"I went to a place to eat. It said 'breakfast at any time.' So I ordered french toast during the Renaissance". --Steven Wright ... If you are a devotee of time travel, check out this song...

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Lost 5.11: Clockwork Perfect Time Travel

A brilliant, clockwork-perfect time-travel episode of Lost - 5.11 - tonight, along with a satisfying explanation, at last, of why Kate left Aaron back in Los Angeles.

First the time travel. The conversation between Hurley and Miles, early in the episode, covered the same ground I outlined in my review of 5.10 here last week. Young Ben's in critical condition. If he dies, that will change everything - Hurley, Jack, Kate, and none of our survivors from the first plane crash, now back on the island in 1977, would likely be there. Hurley is right, in this scenario, to look at his fingers and make sure he's not disappearing. But Miles (taking up the role of Faraday), correctly replies that since Miles and Hurley are in fact having this conversation in Dharma-ville in 1977, Ben had to have lived. Someway, somehow, he'll survive. Hurley then correctly asks Miles, so how come older Ben, having survived Sayid's gunshot, didn't recognize Sayid when they first ran into each in 2004 (or in when our Losties first ran into Ben).

Miles had no answer. I realized that Ben would have to recover with no memory of being shot - no memory of what led up to it - no memory of Sayid. Certainly patients who are seriously wounded as was Ben could have amnesia of events surrounding the inflicting of the injury.

Richard, who will bring Ben back to health, says Ben will have no memory of what had happened - he'll be changed forever. This not only provides a perfect resolution of Ben's being shot, but explains Ben's special connection to the island in the bargain. And Jack's not wanting to operate on Ben rings plausible and meaningful.

As was the case with the Desmond "constant" episode last year, this was about as perfect a time travel story as ever I've seen on television.

Meanwhile, we were given a fine, believable explanation of why Kate left Aaron - which has been a gaping question mark since she left him to go back to the island. The answer is that Kate realized she was taking care of Aaron as much for herself as for Aaron, who belonged with his grandmother. Put in the mix that Kate feels she has to go back to the island to find Claire, and it all starts to make sense. (It's still unclear, though, if Claire is alive - I was leaning towards no - but after tonight, I'm not really sure.)

Lost continues to fire on all cylinders in what is becoming my favorite season.











5-min podcast review of Lost 5.11




More Lost - see
: The Richard-Locke Compass Time Travel Loop ...

and Lost Returns in 5 Dimensions and 5.3: The Loops, The Bomb ... 5.4: A Saving Skip Back in Time ... 5.5 Two Time Loops and Mind Benders ... 5.6 A Lot of Questions ... 5.7 Bentham and Ben ... 5.8 True Love Ways ... 5.9 Two Times and a Baby ... 5.10: The Impossible Cannot Happen






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11 comments:

Ricardo Cárdenas said...

Very good episode overall, though I have some complaints.
The great things:
1.- Kate´s motives for returning to the island are brilliantly reasonable. And, more importantly, emotionally believable. Those seconds she´s looking for Aaron in the supermarket were terrible. And her face when she finds him: you can just read her mind; you just know that she´ll never be at peace with Aaron here, knowing that, probably, maybe, Claire is still around on the island.
2.- I really liked how Sawyer tells Kate: I did it for her (referring to Juliet). It´s incredibly relieving to see that Sawyer is standing up for juliet, and that he really loves her, despite the fact that there´s still a lot of sexual tension between him and Freckles.
3.- Hurley and Miles´s discussion on the rules of time travel and the logical impossibility of time-travel paradoxes: you know, at first I felt it kind of comicrelief-ish, but then, again, even if it was decidedly so, the conversations were kind of meta: it was as important for the characters as it was for us. And Hurley looking at his hand, waiting for it to start vanishing? Great back to the Future reference.

Now, as for the things i didn´t love that much... well, I won´t say i didn´t love them: I´ll give it to the writers that the amnesia and the "otherization" of Ben makes absolute perfect sense, in order to maintain the structure of the plot, and in order to answer Miles and Hurley´s question regarding Ben´s and Sayid´s future (or past?) first meeting. But, still... maybe it was a bit... rushed? or I´m not sure if rushed is the right word... I don´t know. Bottomline on the subject for me is: there were stronger elements on this episode, which at first would´ve seemed weaker, or at least I would´ve expected them to be weaker (Kate´s decision to return to the island, for example). Maybe what disappointed me, somehow, was the fact that, well, you know, Ben is finally becoming a part of the others, but I didn´t feel that moment as strong. Perhaps next episode will elaborate more on that?

Well. Lengthy post. Sorry. But, we´re all lost geeks here, so we love to speculate and discuss and propose theories and so on and so forth.

I´m gonna go with Paul in choosing season 5 as my favorite Lost season ever. Unless season 6 thinks otherwise...

Michael A. Burstein said...

Paul, you and I are just two guys who love a good time travel story.

I loved it when Hurley asked his question and Miles didn't have an answer. But it seems to me that maybe Ben did remember everything. It would explain why he knows all the Oceanic passengers' names, and why he harbors such hate toward them. As to why he didn't recognize Sayid, maybe he did, but knowing the rules of time travel he kept it all quiet.

TheLooper said...

