Next month on Lost: Episode 6.3, or “What Kate Will Do”; Episode 6.4, or “What Kate Is Currently Doing”; and Episode 6.5, or “What Kate Would Have Done Had She Not Done What We Thought She Did.” ‘Cause that’s what we need, Darlton. More Kate episodes.
Sigh. I don’t want to underthink this episode, but I need to get this out of my system before I do any true overthinking: This episode took away whatever little good will I had toward Kate’s character at the end of last season. It wasn’t just the dumb crap she did that bothered me—although she did a lot of dumb crap. For example, why is she going around L.A. telling random mechanics that she’s wanted for murder? And then she goes into his bathroom, leaving him plenty of time to call the police? And then she gets back into the same cab she carjacked—the one that clearly had its plates called in to the cops by the U.S. Marshal and the cab driver? Dumb Kate. Dumb.
Whatever. It’s not Kate’s dumbness that bothers me. That’s a character trait that the writers have developed in her for more than five seasons now. At least she’s consistent. Acting rash and stupid is What Kate Does. (Get it?)
No, what bothers me is that, this episode, Kate drew other people into her dumbness, like some dumb black hole. Like: What are you thinking, mechanic guy? Are you thinking that if you help Kate out of her “bracelets,” as you call them, she will come out of the bathroom naked and bone you? She will not bone you, mechanic guy. She will not bone you.
And Claire! Claire, why are you telling Kate your whole frigging life story and letting this evidently crazy woman give you a ride? Are you nuts? The show could have handwaved it by having Claire say something like, “I don’t know why, but I trust you, mysterious fugitive woman.” But no. Because when Lost’s writers write about Kate, they suddenly all become mouth-breathing morons who make plot developments out of thin air instead of letting them arise naturally from the characters, like they’re supposed to.
[Semi-related Interlude: When I saw “Aldo” (a.k.a. Mac from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), I thought, “They should have had Sweet Dee on the Island instead of Kate. At least It’s Always Sunny doesn’t pretend like Sweet Dee is a character we should respect and care about.” Gah.]
Monday. 2 p.m. On the Island.
Okay, no more underthinking about Kate. I’m done with my rant. But, sadly, I don’t have much to overthink this week, what with this episode being pretty mediocre and all, but I can say that one main theme did stick out to me: the theme of trust. In 2007World, Jack doesn’t trust himself, Jack doesn’t trust Dogen, Dogen doesn’t trust Sayid, Kate doesn’t trust Dogen and his “Other Others,” and Sawyer doesn’t seem to trust anyone anymore. In 2004World, Claire inexplicably trusts Kate, Kate stupidly trusts the mechanic, the mechanic stupidly trusts her not to rob and shoot him, Claire trusts the woman who was going to adopt her baby (even though that turned out to be misplaced trust), and we all got to (amusingly) trust Dr. Ethan Goodspeed, nee Rom. Are we supposed to be thinking, “Aha! In Bizarro World people are nice and can trust each other, whilst in Regular Island World people are in a state of anarchy and cannot”? I don’t know. If so, that seems a little silly, honestly.
Another kind of not-really-overthought thought I had was that this week’s episode had a lot of callbacks to episodes from earlier seasons. We had Sayid being tied down and tortured, as he has been at least twice before (by Rousseau and by the husband of that lady he once tortured). We had Infected!Claire setting coconut traps and running around with a gun like some kind of Neo-Rousseau. We had Sawyer and Kate back in the house in the Barracks, and, of course, we had Sawyer sitting out on the dock where the submarine used to come, the place where he once sat with Juliet in 1974.
My first inclination was to compare these callbacks to the callbacks we keep seeing in the 2004 Mirror Universe. My argument was going to be this: The Mirror Universe callbacks are ironic (Ethan says to Claire: “I don’t want to have to stick you with any needles”), while the 2007 Universe callbacks are nostalgic (as in, “Aww, remember when Rousseau tied up and tortured Sayid in season one? Those were the days!”).
