Review: The Shape of Things to Come

In the first 3 minutes of “The Shape of Things to Come,” we saw rifles, a dead body and some Kate Austen side boob. I thought to myself, “This episode can’t get any better.”

Amazingly, I was wrong.


Sun, Sand and… Dead Doctors from the Future!
Washed Ashore
Plot development on the beach moved about as fast as Hurley in a dead sprint. But it did start with a bang. The body of Dr. Ray washed ashore, shocking Faraday and Charlotte. If his mere death wasn’t enough to rattle them, his slashed throat and battered face certainly were. Immediately, the beach crew begins wondering what could’ve happened, and decide to place a call on iPhone from hell. But before they can, they discuss the return of the helicopter and, with it, Sayid and Desmond. When asked for an ETA on that arrival, Faraday foreshadows the beach’s most interesting happening with the retort, “'When’ is kind of a relative term.”

The Dentist Speaks Morse
A faulty microphone on the phone causes the beach crew to resort to Morse Code. Faraday tries to tell the 815’ers that the freighter folk claim they don’t know anything about the doctor, that Sayid and Desmond are fine, and that the helicopter will return tomorrow morning. But oh Daniel, my sweet Daniel. You forgot about Bernard Nadler: dentist, devoted husband, trained assassin and fluent Morse Code speaker. Bernard corrects Daniel, informing Jack that the freighter communiqué merely asked, “What are you talking about? The doctor is fine.” Oh no you didn’t cross Bernard Nadler, Faraday. Oh no you didn’t.

A Time to Kill
But…well how do I put this lightly? Dr. Ray is not “fine.” He is, in fact, dead. And Daniel Faraday knows why: the time warp. Somehow, Dr. Ray has not yet been murdered on the freighter. But he’s about to have his throat slit and his body thrown overboard. Roughly 31 minutes in the future, his body has already been discovered by the beach crew. That, friends, is why Faraday referred to “time” as a “relative term” early in the episode. Were this a post in which I didn’t have to devote a large chunk of time to the Ben Linus v. Charles Widmore scene, I would get further into the implications of time, and how knowledge of future events affects actions in the present (read: Why wouldn’t Faraday warn the freighter folk about Dr. Ray’s impending death?).

We’ve got bigger fish to fry, so we’ll leave that for another day.

Battle at the Barracks
Against Her Will
Almost immediately, we learned the identity of the jungle assassins from the last episode: it was indeed Martin Keamy & Co. from the freighter. Keamy used Alex to thwart the electromagnetic gate, prompting an automatic call to Ben’s house that warned its inhabitants of the ominous “Code 14j.” Good work, Alex. Your worth to this show grows exponentially with each passing day.

Code 14j
The announcement of Code 14j seemed to derail Ben’s one-man piano recital, much in the same way that Kate’s rescue attempt in Season 3 interrupted Jack’s ivory-tickling scene. Seriously. How do all these guys know how to play piano? Anyway, Code 14j is apparently not a drill. I repeat, it is not a drill. The code sends Ben into a frenzy. He moves everyone to another house, arms the masses (well, only the characters whose names we know, unfortunately for the extras who played “Barracks Inhabitants 1-3” last night) starts barricading the doors and tells Locke that he must survive the attack at all costs. Cool, calm, collected Ben Linus is obviously worried. Turns out, he had reason to be.

Hostage Situation
What was brilliant about the hostage standoff was the stark reality of it. Once Ben began explaining that Alex was a pawn, I thought, “Man, how long is this cat and mouse game gon—.” That’s as far as that thought went, as my contemplation was shattered by Keamy’s remorseless killing of Alex. In truth, I’m okay with her dying. Of all the main players, she was the most expendable. And they did a great job of using her death to dramatically raise the stakes of this battle.“He changed the rules.”
Did anyone seriously not believe shit was about to go down after Ben said this? I got chills. We know he’s capable of a lot, but I didn’t even think he had the power to summon Smokey. And I think that’s exactly what his counter-strike was. When he went into the secret-room-inside-of-the-secret-room and created some signal for Smokey to go out and kill everyone in the tree line. Well, not everyone. As we saw last week, Keamy is alive and well…for now.

