That makes sense, since Widmore knows exactly where people turn up when they do so. I’ll give him that one. But if Benry manipulated Widmore into turning the wheel, that leaves us with the question of when and where Penny was born. If we assume that the characters on Lost are more or less the same age as the actors and actresses who play them, Penny was born in the late 70’s.
LOST Revisited: Pre-Game for “Namaste” (Mar 18)
Most likely, Penny was not born on the Island. Even then, a surviving baby was remarkable, but even more importantly, how could she have left the Island? Does anybody really think Widmore went down to spin the wheel while wearing a papoose? It seems much more likely that Widmore left the Island before she was born. So that means Widmore left the island in the mid-70’s or earlier. Only problem is, Benry was a small child living with the Dharma Initiative then. So Widmore got manipulated by a little kid? You know what? That doesn’t seem likely. Yeah, there’s no way Benry was responsible for Widmore leaving. (Sure, there’s a chance that Penny is adopted, but I feel like that would have come up by now) And remember, Lost has a history of unreliable narrators. Yes, we can prove with math that Widmore probably didn’t move the Island when he claimed he did. But we don’t even have a reason to believe that he was ever the leader of the Others, since nothing we’ve actually seen backs that up. Charles Widmore is a liar who lies!
Let’s also keep in mind that having the Lostaways on the Island in the 70’s means that they are in the Dharma Initiative at the same time as young Benry. Benry came to the Island when Horace was still with Olivia, so the 1977 episodes have to take place after his arrival. And so once again, we’re faced with my belief that Benry learned about the Lostaways from the Lostaways. It doesn’t seem like Sawyer, Juliet, or Jin would really befriend the young scamp, but I can certainly see Daniel trying to fix things this way. But, of course, he’s just ensuring that things will happen the way that they happened. I’m really eager to see the Oceanic Six run into young Benry – most of them are more than a little bit angry at the adult version.
By the way, two weeks ago, I was very worried about Rose, Bernard, and Vincent. After all, they got separated from the group and haven’t been seen since. Still, it’s possible that they turned up in the last three years, and we just didn’t see them in the episode. I guess I don’t need to panic yet, but I’m remaining at “background worry” levels.
Both Don and spunkybuddy Evonne suggested that the current time-displacement of our cast may account for some of the strange things we saw in the present. I particularly like Don’s suggestion that the corpses in the cave from Season One could be any of the Lostaway couples. They could be Sun and Jin, for example. The mysterious bag of stones is still confusing, but that certainly wouldn’t be the weirdest thing we’ve seen. That’s kind of alarming, really.
Think of some of the other weird things. The one that’s vexed me for so long is the way the missing section of the Swan’s orientation film was hidden inside a Bible at the Arrow facility. I couldn’t crack why somebody would do that or how they’d have the means. But if it’s one of the Lostaways who knew the significance of the missing footage and Locke’s reaction when he did see it, it makes perfect sense. And this is why it’s perfect that Hurley and Jin are in the past. Hurley is a good listener, and people tend to confide in him. He doesn’t always understand everything they’re going on about, but he remembers what they say. As for Jin, even when he was getting a better grasp of English, people didn’t really watch what they said around him. He would probably know some secrets.
Of course, the question would be why they’d go to such pains to make sure that things happen the way they happened. We have big gaps in our knowledge of Island history. Anything between 1977 and the Purge (1992) has never been addressed, and then the stretch between the Purge and Juliet’s recruitment is similarly vague. Maybe Sawyer and Co. are going to play a major role in one of the many great conflicts that we’ve heard about. And given the properties of the Island, the war that’s been referenced may not be something that’s coming. It might be something that’s happened, and they’re just trying to make sure that people get back to those events to make them turn out the way that they’re supposed to.
Don also had a great idea, that we’re seeing the events that will cause the crash of Oceanic Flight 815. Could the whole series be a stable time loop? Essentially, it’s a loop in time that exists only to perpetuate itself. (Like Fry’s tattoo in the Futurama movie, Bender’s Big Score. Fry has a tattoo on his butt because Bender takes it off the future version of Fry after he dies and applies it to Fry in the past. Thus, he has that tattoo when he dies in the future, so Bender can peel it off and apply it in the past.) There has always been one giant problem with the idea that somebody conspired to bring these exact people to this Island – Flight 815 went down because Desmond had a crisis of faith and didn’t push the button in the Hatch. That doesn’t seem like something you can plan. Unless you had an intimate knowledge of what actually happened and you reverse-engineered the specifics. Again, I have to think the Lostaways are making sure that Flight 815 crashes. Heck, one of them might be working on those orientation films, which might explain some of the lies. Locke needs to think that pushing the button doesn’t matter, so there’s a video that tells him it doesn’t matter. (Why Dr. Marvin Candle keeps changing his name is a mystery for the ages, although it’s another example of a Lost character lying about their name for no good reason.) Is it possible that the series could end with the 815 crash?
And if it is a time loop, there’s a glitch in the most recent repetition when Alex dies. That was the first thing to shock Benry, and he’s adamant that Widmore “broke the rules”. Maybe this is why Benry is scrambling now – suddenly he doesn’t have the upper hand. If things aren’t happening the way they’ve always happened, he doesn’t have any way of knowing what’s next.
Evonne also suggests that Juliet might be part of the reason why women can’t give birth on the Island. We know Charlotte was born there, and Amy and her baby survived, but after that, anybody impregnated on the Island couldn’t survive childbirth. It’s pretty clear that this was already a problem when Amy went into labor, since they mentioned that pregnant women are taken away from the Island before their due dates. Is it possible that Juliet did something in the years between Charlotte’s birth and 1977? I can’t imagine how she could have caused it, but considering there’s a giant wheel that causes time travel, it’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility.
And here’s a question. How does Widmore know about the Purge? He presumably knows that Benry poisoned the Dharma Initiative, because Charlotte and Daniel knew about it – they most likely found out from him (or secondhand from Abaddon). But it seems like the Dharma Initiative didn’t even know – they’re still making food drops on the Island as of 2004. They probably wouldn’t do that for the guys who killed all of their employees. And just why is White Oracle using a Dharma facility if she was (presumably) an Other? All we know is that Dharma still exists, but maybe the Purge was all part of their experiment. Maybe every single person they put on the Island was cannon fodder. Something creepy is going on here.
A couple of other interesting observations came up. First, spunkybuddy Larry Young pointed out that Charlie’s dad was a butcher named Simon. Benry hid Locke’s body in a butcher shop named “Simon’s”. That? Is awesome. Whether Charlie’s dad managed to franchise, or it’s just another one of the crazy Lostaway coincidences, or if Benry’s just got a weird sense of humor, you have to admit that’s a really great catch.
Kelli brought up a good point. I assumed that when we saw Benry at a marina, he had gone to Desmond’s boat with murder on his mind. However, it would have taken months for Desmond to sail from England (where he met with Widmore) to Los Angeles. And while his scenes didn’t give us an indication of how much time had passed, it seems like somebody who wanted to run this errand and get it over with might have hopped on a plane rather than embarking on a long voyage after which he’d have to turn right back around. Point is, Desmond and his family wouldn’t necessarily have to be living on a boat in LA. Just as likely, if not more so, that they’re in a hotel room watching cable and eating giant Toblerones from the minibar.
So for now, I’m just assuming that Penny, Baby Charlie, Rose, Bernard, and Vincent are all perfectly fine. Claire too, come to think of it. She should have been jumping through time with the other Lostaways, after all. I tend to think that Jacob/Christian protected her, but I don’t really have anything to base that on.
Who’s excited to see what happens when Kate realizes that somebody managed to get over her? I know I am!