But that’s not actually what’s going on. The 2007 callbacks are not done straight; everything is slightly different in the retelling. For example, the last couple of times Sayid has been strung up and tortured, we (the audience) trusted him and sympathized with his plight. This time, I was suspicious of Sayid the whole time. (“Is he screaming like that because he’s really hurting? Or is he really the Man in Black in disguise?”) The last time we saw a Rousseau-like character, it was actually Rousseau, who had killed her infected crew and went mad after some wacko with a Hitler haircut kidnapped her baby. This time around, the Rousseau-like character is Claire, who IS infected and abandoned her baby in the woods. The last time Sawyer and Kate were together in that yellow bungalow in the Barracks, they were playing house and canoodling around like teenagers. This time around, the circumstances have obviously changed a bit. And you can tell the difference between this “Sawyer on the docks” scene and the “Sawyer and Juliet on the docks” scene from a year ago.
"Give me the peanut buttah. Now."
If the “flashsidewayses” are doing anything thematically (and I’m not quite sure they are, at this point), then what they are doing is showing how important the characters’ experiences on the Island are to them and to us, the people who watch them. I don’t really care about 2004-Kate running around L.A. with still-pregnant Claire. Even though seeing Ethan again was good for a laugh, what was the point? Though the stuff happening on the Island in 2007 wasn’t all that interesting either (“Where are Locke and Richard?” I kept wondering. “Where is Ben Linus?”), at least the 2007 characters have substance to them. These people, for all their faults have grown and changed over the past three and a half years. That, to me, is the only good reason for the clever callbacks written into the scripts for the first two episodes of this season: to remind us how far they—and we—have come, and to reinforce that it is people’s experiences, not their fate, that makes them compelling and—you guessed it—special.
Other random notes:
- So much for “live together, die alone,” eh, 2007 Kate and Sawyer?
- Hey, Rousseau Was Right! The French team really WAS infected! Too bad she’s not alive to shove it in the Losties’ faces.
- It sure seems like Dogen knows a lot about Jack, huh? He knew Claire was Jack’s sister, for one thing, and he also really knew how to push Jack’s buttons to trick him into giving Sayid the poison pill. What’s with this guy?
- I know it’s a little late to complain about the Losties’ inability to ask follow-up questions, but when Jack didn’t follow up Dogen’s explanation that Sayid is “infected,” I wanted to throw my TV out the window. This is why we need Hurley in every scene:
DOGEN: “Your friend… is infected. He needs to take this pill.”
HURLEY: “Uh, so what happens if we don’t give him the pill?”
DOGEN: “The infection… will spread.”
(The ominous music that regularly precedes commercials starts in, but Hurley cuts it off.)
HURLEY: “Wait a minute. The infection will spread? What does that mean? Spread how? What kind of infection is this, anyway?”
DOGEN (ominously): “An infection… of great darkness.”
HURLEY (growing annoyed): “Yeah, okay, what the hell does that mean?”
DOGEN: “If the darkness reaches your friend’s heart… it will claim him.”
HURLEY (walking off in a huff): “Forget it, dude. Seriously. I ask you a simple question, and this is the crap I get…”
…
- On a positive note, Jack almost poisoned himself to death to get more answers out of Dogen, so I’ve got to give him props for that one.
- And, hey, Jack is finally acknowledging all the people that he’s gotten killed over the last five seasons, so good for him. I don’t think he’s actually going to change his behavior due to this realization, but one step at a time.
- Aww, poor Sawyer! Don’t cry! Oh, and one more thing. DON’T. BONE. KATE. For the love of Jacob.
- Yeah, so, why does Sayid need to take the poison pill willingly? Is this just a lie Dogen told Jack? When Sayid died from the poison, was Dogen planning on saying something like, “Oh, oops! I guess his body had an adverse reaction to the ‘medicine’”? Why don’t they just shoot him, Rousseau-on-Robert-style?
