I’m not quite sure why I didn’t love this episode. All the dramatic pieces were there, but for whatever reason they didn’t click together for me. Anyway, due to that, and due to the fact that I didn’t see anything new, theme-wise, in this episode, this is probably going to be my only Lost-related post this week.
But look! Questions!
Question 1: So, what’s the deal with Sayid’s accent? Is he slipping into his Brit-tongue accidentally, or is there some story-related reason for it? Or is he just angry about what the show is doing with his character?
Question 2: When Un-Locke asked Sayid, “What if I told you you could have anything you wanted?” was he talking about the Island, as in, “This Island is a mystery box that can give you whatever you want” –OR!!– was he referring to the alternate timeline, which he made or WILL MAKE later in the season? After all, Sayid said he wanted Nadia, and in the alt-world, he got Nadia…
My favorite part of the episode was easily when Ben slooooowly backed away from Evil!Sayid. Back away, Ben. Back away.
Question 3: What do you think Ben’s role is going to be in all of this? I’m personally still holding out for a redemptive death, but hopefully it won’t happen next week. I need Ben with us until the very. last. episode. For reals.
Question 4: Do you have any Lost-type questions you’d like me to overthink? I’m stumped, people.
First, long time reader (we basically watched the whole show at approximately the same time frame during the summer, and it was really interesting having your insight on the show’s themes) first time commenter. Now, to the questions:
1)No idea, don’t really noticed it so don’t really care. :)
2)I think it was more of a “magic-box” type of promise. I don’t think the AR is MiB’s doing.
3)It will be redemptive-death I think, and no way they’re killing such a major player half-way through the last season.. even if his character has been lost (heh) since the Smoke-Alex encounter of the last season. I believe the next ep will be his comeback, and the death will come nearer to the end.
4)I beg to differ about nothing interesting to talk about. Besides the more apparent good/evil talk, which I believe just accentuated the Others’ way of thought and not the show’s overall, we got what I think was a huge hint about the AR. In all the centrics we had seen up to now (Kate-Locke-Jack), the characters were… released from their issues, let’s say, daddy or otherwise. Sayid wasn’t… What do you think of that?
1: Naveen Andrews portrayal of Saiyd this season has been odd. It might be the accent. Up until he reentered the room he was tortured in by Dogen, he was a timid character. Seems like the more confidence the character got, the more he seemed like his old self. I just wish Hurly was there to say Sayid is now apart of the Darkside.
2. I think when Dogen said Jacob brought his son back to life if he came to the island, it cemented in Saiyd mind that MIB COULD bring back someone to life, if Jacob could, and he would do any evil act to have it done. Claire made that bargain for her son and it is all it seems that is needed to make them evil, like the Darkside.
3. I think Ben’s death is a cautionary tail to all of those who willing do evil things as a pawn of MIB. Like any deal with a devil or any-means-necessary type of character, you will pay for it in the end.
4. How cool was that fight with Dogen and Sayid? Just kidding. Overthing how mothers are treated on the show. The only non-mothery thing to take place I can think of is …well nothing. Even Claire is a sorta good mother. Can you think of any bad mothers on this show?
@mlawski – I talked, literally at the watercooler, just a minute ago to a co-worker. We both agreed with you – there were a lot of great moments in the show (“You test pointed the wrong direction” – red hearing?, Smoke monster kicking butt, Claire and Syaid either looking like children of the corn or touched by angel, Martin Keamy (thank you wikipidea) getting it handed to him, Jin in the freezer) but it didn’t fit well together.
@Harold – I think the Smoke Monster is one Bad Mother [SHUT YOUR MOUTH] yo I’m just talking about Locke. I’m apologizing for the bad joke, but not deleting it!
All I have to say is, what’s the deal with the promos the past couple of weeks?
Last week, it was the cheesy “the next episode’s going to be so awesome, we can’t show you any of it!” We are starting to see the holy war between good and evil take its first casualties, and smoke monster kicking ass was kind of cool. But nothing so groundbreaking to warrant that promo.
