5 X 12: Dead is Dead
Oh Ben, what have you done? He broke the rules by coming back (according to Widmore) and he used the guise that he was coming back to be judged. So Locke gave him the little *push* he needed to go to Old Smokey for the judgment but I think Ben ended up worse than he started. Was he judged, yes he was. But what he ended up with was instructions by the one person he loves the most telling him to do what he dreads the most – following Locke. Can I get a “HA HA!” Be careful what you wish for people because you may get more than you bargain for, just ask Ben.
1. I don’t know how long Ben will follow Alex’s instructions and Smokey, or whatever entity appeared to him, may have known this. Setting Ben up to fail?
2. I love how Ben “Dr Phil’d” Frank by asking him how the plan of having a boat of commandos come to the island worked out for him. Dr Phil always asks people who are making bad life choices how it’s working out for them. But Frank does make a good point to Sun.
3. I’m not loving the Mediveal Widmore look.
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4. When Widmore questions Richard on why he saved Young Ben Richard says two items of interest. First he says that Jacob wanted it done followed by “The Island chooses who the island chooses.” I took this to mean that Jacob IS the island and therefore if Jacob chooses Ben to live then The Island chooses Ben to live. What this means… Jacob somehow is a manifestation of the energy of the island? The second item of note is that when Richard tells Widmore that Jacob wanted Ben saved Widmore doesn’t question this. I assume that this means Widmore cannot talk to Jacob. I don’t think everyone can talk to Jacob, only a few chosen few. I still question whether Ben could really talk to Jacob and that is why he was so shocked that Locke could hear Jacob. Only a special few can hear what Jacob says.
5. Are we really sure Locke was ever dead and didn’t just appear dead? I know, I know… the episode is titled “Dead Is Dead.” Which is true, but if he wasn’t DEAD then he is alive now. In other words you have to be DEAD to be DEAD. So if John was always alive then it explains how he’s back up and walking around the island. To back me up, I believe and have read that when you have lost everything then those are the most brave and free people in the world because you are already at the bottom. If Locke believes that he really was dead then there is nothing else that he can lose at this point thus freeing him to be this new and improved Locke we see on the island. It’s a more believable explanation then that he has somehow been resurrected. I guess only time will tell.
6. I can’t wait to see what’s in the big silver crate. Kind of reminds me of Season One when Kate was so desperate to find the silver suitcase that the Marshall had been carrying. I’m still thinking there is some type of honing device that is going to help Widmore locate the island. Ilana has some boys helping her too which makes me think she had some people on this plane with her even though they weren’t sitting up front with her. It reminds me that Sayid had them taking the transceiver to the highest point they could in order to send a signal out to anyone trying to locate and save them. If this equipment is going to send out signals they may have to move it for a similar reason.
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7. I would have loved for the writers to have had Ben introduce himself as “Henry Gale” to Ceaser.
8. The question is, why did Danielle tell Sayid that she never saw who took her baby but that she does hear them? Watching the epi back, it looks like (per the screencap below) this is all she really sees of Ben in her tent. I can’t see that she really ever gets a good look at him. This would also explain why when she had Ben trapped in her net that she didn’t realize it was the same man from that fateful night.
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9. The island must have wanted Alex and Danielle dead, for whatever reason. First Robert tries to kill pregnant Danielle, then Widmore sends Ben to do the job but ultimately it’s Keemey’s group that finishes the job. Maybe in the grander scheme of the chain of events Danielle and Alex don’t fit in and have somehow interfered so in order to course correct they must both die. Really, Alex does later help the Losties live and escape so maybe she somehow changed the course of what was going to happen.
10. The shoes!
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11. I know there is some chatter about those in the past changing the future. I’m starting to think that there might be something to it. When Ben first gets off the boat with John (after leaving the second island) he does have somewhat of a confused look on his face, almost as if he can already see that things have been changed. Is it just me here thinking this?
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12. They’ve been off the island for three years. I would assume by the state of Otherville, the Others that did leave for the Temple didn’t go back there. But, the interior of Ben’s house is in such disarray it seems to point to the fact that more happened there after they left three years ago. Why would the houses be such a mess (like books all over the floor)? Unless the past was changed which made the future different which means we haven’t seen yet why the houses are in such disrepair.
