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Thursday, March 26, 2009

L-O-S-T, Season 5, Episode 10 ("He's Our You")

As always, let's start with Doc Jensen's spoilers article (here) and his review (here) and Totally Lost (here).

Frank noted: Did anyone notice the new Dharma symbol that Hurley "The Cook" had? Thought it was a nice touch. (See here.) And the following fun stuff (see here).
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JJ got us started in our discussion this week:

Hey everybody. last night's episode was ok... nothing really special for the most part. until the freaking ending blasted everything in the universe apart ! ! ! ! ! !

now i kind of new Sayid wold make a play to kill Benry at some point once he found out when they were, but i thought the island would not let him be killed. so much for that! (my jaw was on the ground for like five minutes after Sayid pulled the trigger. even though it's Ben, he was still just a kid. unbelievable and shocking to see.) so, is this a massive "course corrections?" i don't see how because for me this changes absolutely everything. the writer's have made it clear that they do not use paradoxes with the time travel writing, but this is like the mother of all paradoxes... Faraday has layed out rules that the Losites can't change the past, but Sayid just did and big time. let's break it down.... if Benry is really dead as a child:

Benry now cannot wipe out Dharma and become leader of the others
Benry will no longer kidnap Alex from Danielle Roussou when she is an infant
Benry will not lead the others to bring certain people to the island, mainly Juliet, but potentially the Losties as well
no abduction of Walt or raids on the tail section
no capture by Danielle
no torture by Sayid
no killing of Ana Lucia and Libby by Michael to free Benry from the hatch
no cages no runway gets built on hydra island for flight 316
no war with the others
no huge manipulation of John Locke and everyone else....
and possibly NO plane crash of 815 at all!!!! why? because with Dharma not wiped out by Ben, then Swan would still be operational with two people, therefore if Desmond still were to shipwreck, then he would never be taken to the hatch and would never be too late in pushing the button when he was off killing Kelvin which causes 815 to crash,

which, in turn would mean the Losties never go to the island anyway, so how could Sayid even be there now to kill Benry? and what's more, Benry couldn't be there for to overthrow Widmore as leader of the others, possibly making Penny an indigenous island hositle (therefore never meeting Desmond and never giving him reason to sail in the race and shipwreck on the island at all!!!) is your head hurting yet? how about this: no murder of John Locke, no murder of Anthony Cooper by Sawyer, no murder of Alex by Keamy to acquire Benry, no freighter, on and on and on....

so, if all that is true, then everything that happened on the show up until now hasn't happened anymore making it all meaningless, or still happens but now by totally different means: DESTINY.

Troy and Lisa and XX and i all watched the show together last night... we had out brains scrambled pretty good over this. but Troy and i talked about it and thought of a few things:

Benry isn't dead at all and everything still happens
Benry is dead, but "course correction" will make everything still happen but through perhaps a WORSE leader then Benry
Benry is dead, but none of it is really happening except in the minds of the Losties as their consciousness flashes through time, like Desmond, but without going back and forth

but then i thought of a couple more things: what if Benry dies so John Locke can become the leader of the others, but much younger so Ben never does? what if John (the supposed "intended leader" of the others) is a worse leader then Benry, and all the afore mentioned incidents still happen, but by HIS hand, generating new memories in all the Losties heads and changing how they relate to each other and their alternate pasts.....what if the title of the next episode is our answer: "Whatever Happened, Happened" and all this talk, indeed is just drivel. that it all will still happen anyway, because Benry will get resurrected, just like Locke was.

this episode, flying in the face of "the rules" and everything the writers have said they hate about time travel has really got me thinking... they wouldn't do this if it were paradoxical.. they must be doing something to either trick us or pose a completely different direction in the show to get us to the end without being able to figure it all out.... i can't wait to hear how evasive and non-helpful they are during the podcast later today. in the season's opener, Pierre Change tells the construction boss building the Orchid when he asks if they are going to go back and kill Hitler not to be absurd. that, "you can't change to past." just like Faraday says later in the same episode. well the "Hitler" of L O S T was just killed as a boy in the past... did his adult self just go "poof" in 2007 and vanish from the make shift infirmary with the 316 survivors? is 316 even there now? i can't figure any of it out now.... they have got me (and us) right where they want us.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

NIEL:

Although, look at Dharma-Ville when Frank and Sun run into Christian, it appears to be more abandoned than taken over, the registration sign, the DI logo's on the doors, hurley, Kate and Jack in the DI recruit picture of 77 (with Jack Nicholson too). So maybe the past has changed, but then corrected itself by some other means... Faraday blowing up the Orchid?