This week’s promo, they take the exact opposite angle, telling us everything. “By the way, the next episode is all about Ben and he’s probably gonna die.” Which obviously means the episode is a total fake out and Ben doesn’t die. I mean, when was the last time a show told you a week ahead of time that one of the main characters was going to die. But now I know he probably isn’t going to die, so I can give up on any possibility of having my mind blown this week.
Apparently ABC has had a tough time competing with the Olympics and that bad kareoke show that’s been on for 20 years. The ratings aren’t where they want them, so they’re trying every crazy promo they can to boost ratings.
@Harold: Re: Bad mothers. Eloise?
Although there is an argument to be made that she pushed her son so hard because she wanted him to blow up Jughead and create the alternate timeline, thus saving him. But still: Mean Momma.
I guess there could an Overthinking It post in the idea that basically all of the women in Lost are baby crazy: you’ve got Claire and Aaron, Kate and Aaron, Rousseau and Alex, Ana Lucia and her dead fetus, Sun and Ji-Yeon, etc. etc. The only major female character in the last few seasons who WASN’T obsessed with her own child was Juliet… a fertility specialist. I guess this all has something to do with our favorite four-toed statue, but, still. A little irritating.
@me: “I guess there could BE an Overthinking It post…”
Sorry, folks. Sorry.
I thought the fight between Sayid and Dogan was very cool…what’s wrong with having a well-choreographed action scene once in awhile?
The only thing I have to say is wow, Sayid reminded me a LOT of one Mr. Anakin Skywalker throughout the second half of the episode…and he really let me down…I thought he would tell the MiB to shove it….
@Iver – unless MiB is really good. Again, this is probably just a Red Herring, but the fact that Dogan never said “You are pointing to evil, so we have to kill you”, he dileberatly said “You are pointing in the wrong direction”. Lockelganger could have said “I can tempt you with anything you want.” Sayid “Nice try, bad guy, no.” Lockness “Good. You passed the test. I’m actually a good guy – an angel of death. Did you notice that most of the people I’ve killed are evil.” I know, people have brought up Pilot Greg Grunberg and others, but its strong enough for me to still think it.
Also – Sayid/Claire can be seen as two ways. The assumed fever seen in religious fanatics or brianwashed or the post ecstasy that accompanies a great realization. For example, when Saul became Paul and started worshiping God, I’m sure he looked a lot like Sayid – maybe even getting of those who stood in his way. To wit diametrically, Patty Hearst also had the same vigor.
Wow last week I made an off hand comment how Claire was kinda like Darth Vader, but Sayyid takes the cake. At the end he had the same drunk-on-evil-hypnosis look Anakin had in ROTS. But I personally loved this episode. Im not sure what I saw that you guys didnt but I think it worked completely. The fight scene was good, the answers were close enough to satisfy me, dark sayyid is totally awesome and miles lives on!
Lockes got 3 horsemen right now, 4 if he turns Kate, but judging by the look on his face I dont think he wants her around (lol, even a homicidal smoke monster thinks shes intolerable). Im looking foward to seeing the dark sides first team meeting, especially looking foward to dark sawyer and dark sayyid
(btw a prediction a friend of mine made that I agree with- Sawyer will turn good again before its all said and done)
oh yeah
@Mlawski- Ben was HILARIOUS. His eyes as he backed away…hahaha
General thought: intellectually, I “get” the episode and respect it… emotionally, it left me a little wanting. I enjoyed the hour I spent watching it, but it’s not one I think will be all that meaningful for me in the grand scheme of things. Even “What Kate Does” made me feel something; this ep didn’t. It was more about seeing how the puzzle pieces fit together, and familiar faces reappearing (though I WISH they hadn’t spoiled Keamy’s return by showing Omar first), than anything else. Intellectually, it’s interesting that Sayid seems to be damned in whatever universe he’s in; emotionally, I don’t know that I care about that message.
Still, a lot of great details about the episode that others have commented on above (like Ben’s panic at the end; the freaky use of “Catch a Falling Star” to close the ep; etc.).