13. Ben does tells Locke earlier in the epi that all 6 (5 really) are back but he doesn’t know yet where they are. So I believe it when Ben looks at the picture and seems surprised to see Kate and the others in the picture.
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14. I still want to know what Locke had to go do while Ben was down summoning Smokey.
15. It’s still bizarre to me that Ben keeps Smokey contained by a water trap. Is Smokey like the Wicked Witch and can be killed by a little water? And how do they get Smokey back? Does Ben have to go back to the cave and plug the hole back up or is it somehow self containing and the water fills back up and slowly draws Smokey back in? Are there other places on the island that can also control the Monster? Mysteries everywhere.
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16. You know I love this show but seriously, they needed to do something better with Ben’s hair. I’m sure there was somewhere in the budget that they could have made a better wig for him. And Mandak you are right, he does look a little bit like Hitler.
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17. Locke assures Sun that he’s the same man he’s always been…. because he was never dead!?
18. Maybe it’s not such a mystery how Locke knows where to go and how Locke knows where Smokey is. Remember that Locke spent a lot of the first few seasons wandering around in the jungle. The island can’t be so big that he couldn’t have found his way around quite a bit. And, Locke is an explorer, an adventurer, a tracker, so he knows a lot about keeping track of things in this kind of environment.
19. Ben wants Sun to apologize to Desmond but for what? Sure, trying to kill Penny was bad, but bad enough that Ben sends back an apology? Yes, we saw Des beat the living daylights out of him but it doesn’t explain why his arm was in a sling and it surely doesn’t give Desmond a reason to come back to the island (which I think he will). I think that there is more that Ben does that we haven’t seen yet.
20. Seems like Ben and Sawyer have something in common. Sawyer was ready to walk away with the couple’s money until the little boy walked out and saw him. Then Sawyer leaves the money and walks away. Ben is ready to shoot Penny then little Charlie comes walking out and he lowers his gun. Would he have shot her anyway if Des had not come and stopped him?
21. What lies in the shadow of the statue? I’ll tell you what lies there… the well. And what is in the well? The donkey wheel! I still think that this is a riddle that Ilana has been instructed to use to make contact with … whoever she is supposed to make contact with. But, I also think it’s a real question and if she finds the Orchid Station and the wheel there could be terrible consequences.
22.This hieroglyph has already been discussed to death (no pun intended) in other places but feel free to add your comments or further discussion. I think it speaks for itself with the image.
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23. I’ve said it before, but the smoke scene with Ben is a) cheesy and b) way too similar to the scene where Dorothy is whirling around in the tornado. Either there were too many budget restraints and this is the best they could do or they did it on purpose. I really don’t want to believe that somewhere in a production room they were sitting there saying how great this scene looked. I choose to believe it was done on purpose.
24. I think that the difference between when Eko meets Yemi and Ben meets Alex is that Ben repented and Eko did not. The question is now, will Ben stick to his word or will his urge to control and run the island get the better of him?
25. I’m so excited that Miles gets to do his thing next week. Also, check out the upcoming episodes as it looks like the Season Finale is going to be fantastic!
26. I was also wondering if Ilana and the contents of the mystery box will somehow assist in bringing the 1977 Losties back to current time.
April 10th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
didnt someone say that “they found a bunch of guns”. i’m assuming the guns are for the war that charles widemore said was coming…and how would he know a war was coming unless he’s the one that instigated it??
April 10th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
“they” being ilana & co.
April 10th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
I think your reasoning that Locke is just not dead, but still lying in a coffin for days, maybe weeks, because he’s depressed…well, its LUDICROUS.
I’m not trying to be overly mean, but try hanging from your neck in a prone position and stay alive. After about 3 seconds, you’ll find that you can’t breathe at all. Locke, we assume, was hanging by his neck for HOURS, until someone smelled his corpse and broke the door down.
Beyond all of that, try laying in a coffin for a week or so. No food, no water, no air, no nothin’. Try laying in a closed coffin in the cargo of a freakin’ airplane. Try even sitting in the cargo of an airplane. Mighty cold down there, I bet!