It's still very plausible Ben does remember, and maybe that's why he tracked down Sayid to do his dirty work back in the real world? I think next weeks episode could shed some light further on the subject of Ben, but great storyline they had going for the last two episodes.

I loved it when Jack refused to help the younger Ben. You kinda saw that one coming, and fittingly so, he had already saved this wretched man's life once, why do it again. Perhaps that is what Jack thought he came back for was to let Ben die so none of this would ever happen? Think about it, with no Ben, maybe the plane never crashes at all, because with the fallout of Whidmore never happening, maybe Desmond never gets sent to the island in the first place, so he would not be there to accidentally bring the plane down. Oh what a web time travel could weave!

I'm very curious as to where Sayid went myself? I guess that will be answered in the next few episodes.

But this coming week looks like it will be intense as well. I loved Ben's reaction to seeing John alive again, of course with Ben you never know what his genuine reaction really is to be honest. He's very good at hiding how he really feels.

6 more episodes left before the final season of Lost! Best season so far, especially since they are currently in the year of my birth! And leave it to Hurley to have a Back to the Future reference, had to have it!

Paul Levinson said...

Kid Ent - good analysis of Sawyer's love for Libby - it was heartening.

Michael & Looper - well, we can certainly see ways in Ben's unconscious memory of being shot influenced his later behavior.

But, Michael, I think there will be another explanation of how Ben knew the names of the Oceanic passengers ... maybe Richard or 'Jacob' tells him...

Ricardo Cárdenas said...

Another great thing: Richard mentioning Ellie and Widmore. It was a great character moment; you can feel a growing contempt in Richard towards them. It´s gonna be brilliant to see the Others fall apart, to see the balance of power change.

Carrin Mahmood said...

This was another great one. Not only is it my favorite season, but each episode becomes my new favorite.

Paul, by Libby, do you mean Juliette, or did I miss something?

Did anyone see Frequency? The premise there was everyone had new memories of the past once it was changed because it was their new reality. With the exception of the guy and his dad who were manipulating events in the pas, they both old and new memories. (so if we don't think of time as a line but evolving and changeable, Ben could have Not recognizd Sayid in the first 2004, but would in his next 2004)

I thought Jack's reason for not healing Ben might lead to a greater..."Jack-ness." He echoed Locke, finally 'listening' to the island, letting the island be it's own character. Becoming a man of faith instead of a man of science.

Ben is so obviously bad now, I'm beginning to think he must be a good guy and we just don't know why. Maybe the Dharma-cide that's coming is to save Jack, Kate, Sawyer and the others. and the clips we have seen of that incident just make Ben and the Others/Hostiles seem bad, when really the Dharmanites turn out to be bad!

Does Horace creep anyone else out?
Just when we didn't have to listen to Faraday's tiresome voice, it's replaced by Horace's!

Paul Levinson said...

Thanks, White Bear - I meant Juliet :)

(Lost is complicated enough...)

Frequency is a great movie - an excellent example, as you say, of time travel causing realities and memories to change...

Nikolas said...

One small note: We know that Ben got all the names of the Losties through Ethan and Goodwin and the rest of his information through his links with the outside world.

Paul Levinson said...

Thanks, Nicholas - I thought it would be (or was) something like that. And now that you mention it, I do recall learning that on a episode a few years ago.

The Rush Blog said...

Meanwhile, we were given a fine, believable explanation of why Kate left Aaron - which has been a gaping question mark since she left him to go back to the island. The answer is that Kate realized she was taking care of Aaron as much for herself as for Aaron, who belonged with his grandmother. Put in the mix that Kate feels she has to go back to the island to find Claire, and it all starts to make sense. (It's still unclear, though, if Claire is alive - I was leaning towards no - but after tonight, I'm not really sure.)


Kate's reason for KIDNAPPING Aaron was made clear in the flashback on Penny's boat in "The Little Prince". She wanted to use Aaron to help her forget Sawyer. That was a pretty damn selfish and monstrous reason to keep a child away from his rightful family, if you ask me.

Why is it that fanboys such as yourself always use soft words to disguise the monstrous crime that Kate had committed - along with the rest of the Oceanic Six?


I thought Jack's reason for not healing Ben might lead to a greater..."Jack-ness." He echoed Locke, finally 'listening' to the island, letting the island be it's own character. Becoming a man of faith instead of a man of science.

I think that Jack was using the island as an excuse. I found his behavior self-righteous, petty and monstrous. In a way, he's like Sayid, Ben . . . and Locke. I have no tolerance for these self-righteous morons who committ awful deeds for "the greater good". It's like an excuse to indulge in your worst behavior, while pretending that you're pure and good.

Paul Levinson said...

First, calm down, take a deep breath. If characters on a television show, and reviews of the show, get you so worked up, that usually means what you're aggravated about has little to do with the show.

Second, although Kate's reasons for taking Aaron when she left the island may be clear to you, they don't correspond with what we saw and have been seeing on the screen. Kate delivered Aaron. That created a powerful bond between them. Sawyer may have been a factor, too, but Kate's relationship to Aaron was more primary.

Third, you offer an opinion of Jack with no content from show to back it up. I don't think any of the characters are perfect. But the intensity of your condemnation is not warranted. See "First," above.

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