And it’s hard not to bring up Jeff Jensen’s conjecture over at ew.com, but he’s been so good of late, it’s impossible not to. From his article yesterday about how Season 6 is a surprisingly literal re-telling of “Through the Looking Glass,” to today’s recap, there’s a lot of good stuff he picked up on: since “Sundown” is the twin of the S1 Sayid episode “Solitary,” they show Miles playing a game of… Solitaire; what it meant that Keamy was cooking eggs, a point they made unsubtly obvious; and particularly his great theory that Jacob is simply a representation of Alpha (birth and beginnings) and Smokey Omega (death and endings) — both need to live in perfect balance in order to give life meaning.
Anyway, I feel like a schmuck coming on and talking about someone else’s Lost theories… I just think that for a show where people are grasping for answers, Jensen’s seem to make a LOT of sense.
@mlawski: I don’t think there is ANY way that they’d kill Ben off… he’s become absolutely vital to the story in a way the other characters, ironically, are not. (Now, if they killed off Jack halfway through the season, I think that would be pretty fantastic. Sawyer they can’t kill until the end of the season. Kate can die whenever. And Hurley, of course, is the only character I would say without a doubt WON’T die… anyone else can be fair game.)
So now, by my count, we have 12 hours left (10 episodes and a 2-hour finale). Is it enough? Still no sign of Widmore, Eloise, Daniel, Penny, and only two minutes of Desmond… we need “flash-sideways” for Ben, Sun & Jin, Sawyer, so there are three of those hours… I don’t know. I have 99% faith in the writers — it’s the 1% that worries me.
Everyone’s loving on how Ben reacted to Sayid, but for me, it was the look in Sayid’s eyes as Ben backed away that sealed the deal. That face said all kinds of things that I can’t even articulate. The “It’s too late for me” signifies that he’s intellectually aware that he’s making the wrong decision, and yet, he’s reveling in it. It’s frightening on a deep level, especially to see it happen to Sayid, who has throughout the series been the one with the most prevalent penchant for being right. Seriously, the whole series, I’m trying to think of ONE THING that Sayid was wrong about before this episode, and I’m coming up short.
So yeah. If Dogen was the only thing keeping Smokey from breaking into the Temple, then what were the ash circles all about? If Dogen knew this, then why did he leave his guard down around Sayid? A lot of contingencies in this episode didn’t hang together right, and raised the type of question that you don’t normally see in LOST – the type whose easiest answer is “clumsy writing.”
I’m starting to think that Mr. Smoke Monster is just an astoundingly good con man. He sells the impossible, the ridiculous, with but the flimsiest proof, and I just have to assume that something about his presence, something that doesn’t translate to film, motivates those he’s convinced.
1.) I haven’t noticed.
2.) What do you mean, in the alt-world he got Nadia? In the 2007 timeline he was married to her. in the alt-2004 timeline, she’s his sister in law and there’s a really awkward sexual tention between them. I can see how that might be a tough decision, but you make it sound like a no-brainer. I don’t really agree with your interpretation of Smokey’s promise, though, so we’ll just have to agree to disagree. Also, I just plain don’t believe Smokey anyway.
3.) I’ve made a point of not watching the previews since like 2005, so I don’t know about the teaser, but Ben had better not die next week. He’s supposed to die in the last episode. The last episode – no. sooner. And I don’t know what his role is, but it had better be HUGE.
4.) When this whole thing is all said and done, there will be fodder for pages and pages and pages on The Island as character. In the meantime, you could probably tackle language/linguistics? There’s a lot to overthink in the way language serves as everything from a weapon (Sun hiding her knowledge of English from Jin) to a barrier (Jin and Michael being unable to work out the disagreement over the watch in season 1) to an intentional barrier (Dogen insisting on speaking through Lennon for the first couple of episodes of this season).
1. I thought of it as evidence of the strain he’s going through. Emotional taxation manifests itself physically, after all.