I believe we can make this whole incident Chapter 413 in Why You Should Never Underestimate and/or Piss Off Benjamin Linus. What was really great is it answered another question: why did the Others so blindly and loyally trust Ben? With powers like that, who wouldn’t? And for the first time ever, Ben seemed to display an actual (gasp!) human side. When he tells Locke he has to go say goodbye to his daughter, and when he looks down at her lifeless body, we see shreds of compassion that are very un-Linuslike. It was actually a pretty cool scene.

The Breaking of the Fellowship
Ben may have won the Battle at the Barracks (kind of), but in doing so he lost the battle for hearts and minds. Apparently, protecting a new mother, her baby and good ole’, fun-time Hurley from stray bullets was too much for Sawyer. He decided he was taking everybody who didn’t have a weird, spiritual connection with the Island back to the beach (plus, Miles the ghost whisperer. Come on, let's kill him already). Broken and confused, Ben and Locke know that they can’t let Hurley go. Not surprisingly, Sawyer disagrees. Before bullets can fly, Hurley steps in and takes one for the team, deciding to venture with Ben and Locke and help them find Jacob. It’s really interesting to see Hurley getting wrangled into the mythology of this show. His role has gone from comic relief to key player in the course of Season 4, and I, for one, think Jorge Garcia has done an excellent job of pulling it off while retaining the character and personality traits that have always made him so lovable.

The dead body on the beach and the barracks battle would’ve been enough to satisfy me last night. But, perhaps to make up for its 5-week absence, LOST delivered a hell of a lot more than we even deserved last night. And of course, it all went down in flash-forward land.


Indiana Linus
Rather than recap all of Ben’s globe-trotting endeavors, I’ll give you what I saw as the highlights.

• Ben goes from weak, vulnerable victim to gun-toting badass in no time flat. Sorry, dudes on horseback.
• It seems like Ben’s time travel doesn’t afford him the luxury of an exact ETA. He looks pleasantly surprised when the hotel concierge tells him it's October, 2005. I wonder where/when he’s ended up on past journeys.
• Ben was in Tunisia, site of the polar bear that Charlotte discovered earlier this season. I think this means that the polar bear was a remnant of an early time travel experiment. Apparently, Ben’s folks haven’t worked out the whole “drops you in the middle of nowhere” kink in the system.
• Dean Moriarty? That’s Ben’s passport name. Gentleman, start your Googles.

To be honest, I found the first 80% of the Ben/Sayid flash-forward story decent at best. Intriguing, yes. But we didn’t get much that we didn’t already know or couldn’t already guess. Ben travels the globe, then manipulates Nadia’s death by painting Widmore as the bad guy in order to get Sayid to become his personal assassin. Even though it was somewhat predictable, I loved the scene where Sayid killed Ishmael Bakir. It ended with one of Sayid’s best quotes ever: “Don’t tell me this is not my war. Benjamin, who’s next?” Almost instantly, Sayid abandoned his compassionate side and reverted to his killer mentality. It’s not tough to see how he ends up as the man we saw in The Economist.

But please. Don’t tell me you lost sleep over that part of the show. Last night was all about the coolest confrontation in LOST history.

Meeting of the Minds
I think the best way to even try to break down this part of the show is by examining a few select quotes from the meeting of Charles Widmore and Ben Linus.

Ben: When did you start sleeping with a bottle of scotch by the bed.
Charles: When the nightmares started.
Nightmares, huh? The kind of nightmares, visions and hallucinations that rack Jack and Hurley with guilt after leaving the Island? We know Charles Widmore has been to the Island, and we know he wants to get back. Maybe he left before he was supposed to, and maybe that’s why he’s hell-bent on getting back, no matter the cost.

Charles: Are you here to kill me, Benjamin?
Ben: We both know I can’t do that.
Really? Why not? Kill him, Ben! He killed your daughter!

This scene began with enough small talk and pleasantries that I thought, for just a second, that Ben and Charles may have actually been working together. I think we know that not to be the case by now, though. But why can’t Ben kill Charles? Does he need him as a nemesis? Or did Charles, in his time on the Island, discover something that Ben needs? Maybe Charles knows why the pregnant women die. Or how to harness the Island’s life-prolonging qualities. Or how the Island itself ties into the Hanso Foundation and Dharma Initiatives original mission of saving the world, one soul at a time.

