Thursday, April 2, 2009

Lost Thoughts


Destiny Calls Lost
Originally uploaded by halilgokdal


* I managed to squeeze in watching Lost online before work this morning, which may or may not have been a good idea. I didn't watch American Idol, but I know Tattooed Mormon Joy went home, and at this point I have to say she deserved it. So - no surprises there. *

Anyways, back to Lost. It's a week without a lot of revelations. The producers seem to be trying to clarify some of the time questions and wrap up some of the Jack/Sawyer/Juliet/Kate stuff. I think they've gauged the reaction to Juliet and Sawyer and they're sticking with it - boooooo. I've always preferred it the other way around, but no one agrees with me. In any case, now we finally know what Sawyer whispered to Kate and we know where Aaron is, and that seems to be safe and somewhat unimportant to the rest of the plot.

I tried to listen closely to Miles and Hurley's hilarious discussion about time. The best line of the night came out when Miles asked asked Hurley what he was doing and Hurley says he's checking to see if he's disappearing.

So - Miles is emphasizing that you CANNOT change the future. It is the way it is. It's all fate. The only break in that insistence comes when Hurley challenges him by asking why a grown up Ben didn't remember Sayid, particularly when Sayid goes to torture him. Miles seems genuinely stumped - which leads us to ask - Why doesn't Ben remember Sayid?

I think we have three options.


- Ben actually does remember Sayid, he just lets what happens happen because he is that much of a believer in fate. This makes sense to me because it sure seems to me like Ben remembers some of the others when they arrive at the island - he's sure of who they are as soon as he sees the plane crash! Still, that doesn't seem to be what they're hinting at here.

- Ben doesn't remember because time works in loops - so when they went back in time the universe adjusts itself so that things happen differently but with the same ultimate results. This - the way it worked the first time around without them in the story is not how it will work this time with them in the story, BUT the ultimate results will be the same. So - the first time around, there was no visit of Sayid to the island, so of course Ben doesn't remember it, it didn't happen. It's happening now, but in a different loop. Sorry, this is complicated, it's well explained on this site: Time Loop Theory

- Ben doesn't remember because it didn't happen. They are wrong and you really CAN change the future, so by going back in time they are changing the whole story. This is intriguing because anything could happen, but the producers have directly said that you can't change the future, so I don't buy it.

- Ben doesn't remember because he's been brainwashed - see a couple of paragraphs down.

There's still a lot of this lingo about fate and how things happen and characters do things "because I was supposed to". Watching all of this has been really interesting to think about questions of the sovereignty of God and how He is outside of time, and what that actually means. It's interesting!

It all got interesting when our new nice Sawyer helps Kate take the fading little Ben to Richard, leader of the Others, the Hostiles. Now we know how Ben got from Dharma to the Hostiles. What really got me was Richard's warning to Sawyer about what would happen if they gave Ben to them. "He'll forget this ever happened, his innocence will be gone, and he'll always be one of us."

Hmm.. what does THAT mean? Why will he forget? What makes him lose his innocence?

Richard's side-kick says, "If Charles finds out...", which leads me to say - is Charles Widmore leading the Others at this point? Is he a young or old Charles Widmore? And then I couldn't quite make it out, but I thought he mentioned "the healer", which I assume would be ghostly John Locke - aka Jacob? And maybe that's why there's all kinds of whispers when John went to see Jacob - because he's attempting to talk to himself through time?

*ahhh... other blogs clarified. He said "ellie" not "the healer", which is probably Faraday's mom. So - she and Widmore are working together, ON the island.


And, last of all.... Richard takes Harry Potter Ben into ..... dun dun dun.... THE TEMPLE! Did I not write about the temple last week? I knew it was significant! Looks like it's about to be de-mystified though!

Our last scene seems to be a jump into the future, where a resurrected John Locke looks at dusty Ben Linus and says "Hello Ben, welcome back to the land of living". Now, this begs the question - when Ben is healed, does he somehow jump into the future and adulthood, or is all of this the producers playing with our mind, and it's a completely modern day situation where creepy John is taking care of wounded Ben?

Your thoughts?


6 comments:

  1. (totally unimportant sidenote... you mean Miles, not Ethan. :) Ethan was the creepy Other who died in the first or second season... Miles is the newish character who has the convo with Hurley)

    - I think Ben actually does remember meeting them all... I don't really buy the time-loop theory. "Differently, but with the same results" would seem to be saying that the future has certain static points that have to remain the same, and that doesn't seem logical. Why those specific points? Time isn't conscious, and there is nothing dictating which elements have to remain static while others are free to change. I think it's more that the past is static, and what happened, always happened that way -- individuals are just experiencing those happenings out of sequence, so to speak.

    - If the Dharma-ites are answering to Ann Arbor (sorta) then it seems to me that the Others might be answering to Widmore & Ellie as well, without them actually being on the island... Interesting point tho, if Widmore was a young man when we saw him in the 50s with the whole nuclear bomb thing, and he said that Ben was the reason why he had to leave, then shouldn't he still be on the island, presumably ten or twenty years older? I would assume that whatever did to make him leave hasn't happened yet, wouldn't you? So what made him leave Dharma for the Others?? And why on earth would ageless, omnipresent Richard even need to assert that he doesn't answer to Widmore in the first place... There's a stump-er lol

    - I'm pretty sure that the child Ben didn't jump into the future in any way when we saw that last scene shift... our perspective as viewers was just shifting. Whatever Ben had experienced as a child had been with him all along as the adult he became. (Only, I don't entirely trust that the writers aren't making things up as they go along, so it might not be quite that straight-forward LOL)

    What do you think about my thoughts?? Assuming that they're even coherent... :P

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  2. This episode was a litle bit of a dud for me. We all kind of assumed that Kate gave Aaron to his grammie, but really her reaction was unrealistic. Hi your daughter is alive and here is her baby. Thanks. Can I get you some ice tea???? It was all too anticlimatic to for me. Plus if you are trying to save Ben why would anything Richard says be okay with you???? I'm interested in seeing next week's episode and finding out whether Ben killed Penny or not.

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  3. Hello there!

    I think I will put my foot through my TV is that time loop theory is true (about how the story will end with the original Oceanic 815 crash)

    I was a mess of too many emotions watching that episode...sad, happy, laughing, then aggravated, then happy again, then sad....and of course totally LOST too.

    My recap is up as well~

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  4. I thought that when Richard said Ben wouldn't remember what happened, that he meant Ben wouldn't remember ANY of the events that brought him to Richard. I sort of assumed he meant the shooting, the operation, being carried, all of that. But now you have me thinking about it more and maybe he he only meant he wouldn't remember whatever Richard is about to do to him. Hmmm. Would definitely be interesting to see Ben's reaction the first time he met Sayid!

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  5. I totally agree with you that I want Kate and Jack together. Down with Juliette!! Sawyer can have her for all I care.

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  6. Thanks for your comment, Kacie. This might make you laugh:
    http://everydaymomlife.blogspot.com/2009/04/if-you-arent-lost-please-come-back.html

    =] emily

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