2. I kind of lean toward the former, that he meant the Island can do it there. Or, rather, that he wanted Sayid to *think* he and therefore the Island could. But I don’t think there is any intent to actually fallow through on it.
(And yes, I too absolutely loved when Ben backed off. I said- to myself, out loud, because that’s how I roll-, “Dude, if *Ben* thinks he’s scary, he must be pretty f***ing scary.”
3. I’d still like to see Ben do some major ass-kicking at the end, but I don’t think he needs to die. Seeing him wander off into the great unknown would feel *more* satisfying for me.
But now that you mention deaths… I don’t know exactly why I feel this, but I think Sayid’s only possible path is a noble death of his own. He’s totally marred himself in both timelines, so unless there is a way to go back, given the kind of man he has shown himself as (meaning carrying guilt the way he does), he’d never be capable of having a life that wasn’t vastly empty. I suppose that could be his contra passo, but I dunno, I don’t really *want* Sayid to have a contra passo because I heart him oh so much.
And I gotta say… Keamy? Hells to the yeah. Too bad he’s dead already. His was a character I had wanted to know more about before, too, and I’m uber curious as to how his timelines diverged so much: from a mercenary to a loan shark.
@Harold: Not to sound nitpicky, but Sayid was always recovering from serious injury or, ahem, DEATH, before he went in there. He was “odd” because he was in pain.
@Bob (and everybody else): I want to call Smokey in Locke forme “Lockelganger” from now on. Can I can I can I??????
4. When watching the fourth season of B5 (in its entirety) with some friends, every time a certain character that turned to the Dark Side, or so it seemed, did something Dark Side-ish, one of them would say, “EvilSoandso is Evil,” the implication being that they weren’t really themselves and/or were under control of some kind. Sort of like the actives on _Dollhouse_, actually- they were sort of programmed to do things a certain way, even though they still kept their sense of “self.” That’s kind of how I see CrazyClaire and Evil!Sayid. They think they’re being rational and stuff, but they are, somehow and in varying ways, both under the control of Smokey/ Lockelganger (I swear, that needs to become universal, Bob, seriously)). So the question is, then, will they “wake up” and remember what they had done, if they wake up at all? Will it be erased from their memory? Or will they die before they get the chance?
I’d actually really like to see a fight between Kate and Claire in which the latter seems to be winning at first, but then the former makes a(n) (un)lucky killing blow. Not that I want Claire to die, per say, but that would make for some great storytelling, and perhaps it would force Kate to grow up a little.
I do ask that if you make a post about the mommy issues, you include Micheal and WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALT! in there somehow, just because it’s so easy to poke fun at in a loving way.
And Kevin, I’m definitely holding out for Desmond and Faraday episodes, since they both had mini-bios in that recap episode before the *actual* season opener. At least I’m pretty sure they both did. I remember for certain that Faraday did, at least… Hmmm…
There’s no doubt that this was more of a “story-surge” episode than an “emotional wallop” episode but I thought it was pretty great dramatically for the following reason: the temple location was becoming seriously dull, as were its inhabitants. For several episodes we’d been hanging round there, with the characters playing solitaire and whatnot – this is the final season for Chrissake!!! Now I’m not sure whether it was a clever ploy by the writers to have us feel sympathy for the “dark-siders”, who include characters we’ve known and loved since the beginning so it wouldn’t do to just be waiting for them to get their comeuppance. I found myself rooting for Smokey to destroy the temple and pull a gang together, because it would mean that we could finally move forward with the story in a meaningful way. And I’m sorry to say that I enjoyed seeing dull Dogen and lackey Lennon offed, even if it had to be by a newly-“evil” Sayid, whose expression at the pool was the highpoint of the episode, emotionally speaking. He does seem aware that he’s made a choice, and where there’s cognition there’s hope…
Thought: What if Sayid’s actually planning on being some sort of mole?
@Gab – I dunno, some folks have been raising similar speculations about Sawyer, but I don’t think anyone in Smokey’s camp is *planning* to spy on &/or double-cross him. And judging from the way he seemed so indiferent to Kate tagging along, I don’t think he’s worried about the consequences of such a thing, either.
