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Category: L O S T
Still Lost
Some more speculation from the fallout of Lost’s third season finale:
- Unless it’s an alias, it looks like the coffin contains neither Ben nor Locke. Some eagle-eyed HDTV owners have come up with this approximation of the obituary:
“The body of Jeremy Bentham of New York was found shortly after 4 am in the 4300 block of Grand Avenue.
Ted Worden, a doorman at the Tower Lofts complex, heard loud noises coming from the victim’s loft.
Concerned for tenants’ safety, he entered the loft and found the body hanging from a beam in the living room.
According to Jaime Ortiz, a police spokesman, the incident was deemed a suicide after medical tests. Bentham is survived by one teenaged son.
Memorial services will be held at the Hoffs-Drawlar Funeral Home tomorrow evening.â€
So much for fate…is it 2008 yet?
That changes things a tad.
I had the whole “these aren’t flashbacks” thing figured out relatively early in the episode, but that didn’t lessen the impact of the final reveal of the season: (some of) our castaways made it off the island, and they aren’t too thrilled about it. Flipping the whole flashback convention (making the island the focus of said flashbacks) has been a long time coming, and this was probably the right time to do it. Next season will surely get off to a fast start (I hope), as we’ve got a lot to address, but I’m wondering if next season will follow the format of tonight’s finale, with “flash-forwards” instead of flashbacks. Anyway, more questions. Who rescued them? Did everyone make it off the island? Did anyone willingly stay? Did Desmond reunite with Penny? Did the remaining Others stay hidden? Why is a suicidal Jack so certain he made a mistake in leaving the island?
Here we go again
Lots o’ non-eventful setup tonight, but well done nonetheless. Expect next week’s two-hour blowout finale to have a little more meat. I’ll undoubtedly have an exhaustive wrap-up after that, so I’ll get right to the bullet points this week.
Follow the yellow brick road…
Now we’re talkin’. There were a whole slew of things to mark off the “what does it all mean?” checklist tonight, which I’ll get to shortly; but of course, it wouldn’t be a Lost episode if we didn’t get a whole new slew of questions that need answering down the line.
As has become readily apparent over the course of the season, Ben has a tenuous hold over his band of Others, and at no time had that become more evident than in tonight’s episode. Ben could see control of the “tribe” being wrested away from him by Locke, right in front of his eyes. No one came to Mikhail’s aid when Locke beat him, no one questioned why Locke was able to force Ben to take him to see Jacob, and as we saw last week, they all see Locke as a messianic savior to lead them out of the tyranny of Benjamin Linus. Unfortunately, we also know Ben is a master tactician, always staying eight moves ahead of everyone else. Locke found this out the hard way, taking a bullet in the gut for his trouble.
One thing at a time
Another great episode just in time for May sweeps. I’ve said it before–Locke-centric episodes always give the show the forward momentum that makes it so compelling to watch. Locke’s inability to kill his father was interesting in that it brought out the hypocrisy of the way Ben goes about his work on the island. He speaks of lists and “the good guys” and of virtue while kidnapping castaways, killing those who get in his way, and manipulating his “allies” to his own ends. I initially bought into the fact that he might just be testing Locke by dangling his father in front of him, and would reward him with a place among the Others if he didn’t go through with it. Instead, he was more interested in making Locke a murderer, as a “gesture [of Locke’s] free will and commitment” to the Others and their cause.
It’s another facet of Ben’s trying to maintain his increasingly tenuous role as the leader of his cult. His right-hand man, Dr. Alpert, didn’t seem to be buying Ben’s line of B.S. when he gave Locke the dossier on Sawyer. We’ve seen evidence of dissension since the first episode of the season, and I think it’ll be coming to a head in the next episode or two. The Others certainly seem primed for a messiah-like figure to rescue them from a leader that’s led them astray. The “special” Locke may be that guy. I envision some great scenarios in season four if Locke ends up replacing Ben as their leader.
They all die
Let’s begin at the end. Flight 815 was found. Everyone died. Purgatory theorists unite!
Naomi’s reveal that the doomed Oceanic flight was “found” back in the real world raises a multitude of questions and theories, all of which are probably wrong. The long-favored theory that the Island was a form of purgatory for our dead castaways will gain more steam, even though the show’s creators have repeatedly stated the place is anything but. Well, if we throw that explanation out the window, we’re left with alternate realities, mirror galaxies, Donnie Darko-style trans-dimensional wormholes and our more pedestrian black holes. Maybe the whole thing was staged as part of an elaborate government experiment designed to psychoanalyze humans under high-stress conditions. Or maybe the Others and their many real-world contacts staged another crash site to deflect attention from the Island. Hmm, that does seem the most plausible theory, doesn’t it?
I’m gonna go with the hyper-mirror-reality dimension galaxy theory, as it may give us a hint as to why pregnant women die on the Island. Perhaps, whenever people from “our” world cross the boundary between this dimension and the mirror dimension (which seems to be somewhere in the Pacific Ocean), a copy is created. One twin is sent along their way as if nothing had happened in the real world, and the other is sent to a whacked-out island where grievous wounds are healed within days, smoke monsters patrol the jungles, and PREGNANT WOMEN DIE! Why do they die? Why does an island that appears to foster life so well (by healing the wounded) kill new life itself? Well, it depends on when and where the child was conceived. You conceive it before crossing that trans-dimensional boundary? Then you’re all good, as a copy is created as you cross the super-terrific-ultra-dimensional time barrier. But, if you create a new life AFTER crossing it, there’s no copy to balance things out back on the other side! Life must find equilibrium, even across multiple dimensions.
Yes, really!
Oh, brotha
Fresh off another Buffalo Sabres playoff victory (meaning I’ve had a few beers and am ready for bed), I come bearing bullet points and screencaps!
Things You Never Imagined
That episode helped a bit. None of our longstanding questions have been definitively answered, but we’re given enough information in tonight’s Lost to infer more than a few things about the Others and their reason for being on the island.
Smokey & the Banditas
We’re in the homestretch now, so I expect things to pick up a little bit in this current batch of episodes. Unfortunately, that momentum didn’t really pick up with tonight’s “Chockful o’ Setup” show. That’s not to say it wasn’t good, but I’m ready for some real development and reveals of the Others’ past, what’s going on back in the real world, and the origins of Dharma on the island. Based on what I’ve seen of the slate of flashbacks for the rest of the season, I think we’ll get plenty of each.
As for tonight’s Lost, we got the Sawyer Makes Nice Project, some redundant flashbacks to Iowa, and our old friend Cerberus. Nothing too spectacular thematically, thus I shall get straight to my fast food analysis vis a vis bullet points.