Or maybe, just maybe, Charles has a Richard Alpert thing going on. He can’t age, and literally can’t die, so Ben can’t simply walk into a penthouse and murder him. My money’s on the “Ben needs something Charles knows” side of it, but I would be thrilled with a Charles Widmore immortality angle, too.

Charles: I know who you are boy. What you are. I know that everything you have taken from me. So once again, I ask you, why are you here?
“Who you are” and “what you are.” That was really interesting for me. I think it refers to the fact that Ben, unlike Richard Alpert and some Others, is not an actual Island native. Maybe that’s why Widmore resents him so much. Not only did Ben unseat Dharma (and its governing body, presumably presided over by Charles Widmore, among others), he did it without a natural connection to the Island. He was the worthless son of a worthless peon. And yet, somehow, this outsider had a connection to the Island and was able to use it for his own gain. In the process, he got the Island natives to wipe out the Dharma Initiative. It’s one thing to have an usurper to the throne. It’s entirely another thing if the usurper is something of a carpetbagger. You could almost see hate seeping out of the television screen when Charles told Ben, “Don’t stare at me with those horrible eyes of yours.” Talk about somebody saying what we’ve all been thinking for years. That was brilliant.

And finally...

Ben: I’m going to kill your daughter. Penelope, is it?
Tit. For. Tat. Here’s what’s really fascinating about this escalation of stakes… a lot of this show has been about a child’s reaction to his father’s misdeeds. Sawyer, Kate, Locke, Jack, this list of characters with daddy issues goes on and on. The development of characters like Ben and Widmore, however, has addressed that issue from the father’s side of the coin. These are awful, evil men. They have been villainized since day one. They are cutthroat, heartless and cold. Or so we think.

But then, Ben’s daughter is killed. His connection to her, though admittedly not biological, is pretty strong. And we have already seen the lengths to which Widmore will go to protect Penny from those he sees unfit (Desmond). Are they bad guys? Yes, they are. But somewhere in each of their hearts, good lives. The methods with which they choose to act on that part of themselves are questionable at best. But to see a glimpse of the motives behind their actions is to gain a shred of sympathy for these monsters.

I think that happens a lot with parents and children. Growing up, we question why we can’t do this or have to do that. The more we grow up, the more we usually understand. We become adults, we shed a bit of immaturity, and we begin to see the forest for the trees. If you’re lucky, your life experiences will justify the things that upset you about your parents when you were too naïve to understand them. It takes a strong parent to not take the easy way out, too. It’s tough be tough. But if you do things right, your kid might just grow up and learn to respect the hell out of that toughness.
(For the record, I'm not comparing my parents to any of the parents on this show. Yikes.)

What remains to be seen about Ben and Widmore’s heavy-handed and questionable parenting style is just how justified it is. But we are beginning to see how much they care about their children. The looks of horror on their faces when their daughters’ lives were being threatened last night were a significant departure from their usual emotionless visages. And obviously, they’re willing to sacrifice a lot for this Island, whatever it is. But these guys are getting to a crossroads: at what point does this Island’s importance overshadow that of the ones they love? Just how much are they willing to sacrifice for what they believe in? And in true LOST fashion, the answers to those questions will be played out against the backdrop of the father-daughter paradigm. Enjoy that one.


And finally, the tension-filled scene (my fingernails are nubs) ended with this no-explanation-necessary exchange:

Charles: That Island’s mine Benjamin. It always was. It will be again.
Ben: But you’ll never find it
Charles: Well I suppose the hunt is on for both of us.
Ben: I suppose it is.
Sleep tight, Charles.

In closing, I loved this episode. For me, it ranked somewhere above The Economist, and somewhere slightly below The Constant. I give it an 8.9 on the Stephan LOST Awesomeness Scale.

What did you think? Favorite parts? Unsolved mysteries? Could you even sleep? Me neither. Until next week.

Namaste.
.charlie

Preview: The Shape of Things to Come

The day has finally arrived. Lost is back. For reals.

It has been a long six weeks, huh? I've tried to fill the void with other shows...namely The Bachelor: London Calling. However, when I call Charlie and ask him if he thinks Shayne is really in it for love, or if Chelsea's dress was just a little too low-cut, or if Amanda's "meeps" seem a little too contrived...well, he doesn't return my phone calls, texts, or emails. I just don't get it.