[What do you think about What Kate Does? Have at it in the comments section! But no spoilers if you happen to know anything about the coming season!]
I thought the same thing about the Taxi- what a rookie mistake (by the writers) to overlook the fact that even though it is the bizzaro world, it is still 2004 and a stolen taxi cab w/ license plates and tag numbers wouldnt get very far in Los Angeles. Also, I was glad to see Sawyer finally slam the door in Kates face. Shes trifling. All the time trifling. I cant stand Kate, which is strange becasue I love Evangeline Lilly. I guess thats a testament to her acting ability.
At any rate, this was a total filler episode. Yeah, we got Rousseau-Claire at the end and slightly more understand of Sayyids business. Im glad Sawyer finally said “F this” and left, hes the only one with any common sense. Hopefully Claire will help Jin, because I dont believe anything Dogen says.
I’m a newcomer to Overthinking It so it’s possible this question has been posed in other places but…as I was watching last night’s episode I was thinking; why are The Others so incredibly HOSTILE to our gang of Losties? I mean, everytime they encounter the Others they’re hitting them, shooting them, and basically being mean to them. Is it because of the whole “infection” thing or am I missing something?
I totally agree about Kate. I also thought the same thing about reusing the Taxi and going into the mechanics changing room. What bothered me the most was when she followed Sawyer after he clearly told her not to. Hasn’t she learned her lesson by now.
It is great to read other blogger’s recaps of Lost and see things I missed or how we all see different things in this mysterious show. If you want to see my Lost post it is at http://connectwithyourteens.blogspot.com/2010/02/lost-kate-does-episode-63-highlights.html
I Look forward to reading you again after next week’s episode.
When they said “it was a test” and then dicked around with Jack re: the pill, I started to think that maybe they’re testing Jack, not Sayid.
And I’ll echo the frustration for the cryptic bullshit they pull – can no one on this show give a straight, or at least coherently convincing, answer to anything? Have the decency to make something up.
Both my major issues with last night’s episode have been mentioned. Driving a stolen cab around LA. The Others’ (at this point) bizarre hostility toward those “touched by Jacob.” I was also happy to see that Claire didn’t go crazy enough not to keep her eyebrows nicely shaped. Also curious as to whether or not the 10/22 (one month after the crash) date on Claire’s ultrasound photo was a production mistake or not.
As to Ethan — I think it’s nothing more then that he’s the most recognizable Other and they wanted to give the audience an appetizer that, yes, the other people from the Island have a different life now. The only other option would have been Rousseau and Alex. They can’t go right in to Ben. I’m also curious to see if he dies on October 20th in the alternate timeline, too.
Curious, since I know Kate has fans: for the love of God why? She is the most miserable character in the history of television.
Lost’s handling of Kate has always seemed so naive and silly to me because it’s clear that her primary connection to audience other characters, as well as the source of her out-of-nowhere plot points and seemingly magic powers (tracking, etc.), is her physical attractiveness. We’re expected to think that the hard-boiled mechanic is sympathetic to her and won’t call the cops –hell, even go out of his way to be nice and helpful, supposedly WITHOUT asking for anything in return– is because she is sooo pretty. Which, yeah, she is. I call this phenomenon Mary-Louise Parker Syndrome.
The difference though between Kate’s MLPS and the original instance with Nancy on Weeds is that it has always been an actual part of how Weeds is structured, it plays into both her character and others’, and has allowed the writers there to comment on some of the things that prop up a magically-pretty girl, like race, class and traditional gender narratives. Lost has always turned a blind eye as to why in-text people react so strongly to Kate, and doesn’t seem like it has any intention of drawing any attention to the reactions to Kate as an archetype of idealized white womanhood which must be protected and is always trustworthy. It’s almost like they expect us to take it as pure truth that things are just different for Kate and women who look like her, and it has always bothered me.
