roundhoward.

The two hour season premiere airs tonight!

After eight months of wondering exactly where that damn island sailed off to, the answer finally arrives in tonight’s two hour installment of Lost. The fifth season marks the penultimate year for the highly praised series and promises to be even whackier and hair-raising than previous outings. Flashbacks, flashforwards, flashsideways and more abound in the new narrative tone that the ABC hit show undertakes in this latest year. Hang onto your butts and grab a Dharma brew, ‘cuz it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

Need to catch up on all things Lost? Look no further than right here for our rundown of what’s gone by and what to expect when the show returns this evening.

Caution: Beware of some potentially spoilerific content.

Six For the Road, Dude?: Since the third season finale, we’ve known that Dr. Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) and Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly) escaped the island’s deadly clutches. We also now know that they escaped with a few other survivors — Sun Kwon (Yunjin Kim), Hugo ‘Hurley’ Reyes (Jorge Garcia), Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews) and baby Aaron Littleton (numerous babies). They are known as the Oceanic Six, and while their story of escape has rewarded them with fame and fortune, each one finds themselves tortured in some capacity. Hurley can’t stop seeing dead people, Sun is bitter over the apparent demise of her husband Jin (Daniel Dae Kim), Sayid becomes an assassin in light of his wife’s death, Kate’s raising Aaron but is haunted by visions of his true mother Claire (Emilie De Ravin) and Jack’s a drug-addicted lunatic pining to return to the island. Luckily for the good doctor, the nefarious Benjamin Linus (Michael Emerson) escaped the island as well and has a plan to take not only Jack but the other Sixers back as well. The stakes are high: “bad things” happened as a result of the O6′s departure, most notably the apparent death of an ostracized John Locke (Terry O’Quinn). His body, too, needs to come with Jack if they’re to return to the island. That should be a fun trip through airport security.

Trouble in Paradise: It’s bad enough that Locke, James ‘Sawyer’ Ford (Josh Holloway), Dr. Juliet Burke (Elizabeth Mitchell) and freighter folk Miles Straum (Ken Leung) and Charlotte Lewis (Rebecca Mader) are still stranded on the mysterious land mass. Worse still is that the island has jumped away to an unknown place — or, even more terrifying, an unknown time. When the season premieres, we’ll learn that the island’s shift through the space-time continuum will effect the castaways in deadly ways. With the help of quirky professor Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies), they’ll need to stabilize the time-warping effects of the island if they’re to survive. On top of that, the constant chronology tango leaves the island a considerably harder place for the Oceanic Six to return to.

Other Problems: When last we saw John Locke, he was a corpse in Hoffs/Drawlar funeral parlor. How did he get from a time-jumping island to the real world? That’ll be one of the season’s big mysteries, but even more compelling will be Locke’s newfound role as the leader of the Others. Ben passed the mantle off to our bald-headed hero just before turning that time-bending frozen donkey wheel. Now joined by the ageless Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell), Locke will hopefully learn several new secrets about the island, including the true origins of Jacob and the black smoke monster. At least he’d better, ‘cuz the audience is dying to know!

The Dead are Walking: Speaking of dying, more than a few characters took a permanent vacation in the fourth season’s final acts — or so it would seem. Lost masterminds Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse promise that series regular Daniel Dae Kim as Jin Soo Kwon is still very much a part of the show in the fifth year, but whether or not he’s alive is another question. Meanwhile, don’t expect to see once pregnant Claire Littleton for a while. Last seen rolling with her dead father in Jacob’s cabin, actress Emilie De Ravin is not contracted for the newest season, but producers have promised her return for the show’s final year. It’s a good bet, though, that she’ll turn up at least a couple times throughout this season. As for Michael Dawson (Harold Perrineau), who returned to the island to atone for his past sins only to be met with a faceful of C4 explosives? Yeah, he’s totally dead.

Unhappily Ever After: You can’t forget about everyone’s favorite time-traveling Scotsman, Desmond Hume (Henry Ian Cusick). He escaped the island along with the Oceanic Six, rescued by the hands of his true love Penelope Widmore (Sonya Walger). While they’ll get to enjoy their happiness for a little while, events will transpire causing their reunion to be cut short. It doesn’t help that Desmond’s new step-daddy is Charles Widmore (Alan Dale), sworn enemy of Benjamin Linus and oppressor of our island-bound castaways. Expect to see both Widmore and Desmond popping up in some very surprising locations throughout the season.

Times Past: Time travel isn’t all bad — at least not for the fans. While Sawyer and Juliet are busy roughing it in the hot, sweaty jungle, we the viewers get to experience several mythologically significant moments first-hand. Flashbacks and flashforwards are not dealt away entirely, but the time travel element offers a new narrative that allows the audience to view many oft-discussed events first hand. Sure, Danielle Rousseau (Mira Furlan) is dead, but we’ll get her back story this year without the use of flashbacks. And what about the Dharma Initiative and the events that caused Ben to betray his people? Expect some of that as well. Make no mistake: the time-jumps in Lost‘s fifth season will be a confusing cluster-frak for newbies, but for long-dedicated viewers, it’s time for a big payoff.

Check back tomorrow for another installment of Lost: Island Fever!