" and those sad pugs who didn't.

Jesus-Fucking-Christ moment of the week: the discovery of a fossilized Dharma polar bear

Best Line: Everything Michael Emerson says is golden, but you have to love the derisive joy in his voice as he admonished his daughter's boytoy, "Carrrrl! If you're going to be sleeping with my daughter, please, call me Ben!"

Best Flashback juxtaposition: Naomi assures shadowy Matthew Abaddon that she'll make sure no one dies, and we cut to... DEAD NAOMI!