Question: Is there some 3rd time line with Walt, Michael, and toddler Aaron?
Okay – first of all with the contrived “Cab Controversy”. What I like most about LOST is that although happening during extraordinary circumstances, the show is fairly grounded in how ‘most’ people or areas would react. In L.A., the police are generally more concerned about writing traffic tickets for people illegal turns then worrying about trying to find one of the 2,300 registered cabs (Thank you Google). True, if Bruce Willis or Will Smith stared in Lost – all the Police would put out an APB on a cab with someone who killed someone years earlier in it. But this is a major bustling city – A bulletin would go out saying “Look out for a Yellow Cab, number XXXX, it has a fugitive in it.” and most police officers would ignore it. Heck, I could probably drive to L.A. right now, shoot a cab driver and keep his cab for years without it even registering a blip on radar (Unless it hits the news) – until I get a ticket for expired plates. Especially in L.A. where Mayor Villaraigosa if famously more tough on ticketing the heck out of law abiding citizens then fighting crime.
This is next to a non-issue for most people who understand that L.A. is not Mayberry. I’m sorry for being so mean – but this is akin to listening to a Star Trek fan argue about the Kobayashi Maru.
@ Kate – I’m a person that, after knowing me for a short period of time, you will open up to. You will probably tell me things that you’ve never told your spouse. Honestly – I don’t know why I’m like that. I never tell anyone anything personally about me, but at least once a week I hear from someone “Wow, I can’t believe I told you that – I’ve never told anyone before”. I bring this up simply because until reading this Kate hate here (Even though I’ve been on the LOST bandwagon for years, I only read the EW Doc Jensen recaps before reading them on Overthinking this season) I never realized how I’m very much like Kate. Example – I have a part time job doing security and at Starbucks this morning I ran into someone I’ve arrested twice and he bought me cup my coffee and started telling me about how his dad abusing him is why he steals. If this happened to Kate, no one would believe it. Things like this happen to me all the time so I have more understanding of how people react to her.
@ Mechanic Jeff Kober – Is it really that big of a leap of faith for someone who’s been hiding from the law for a long time to know where to go where they don’t like the law? I’ve never done anything illegal but I know which parts of San Diego to go to in case I do to find someone to help me.
@ 2004 – I agree with Mlawski that part of the ‘charm’ of the Flash-sideways is that you see how much the characters have grown while being on the island. Charlie still being a druggie, Jack overly concerned about his fathers body, Jin and Sun not getting along, et al – it reminds me of who they were when we first met them in the first season and how much substance we’ve learned about them since. We’ve all experienced personal or global tragedies that have shaped who we are now (Just look at entertainment pre-WWII and Post to see how our country grew up) and its interesting to see how they progress without the island. Just my opinion, but I was looking forward to the side world at points during yesterdays episode like at points of Season 1 and 2 I was looking forward to the Flashback.
@ Poisoned “Oops” – My opinion, the pill will not kill Sayid just what is inside. Its the equivalent to a defibrillator – If you are dying it will save your life but if you are fine it will kill you. Again, just my opinion but this does work on the ‘Man of Science’ to become the ‘Man of Faith’
@Iver – With you mentioning the Other’s hostility, I take it two ways. 1) They treat the ‘Losties’ like exasperated parents telling their kids for the 1,000 time to eat their carrots. They know about the island mysterious and rather then sit down and tell them everything, the Losties have just not bothered sitting down to listen since arrival on 815. 2) The Other’s have, with the exception of Ethan, not been overtly hostile to the Losties. As Ben said ‘How many of my people have you killed, Jack?’. To put it another way, if someone breaks into my house during the Super Bowl, starts eating from my fridge and tracking mud into my house, I’ll most likely tell them to “Shut up” if they ask me to explain what football is then be nice to them.
You know, it’s funny — while this is yet another post-season premiere “downshift” episode for Lost… in hindsight, I kind of loved it.
