…SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS…
Hot damn, a lot happened in last night’s episode, which kicked off the post-writer’s strike hiatus of Season Four. We weren’t given a ton of new information, but the new questions that have been posed are intriguing.
Picking up where “Meet Kevin Johnson” left off, Alex is held hostage by the people who killed Karl and Danielle. Though some speculated that Ben had the rest of his people pick off those two, that theory evaporated quickly. Rather, we seem to have been given an answer as to the nature of Frank’s helicopter “errand” – he was dropping off Keamy and his men to capture Ben. The savage nature of the killings by Keamy and his men very quickly made the Others and Ben look tame by comparison. Though the three random Losties who were killed were only background characters (poor redshirts), the way they were shot without so much as a warning shows that Ben was right about the true nature of the people on the freighter, and the question of how even six of our people get off the Island is now even more of a mystery.
Ben clearly didn’t think that Keamy was going to shoot Alex, because of the “rules” that he and Widmore were supposed to be using. It still makes her death all the more tragic that the last words she heard were that the man who raised her didn’t care about her at all, even though it wasn’t true. Still, I couldn’t help but think that if Ben really wanted to protect Alex, he could have just hid her in that passage under the house where he called the monster. And how cool was it when Ben summoned the monster? Has it always operated under his command? Was he lying to Locke when he said that he didn’t know what it was? Just because he knows how to command it doesn’t necessarily mean he knows its true origins, in theory at least. And why is it suddenly so important to Ben for Locke to live? Remember, Ben shot Locke not so long ago. Although part of me thinks that was just a warning shot; since Ben knew Locke was missing that kidney, he knew that shot wouldn’t kill him. If he really wanted to kill Locke, a bullet in his bald head would have done the trick.
And let’s hear it for Sawyer; this episode showed Mr. Con Man showing an awful lot of emotion, particularly for Claire and Hurley. In fact, Hurley helped out Sawyer and Claire by ignoring Ben and letting them into the house. These three characters very quickly understood that even though Locke and Ben were right about the freighter people not being friendly, they were clearly wrong about the barracks being a safe place for them to hide.
Back at the beach, Jack appears to be under the weather, and Kate is becoming anxious that Desmond and Sayid haven’t yet returned from the boat. Ray, the ship’s doctor, washing up on the beach with his throat slit seemed to make Faraday and Charlotte nervous, and possibly with good cause. But why did Faraday lie about the Morse code message? He hasn’t been shy about the time discrepancy before. And way to go Bernard for knowing Morse code! That guy is the coolest dentist ever. I’m not convinced that Faraday is a bad guy, I just think he doesn’t know how to handle doing experiments surrounded by people that he will ultimately have to abandon.
On to Ben’s flash forward. The biggest question is how he ended up in the middle of the Sahara desert, wearing a parka and seemingly having just sustained some sort of injury. I am convinced that Ben and the Others have the ability to jump around through space (possibly time, too, but definitely space), but if he could have done that at any time, he probably would have done so while under attack at the house. Or when he was held prisoner back in the hatch way back in Season Two, for that matter. We already knew that Ben had multiple passports, aliases, and access to places all over the world, but it was nice to seem him actually using those things.
We also knew that Sayid would end up working as an assassin for Ben, but we didn’t know how. It is easy to understand why Sayid would be heart-broken over the death of his beloved Nadia, but it is a little surprising that he takes everything Ben says at face value. Sayid wonders why Widmore would want to kill Nadia, and quite frankly, that’s a very good question. He knows how manipulative Benjamin Linus can be, so you think he would question his motives. Also, looking back at their conversation at the end of “The Economist,” Ben says that the reason he was able to recruit Sayid is because of what happened the last time Sayid followed his heart instead of his gun. How did Sayid following his heart allow Widmore’s guy to kill Nadia? On the one hand, I hope we get to find out in a future episode, but at the same time, it would have to be handled really well for it to not be anti-climactic since we now know Nadia’s fate.
The show’s big finale, of Ben confronting Widmore, was an amazing scene. Ben says that he can’t kill Widmore, which may also be why Keamy and company couldn’t kill Ben on the Island. But why would the Island not allow either man to be killed? Shouldn’t It be siding with one man or the other? Ben’s anger about Alex is justified, but Widmore has a point as well; she wasn’t really his daughter, and Ben did let her die. The fact that Ben is now targeting Penny is completely unnerving, as the Desmond/Penny story has been so great, it’s heart-breaking to imagine it ending as tragically as the Sayid/Nadia affair. The two men are racing each other to find the Island and Penny, but as viewers we can’t root for one side or the other. This ending scene was altogether chilling, as it foreshadows the battle between these two, which is apparently far from new, and also nowhere near its end.
My only complaint about the episode is the use of locator chyrons, telling us where Ben was every time he popped up in another location. This kind of goes along with my “things are being spoon fed to the audience” argument. The hotel clerk literally asks Ben if it’s his first time in Tunisia, so why did we need it literally spelled out for us on screen first? We could have figured out Iraq, the Sahara, and London as well, thank you very much. It’s a minor gripe, I know, I just had to get it off my chest.
Looking at the promo for next week’s episode, two big questions emerge: Does Jack really have appendicitis, and how did Keamy survive the Monster’s attack? I for one am thinking that Jack might have “the sickness,” but either way there is less drama of putting Jack in mortal jeopardy when we already know he gets off the Island. And perhaps Smokey spared Keamy so he could tell the tale to the rest of his crew. Still, I cannot wait for the rest of this season to play out, and I hope that the rest of the episodes we get continue as strongly as this one.
