Lost Discussion Group: Christian Leader

Here at Tuned In, we subscribe to the philosophy, Never write a post when your commenters will do it for you for free. Here's Jonathan from yesterday's LDG thread:

You haven't said much, James, and I salute you for that (don't want to be spoiled) - but can you at least tell us if you liked the first two eps? Quality-wise, were they on par with LOST classics such as "Through the Looking Glass"?

And then I was all,

I saw the two episodes and liked them *a lot*. That's not saying much, I guess--of course I'd like any new Lost after 8 months. So to be more specific, they're a better and more satisfying season opener than we saw in seasons 2 or 3... none of that slow crawl of 6 or 8 episodes to get things moving. Things are moving. Classics? I'm not going to put them up with Looking Glass, but that's hardly fair since a season finale draws on the build of the previous 21 episodes. Put it this way: they're like the really strong midseason episodes we've gotten used to seeing around April or so, once things really start getting going in a Lost season.

I don't want to say more for fear of giving anything away accidentally. I'm tight-lipped like Ben Linus on this one. But Jonathan also threw out this tidbit:

By the way, has anyone seen the latest (and final) Lost mobisode?
http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/So_It_Begins
Freaky!

I second that freaky: In it, we see Christian Shepherd, just after the Oceanic 815 crash, telling Vincent to wake Jack, because he has "work to do." Which suggests a good LDG question of the day: What is the deal with Christian? Alive? Dead? Apparition? Smoke monster? (And if the latter, why would he take the form of Jack's father to talk to a dog? Wouldn't Vincent give more respect to Walt? Or a Milk-Bone?)