The man was DEAD. Dee Eee Dee: DED.
April 11th, 2009 at 2:16 am
captain trips: I have to agree with you. Locke was dead. Not only what you pointed out, but they kept his body in a freezer for weeks before they brought him on the plane. They took him from a funeral home, so all of his blood must have been pumped out and replaced with embalming fluids.
On anohther note, look at the picture where you see Anubis chatting with that zigzaggy snake thing (probably smokey). Behind Anubis’ head, you see an upside down Ankh.
April 11th, 2009 at 10:01 am
So am I the only one to think that the man who was cast as the middle aged Widmore is amazing? He is either the most brilliant actor or a brilliant impressionist. Compare for yourselves old Charles to young Charles.
love you GG!
April 11th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Captain Trips; so outside of coming to my site to make disparaging remarks do you have any value add or just want to be hateful? If you read through the other comments from visitors, they are insightful and move the thought process forward. Yours are just hateful rants. So, please add *your* thoughts so that I and others at this site may comment on your ideas.
Also, you think it’s *ludicrous* that Locke could be lying in a coffin for days in some type of catatonic state yet you say nothing about a mysterious smoke monster or the fact that Richard hasn’t aged one day for decades. Or how about the fact that Locke was Dee Eee Dee: DED (to quote you) and now he’s up and walking around. *That* you find believable? Really?
April 11th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
GG is correct. For this show, you have to suspend any normal or rational thoughts. The show seems to encompass the spirital, religious and scientific. The island itself is supposed to move constantly through space and time according to what Mrs. Hawkin said. Desmond’s thought that they were in a snowglobe is pretty much on track with what I think the island is and added to some of the drawings we saw out of Dan’s notebook, it has to be some kind of gravatational singularity, like a bubble where space is folded around the island.
I think Ben’s experience on the island has always been with ghosts. Those who die and come back in spirit form. Locke seems to be something new to him, someone who died and came back with their body. He doesn’t know about Christian, but I’m also not 100% sure Christian is the same as Locke. Remember when Ben was Locked up by Locke and Juliet and Jack were wondering how Locke could still communicate with the Others – when Harper showed up to give that message to Juliet about Dan and Charlotte? I think the ghosts were delivering messages to Ben and back to the Others.
Speaking of Harper, the way she appeared and disappeared right in front of Jack and Juliet with a chorus of whispers suggests that she may be a ghost. It could explain why Goodwin was sleeping on the couch for a year. Maybe she died and it wasn’t because they had a fight. Who knows with this show, trying to figure things out is 75% of the fun.
April 11th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Brian Palmer: I do agree. I had a hard time trying to figure out if it was the old Widmore made up to look younger or a different actor. He had many of the same lines in his face and his voice was so close to the old Widmore. His eyes were the only give-away.
Ben’s Doo though. Did they get that rug at the same place Shatner shops at?
April 11th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
By the way, there are some things I hope they have time to throw in now that they’re showing young Ethan. If you remeber way way back in season one, where Jack kicks his dad out of surgery because he thinks he’s drunk working on a woman who ends up dying. Then Jack sees Christian talking to some guy down the hall and someone tells Jack it’s the woman’s husband. You just get a glimpse of the guy, but the guy looks like Ethan. It’s be cool to find out if that was Ethan and if so what was going on and why he and his wife were there in the real world. If you remember, the woman was pregnant. Maybe they left the island for a while to have a baby since they can’t have them on the island.
April 11th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
where is Faraday?? I know Sawyer says he left a while ago, but I want to know where he went . . .
April 11th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
I really liked how they framed the Danielle/Alex and Penny/Charlie scenes in this episode. By the by, one hell of an episode!
I think the apology to Desmond was for shooting at him and endangering his family. I don’t think he ended up killing Penny or anything else to them. Or at least I hope not. If he had killed Penny, I would have been livid.
I also can’t help but feel like his resolve to kill Penny was softened when he saw Charlie, because perhaps he didn’t want to leave a boy without a mother (as he was).
