Lost reflections

OK - I have been watching season one of Lost to see if we got any hints of plots to come. Interestingly, on the plane, Charlie does go into the restroom and gets high - - -in the sideways flash, we see him choking on the little bag of powder he has tried to swallow . . . Jack saves the day.

Locke has undergone some real changes (well, obviously, he's dead). At the beginning he was the explorer, hunter, outdoorsman, seemed totally at home on the island when nobody else did. He took Boone under his wing and told him stories about Michelangelo, and then gave him a drug experience . . . . unknown to Boone, in whose dream Shannon died . . . that was really odd.

Anyway, right at the beginning, when a woman is  in the water and carried out on a riptide and calling for help, Charlie says several times that he doesn't swim, can't swim. Yet he was the one who went underwater to the whatever station, and swam to the window of the office . . . . and wrote "Not Penny's Boat" on his hand for Des to see . . . . when did Charlie take swimming lessons?

Will we see a sideways flash that reveals who is the mother of Jack's son?

I don't know how I felt about the last episode. It did establish some "rules" of the island, and a glimpse into its heart and history, and the unusual magnetic capacities. But the crazy lady (well played by Allison Janney) was a bit much for me. Even the kids knew she was crazy. But what she did to their mother - -- that was terrible. And it appears she favors the boy in black more than Jacob, until they are older and she tells Jacob he's the guardian of the island. But Jacob is no saint either - - - beats up his brother and sends him down the chute, only to see the smoke monster roaring out, though the Man in Black's body did show up. And now we know who the bodies in the cave belonged to. I'm not sure WHY the Man in Black can't leave the island. Jacob seems content to stay, but his brother wants to leave and his mother thwarts those efforts. Maybe she sees into the future when people are coming to the island to exploit it (as the Dharma Initiative did).

So - - it did seem disconnected, in a way, to not see any of our current characters, and knowing how close we are to the finale. These were all new characters and the episode was all about them, and then, which jarred me, a clip of Jack and Kate discovering the bodies of "our own Adam and Eve" as described by Locke.

I have also noticed that Sawyer (the guy you love to hate) really became somebody else. He could slip back into the con man mode, but gradually began doing heroic things.