I agree it makes no sense that Dogen being alive was keeping the Temple secure rather than the ash, unless the two were linked somehow…but now that he’s dead, I don’t suppose we’ll be following up on that concept.
On the subject of the Temple Others: though it was couched in the “Jacob’s gone, you’re free” context, the implicit message given to them certainly seemed to be “Join me or die.” I wonder what would have happened to anyone who took the alternative route — not staying to defend the Temple, but choosing to venture out on their own rather than join Team Smokey.
@Gab & stabbim: yeah, I definitely think Sawyer’s the mole in Smokey’s camp, and that he’s been planning a “long con” of his own. (I think it’s relevant that he’s the only one who wasn’t at the Temple attack with him — well, come to think of it, Jin wasn’t either… but I don’t think Jin is in league with Smokey either.)
Now, as for Kate: she’s definitely the wild card, and I think Smokey has HUGELY underestimated her. Remember, while she wasn’t revealed as such on Smokey’s cave wall… she WAS on Jacob’s wheel. I think she’s Jacob’s sleeper, hidden in plain sight. Smokey only thinks she’s not a threat — if she acts out, he can always just kill her, so what does he care? But there’s more to her than he realizes.
About the Temple Others, and the “choice” they were given — someone smarter than I pointed out elsewhere that all the choices presented in “Sundown” were all FALSE choices. Jacob, for example, offered Dogen a “choice” (go to the island and I’ll save your son… but you can never see him again — further proof that Jacob isn’t “good,” only concerned with his own motives). Smokey offers a “choice” (leave the Temple or die). Sayid is offered a “choice” (after he’s already infected and isn’t being rational) and so on. The best thing you can say about these choices is that they have MAJOR strings attached; but I think they’re all illusory anyway.
@Harold re bad mothers: Yikes, the list is almost too long to tell! What about Locke’s mother (abandoning him; lying to him to get money from his dad)? What about Kate’s mother (willing to turn in her own daughter, & blaming her, even though she bore some responsibility for allowing Kate to be abused in the first place)? Even the decent mothers make poor choices (Jack’s mother staying with a philandering alcoholic, Walt’s mother manipulating Michael into giving up custody, Hurley’s mother getting back together with his father.) Seems to me the best mothers are the non-biological sort (Kate w/ Aaron, Cindy w/ Zach & Emma.)
@mlawaski: Rose has never been baby crazy. In fact, doesn’t she have kids from a first marriage, but only barely mention them? In fact, given all the other baby-craziness, that would make it absolutely hilarious if (as some have speculated) she and Bernard did end up being Adam & Eve haha!
Q1 – I didn’t notice. Hmmmm.
Q2 – I think he was just referring to himself, not the island, but I don’t think he meant the alternate timeline (where, as someone already pointed out, Sayid actually *doesn’t* get Nadia.) I also think he doesn’t have a single modicum of intent to actually do as he promises.
I really thought Sayid was smarter than that, though. I expected him to say, in response to “What if I told you you could have anything you wanted?” something like, “Then I would KNOW that you’re evil incarnate, because only someone evil would promise that.” He seems to be incredibly stupid as far as Nadia’s concerned, though.
Which brings me to an interesting point. Someone pointed out that everyone in the alternate timeline seemed to have had their emotional issues resolved, except Sayid. That was my first impression, too… until he delivered that line about how he can’t be with Nadia b/c he’s not worthy of her. I think that is a HUGE step from where he is in this timeline, willing to give himself over to evil just to be with her again, and her reaction to it all be damned. He still loved her, in alterna-time, but he had moved past that. He was more interested in her happiness than his own. That’s kind of big, and offers a lot of insight into his character.