While some of the script issues were potentially problematic (the only one I had a problem with was Claire getting back into the cab with Kate)… the thing to keep in mind is that somehow, even though the characters don’t know it, the alt-2004 characters still have some inkling of their island adventures AND relationships. Kate is drawn to Jack, and vice versa, and it’s not just because they find each other attractive. Last week was Jack’s turn to get deja vu, and realize something isn’t quite right; this week it was Kate’s (several times); next week will probably be Sawyer. Given that the alt-characters are “feeling” things about their other lives, you can go with the notion that Claire is willing to go with Kate… at least I could. Also, my sense was that the “mechanic” wasn’t so much a straight-and-narrow auto shop owner, but a guy carving up cars in a chop-shop. Indeed, he knows EXACTLY what you use to get handcuffs off someone. No, this is someone with a criminal past, so it didn’t bug me that he’d help Kate.
Just about every single scene called out earlier Lost moments, though I won’t recap all of them:
– Sawyer throwing the engagement ring into the water, a la Desmond in S3
– Sayid needs to be poisoned, a la Jin getting poisoned in S1
– Kate using the alias “Joan Hart,” a la, um, Kate in S1
The powers-that-be have said this season will mirror the first, which I like… but we’ll have to wait and see what happens when and if the timelines merge. Does anyone get to keep their alt-personalities? Does anyone get a choice?
And I’ve read a lot of people bitching that Sawyer’s a wimp now, and he has to get back to being a “bad-ass” again… come on! It’s character development. He’s trying (and failing) to come to terms with Juliet’s death. That doesn’t make him a wimp — that makes him INTERESTING. (Plus a lot of the people complaining that Sawyer has been sad for two episodes were the ones who complained that Claire didn’t spend enough time sorry about Charlie’s death…)
Finally, as someone who LOVES continuity porn: I am one of the few who LOVED seeing Aldo back, however briefly… more please!
@Kevin: Word, re: Sawyer. It is a MAJOR pet peeve of mine that American audiences now complain CONSTANTLY about characters “whining” and “being all emo” if they show any emotion other than murderous man rage. Seriously, folks: Sawyer’s almost-wife JUST DIED. Like, several hours ago. Not only that, he lost the closest thing he has EVER (ever!) had to a real home. He now has NOTHING left in the whole world to care about. So, yes, America, Sawyer is going to cry. Deal with it. This doesn’t make him less of a man, and it certainly doesn’t make him a less interesting character. (In fact, just the opposite.) And if I hear any one of you call him a pussy for doing so again, I am going to piss on you. Yes, I am going to piss on you — over the Internet. I have computer-sciencey friends. We will make this happen.
@bob: In L.A., the police are generally more concerned about writing traffic tickets for people illegal turns then worrying about trying to find one of the 2,300 registered cabs (Thank you Google).
Valid point, except Kate isn’t being tracked by the LAPD. She’s being tracked by the U.S. Marshals and the Justice Department. Until she steals a car, at which point she’s now on LAPD’s radar, too. Besides the point that an armed carjacking at LAX and hostage situation with a pregnant woman wouldn’t be an afterthought. In either Mayberry, LA, or New York.
@Kevin – Continuity Porn is great! Also, Claire didn’t know anyone in L.A. and the one set of people she did know ditched her, so the first friendly face was welcoming, even if there was a gun in the hand below the friendly face.
@ Mlawski – Agree 100% about Sawyers character development being good!
@ Tom P: I’m just going by fraternity brothers I have who are now Chicago Police Officers. They just laugh when dropping everything to look for a car happens in movies because it is a bit impracticable. Also, I didn’t think Taxi Driver Eric Doyle would admit to leaving a pregnant lady in the back of the cab, hence they wouldn’t even know the hostage situation. Even with the Marshals and JD looking for Kate, I don’t think she would be priority one for anyone on the street beat. If you think it is stupid for her to keep the car, I know I won’t dissuade you. I just think that it is a reasonable assumption by Kate to continue using the cab should be fine in the short term and no reason to lambaste the whole episode for the one nit-pick. But it is a small enough of a distraction to be on OverthinkingIt!