But we're back in the saddle and back on the trail. All signs point to a dramatic, intense, suspenseful, unpredictable, sad, exciting, crazy, helluva six weeks (see Charlie's previous post for the remaining schedule).

And it all starts tonight.

The Shape of Things to Come is the title.

There are conflicting reports about the "centricitiy" (pretty sure I made that word up) of the episode. The two prominent predictions are either Sayid or Ben. Either way, it is safe to say this episode will set up the shape of things to come (mua ha ha, brilliant play on words). If you've seen the previews, it looks like there will be some serious action sequences...one of which involves a fire-fight in the barracks? I hear gunfire in the previews and see explosions...looks like it won't be a calm day at the beach.

H.G. Wells: Father of Science Fiction
Since we all know that Lost writers love to read random books, I'd like to take a moment to look at the literary references that come with the episode title. The Shape of Things to Come is a work of science fiction by H. G. Wells, published in 1933, which speculates on future events from 1933 until the year 2106. It is not a novel, but rather a fictional history book or chronicle.

The book is dominated by Wells's belief in a world state as the solution to mankind's problems. Wells successfully predicted World War II, although he envisioned it dragging on into the 1960s, being finally ended only by a devastating plague that almost destroys civilization. Wells then envisions a benevolent dictatorship arising from the controllers of the world's surviving transportation systems (the only people with global power). This dictatorship promotes science, enforces English as a global language, and eradicates all religion, setting the world on the route to a peaceful utopia. When the dictatorship finds it necessary to kill political opponents, the condemned persons are given a chance to emulate the ancient philosophers Socrates and Seneca and take a poison tablet in a congenial environment of their choice. Eventually, after a century of reshaping humanity, the dictatorship is overthrown in a completely bloodless coup, the former rulers are sent into a very honorable retirement, and the world state "withers away" (as was predicted by Marx). The last part of the book is a detailed description of the Utopian world which emerges.

So what does this mean for tonight's episode? It could mean absolutely nothing. However, it could be a whole lot of somethings. Wells's belief in dictatorship as the ultimate form of government certainly has implications in the Lost world. In the most obvious sense, a dictator "dictates" what those under him/her will do and can do. We have seen many characters (three in particular) step in and out of a dictator role throughout the seasons:

Ben: Ever since the Purge, Ben has been in a leadership position among the Others. While he says he is not be the ultimate leader, he sure has a lot more power than, say, Goodwin. Whether or not Jacob is really giving Ben his orders remains to be seen. However, the Ben we have come to know is absolutely the dictator of the Others, in control of just about every aspect of their lives. Juliet's transformation from 6 month guest to 2 year prisoner is perhaps the best example of this.

Locke: The ongoing struggle between Jack and Locke for leadership of our 815'ers seems to have reached a temporary standstill. Their two separate camps are now operating independent of each other, at least for now. Locke seems to be running his camp like a dictator, although in "Meet Kevin Johnson" when Locke called a "camp meeting", he looked like a democrat, if just for a moment.

Jack: There are certainly times when Jack's usually all-inclusive leadership style snaps and he demands things of the individuals around him. It is yet to be seen how Jack will react when his leadership is tested by the individuals on the freighter (if they ever arrive...).

Whether or not Wells's book correctly predicts events of tonight's episode or not remains to be seen. However, I can't help but see a correlation between the end of the book's Utopian society and our island. Ben (and possibly Widmore?) appear to think the island is, indeed, a utopia...and want to keep it that way. Is that the end of the series? A Jurassic-Park like escape on a helicopter, leaving our island untamed, unmanned, and unchanged? I wouldn't go that far. At least, I don't think I would go that far.

Nadia is back
From the cast credits of tonight's episode, we know that Nadia will return. I think it would be helpful to review what we know about Nadia in order to fully grasp the significance of her appearance.