Anonymous said...

ALISON:

Or maybe this is how they get out of the 70s. Richard will convince Jack (or even Locke in 2007) or someone that now everything is a mess and they must go back in time before Sayid shoots Ben so they can correct the course of the island. So someone turns the donkey wheel, they get jolted out of the 70s and end up somewhere else. So that's just a crack pot theory--feel free to shoot holes in it. I do think Faraday will play into things here somewhere.

But if Ben is dead as a child, then he never grew up to be an adult, so will the Losties even have memories of him anymore? Will Sayid all of the sudden be seeing a 12-year-old that he doesn't remember as an adult and wonder why he killed him?

Anonymous said...

FRANK:

I think Tom Cruise said it best when he was talking to Matt Lauer about Ritalin:

"Matt, Matt, you don't even -- you're so glib."

Ben can't be dead - he just can't.

Altho.. they made it clear that he got shot in his chest - no arm/leg shots here. Only a shot to the head would be more direct to the 'he's definetly dead'. But I guess showing a headshot to a child on tv is still taboo (go figure!).

There isn't anything us watches can do to think thru how they're going to fix this - they'll almost need to set new rules - or break the ones they've set in place.

What if... they go back in time and prevent this. Well, then they wouldn't have knowledge of the events to know to go back to fix it since they're all part of the current 70's time line.

What if... Ben really is dead. Well, then his future self would cease to exist. I still think he could have done all the stuff he did - sure, its a paradox, but then again, so are Jack and Christian (a pair of docs... haha. ha. ahem.)

Also, the more the story plays out, its more apparent that old Ben (if he survives the blast to the chest) knows Sawyer, Jack, Kate, etc from his childhood.

Ya, LOST has us where they want us.

Anonymous said...

NIEL:

Remember Ben said he was born on the island? Maybe he was healed like Locke and considers that his rebirth?

Anonymous said...

JJ:


another thought i had was that if young Benry does survive his shot to the chest, he would NEVER go off with the "hostiles"/others then... how could he EVER trust them, since he firmly believes Sayid is a hostile sent from Richard. if he survives, he would then think the hostiles tried to murder him and not trust them, and then the future is altered anyway, since he could not lead the others in purging Dharma...


another thought... perhaps Locke was never "resurrected," since he now could not have been murdered by Ben, so he ends up on Flight 316 because that was his newly destined flight to the island with his now different past, but he doesn't have memories as to certain events until they take place in the past... Benry on Hydra island could actually be a Ben who survived Sayid's attempt to kill him, but a completely different person, having never lived with the others or lead them due to not being able to trust them, and therefore he is not a lunatic genocidal maniac, but STILL an important island figure. that would explain Locke's "resurrection" but not much else.


also, the one factor i forgot earlier was Jacob. if Jacob/island/smoke monster is the real force behing everything, and has the power to do some of this time manipulation via the frozen donkey wheel, then perhaps Jacob is like a fallible god, who chose poorly in making Ben his emissary. and since he cannot control the free will of people, but can manipulate them through circumstance, he is now trying to "undo" his choice of Ben and fix it with Locke being on the island sooner. hmmmm.... Jacob could be the big key in explaining it all, maybe Jacob is Locke, guiding his own life through the power of the island, and changing his life's path over and over, affecting the lives of all the Losties again and again, but they always end up on the island and the same people always end up dying when they do, etc.


i also think the writer's laid important groundwork clues to everything working the way it does with Charlie's death - that he would die no matter how many times Desmond tried to change things, and his death would result in certain things happening, AND the time traveling consciousness stuff with Desmond. i think these two things, that they spent a whole season establishing with us, will be crucial in explaining what we are seeing now.

Anonymous said...

AMY:

OK this may be really stupid and totally flawed, but what if Ben does survive? If the island heals him or if Jack saves him he may not hate the others competely. Maybe Ben knew this the entire time he was with the oceanic 6. Maybe he worked so hard getting Sayid to kill people so that he would be willing to shoot him as a kid? What if being shot as a kid is an important point in Benry's life that must happen? Maybe the real Other's find him, the island saves him, or maybe even Jacob comes into play? I know we saw Benry kill the Dhara people in a past episode. Who says that can't still happen?

Anonymous said...

HEATHER:

If anyone had told me 10 years ago that a conversation about a current tv show that I was watching would include the words that JJ just wrote "some of this time manipulation via the frozen donkey wheel" I would have thought they were crazy.

Anonymous said...

FRANK:

And you'd be right.

Anonymous said...

