Anyway, there are some cool bits in there, including the fact that you can find Radzinksy’s journal. While it’s not clear how much the producers contributed to the background material and how much is fanwank, I’ll be sharing some info from Lost: Via Domus in the near future.
LOST Revisited: Pre-Game for “Dead is Dead”
As for last week, there was some discussion over whether Richard “Batmanuel” Alpert’s claim that Benry “won’t remember any of this” was an indication that the writers are trying to clean up some mistakes. You know, come up with a convenient explanation as to why Benry didn’t know Sayid when they first met in Season Two. But in my mind, those scenes still work if you watch them assuming that Benry knows who this guy is. Last week’s episode didn’t create any continuity glitches that require elaborate steps to fix. In my mind at least, there must be some other in-story reason for young Benry to forget those events. And that, of course, is assuming that Richard “Batmanuel” Alpert is correct and is telling the truth. Those are big assumptions to make on this show. And if that is the case, maybe the memory wipe is just a way to get us to a big reveal down the road. Basically, there’s not a storytelling reason for Benry to lose his memory right now, so I think that the reason is still forthcoming. Because I have faith, not unlike one Mr. John Locke.
Julie, spunkybuddy extraordinaire, has questions about Horace, since everything points to him being a major player. It’s worth noting that he narrated the recap episode at the beginning of the season. Previous recap episodes have been narrated by Benry and (I believe) Locke, so this is usually something they save for the big guns. I’ve brought up some of his importance to the story already, but we don’t know what’s special about him yet. Why does Jacob live in the cabin that Horace built? Why did Benry take the time to close Horace’s eyes after the Purge? Why is his ghost caught in a time loop? And just what happened to his first wife, Olivia?
See, it certainly seems like Horace was unstuck in time when he died, considering that his ghost has a bloody nose, and seems trapped in a loop. He died in the Purge, of course, but he could have been like Desmond, occasionally regressing to his earlier life. (And does this mean that Charlotte’s ghost is caught in a loop, too?) If that’s the case, Horace’s condition could have been caused by the same thing that caused Desmond’s. We don’t have real evidence that Desmond started rewriting his past until after he arrived at the Island, possibly not until the Hatch exploded. Was there another accident that screwed up Horace’s timeline? We need more Horace to start putting these pieces together.
Julie also notes that Horace’s son, Ethan, has a different last name than his dad. I originally thought that maybe the Dharma-ites gave up their family names when joining the Others, but Benry kept his. So here’s my new thought – Ethan really only used the last name “Rom” when he was hiding amongst the Lostaways. It’s possible that he used a different last name since he didn’t know who these people were. He didn’t know if they knew about Dharma or the history of the Island. If they knew Dharma, the last name “Goodspeed” would have meant something to them and blown Ethan’s cover. Also, “Ethan Rom” is an anagram for “Other Man”. I’m starting to think a lot of the anagrams and weird coincidences have just been Benry’s sense of humor. He’s almost like the Riddler, where he incorporates little clues that nobody will pick up on just to prove that he’s smarter than everybody else.
And we’ve got one last observation from Julie. Kate and Juliet pretty openly discussed Sawyer’s secret child in front of young Benry. Sure, he was in and out of consciousness, but that might have been foreshadowing. The Lostaways could be living with the Dharma Initiative for a very long time, and they really should be careful about what they say. Especially in front of somebody who will, in the future, be messing with their lives. Does Benry seem like the kind of guy who’d remember a conversation he overheard three decades ago? Especially if somebody inadvertently revealed a weakness or something that might give a master manipulator any kind of leverage? Yeah, Benry’s exactly the kind of guy who’d remember that. He might know all about the Lostaways just because he spent his youth paying attention. Be careful what you say in front of the younger version of your archenemy. That stuff will come back to haunt you!
The question of missing people vexes spunkybuddy Jennifer, who wonders why none of the Lostaways have mentioned Baby Aaron. Jack tried asking Kate, and she demanded that he never ask again. I can actually buy Jack abiding by that. On some level, he always wants to win Kate over, so he’s going to do what she says. And those who remained on the Island don’t necessarily even know that Kate took care of Aaron anyway. They probably assumed that Claire’s family was raising him anyway. And on the plane, Sayid was pretty much unresponsive. Sun wouldn’t have mentioned Aaron because she had her own baby dominating her thoughts. And you know if Hurley had, clumsily, asked about Aaron, Kate wouldn’t have even acknowledged him. Though I would have liked to have seen that. “Hey, you know Aaron? Baby Aaron? So, uh, what happened to him anyway?”
It’s more puzzling that the people on the Island aren’t more actively concerned about Sun. Of course, they do have a lot of balls in the air right now. Sawyer’s putting out fires all over the place, and doesn’t have time to worry about somebody who might show up unexpected. Still, I feel like Jin would still be freaked out. It’s always possible that several weeks down the line we’ll see a flashback as to what Jin was up to during the whole Sayid/Benry fiasco, but I would love to see Hurley and Miles just have a long discussion about it. They’re sort of the voices of the fans now, which is pretty great. I think that’s how loose ends on the show should be tied up – Hurley and Miles arguing.
Jennifer also wonders if Miles currently co-exists with himself on the Island. Earlier this season, Myndi came up with the idea that Miles was the baby in Dr. Marvin Candle’s house. And then, Charlotte alluded to the possibility that Miles had a history on the Island. (Remember, he got sick before any of the Lostaways.) While Dr. Marvin Candle’s scene didn’t give us a date, Faraday appeared in it. So yes, it’s quite possible that there are two versions of Miles on the Island right now. And so far, we haven’t seen anybody meet their own past selves yet, though Locke got close. If this is all true, can you imagine how that’s going to blow Hurley’s mind?
Finally, everybody I’ve talked to over the last several weeks is on board with how awesome Sawyer is. Jennifer points out the role reversal with Jack and Sawyer, where Sawyer is the respected leader of the community, and Jack is just making things harder for him. And granted, Jack is making things harder by being a temporal paradox rather than by hiding Shannon’s inhaler, but he’s now the guy who’s causing a lot of headaches for the boss. By the way, remember how nasty Sawyer used to be? It used to be a real triumph anytime he’d consent to putting forth some effort for the good of the group. The Island was the best thing that ever happened to him. He’s come a long way from being the guy who managed to screw up the mercy killing of the Federal Marshall.
Does anybody think that Jack is really jealous of Sawyer now? Sawyer’s happy, he makes Juliet happy, and he’s the kind of leader Jack wishes he could have been. Jack spend most of his time dealing with dissent – he never once commanded the kind of respect that Dharma has for Sawyer. And now he’s starting to deal with the fact that Kate’s feelings for him have never been real. Since early on, she’s only been drawn to Jack when he got close to Juliet or when she wanted to teach Sawyer a lesson. Jack, more than any of the other characters, is struggling to find who it is that he’s supposed to be. He had an image of himself that he could cling to, only to find out that Sawyer’s the one who managed to achieve that reality. Poor Jack just can’t get a handle on who he is, and until he does, he’s trapped.
All right, everybody ready for Benry to be judged? I’ll meet you back here so we can talk excitedly about it!