Noor "Nadia" Abed Jazeem is Sayid's former childhood friend and long lost love. Though coming from a background of wealth, she chose to join an insurgent group against Saddam Hussein's regime, which caused her to become the subject of repeated captures and interrogations by the Iraqi Republican Guard. With Sayid's promotion to the Intelligence Division, he was reunited with Nadia while she was imprisoned, and was tasked with her interrogation. However, the little time they had together only gave them a chance to reconnect, and drove Sayid to try to help her get her charges dropped. When his superior officer, Omar, ordered her execution, Sayid resolved to instead help her escape. During the attempt, Sayid had to shoot Omar, who caught up with him and Nadia. As a cover story, Sayid shot himself in the leg and let Nadia escape with his gun. Before escaping, Nadia frightfully begged Sayid to come with her. When he refused, she left him her photo with the Arabic inscription; "You will see me in the next life, if not in this one".

Nadia's escape was successful, and later in Los Angeles she met and hired John Locke to inspect a house she was buying. Through the few words they exchanged, she revealed that she was not married. At some point, Nadia was in England, where Charlie spotted her being mugged in an alley. After he confronted the mugger and drove him away, Nadia thanked Charlie and told him that several other people noticed what was happening but just walked by. She told him that he was a hero and to not let anyone else tell him otherwise. Charlie later regarded this as one of the best moments of his life in the amazing episode "Greatest Hits."

Her whereabouts were later used as a lure by the CIA to get Sayid to work for them (the episode, "The Greater Good", was in late season 1). Eventually, they informed Sayid that Nadia was working in Irvine, CA, as "a lab tech in a medical testing company". When Sayid was held prisoner by Rousseau, he told her that Nadia was dead because of him. He never mentioned the source of this information, how she died, or how he had anything to do with her death.

It remains unclear what he meant by this comment...and whether or not Nadia is alive or dead. Could tonight's episode finally give us this answer? I think that is a distinct possibility.

The Body that Washes Ashore...
ABC's promo for this week's episode says: "Jack tries to discover the identity of a body that has washed ashore." Altogether now: HUH?? A body? My money is on whoever got into the boat Minkowski talked about...the guy who "never came back." Of course, it could be Regina, who bound herself with chains and jumped overboard. I'm assuming Jack would recognize Mikhail (McPatchy), but maybe it is him. Or one of the Looking Glass Girls (yes, Charlie, dreams do come true). Or, let's be honest: it could be another passenger of Oceanic 815 whose body finally washed ashore.

Let's just say this. After thinking "who on Earth could this body be," I've realized we actually know about a lot of bodies that are out there in the ocean, as ridiculous as that sounds. So, it is either someone we know...or, in true Lost fashion, a new character. And a new mystery.

Final Thoughts
As you watch tonight's episode, savor every minute. The six hours left in Season 4 are going to go fast. And, from all the interviews with the Lost producers I've read, we're going to be getting answers left and right from now until the end.

The biggest reveal, of course, could happen at any time.

"What are you talking about, Maggie?" you ask.

We're going to find out who is in that darn coffin before the season is up.

Oh. Hell. Yes.

Namaste,
Maggie

Oceanic Six Redux

The Dharma Blog returns! Happy Tax Day! Hopefully your returns have been meticulously completed, your checks have been written and your annual greivances of Uncle Sam and his “guv’ment crooks” have been aired. If so, your mind is clear, free and open. A perfect state in which to prepare for LOST’s Season 4 outro. In the days (only 10 of them!) leading up to the return, we’ll be recapping what we’ve learned thus far and at “The Shape of Things To Come” (that’s the fitting title of LOST’s return episode). Today, we’ll recap the Oceanic Six. But first…

News Flash
Get this. LOST Gods Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are in talks to add a 14th hour to LOST’s 13-episode Season 4! It’s still not finalized, but apparently Lindelof and Cuse feel they could use one more hour to tell this story. Here’s how it would break down:

Episode 9 - 4/24 10pm-11pm – The Shape of Things to Come

Episode 10 5/1 10pm-11pm – Something Nice Back Home

Episode 11 5/8th 10pm-11pm – Cabin Fever

Episode 12 5/15 (Finale Part 1) 10pm-11pm – TBA

Episode 13 - 5/29th (Finale Part 2 and 3) 9pm-11pm – TBA

(Thanks for the scoop, Maggie). Side note: “Cabin Fever”? Excuse me whilst I change my shorts. Also, note the time change. LOST will now air at 10/9c, not 9/8c as it has this season.

Okay, back to business.

