LOST: The Shape of Things To Come
WOW! Last night’s show lived up to its title!!
It was Ben-centric. So much happened, making those flash-forwards we’ve seen make a little more sense. Is Ben REALLY a good guy? I’m still on the fence. I’ll explain why after the jump.
I’m going to start with what happened at the Ben/Locke camp. I was a little confused when Hurley told Sawyer, “We’re all gonna die.” Then I saw they were playing Risk with Locke (don’t they have enough real risk that they don’t need a board game?). We see Alex being forced to turn off the fence. Apparently, she entered some code, because the phone rings in Ben’s house and it’s a recording saying “14J” over and over again. Locke and Sawyer go to Ben to find out what that means, and he tells them, “They’re here.”
DumDumDum (that’s dramatic music)! This begins the showdown, and Ben tells Locke it’s important he (Locke) survives and tells him to stay with him. He also says they need to see Jacob, that Hurley knows where the cabin is. After some drama with Sawyer fetching Claire, struggling against Ben’s wishes to get into the house with her, the doorbell rings. It’s Miles, with a radio, telling Ben they want to talk. Ben resists until Miles tells him they have Alex. He’s told to look out the window, where a soldier, who Ben knows all about (weird), points a gun to her head and tells Ben to come out of the house. Ben says he knows they’ll kill everyone, so he refuses. Then, after Alex pleads with him, he says she’s not his daughter, that he stole her (you know that part). The soldier shoots her. 
Ben says they changed the rules, then runs into some sort of safe area. What happens here is a mystery. Did he only unleash the smoke monster? Or did he travel in time there? This is the door he ran through.
Here’s what happened in the future: Ben wakes up in the Sahara Desert, wearing a Dharma parka with what looks like a broken arm (I’ve watched enough medical shows to know that). He speaks Arabic to two armed men, uses one of those collapsible batons like police carry on one of the guys, then shoots the guys. Then, Ben’s in Tunisia, checking into a hotel under the name Dean Moriarti. He sees Sayid on the TV saying, “I just want to bury my wife in peace.” Next stop, Tikrit. Ben starts taking pictures of some bald guy (we later learn is Ishmael) when Sayid spies him. He confronts Ben, who says he was there to find the guy who killed Sayid’s wife. Now, I was excited for a second, because it meant after all he’d been through, Sayid finally got to be with Nadia. Sad that she died. Ben shows Sayid a photo of the Ishmael guy, an apparent Widmire assassin. Sayid eventually kills the guy and tells Ben he has no life. Ben tells Sayid, “It’s my world, not yours.” Sayid’s response, “Benjamin, who is next?” Ben walks away smiling. (THAT’S how Ben gets Sayid to become HIS assassin???) At some point, Ben goes to London, sneaks into Widmire’s penthouse and wakes him. Widmire asks Ben if he’s there to kill him. Ben says, “We both know I can’t do that.” Why not? He’s establishes that rules have been changed – why not change them again? Ben tells Widmire he’s there because he (Widmire) killed his daughter. This is how their exchange went down:
Widmire: I know that everything you have, you took from me. That island’s mine, Benjamin. It always was. It will be again.
Ben’s response is to let him know he’ll kill Widmire’s daughter, Penelope, so he’ll understand how he feels. Widmire says he’ll never find her. Ben says Widmire will never find the island. (Is this the past, present or future?)
Back on the island, Ben emerges from that locked room, tells them about his plan. They’ll run for the trees. Fearing they’re running into an ambush, the group is hesitant. Then, the house starts shaking, they look outside, and out comes Smokey. He goes straight for the people who were after Ben. Once they’re taken care of, Ben says goodbye to Alex, then in the jungle, they have another mini-battle with each other. Locke says Ben lied when he said that he did not know what the smoke monster was. Ben says he can ask Jacob about it. Sawyer, Claire, Aaron and Miles head back to the beach. Hurley was going to go until Locke pulled a gun on them (remember, they need Hurley to get to Jacob’s crazy cabin). Hurley agrees to go with Locke and Ben, but not without a few parting words.
Sawyer: You harm as much as one curly hair on his head, I’ll kill you.
Locke: Fair enough.
When did Sawyer become a softie? He called Claire “Sweetie,” is still abiding by the table tennis bet and calling Hugo by his real name instead of his mean nicknames. I wonder if this is the writers making him good before they do something bad to him.
Ok, now onto the rest of the survivors. They’re on the beach. Jack is popping pills because he says he has a stomach bug. Then, a body washes up. It’s this guy. The doctor from the ship. Oh, he didn’t just go overboard without a life jacket. His throat was slashed!
Jack gets Faraday to rig some equipment so they can communicate with the freighter people. He sends a message, asking what happened to the doctor. Then, in a strange voice says, their friends are fine and the chopper is coming back in the morning.
Bernard calls him on that. He says the response, in morse code was “What are you talking about? The doctor is fine.”
Jack asks if they were ever going to take the survivors off the island. Faraday says no. Jack looks very sick. And fade to black.
From the promo at the end of the show, we learn Jack’s appendix has burst. And those people the Smokey took care of? Looks like they aren’t dead.
Share your theories in the comments section. I could use the insight!
Tags: 14J, aaron, alex, ben, bernard, claire, dean moriarti, dharma, faraday, hurley, ishmael, jack, jacob, john locke, lost, miles, nadia, penelope, sahara desert, sawyer, smoke monster, tikrit, tunisia, widmire
You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.