I think the one problem that fans will start to yell about this season is the lack of follow up questions. I have a bad feeling that after the red meat (the revelation of what the smoke monster really is) they threw to us, they are gonna be stingy with details until the very end.
Just when they give us answers, they change the questions!
going with the side theme of this article, underthinking.
this episode sucked. its the 6th and last season, I want answers and Kate dead. She is useless.
Thank you and good day.
It’s really frustrating to see everyone (everyone!) on the internet bitching about how this was a ‘filler’ episode. Put it this way, I didn’t think it was any weaker than “Whatever Happened, Happened”. Both were setup episodes that didn’t move the story along much, but “WHH” didn’t have the misfortune of a) being a Kate episode and thus being set-up to fail from the get-go or b) following one of the best episodes of Lost ever.
We got ALOT from the last episode (the infection, more hints at how the Flash-sideways work, Jack being AWESOME, the trust/free-will issues, Sawyer showing Kate where to go and Kate, finally, FINALLY, moving on) but now there’s this panic already, just because one episode wasn’t as good. Not every chapter in every book is action-packed, thrilling and full of exposition. Sometimes we just need to spend a bit of time with the characters and chill a bit – just a shame that Kate is really no-ones favourite at all.
I’ve been thinking about this alot – as fans we’re in a pretty strange situation – the whole thing is nearly over, and we’re being promised answers. But Lost, from word one, has always been about questions, about postulating on the internet, theorising with friends, sort of owning the whole thing. This is why I’m so worried, not by how they’re going to wrap it up, but what the reaction to it being wrapped up will be. It’s paradoxical – we want a satisfactory resolution to a show we love because of it’s lack of resolution! We want all the answers and none at all. And once it’s done, if it is wrapped up, then it doesn’t belong to us anymore. It’s finished, and it’s right back in the hands of it’s creators.
To pull the discussion away from Kate a bit, allow me to wax philosophically a bit about out friend, love him or hate him, Jack. For the record, I’m probably closer to the latter, so this will most likely sound highly biased against him.
I don’t think he ever *didn’t* acknowledge the people “he has killed” before. Forsooth, I actually think it weighs heavily on him. But not in a fruitful way, not in a way that makes him go over his thoughts and reassess the risks involved in all of his plans. I think it’s more like a huge wooden cross he bears. I do think he suffers, but from a kind of self-pity, feeling sorry for himself because he’s the only one making the hard choices. But it comes across as disingenuous because whenever someone else starts taking on the leadership role, could make those hard choices or take those little taints on their own soul instead of him, he gets affronted, takes it personal, becomes a whiney little prat. He doesn’t make the choice the others can’t make simply because he’s the only one who can, but because he insists on it adamantly and refuses to *let* others do it (so no, he’s not Batman, but yes, I was getting inspiration from the new movies in my wording). He put himself in that position, and while he may try to claim it’s for everybody else’s own good, his reactions are more Jack-centered than about any of them when they try to “rebel” against him. I also think he gets a masochistic pleasure out of it. I can’t pinpoint any specific instances, but I do recall having thought (or said…), “Now, Jack, WHY would you do that?” when he does something that he will clearly end up regretting in the end- and, indeed, winds up suffering over, so all he does there is succeed in giving himself more to gripe about. And if he hasn’t actually said it, I can totally picture him giving a monologue about how nobody understands, it’s lonely at the top, there is nothing out there for me, blah blah, self-righteous garbage. I think Jack would *love* to die for everybody, but not just to save them, but because (or at least ALSO because) of this need to suffer coupled with his self-importance.