The Oceanic Six: What We Know
Back to today’s topic: The Oceanic Six. Before this season, we anticipated the unveiling of the O6, knowing only that they consisted of Jack, Kate and four other 815 survivors. Three months later, we know a whole lot more. And as per LOST norms, we’re left with a lot more questions.

“So who exactly are the O6?” Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you’re an “Aaron isn’t really an O6 because he wasn’t technically on the Oceanic 815 manifest!” conspiracy theorist. Let it go. It’s been confirmed by pretty much every source known to man, including Maggie and Charlie’s LOST Sherpa, Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly.

With that unpleasantness put to bed, we can confirm that the O6 is:
Jack
Kate
Hurley
Sayid
Aaron
Sun

It’s an interesting mix, to be sure. I’ll admit, I wish Scott (or was it Steve?) had made it. But alas, our O6 provide us with a lot to chew on. To recap, let’s look at the progression of our Six.

Jack made it off the Island, was crowned “815 hero” and slowly assimilated back into life as a surgeon. Eventually though, doubt crept in. Jack felt like the Island wanted him to return (as foretold by Hurley during Jack’s visit to the nut house). Jack’s mental condition deteriorated as he made repeated trips across the Pacific, hoping for his plane to crash and return him to the Island. After one “unsuccessful” flight, a newspaper obituary sends Jack over the ledge, almost literally. While contemplating a suicidal bridge leap, a car crash distracts Jack and thrusts him back into “I’ve got to fix you” mode. Once again, he’s a hero. But this time, his newfound status doesn’t fulfill him the way it always has.

For comfort, Dr. Shepherd turns to Kate. Once his Island ally, Kate now sees Jack as a sad shell of his former self. She also doesn’t need him as much anymore, as she has Aaron (Clarie’s baby boy) to look after. And because Jack won’t even come see Aaron (his own nephew, whether he knows it or not), Kate can’t bring herself to respect him as she did on the Island.

And then there’s Hurley. Good thing the Island cured his bad case of the crazies. Oh wait. Hurley saw a vision of dead rocker Charlie in a gas station, then went nuts and drove through a fruit stand. Committed to the insane asylum, Hurley feels safe. And perhaps it clears his mind. Because after a few weeks in there, another visit from Ghost Charlie elucidates to Hurley the need to go back to the Island. Why? Because “they need him,” according to Charlie. “They,” of course, being the rest of the 815 survivors the O6 left behind. Though exactly why they did, we’re still not sure.

Sun Kwon got off the Island, and gave birth to her presumably healthy child, Ji Yeon. While Papa Jin may not really be dead, he does have a grave in order to further the O6 lie. And who was there to accompany Sun and Ji Yeon on their visit to Papa Jin’s “grave”? Good ole, fun-time Hurley, in what was one of LOST’s best scenes of Season 4 so far.

As for Sayid, well, this is where “shit gets crazy” as they like to say (Okay, I like to say that). Sayid is working as a hit man for Ben Linus. No need to adjust your sets, you read that right (“sets?” What am I 80?). For some reason, Sayid is beholden to the Bug-Eyed One, and must do his bidding in the war against Charles Widmore for Total Island Domination. There’s so much we don’t know about this situation, but we’ve been promised answers by the end of the season. So stay tuned.

The Oceanic Six: What We Don’t Know
What don’t we know? For starters, everything. Here are my 3 most pressing O6 questions, with my crackpot guesses at some answers.

Why does Hurley (and eventually Jack) feel as if the Island wants them to return?
A lot of this show is about “unfinished business” (visions of ’95 Huskers dance in my head). Demons haunt many of our characters, and the Island affords them opportunities to deal with those. I could list dozens of examples, but suffice it to say if there’s an internal issue that plagues a character, chances are you’ll see it manifest on the Island. Often, dealing with that issue opens our characters up for death. For Boone, his demise came only after comprehending his feelings for Shannon. For Eko, only by dealing with the unfinished business between he and his brother could he be released to a long-awaited reunion with his God. You get the picture.

Major character flaws continually hamstring Jack and Hurley. With Jack, it’s the need to “fix people” and the lifelong fight to satisfy his father. For Hurley, proving that he’s not crazy and allowing himself to be the fun, happy-go-lucky guy he wants to be will let him to forgive himself for contributing to the deaths of 23 people who were perched on a shaky porch.

