1. Our hope that Ben might not be bad is shattered ... at least, for the most part ... because Ben kills Locke! Now, maybe this is part of some more complex master plan, but it sure seems as if Ben doesn't want Locke to interact with Eloise (Faraday's mother), because that could lead to dangerous consequences of some kind for Ben. So he talks Locke out of the noose, but then, after he learns Locke is going to see Eloise, strangles Locke with the noose, anyway, and makes it look as if Locke killed himself... One of the best surprises this year on Lost..
2.Ben also kills Abaddon (who is in Widmore's employ) - too bad, I actually like Lance Reddick in this role better than in Fringe.
3. Back on the island, after the plane crash of last week, we see two other results in addition to Jack, Kate, and Hurley alive and ok: (a) Locke is back alive, in seemingly perfect shape, and (b) the other people on the plane - including Cesar, and Ben - have survived, in various wounded and ok conditions. Cesar is ok. But Ben is badly wounded. So Locke is again revealed as someone the island regenerates. The first time around, the island let him walk again (and Locke as Jeremy Bentham back in a wheelchair in our world was a nice touch). This time, the island brings Locke back to life...
4. Which leaves us with yet another question about Ben: if he knew the island would definitely bring Locke back to life, maybe Ben wasn't so evil to kill Locke, after all... You gotta hand it to Ben and Lost - once again, just when we're pretty sure Ben is evil, a facet emerges that maybe puts Ben in another light ... And we haven't even found out, as yet, how Ben got beat-up before the latest plane trip...
5. And last point about plane trips... Didn't Jack say in the Season 3 finale that he'd been flying around, lots of times, hoping his plane would crash? Jack didn't give quite that impression in his conversation with Locke tonight. In fact, Jack rejected Locke's plea that he round up the Oceanic Six and take them back to the island. But Locke's death is reported pretty soon after Jack's meeting with him - Jack sees the notice in the newspaper on his plane ride back from Sidney. When, exactly, did Jack get in all of that traveling around by plane? I suppose Jack might not have intended the plane rides to bring him back to the island, just to crash, but still...
6. But it was great to see Locke talk to Walt, back in New York...
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15 comments:
I'm not quite sure how this fits into Ben's motivations, but Ben must have known that the island wouldn't have let Locke kill himself. (Remember, we learned that when Michael tried several times to do just that.)
Did he know Locke needed to die? It's possible part of his motivation was doing what needed to be done and what Locke couldn't take care of himself.
But you're right, he definitely reacted to Locke saying Eloise Hawking's name. Lots going on in that scene.
Great episode!
This has been an amazing season, episode after episode. Personally, I'm sure Ben was planning to kill Locke from the start. I'm also sure Ben knew that the island would resurrect Locke.
I just wrote a long answer that was erased when I tried to send it. Laast nights episode gave me many more questions. My thoughts
1. Walt may be more significant than we think. He may be the next leader and Locke knows that already and is letting him grow. 2. Whos good and bad -I haven't quite figured it out yet. What we do know is Alpert has allowed Ben to rule and hasn't killed him so how bad is he. Although Ben was never supposed to come back to the Island which is probably why he is with Lockes group.3 - Cesear and Ilana may be Widmore plants and that they may be the war spoken of. 4.Where did frank go on the boat and with who Jun to find jin and 5. Why is Eloise Hawkins okay with both sides and is she
It was a good episode as it answered some questions. However, I think Ben is up to no good or he is simply confused. After he killed Locke and exited the room, he said "Too bad, I really liked you John." Thus, this implies that he was unaware of the plan that Locke had to die and would possibly be revived on the island. So, Dr. Levinson's theory that Ben wanted to prevent Locke from speaking to Elouise holds some truth. Or, simply the island does not like suicides. And, Ben did Locke the favor. Thus, making Ben the islands champion.
I'm pretty sure that Ben knew the island would bring Locke back to life, but I think the real reason why he killed him was because he had to. From what I can remember we still do not really know how Christian Shephard died, but I don't believe it was suicide. Therefore, if Locke was going to be the replacement for Christian, maybe if he killed himself the plan to return to the island would not have worked properly.
Maybe Ben also felt that the only way he could get the Oceanic Six to come back was to pretend that Locke committed suicide. Jack obviously felt some sort of guilt after learning that Locke had killed himself.
I'm wondering if Ben's sole motivation is and has been regaining his leadership position on the island. He may believe that he will succeed at killing Locke if he does it off the island. Also, he may want to keep Locke away from Hawking, so she won't recognize him as the rightful leader. Ben's plan may have been to return to the island with the O6 (which the island wanted back). The island would have been grateful, and with Locke dead, Ben would have been reinstated as leader.
Tara - that's a good thought - that Ben had to kill Locke, because suicide wouldn't do it.
I was also thinking that maybe Ben needed to find out what he could about what Locke knew before Locke died, and that's why he first stopped the suicide. If that's the case, then maybe Ben's being upset about Locke knowing about Eloise was not what pushed Ben into killing Locke - Ben was upset, but would have killed Locke anyway (and that would also apply to suicide not being what was needed to get back to the island).
Okay, a few thoughts/questions
1. great episode
2. There seems to be some thought about Christian Shepherd being a replaced by Locke as a leader. What would lead us to believe he was ever a leader, or on the island before? Barring time travel of course Jack certainly knew him all of his life in our world. And as Lock is aboput the same age, why Locke instead of Shepherd?
3. Paul, good point about Jack flying around. I don't quite get the time line back here...good Jack, bearded suicidal Jack, Crazed begging Kate to go back Jack,
4. Walt definetly has a big connection. Remember when he was little and he drew a weid bird and it showed up on the balcony, then he drew a polar bear and it showed up on the island.
Three more questions.