Also…I just can’t shake the idea that little Charlie could grow up to be the Charlie we know and love (and miss). It all seems too easy, but it would just add such a layer to the existing things we’ve seen between Desmond and Charlie. Think of how differently everything in “Through The Looking Glass” would play if our Charlie turned out to be Des and Penny’s son. That’s epic.
April 12th, 2009 at 8:08 am
was watching a few of the episodes in this season earlier, and Faraday was in the episode where that hanso guy comes down into the cave and tells them about the energy behind the wall, so maybe insted of faraday going into the 70’s he has ended up in the 50’s like the episode showed him, or has he time travelled before????
That would be so cool if the little charlie was our charlie, but penny could of just named it after he dad (charles) don’t know just a thought
great site gitsie…keep it up
April 12th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
I like the thought of “little Charlie” growing up to be “our Charlie” but, didn’t we meet Charlie’s parents in a past episode? I think his dad was a butcher and his mom… well I can’t remember but, I think she was the reason he go into music. ????
April 12th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Jenny: Yes, we did see Charlie’s parents I think in season 1. His mom gave him a piano for Christmas, then his brother sells it. So if little Charlie is actually Charlie Pace, it’d mean Penny and Desmond would have to lose him, but also lose him back in time in the past and he’d have to be addopted by the family we saw him with. Stranger things have happened and I have no doubt the writers named little Charlie that to throw us into torment…that torment we all love so much…lol.
April 13th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Hey, stranger things have happened.
April 13th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Oh, by the way, how much did you love that Ben called Penny “our mutual friend”?! That got me! Great writing!
April 13th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Alex G: Great catch. I missed that. Goes along with the Dicken’s book Desmond had with Penny’s note in it. Way cool!!!
April 13th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
GG- I totally wished for #7 too. I sat there just waiting for him to say Henry Gale. I was a little disappointed when he didn’t.
I think that the only way for little Charlie to be big Charlie would be that Ben does succeed in killing Penny and Desmond goes back to the island. Maybe the parents we saw were people that Desmond gave him too. The visions that Desmond had of Charlie dying could have been triggered by the fact that he was subconsciencly realizing that he was his son and that he was just trying to save him.
Little Charlie is named after Big Charlie not Widmore.
April 13th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
You know, we have never seen an episode with Charles Widmore and Penny in it together, I mean talking with each other or doing something together with each other, have we? We’ve also never seen Penny’s mother, though we now know she wasn’t a member of the Others and that’s what Widmore got booted off the island for.
April 13th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Also, it would seem to me that the Losties plus Juliet and the rest have to move in time again before Ben returns to the DI if he’s not going to remember any of them when he meets them again in 2004. Hopefully they move on before something goes down between Kate and Roger…lol….ick and ew!
April 15th, 2009 at 2:52 am
’so outside of coming to my site to make disparaging remarks do you have any value add or just want to be hateful? If you read through the other comments from visitors, they are insightful and move the thought process forward. Yours are just hateful rants. So, please add *your* thoughts so that I and others at this site may comment on your ideas.’
I’m sorry you think my remarks were hateful or disparaging. I’m not trying to be hateful, which is why I specifically said that I wasn’t trying to be mean. In reality, I’m trying to help you make more sense.
“Are we really sure Locke was ever dead and didn’t just appear dead? I know, I know… the episode is titled “Dead Is Dead.” Which is true, but if he wasn’t DEAD then he is alive now. In other words you have to be DEAD to be DEAD. So if John was always alive then it explains how he’s back up and walking around the island.”
“If Locke believes that he really was dead then there is nothing else that he can lose at this point thus freeing him to be this new and improved Locke we see on the island. It’s a more believable explanation then that he has somehow been resurrected. I guess only time will tell.”
Now, you can say “If you read through the other comments from visitors, they are insightful and move the thought process forward.” You can say that. But are you really accepting of moving the thought process forward?
My only point was that its ludicrous to suggest that Locke wasn’t dead after all of the following events: hanging from a rope by his neck for an indeterminate amount of time, being kept in a coffin for weeks at a time, being kept in a freezer, and finally, going without food, air, or water.