This episode REALLY didn’t sit well with me, either, and I think part of the reason why is that it was all questions, and no answers… which was fine for the first 5 seasons, but we’ve gotten used to getting answers this season, and now they’ve all been subverted. The whole bit about Dogen keeping “all that was keeping [Smokey] out” was… just weird. As Jon Eric said, it just kinda smacks of “clumsy writing,” and I really really don’t want to believe that :(
I also don’t like that Kate is the wild card. As my boyfriend pointed out, she was always supposed to be the “hero” of the show, until at the last minute they decided not to kill Jack. Also, it appears that Lockelganger doesn’t know that she’s a candidate… and she’s following along with him now, which could *dun dun duuuuun!* change everything. The reason I don’t like this, emotionally, is because I can’t stand Kate. The reason I don’t like it, narratively, is because NO ONE can stand Kate. She’s one of the most universally reviled characters on the show. Her episodes are constantly mocked. “All Kate does is run.” Etc, etc. If she turns out to be the key to EVERYTHING, then that means that the writers have, effectively, been keeping her around as the ace in their back pocket. It’s as though they didn’t want to make her SEEM pertinent, because that might give it away. If she’s the key, then she’s their deus ex machina… and THAT is “clumsy writing.”
@Genevieve: I should have stated that more clearly — while Kate is a “wild card,” I meant only in the sense that I don’t think Smokey will ever be able to seduce her and bring her over to the “dark side”. She won’t be THE hero, but she’ll do something heroic to help beat him. (Yes, she’s part of Smokey’s “team” now, but only because she’s trying to figure out what the hell is going on and where everyone else is — and Smokey is willing to see what happens with her, since if she does anything to threaten him, all he has to do is kill her. She’s a curiosity to him at this point… for now, the more the merrier.)
I think the writers like Kate more than any of us… but she won’t be the “key to everything.” If I had to guess — and this is pure conjecture on my part, based on a history of movie and TV cliches — I’d say it will be one/all of the following: Jack; Hurley; and Desmond, in that order. (Sawyer will have been conning Smokey and ultimately screw him. Kate and Ben will play important roles; Miles a very minor one, along with what’s-her-name and Lapidus. Sayid will die; Claire, who cares; and Sun and Jin will, like the last few seasons, have little to do but watch it all unfold around them. And we’ll see if “real” Locke is resurrected, though I have no idea how that would happen.)
@Kevin – Heh, it’s really funny that we used the same phrase; your post wasn’t actually there when I was typing mine. I didn’t see it ’til I posted! I was going solely on a conversation I’d had IRL earlier in the day. I’m hoping you’re right that she won’t be central to the resolution… but I have my doubts, and I think it’s because, as you said, the writers seem to like Kate more than any of the fans do. Not well enough to give her any decent episodes, of course, but…
@Kevin: Kay, I feel really dumb asking this, but what do you mean by, “…it will be one/all of the following: Jack; Hurley; and Desmond, and in that order,”? What “it” are you meaning? Is that their order of importance, the likelihood you think they’ll be “key,” or something else, perhaps? Sorry, I just, uh… got a little… lost… reading your comment.
And then I was killed by Smokey for the pun.
But the line of questioning is in earnest, promise!
@Gab: Well, it’s interesting — now that you pose the question, I’m not sure. Let me go through my thinking and come up with an answer.
Based on typical movie & TV development, it is the “hero” that has to defeat the “villain.” In Lost’s case: I’m not so sure Smokey is pure evil; while he must be “beaten” at the end, I think he and Jacob have so much power that they are neither good nor bad — they are embodiments of natural forces that have been around for centuries. Thus, Jacob is the only one who can keep Smokey in chec, AND vice versa; it’s not like Jack will be the big “hero” who has a climactic duel with him where he can ulimately kill him and make everything “right” again. They are yin and yang, alpha and omega.
I think it’s the same notion that relates to the writers “answering the questions,” and how they are ONLY answering questions that are important to the characters, not that necessarily fill in all the plot gaps. Lost isn’t a show about Jacob and Smokey fighting each other — they haven’t even been around as characters for more than 10 episodes! Instead, it’s about the *characters*… and I think the whole Jacob vs. Smokey goings-on are just one big MacGuffin to help the characters resolve all of their issues and evolve as people. THAT is the grand story of Lost, and while the island stuff drives the action… it’s only as a means of showing how these people learn to live in the world around them.
