LOST: The Final Season Two Part Opener

Well, The first 2 hours of the final season of LOST did not fail to deliver. When LOST delivers that means I'm confused and the plot has gotten more wonderfully convoluted.

LOST opens where it began, only this time the plane does not crash, but continues on to Los Angeles. We swoosh back to LA over and over again throughout the first 2 hours, and, I assume, will be doing so throughout the final season, seeing what happens to the various people if the crash on the island never happened.

So, was it that nuclear blast that ended last season that fixed everything? No. Somehow that nuclear blast managed to bring the people who were stuck back in the 1970s, back to the present.

A present where the evil, or I think it's evil, black smoke monster is now under the control of who or what took over John Locke's body.

Ben killed Jacob upon the orders of the non John Locke. Jacob then appeared, dead, to Hurley, telling Hurley he has to get Sajid to a temple, the whereabouts Jin knows.

But, before that can happen they hear Juliette crying out for help. They realize they are at the remains of the Swan station. Much frantic effort goes into getting to Juliette, who dies in Sawyers's arms, but not before whispering something that Sawyer could not understand, but later learned, via Miles, the Death Whisperer, that Juliette had said, "it worked."

Now, we the viewers knows "it worked" meant they were no longer stuck in the past. But Sawyer does not yet know he is no longer stuck in the past, so "it worked" made no sense to him.

As Sawyer buries Juliette, with the help of Miles, Kate, Hurley, Jack and Jin take Sajid to the Temple, where they are captured by a group of others. Jacob had made clear to Hurley that the fate of all of them depended on Sajid being saved.

After they were captured, by the Others, Hurley reversed their situation by mentioning they were sent by Jacob. The leader of the others then opened the guitar case Jacob had given him, to find a big wooden symbol. The leader broke the wood thing and took out a piece of paper that apparently had the names of our captured heroes on it. And some other dire message that made the leader eager to revive Sajid.

When Sajid, at first ended up dead, and Hurley mentioned that Jacob was also dead, this sent the Others into extreme defensive measures, preparing for the arrival of the Black Smoke Monster.

We see the non-John Locke come out of Jacob's giant foot home to tell those on the beach that he was very disappointed in them, this after he knocked out team leader, Richard.

Hour 2 ends with Locke heading towards the temple and Sajid suddenly back alive, after the Other's leader had demanded to see Jack, after which a scuffle erupted.

So, the main mystery, I guess, is how do they finally manage to reverse their fate and land in LA without incident? And how did the island end up under water, which we saw during a very cool sequence near the beginning, as Jack stared out the plane's window to the ocean below?

Best show on TV.