Locke was dead. Its pretty silly to ignore all of the above and say, “Are we really sure Locke was ever dead and didn’t just appear dead?” In your response to my comment you say “Also, you think it’s *ludicrous* that Locke could be lying in a coffin for days in some type of catatonic state”. No, if I hadn’t seen the scene where Ben chokes Locke to death, I could have believed that Locke was in a catatonic state by way of the Medusa Spider venom, which befell Nikki and Paulo. That I could believe.
What I am incapable of believing is that Locke fell into a catatonic state because “when you have lost everything then those are the most brave and free people in the world because you are already at the bottom. ” You do not suggest anywhere in your post any plausible means for Locke to have gone into a catatonic state and fake his death. Slowing down his heart rate and metabolic functions using Medusa venom could have possibly countered the effects of no food and not much if any air. This is assuming that we never saw Ben choke Locke to death and leave him hanging by his neck for an indeterminate amount of time. Which we did.
Finally, appealing to the argument that “you say nothing about a mysterious smoke monster or the fact that Richard hasn’t aged one day for decades.” isn’t really fair. Lost has so far operated on the rules that are similar to real world rules. While still a fantasy show, Lost has always been realistic in that it attempts to have a scientific (or pseudo scientific, from where you’re standing) explanation for mystical/sci-fi happenings.
Marvin Candle said in the Orchid Orientation video, “Casimir effect, allowing the DHARMA initiative to conduct unique experiments in both space and time. This is the vault, constructed adjacent to a pocket of what we believe to be negatively charged “exotic matter”. Now, did the writers just make all of this up? Chalk it up to magic? Yes and no.
“Exotic matter with negative energy density is required to stabilize a wormhole.[15] Morris, Thorne and Yurtsever[16] pointed out that the quantum mechanics of the Casimir effect can be used to produce a locally mass-negative region of space-time, and suggested that negative effect could be used to stabilize a wormhole to allow faster than light travel. This concept has been used extensively in Science Fiction.” See the wikipedia page on the Casimir effect.
My point is that the Lost writers have tried to create science fiction that operates on (pseudo) scientific rules. Damon Lindelof said, “One of the things that Michael Crichton does – in movies like Jurassic Park or Westworld or The Andromeda Strain—he takes basically science fiction concepts and brings them into the real world. Which was what we always wanted to do on Lost.” So, ultimately, I believe that the smoke monster and Richard’s extended life span will both have pseudo scientific explanations.
What I do not believe is that they will have completely non-scientific explanations, i.e. Locke simply thought he was dead, after obviously hanging in a way that is impossible to survive, being inside of a coffin for presumably weeks, and not eating or drinking water for the same amount of time.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:24 am
Here’s a thought. What if Richard is actually an android from the far future that was sent back in time. He could have been a part of some research mission that failed or something. He’d probably be programed like Asimov’s “I, Robot,” to serve mankind which could be why Richard never accepts a permanent leadership role. It would explain why he’s always been on the island and why he never ages. Instead of being electronic, he’d most likely be chemical/organic which would explain things like hair growth. Scientists are currently working on chemical computers. Speaking of his hair growth, as a chemical/organic device, an intake of food may be what suppies his power/fuel, or he’d be solar powered and his hair could be the receptors for collecting power. Their growth would actually be a part of replacement for burned out receptors. Maybe the smoke monster too was a part of the science team. They ended up on the island with a primitive Egyptian society who worked them into their theology and have been there since. It’s possible that they’d have some sort of advanced adaptive programming that would allow them to fit into any situation. Well, just a thought. I’d love to hear comments.
April 20th, 2009 at 6:18 am
#15… totally not in love with the “water trap” or whatever it was to summon the monster. Maybe Ben drips water on it to annoy it and force it to come out in the open? Unsure if this will ever be answered further or if it’s just something we’re supposed to accept and move on from. Oh well, not as bad as forgotten about tidbits like Kate breaking into a bank and safety deposit box to… get a toy airplane? Sigh.
GaryG: Did you just reference Skynet?! If Richard goes all liquid-metal-like, I’m gonna crack up!
hehe