Assuming the island is always traveling at a different time rate even when it is relatively current (think season 1-3)...
1. Remember when Jack was going to leave by submarine. (Locke blew it up) Ben said he used that to get back and forth off the island (we saw Tom and his partner in our world, and assumed they took the sub to get there/here) Do you think there is an "Atlantis affect" underwater that transports between "time zones"
2. Remember when Juliette wanted to leave, and Ben showed her what seemed to be live footage of her sister and niece (The guy with a patch on his eye ran the communications between our world and the island) Is (was) there a live link to the outside?
Watching Ben arrange for everyone to get back to the island made me wonder...Did Widmore, Ben, Coincidence or "another force" arrange for all the O-815ers to be on the same plane at the same time in the first place...and why didn't they just beam out of the plane like they did this time
Perhaps when Ben said to the dead Locke that he was going to miss him, this was Ben acknowledging that from this point on out, he knows Locke will not trust him any longer. He can dance and hide lies between truths all he wants, but when you kill a man in cold blood, the odds of being his friend afterward are not very good. However, Locke also knows that Ben would have known the Island would bring him back, so technically Ben only capacitated Locke so as to get the Oceanic Six thinking that Locke was dead, so they'd change their minds. The use of a magic trick at the old folks' home in last week's episode is telling. The writers know that Locke's death from Ben's perspective is really just a magic trick played for the benefit of Jack, Sun, and the other Losties. There is some (questionably fuzzy and speculative) science behind it. There's evidence with Christian and perhaps others that it's worked before. So while Ben did kill Locke to keep him from leaving Ben and siding with Widmore, he also killed Locke to effectively pull a rabbit out of a hat. Locke may be more forgiving than Ben gives him credit for.
"6. But it was great to see Locke talk to Walt, back in New York... "
Yes it was, but it did make me wonder... Why go to all that trouble to include a tiny little scene unless it proves to be hugely significant in the future???
It was a great episode, but as usual, my head is filled with more and more questions!!!
White Bear and Steph and Dawn: Yeah, I'm thinking Walt does have to get back to the island (he wasn't part of the Oceanic Six, but he still was on the first plane, and he left the island). His motive will be to find his father. His payoff will be his reunion with Vincent.
White Bear: good thought about an Atlantis effect, getting off the island by water route.
White Bear and Zach - Christian is apparently Jacob, right? Which means that Locke is likely indeed on his way to replacing Christian.
I still think that Michael is alive, he survived when Jin did but he just hasn't been seen this series.
If Charles Widmore knew Eloise Hawking can get people onto the island then i think he planted several people on that plane.
It will also be interesting to see why Charles Widmore is no longer on the island, why he hasn't returned and what the issue is between him and Ben. Does anyone know if Charles was involved when Ben and the others killed the members of the Dharma initiative? Charles may have been helping Ben but we didn't know at the time because we hadn't seen him yet but a look back may show this.
I was curious about Abaddon. Do you know that that word is Hebrew for "The Destroyer." Now that being said, Abaddon was Widmores Crony. Ben admitted he killed him. Then he kills Locke. I like some of the other people's ideas in here that Ben had to kill Locke because otherwise it might have messed things up. Oh, one more thing about Abaddon, that word only shows up in one book of the Bible I believe, Revelation. But who is the beast, Ben or Widmore? Obviously John is Christ-like, even the plane was 316.
But the more curious thing was when Ben asked where the ring came from and Locke said he got it from Jin. Ben almost completely tuned Locke out and was deep in thought, looking away as John explained how Jin gave it to him. Now, was that expression because he wasn't expecting Jin to be alive? Or, did he already know Jin was on the island in the past, along with the other cast aways? Does that mean that some of them in the pit of dead Dharma Initiative people include the cast aways? You would hope they all get away, but obviously this show allows main characters to die quite often, of course death seems to be only relative on this island as well.
Now, Locke being alive. Why does the island keep feeling the need to heal him? Even Widmore was tauting his special virtues (much like Satan going at Christ). Very cool though that the drop zone of the island is Tunisia, which was established when we saw Ben in the desert and the polar bear Charlotte found. Not to mention the fact it's one of George Lucas' favorite locales (I just had to throw that in).
What I don't understand, if Widmore knows where Eloise is (having sent Desmond to her) and was once on the island and she knows how to find the island, why not just go there himself? One of those situations where he won't do the dirty work (much like Satan again)? Or is it all a ruse. If Widmore is Satan, would that make Ben the Anti-Christ? He did say there is a War coming. What kinda of war? A war between him and Ben? A world war? Something we couldn't phathom? Rumors of Wars? Apocalypse (which means "to reveal" or Revelation)? Armageddon (which also in Hebrew is Medgiddo, often referred to as "the crossroads?" This island is a crossroads, a battle between good and evil, where you have no idea who is what.
It looks like this weeks episode will be a reunion of sorts, of course in the Lost universe, that really means squat. I like the fact the plane seemed to crash land intact, if it landed. Was it placed that way by the island, like Jack and the others? And if Locke and company are still in the present, why would the island separate them over time?
What a tangled web they weave!
Not sure if I'm willing to accept that Christian and Jacob are one and the same. In fact, after Richard told Widmore that Jacob wanted to save Ben in such a flippant way, I'm not currently convinced there is a Jacob. It seems to be more of a code word. What it really means is anyone's guess. when Locke used Jacob's name to Richard in Jughead, it did startle Richard a bit, but it didn't convince him of anything substantial. Also keep in mind that we have yet to see Christian on the Island prior to the crash of Oceanic 815, although there's been ample opportunity to insinuate it. Christian doesn't seem to be an ex-Dharma and he's not been mentioned among the Others. He seems to be rather late to the game, and like most everyone else aside from Richard, Christian aged normally.
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