Ironically, Jack and Hurley may have fallen just short of finishing that business on the Island, the "unfinished business proving ground." They were constantly tested, and in leaving the Island, they may have abandoned their opportunity to make peace with themselves. It was a fight or flight situation, and they flew. That’s why the Island won’t let people like Jack (and Michael) kill themselves. It wants them to return, to finish their business. Then, and only then, can they exit their flawed lives by dying.

It’s a grim reality. But that’s the way I see it.


Why is Sayid working for Ben?
As alluded to in the episode, Ben was able to manipulate Sayid (shocking, right?) into becoming his minion of evil. But how? Let’s remember this exchange between Mr. Linus and Mr. Jarrah:

BEN: These people don’t deserve our sympathies. Need I remind you what they did the last time you thought with your heart instead of your gun?

SAYID: You used that to recruit me into killing for you.

So there. The only question is what happened the last time Sayid thought with his heart instead of his gun? My guess: Nadia. Sayid’s long, lost (pun!) love. Ben has the file on Sayid, and it wouldn’t take much digging to learn that the path to controlling Sayid goes directly through Nadia. I think we’re going to get the answer to this one yet in Season 4, and I’ll be interested to see exactly how Ben uses Nadia to get to Sayid.

Why are the Oceanic Six forced to lie?
The O6 has their story straight, to say the least. We saw the level of detail that required in “Eggtown,” a Kate-centric episode where Jack took the witness stand to defend Kate. We learned that the world believes 8 people survived the crash, and that Kate was the hero who tried to save them all. She failed with two of them, leaving us with our O6. Now, that doesn’t really answer the Aaron question (Are they saying he was alive on the plane? Or did they salvage him from Claire? Was Claire one of the two they are saying died in Kate’s care?).

Either way, it appears the O6 made a bargain. They got to go home, but they couldn’t tell anyone (and I mean anyone) about the reality of their experience. And whatever it is that’s keeping them quiet is pretty powerful. Remember Jack’s ghost-white face when he asked Hurley if he “had told?”

This secret is also wracking the survivors with guilt. I think that’s part of why Jack and Hurley think they should go back.

But why do they have to lie? I think it has to do with the question of whose intentions are to be trusted - Ben Linus' or Charles Widmore's. My thoughts? Well, Widmore sent the ship. And I think escape via the freighter requires his sign-off. For some reason, the world knowing that 40+ people survived on this Island would jeopardize whatever he wants to do to exploit it. Once LOST added Widmore into this equation, this whole storyline got a lot more interesting. I hope we get the answer this season. And while we might, don't hold your breath for an end-all be-all explanation. We must always remember, LOST never closes a door without opening a window. Blasphemy? Nah. It's a good enough show.


Until later this week, when Maggie returns! Oh, and if you haven't filled out our little survey, please do so! It's quick! Here's the link.

Namaste.
.charlie

PS: Side note - A quick thanks to all of our readers who wrote in with kind words for my sister's family and their latest addition, Leila (My Chinese Niece, or Chiniece if you will). I guess a lot of people clicked over to their blog from The Dharma Blog and I got many nice little notes about their journey. They are all back in the states and doing great now, and we are so excited to finally have her :) Thanks again for all the kind words.

The Dharma Blog Survey

Hello, Dharma Blog Readers! Your enthusiasm for our little project is very much appreciated! We love Lost and are really enjoying sharing our theories/predictions/etc with you every week.

We have created this survey to make sure we are on track with what YOU want from the Dharma Blog. We're not going to drastically change things up, but would like to get a sense of your opinion of the blog. Thanks for taking a few minutes to fill us in on what you like, what you don't like, what you want to see more of, and what you could really just do without. When Lost returns on April 24, we will be better than ever!

Namaste!
Maggie and Charlie

http://FreeOnlineSurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=bbj95pxni8w8i91423309

Satire Imitates Reality

I hate when I identify with the subject of a story on The Onion, because usually that person is being made fun of. But alas...

Area Man Likes To Compare Circle Of Friends To Cast Of Lost

BEXLEY, OH— Friend Katie Peters is "the Kate of the group," not only because she shares the same name and is attractive, but also because she is adventurous.

Just trying to get through the hiatus.

Namaste.
.charlie