The Shape of Things to Come, Part 2

OK, first off, I'm aware the last post was a little spacy. It was late at night, and I was tiredly trying to get something up. That's my excuse. I know, I had the whole weekend. What can I say?

Anyway, on to the rest of the discussion.

Let's take a minute to grieve for Alex. She was a sweet kid who helped out the Losties numerous times, and she had a horrible final hour.

This scene was high drama in the best LOST fashion, and Michael Emerson, as always, was sublime. If you didn't have sympathy for Ben before then (see last post), you must have felt something for him there. Even if he appeared to be acting recklessly and selfishly, he still obviously did not expect Keamy to actually shoot Alex. It clearly wounded and shocked him, and he apparently did have reason to believe she was safe, due to...

The Rules!! What are the rules? Why are there rules? Games have been a big theme in LOST, and chess lingo and Risk both make an appearance in this episode. Are Ben and Widmore playing a real life chess and/or Risk game? Is it Mob rules (no family members)? In this case, family seems to be the relevant rule, but are there more? Why can't Ben kill Widmore?

There are many rational reasons for their struggle over the island, especially Widmore's greed and desire to exploit the island, and Ben's desire to protect it (at least, that's how I'm leaning). I'm not sure how an actual "game" with agreed upon rules fits in with those motives. Is it Trading Places? Did they bet a dollar on whether or not a bunch of people "lost" in their lives could find redemption if brought to the island? Are they simply doing everything possible to win, short of (at least, previously) harming family members? I can't believe that the stakes are not more real than that. Besides, Ben doesn't appear to be trying to get people to redeem themselves; he's already made up his mind (or allowed Jacob to tell him) who's good or bad.

In Widmore's bedroom, Widmore says to Ben, "All you have, you took from me." Obviously, he means the island, its resources, the Dharma facilities, and whatever Ben has been able to gain with them. Of course, we've known of a Widmore/Hanso connection, but I believe this is the first relatively direct evidence we have that Widmore was ultimately the one against whom Ben rebelled in the Purge.

It's hard to reconcile the Widmore we know with the hippie/Dharmic do-goodism of the DeGroots, but what if Widmore somehow learned about the island from a history of the Black Rock, figured out the DeGroots knew how to find it, tracked down a descendant of Magnus Hanso (Alvar), had him set up a front company through which Widmore channeled the funds for the Dharma Initiative, with the ultimate goal of acquiring the island for himself? But he didn't count on immortal Black Rock survivors who would find a kinship in a young Dharma boy, who would steal the island out from under his nose? Crazy? Or is it so sane you just BLEW your mind?

But back to the rules. Ben's first action after his daughter is killed, preceded by the statement "he changed the rules" was to, apparently, release Smokey. It seems like it might have been prudent to do that earlier, and the fact that it took a deep, personal tragedy coupled with a feeling of betrayal to instigate this action leads me think that may have been against the rules also. But why? (Have you noticed how many of my sentences end in question marks?)

Of course, the very fact that he apparently at least had the means to summon the monster was a big reveal. Did he lie when Locke asked him what it was and he said he didn't know? Or does he really have no idea what it is, he just knows how to call it? The secret door has hieroglyphs (highlighted here) for which DocArzt has provided a translation. Here's the whole description on DarkUFO.

Well, even though there is so much more to talk about, I think I'm going to have to leave it there for now. Maybe I'll squeeze one more in before this week's episode.

Again, thanks for reading!

Namaste

The Shape of Things to Come

Wow. That was a jam-packed episode. It's taken a few days for me to assimilate it all, but I think I'm finally ready to unpack "The Shape of Things to Come". Let's give it a shot.

Of course, this episode was Ben-centric, and I think it gave us a lot more information about him more than the average episode reveals about its "flasher" (as in -forward, -back, etc...)

Much in the same way Darth Vader is the clear villain of the original Star Wars trilogy, but becomes the protagonist when viewed over all six films, so I think Ben will become more sympathetic and less villainous from here on out. (The comparison ends there, because (I believe) Ben actually has a cause which will likely turn out not just to be good, but essential. Anakin succumbed to evil, without a significant mitigator.)

Many LOST fans still regard him as evil, but I myself have never believed he was a pure villain. From the moment he first uttered the words, "We're the good guys", I figured there was something to that. He's obviously human (his possessiveness of Juliet, eg), but I believe he's on the right side, and Widmore is on the wrong side. TPTB will probably make a fool out of me, but that's my reading as of now.

Of Ben's many actions, interactions, and settings this epi, we may as well start with something that wasn't that big of a surprise. Namely that Ben is multi-lingual, and that he can kick ass! Seriously, did he not exhibit pwnage in the desert with the two Bedouins?

That was fun, but more important is how he got there. I don't think it's any stretch to say time-travel was involved, since he had to ask what year it was. The Dharma parka he was wearing had two notable aspects (other than the fact it didn't belong in the desert): it bore a specific logo as yet unseen, as well as the name Halliwax. Check it out. And here's a close up of the logo.

Now, for those of you who still haven't seen the Orchid film, now would be a good time to do so. I'll wait.

OK, so now we all know that (Edgar) Halliwax is the "name" of our favorite atmospheric lighting scientist (Marvin Candle, Mark Wickman, Edgar Halliwax...lolz) for the purposes of the Orchid Station's orientation film. And we also all now know that the Orchid has something to do with time travel. So.

What does this mean? When is he leaving for these trips? Is it close to current island time? My guess is, yes. Maybe this is part of what Jacob's instructions are to be? Too soon to tell, but we know he goes to 2005, a year and a month from the time of the plane crash. He's either going into the future from close to "CIT", or he's going into the past from a reasonably distant future point.

My money's on the former, because we've been told by Ms Hawkings as well as Faraday that you can't change the past. Of course TPTB's rules have been shown to be somewhat flexible. Nevertheless, I suspect we'll see the beginning of his journey before the season's out.

Questions like, "Why is he wearing Halliwax's jacket?", and, "Why did he wear a a parka at all for a trip to the Sahara?" are not readily answerable at this time, but it's worth remembering both the polar bear skeleton in Tunisia, and the Arctic station (or was it Antarctic?) from the end of season two. Did he detour through polar bear habitat? And what happened to his arm?

I think this portion of Ben's activities poses the most new questions; let's go nuts in the comment section! As for the rest, I had originally planned on a comprehensive single post, given my tardiness. But it's late and I have to work in the morning! So Alex, Sayid, Smokie and Widmore will have to wait until tomorrow. I promise I'll come through!

Thanks for wading through my ramble! Until tomorrow,

Namaste