So a brief comparison, Ben v. Jack. I like Ben’s condescension and self-importance because he’s honest about it. He manipulates *others* into thinking they’re acting for the group, but he doesn’t usually try to pass off what he’s doing as in the name of others. Maybe for the Island a little, but it’s obvious he’s lying when he is, and I don’t think he’s trying to NOT seem like he’s lying, either. He even says, “What about me?!” once, for crying out loud. (I’d compare him to Emperor Palpatine for this reason, actually, but that would take way too much time and space for this post.) Jack’s self-centered nature is annoying because he tries to pass it off as something else. He makes everything about him as often as he can and gets upset when it isn’t, like a child being denied their cookie.
I bring this up because of the Pill thing. To reiterate, I bet he would have LOVED dying there from the thing because look, it would prove how selfless he is! See? SEE?!
Jack’s my hero, and ultimately the hero I’ll bet. Jack hate makes me sad.
A few thoughts:
RE: Others’ hostility-
To go along with bob’s point, I also think the Others are jealous of the Losties, but their allegiance to Jacob requires them to protect them. The Others know they were “brought there,” but they also know that they really aren’t the chosen ones (i.e. Other dude naming Jin as ‘one of them’ to remind Aldo of why he can’t kill him, Ujio/Dogen very concerned over their safety).
RE: Ujio/Dogen-
Is anyone else intrigued by this guy? I took pleasure in seeing him beat Jack down, even though it was for his own good. And I think that is his main purpose now, to act as a sort of leadership guide for Jack. He is another in a line of Lost’s Leaders of Men (Jack, Ben, Locke, Sawyer), but he almost seems like the ideal one: He commands tremendous respect, he distances himself from his people in a way that Jack never could, but he doesn’t seem overtly, unnecessarily cruel and scheming like Ben. Even the torture of a Sayid had a purpose and was kept to only the required minimum.
The way Dogen explained to Jack the reason why he speaks Japanese sounded to me like a lesson. Like he’s grooming Jack to make some big decisions. While Jack’s compassion is a strength, he’s also a bit of a waffler and lacks some spine.
I imagine that not only will Ujio/Dogen be soon out of the picture, once Jack’s training is complete, but that both he and at least his Second-in-command/John Lennon know that this is to happen. When Jack came to discuss the pill, neither Dogen nor Lennon seemed surprised to see him. They know he has some growing to do, but now that the MiB’s forces are on the loose, their time grows short.
It’s kind of like Yoda and Luke: he is too old to begin the training (5 seasons too late), but screw it, what better hope do we have?
Brian Williams’ prediction (following from my own comment):
Once the ‘infection’ manifests, Jack will have to decide whether to kill Sayid/The Antichrist (upside down cross position coming from red water, Christlike wound in his side, anyone else see this?), and he will choose to kill him.
@Brian Williams: Really interesting predictions. I like. What I want to know is if there is a relationship between Ben and Dogen. Where has Dogen been the last five seasons? In the Temple the whole time? Was Dogen possibly around in 1977 when Ben was first infected? How are these “Other Others” related to the Others we know and [don’t really] love?
@ Gab – I would for you to elaborate on the Palpatine thing!
@ mlawski “Other Others” – I’m not at a point in the show to make an educated guess yet as the ‘Others’ and the ‘Temple Others’. Working theroies in my head – The Temple Others are on a higher plain. It is similar to the Monks who work the fields until they hit the correct spiritual enlightenment to simply sit in the temple and pray all day (I didn’t even mean to make the direct Temple-Temple connection when I started writing). Also, with Aldo and Flight Attendant Cindy Chandler formerly being an Other and now a Temple Other, it could be their ascension – however I forget as Ben or Alpert may have told them to wait at the temple and that would blow this Theory.
My other working Theory is the Temple is a Helms Deep like castle. The ‘king’ Dogen stays there and lets his ‘prince’ Ben run the people running around the Kingdom, but if the MIB comes out, the Temple becomes a fortress and the normal Others come there to hide.
I don’t like either of my theories yet, but that’s alls I gots!