JULIA:

My brain is still kind of scrambled from last night’s ep. I completely agree with JJ…what looked to be an average episode completely changed in the last 15 seconds of the show. Wow. This show just gets better and better each week! Some quick thoughts:



How great is that kid playing Ben? He really could be Michael Emerson’s younger self…the eyes are just the same!
I don’t think young Ben was killed…after stewing about it most of the day, I’m leaning towards the theory that he survives, but goes through the rest of his life knowing Sayid tried to kill him…and was manipulating Sayid during the off-island years for just that purpose. But how does he reconcile the alleged “hostile’s” attempt on his life with his desire to be a hostile himself and his eventual move over to their side? Maybe Richard shows up to explain to Ben that Sayid is not one of them? My big question is whether the Purge will go forward as planned…I think it has to, but if it doesn’t happen it explains a lot about the abandoned Dharma barracks from last episode’s Christian sighting. Just thinking about the time travel stuff kind of makes my brain hurt, so I am just going to watch and see what happens.
I didn’t like Kate before…now I REALLY don’t like her. Leave Sawyer and Juliet alone, get back together with boring and annoying Jack already, and admit that you gave up Aaron and your pretty cushy life back in the real world for nothing. She drives me crazy with her lingering looks, I’m so great attitude, etc. I think Juliet got her into the motor pool just to keep an eye on her and her sneakiness.
I love Hurley as Dharma chef, with his ham dipping sauces. And its true he has a unique Dharma emblem on his jumpsuit, but remember – so do Sawyer and the rest of the security force.
Anyone else think it was a little creepy how ready Amy was to execute Sayid? I don’t know if that stems from her experience with her first husband, but still…it seemed a little off.
Ilana is clearly working for Ben, even if she doesn’t know him by that name or even what he looks like. Ben had to get Sayid on that plane, and by having him “arrested” by the bounty hunter, he came in as a captive to satisfy the Flight 815 Kate role.

Anonymous said...

JULIA:

Oh…and my favorite exchange of the night:



Sawyer to Sayid: How are you doing?



Sayid: A 12-year old Ben Linus just served me a chicken salad sandwich. How do you think I am?

Anonymous said...

AMY:


I think Amy is trouble, why is it that everyone else in Dharma jumpsuits except for her?

Anonymous said...

Last one was NIEL, not AMY.

NIEL:

Ironic he just killed the chicken in his flashback.

Anonymous said...

FRANK:

I also liked it when Ben said "John Locke is dead. I think someone killed him." Ya, ya think!?

Anonymous said...

JULIA:

I’m starting to think maybe she is planted at Dharma by the Hostiles…would explain why Ethan survives the Purge. Maybe she is the key to the “Incident” that is coming…

Anonymous said...

NIEL:


Possibly, But I am sticking with Farraday causing the incident.

Anonymous said...

JJ:

my favorite exchange of the night:


"Three years without one burning bus. You guys are here for one day!"
-Sawyer to Jack

Anonymous said...

NIEL:

HAHAHAHA. Sawyer has this leadership thing down, see how he got that fire brigrade set up. And where was Jack... pouting on the swing set.

Anonymous said...

NIEL:

You would think that she would know if he was a hostile or not though?

Anonymous said...

KELLY:

I'm enjoying all of the opposites/reversals in these episodes....

role reversals on the flight (hurley as charlie, sayid as kate, etc.)
present to past
fighting dharma to joining dharma
leader in-control (jack) to sitting on the side-lines
mr. interrogator (sayid) to being interrogated
mr.control/manipulator (ben) to being controlled by his dad and manipulated by sayid
mr. rebel (sawyer) to mr. stability/leader of the clan...of course he's still conning dharma and tried to get sayid freed...

I'm sure there's more...it's just fun all the changes, this island is certainly far from what they imagined or were used to...

I also find it hard to believe that Ben is really dead. He might be, but Faraday said you can change the future. And as we've seen some people you just can kill (like Locke)...did that Hawkins lady mention something about the universe could correcting the corse? So maybe if they try, it still wont change things??? I dont know but they all had to go back to correct things, so I dont get that...

i'm waiting for a medical emergency where Jack can jump into action...would he try to fix Ben???

Anonymous said...

KELLY:


Faraday said you "cant" not can...my typo...LOL

Anonymous said...

HEATHER:

Good point Kelly... opposite day is fun! Someone should have been wearing their shirt backwards or something...

Niel... I like Julie's guess that Amy is a hostile... it might explain why they were going to kill Amy and her husband, their "mole" activities were not yielding results? Why was she always sleeping with one eye open? She knows they are coming for her... and even if she doesn't know Sayid... it would explain why she wanted to kill him.