Alan’s Score: 8.9 out of 10
5 users commented in " Lost: The Shape of Things to Come Review "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackAfter reading your blog, as well as comments on other websites, I guess I must be in the minority when I say that I was disappointed in the episode. I did like it and frankly it was pretty much what I expected judging by the promos, but overall to me this show has changed waaaaay too much. It is a completely different show that when it first started. Last night I felt I was watching 24 or something like that. Gunfights (with machine guns at that), bazookas blowing up buildings? Huh??? People getting executed? Sawyer playing hero??? What the hell??? I miss season one – remember when the Losties were just trying to figure out the island around them and the continuing thread of the show was their relationships and the mystery of the island itself? Well now it’s about… war? Revenge? Control of the island??????????!!!. People getting shot left and right or washing up on the beach with their throats slit. Bizzarre. Because of this, something dawned on me. Lost has dramatically lost viewership in the past year or so. Most devoted fans, like myself, chalked it up to people too stupid to appreciate great television who would rather watch garbage like Flavor of Love. But I also heard one other reason that people stopped watching, that the show is so completely different than what it was originally, and has gotten way too bizarre (my wifey is one of those people) and people simply gave up on it. I think I’m partially starting to agree with them.
Now I understand that all shows have to evolve – you can’t repeat the same thing over and over again. But unlike, say the X-files that I don’t think evolved at all, Lost, for better or worse, has evolved into a drastically different show. As much as I like Ben, unless I learn more about the past of the island and his role in it, I really don’t care about his flash-forward, and how he got Sayid to be his b-tch and how they are now executing people we don’t know or give a damn about anyway. That is not what the show was in Season one or two. I’d rather they gave me an 815er flashback.
Ok, complaints aside – I still love the show (though not as much as I used to as recently as last season). It’s still the best thing on the air (along with Dexter). And last nights episode was enjoyable and – best thing – did not have Harold P-stupid-boring-Walt screaming-whatever his dumb name is AT ALL!! Always a plus.
I have to say, I agree with RAF–it is a vastly different show.
But for whatever reason, I don’t mind. It did used to be much more intimate and character-driven, and I miss those days as well, but I’m still more than caught up with what’s going on, the slow revealing of the mysteries, etc.
My question is this: since we more or less know just about everything there is to know about our core group of people, what else would the show be about? I’m actually happy they’ve chilled on the introducing new characters tip. THAT’s what’s getting on my nerves. Every season there’s a boatload (pun intended) of new characters to contend with. Enough’s enough.
But I guess that’s the only way to keep it moving without re-treading well-trod real estate, no?
I agree that the show has evolved from the early days, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing – provided that the show keeps us tied into the core characters. In other words, I don’t mind finding out more about the Ben vs. Widmore battle over the Island, but I still want to know if Desmond and Penny reunite, or if Jack is able to evolve past his savior complex, or if Hurley is able to conquer his self-esteem issues, etc. I’m hopeful that it can do both, and that the way the characters become no longer “lost” metaphorically as well as literally, is through the Island. Take Charlie, for example – he was able to discover a purpose for himself through the events of the Island (and just off-shore, technically). When the show began, he was just a has-been rocker drug addict, but over time he evolved into a hero. The Island backstory is necessary exposition, but as long as it doesn’t over-shadow the main characters, I’m OK with it.
To use an analogy, the Star Wars saga is about a heroic warrior who falls from grace and is redeemed by his son. There, I just summed up 6 two and a half hour movies in one sentence. There’s a lot more that goes on in those movies, and some people might not care exactly where the clone armies came from, but it does paint a more detailed picture of what’s happening in their universe. I hope that when Lost is finished, it will have a similar summation: The show was about a group of castaways who were lost in their lives but came to understand and fulfill their destinies through a mysterious Island. The raid on the barracks, the nature of Ben and Widmore’s conflict, and other such elements will ultimately serve to paint a more detailed picture of what’s happening in THEIR universe.
Good post, Alan. One thing that no one has commented on yet is how Widmore referred to Ben as “boy”. At first it just sounds like a regular bashing BUT he does put extra emphasis on it. What if…
- we know that there’s something skewed with the island’s timing. We know that an hour long helicopter ride (real time) seems to last about two days on the island (island time).
- we know Ben got to the island when he was 8. Let’s say now he’s 40. That’s 32 years of age ISLAND TIME. What if in REAL TIME that translates to 2 years (if even)?
Combine what we know about Ben and the island’s time skew. Widmore may have called Ben “boy” because in real time he still is!
On a side note, this time skew thing could also be the explanation for mothers and their babies dying during pregnancy. The fetuses are dying b/c they don’t have enough time to really mature (6 months on the island could be just days in real time).
Any thoughts on that?
Interesting theory… But I’m not sure about how the time discrepancy works. If you add up the number of days that the Losties have been on the island (lostpedia has done this), you get a total that puts them around Christmas 2004. When Desmond calls Penny from the freighter, it’s Christmas 2004 in London. So the time difference isn’t that big then. That said, there most definitely is a difference in time passage on and off the Island, but we have yet to get any evidence that it is a very large difference.
Also interesting is that Widmore tells Ben that he knows “what” he is, not “who.”
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