So how is that for a non-answer? :-)
Getting back to your question, I think I listed those three characters both in terms of their importance to the ending AND the likelihood they’ll be key to resolving the Jacob-Smokey drama — they go hand in hand. Jack is the guy with the most screen time and every couple of episodes seem to be about him; he also has the most dramatized, obvious personal issue to resolve. Hurley can talk to the dead (but in a literal way that Miles can’t) and seems to be “special” in a way the other characters are not; however, he seems to have resolved his issues for the most part, so I can’t imagine any grand denouement about him. And Desmond is “special” because of his time-travel ability, and, well, because Eloise SAID he was… but he’s barely had screen time in S5 and 6, so I can’t imagine he’s going to tie all the plot threads together at the end.
So yes, I think those three will have important roles to play in the resolution… in that order.
Here’s something that hasn’t been mentioned yet. When Smokey asked Sayid what if he could offer him anything he wanted, he said the only thing he wanted died in his arms. I immediately thought of Shannon, not Nadia. It was Shannon who most recently and literally died in his arms, if you don’t count the whole return to the real world and find out Nadia was killed plot line.
1) I didn’t notice an accent change either, but Sayid’s character’s turn did catch me by surprise too. And I’m still holding out that he’ll take control in the end. That’s what this show is all about anyway, making choices. Whether he’ll turn against Smokey or just turn against himself as some of you have pointed out, I don’t know. If he does take his own life, it will be one of the most emotional episodes yet and probably near or in the end.
The whole Ben spoiler trailer at the end of last weeks episode really made me mad. I feel like in previous seasons they’ve done a good job of making trailers that were ambiguous and seductive. This season, they’re all over the place. I’m also hoping he doesn’t die till the end. But I think Ben’s character is just waiting to die. He’s like a more advanced case of Sayid and Claire. And by now, he’s fully aware of what he deserves and the consequences of the choices he made. So maybe it’s not too soon? Or maybe he can have redemption, but I’m willing to venture that the redemption will be in his death.
Other questions: yeah where’s the All the Good (or is it Bad?) Girls have Mommy Issues episode? It would be interesting to follow the development of mothers in this show. I do feel like Kate is gonna be the ace. I mean, why else would she still be around. Hopefully then, we’ll see more of her.
I’ve been thinking about what Jacob said when he said someone is coming to the island and certain scenes in the flash sideways. And I’m thinking there’s gonna be some crossover. There already seems to be inklings that candidates, at least Jack, is noticing things about himself that seem off. Specifically, I’m talking about the scene when we asks his mother when he got his appendix out. Of course she says six, but the scar seems fresh from 3 years on the island to my untrained medical eye. Who do you think is coming? There’s reason to believe in this alternate timeline maybe the oceanic folk don’t make it there, but what’s stopping say Jack’s son or Helen and other people the Oceanic folks love from somehow appearing. Maybe that’s far-fetched, in all likelihood, it’ll probably be the candidates who somehow make it back. But that might be something to overthink or just regular think about.
This episode didn’t work for me because the main plot (Sayid saying that he’s good while doing evil things) didn’t come together. Were we suppose to believe that Smoky is 100% evil incarnate now? He still seems very reasonable. It still makes more sense to be on his side rather than dead Jacob’s. Jacob basically lures Jack and Hurley, and only Jack and Hurley out of the temple with empty promises of answers. Smokey at least is honest about it, saying come with me or die. There’s a actual choice involved, whereas Jacob doesn’t even offer Jack or Hurley a choice.
And when lost people are vague as to why something is bad “oooo he’ll kill us all”, or “keep pushing the button or the something bad (TM) will happen,” it usually means that the character has no idea what’s going on.
So I’m saying I don’t think what sayid did at the end was evil at all. He killed something that tried to kill him twice, and just because Smokey offers something for the killing doesn’t make him evil.
@Greg: I think you need to re watch the Incident, regarding who’s death was more recent and literally in Sayid’s arms. :)