Apr 09 2009
Lost Questions: Dead is Dead
Starting a new segment I’m calling “Lost Questions” because I’m interested to hear other people’s theories about what’s going on. Last night Ben was judged by a jury of the Smoke Monster, and he was found redeemable. There were a lot of answers in this episode, but as always, a bunch of questions as well.
Give me your theories on this week’s list:
1) Did Ben really expect Locke to come back to life? His answer to Sun that he was shocked seemed more genuine.
2) Does he not remember any of the Oceanic 6 from his time in the Dharma initiative? Maybe by the time he gets back from the Others, they’re gone?
3) How did he recruit Ethan (Horace the Dharma leader’s son) to join the others. Did something happened to Ethan too?
4) Are we now 100% sure Ben didn’t kill Penny? He really just swam up after being thrown off the dock and went over to a payphone?
5) When Rousseau caught Ben in her trap, shouldn’t she have recognized him as the one that took her baby? Yeah it was dark and a long time ago and she was crazy, but that’s a face I bet you’d remember forever.
6) The Others have had a baby taking agenda for some time now, but apparently it didn’t start with Rousseau since that was an accident. So why the babies?
7) What is the relationship between the Smoke Monster and the Egyptian god that we saw in the hieroglypics? As we know, that god is presumably who the giant statue is based off of.
8 ) So Eko was judged by the Smoke Monster as well (we saw those images for the first time during his face off with it), and I guess he was found guilty. That’s not a question, but I think it’s a fact. But still, a lame way to go.
9) Did they really kick Charles off the island because he had been leaving and had a kid? That seems rather tame. I hope there’s a better reason than that.
10) My biggest question has to do with Locke, Christian and Alex. We KNOW that Alex was a manifestation of the island that was formed to give Ben a message. And we’re pretty sure that Locke is a real person, but is he like Christian? Is Christian really Christian come back to life or is he a manifestation like Alex. He knows things about the island, but now we know that Locke knows things also. Confusing.
11) What the hell was wrong with the rest of the survivors when Lapedus got back? He wasn’t even gone that long. “What lies in the shadow of the statue?” Come on, we’ve got enough pressing questions to start another mysterious plotline involving background characters.
More Unreal Posts
- Lost Questions: Follow the Leader
- Lost Review: “LA X”
- The Ten Greatest Lost WTF-isms
- Lost Questions: The Incident (Season Finale)
- Lost Review: “The Last Recruit”
good luck with those Q’s……thats the reason I stopped watching that silly show.
I’ll take a stab at it.
1) I don’t think so. Ben killed John to get him out of the way so he could be in charge again. Then, surprise, John really is the chosen one and Ben is the one left out in the cold.
2) Either that, or Richard said that he wouldn’t be the same again. Crazy Other brainwashing the cleared his memory. But the only one’s he’d likely remember would be Sawyer/Lafleur and co because Jack and the other survivors didn’t show up until the day before Ben was shot.
3) I think that scene happened after Ben killed all the Dharma people with the gas. At some point, after his treatment, Ben had to go back to the Dharma people and, given that Whatever Happened, Happened, he still kills them all off at some point. There were, I think, 3 pictures on the wall of “class photos” after the ’73 one with the survivors.
4) I’d say so. It makes sense that it’s basically the same thing that happened when he was supposed to kill Rousseau. Related, I think we’re done with Desmond and Penny (unfortunately).
5) Possibly. But she’s also crazy, so who knows.
6) It’s probably all Ben’s idea. We know that he couldn’t actually communicate with Jacob, only Locke could. So Ben was using him as a ruse to gain power. Instead of killing kids, Ben probably wanted to take them. Other then Alex, it’s the only thing I see that actually makes him human.
5) Good question. I don’t know. Maybe those new people who talk about the “shadow of the statue” have an answer and we’ll get it later on.
6) Yep.
7) I’m thinking that was just the excuse. He obviously didn’t get along with Richard and Ben and so the leaving the island bit was probably just an out.
8 ) Another good question. I don’t know. At some point we’ll probably find out what Christian really is and probably find out about Locke at the same time. Perhaps Christian had been on the island previously and had to die to return as well?
9) They seem to be some sort of secret people that have something to do with whatever is in that box they were trying to move. Maybe the work for Widmore or maybe the smoke monster converted them like it did all of Rousseau’s friends (could be why it didn’t show up when Ben called it) and “the shadow of the statue” is the smoke monster.
Cool segment. Gets me thinking!
Before looking at your questions I’d like to point out my own theory that The Island did not find Ben redeemable I think it found him guilty and what better way to punish him than to make him bend to Locke’s will?
1: I don’t think Ben ever expected Locke to come back to life, he killed him so that he could go back himself.
2: I felt that the “If we heal him he’ll never be the same and he won’t remember any of this” thing by Alpert before taking Ben last week was a cheap and easy out for the problems of time travel and I’d guess that, yes the Oceanic 6 will be returned to the present before Ben returns.
3: Yeah I’d guess that Ethan was still young when Ben killed off the Dharma people and keeping him alive goes along with Ben’s whole anti baby killing stance.
4: I don’t think Ben Killed Penny, he dropped the gun in the water so unless he swam down to get it or had a spare with him I don’t think Penny and Desmond would have waited for him to get another. Also I don’t think we are done with Penny or Desmond, they’ll turn up on the island at some point.
5: I’m thinking that the Smoke monster has always been on the island and that the god and the hieroglyphics were all built in order to worship it by, perhaps, the first people to find the island.
6: I’d agree that Eko was judged guilty.
7: I think getting Charles off the island was just something that Ben wanted to do and he grabbed the first opportunity and ran with it, he seemed to have those people in the palm of his hand from the moment he saved Alex.
8: I’d say it’s very possible that Christian was on the island before, his alcoholism and all of his personal problems may even have been based on the fact that he wanted to return, Jack went down a very similar self destructive path.
9: I hadn’t considered what Justin said but I think the Smoke Monster causing the crazy of the people from the plane is a good theory. My first guess was that they found some documentation or something that spoke of riches or something that were “in the shadow of the statue” (probably the four toed statue) and were under the impression that everyone who had left was going to look for whatever it was in the shadow of the statue but I have nothing at all to base that assumption on.
When we saw Eko and the smoke monster they showed more events from his life. For Ben all we see is the event regarding Alex’s death.
My first thought was this. The only reason for Ben to be limited to the single flashbacky moment in the smoke is that this is the only event in his entire life that he truly regrets. Everything else he’s done, regardless of how twisted, how evil, he is pretty much fine with. Eko, in contrast, was remorseful for much of his past life and was trying to change his ways and be a better person, but he still felt guilty about all of it.
Was a good episode, but I expected a bit more oomph.