Re: Great episode - Edit 1
Before modification by ironclad at 20/05/2010 08:21:28 AM
What's gonna happen at this concert? What is Desmond hoping for?
Together they'll puzzle out what they need to do. This also lets the writers give us our big cast reunion (expect a lot of emotions when they remember their sideway lives and see friends alive in this reality.. and they might have to let them go to "fix things", which will be sad), which on the island is no longer possible. I expect most of the Losties past and present to show up at that concert (all the actors they could get, anyway). For example Sawyer might agree to go after all, and he asks Ana Lucia to come. Mr. Eko maybe. Boone. Etc.
I am not sure they'll puzzle something out together. More like the puzzled connects over their heads, so to speak I mean, I have no idea what's gonna happen. But I don't see Desmond getting on stage and talking sense into everyone involved.
I still want to believe that the sideways reality will not fade away. I don't see why we would have had to follow that for a whole season then. And seeing people like Jin and Sun alive and relatively happy here, would make their death on the island even more tragic. I could be way off, of course, but I hope not.
Maybe the Jack we see in LA is the guardian, however that works. Maybe he'll get the wound on his neck in the finale battle with Smokey.
That will be their way to make the ensemble cast of the past seasons relevant to the finale, beyond the main players still alive on the island. I suspect the sideways was in part a clever idea to do just that, to have a excuse to give the full cast again to the audience for the ending.
I see what you are saying, I just don't think they would have wasted half of the last season (if you split each episode in two), just to show everyone who was ever on the show doing stuff that will not matter in the end because only the island reality will survive. I don't buy it. It's the one thing that gets me incredibly worried about the finale, though.
That said, I think Richard can't die until Jacob (now Jack) lifts his "gift", and so I'm pretty sure Richard is not dead, and Ben knows it. But Richard's death, fake or not, isn't really pointless. It drove the point home to Ben he had to bring out his A game to get through this, and it tipped the audience to expect Ben on his A game... devious, willing to sacrifice pawns and commit evil if necessary, and rarely aiming for what he appears to be aiming for on the surface.
Good point.
I took it all at face value while watching, but afterward I began to think on it and I made up my mind:
I don't think Ben has switched sides at all. Ben has been conned and manipulated for so many years by MIB, and now he's on the path for self-sacrifice and revenge for MIB making him kill Jacob, and threatening the Island. Ben is a really amoral and flawed individual, but his loyalty to Jacob and the island is very real. He's done all he had to do to convince MIB he was on his side.
Yep, I agree. It was kinda like when I read The Half blood Prince. Right when I closed the book I was certain Snape was evil, and then thought twice and it made sense. Same today, a few minutes after the episode's first impressions I wrote down.
Why? This seems to me to be another case like what Mom did so Jacob abd MIB couldn't kill one another. Ben and Charles were replicating Jacob's game with his brother somehow.
I don't think it's possible for Ben to kill Charles. I think Jacob made it impossible, and I think MIB doesn't know/believe this.
I think Ben knew Richard isn't dead. I think he knew he couldn't hide from Locke that Widmore was nearby after he found his boat, and I think he knew he couldn't afford to lie to MIB and get caught at it at this point. He had only this one chance to convince MIB he was useful and on his side. Ben has embarked on the sort of machiavellian scheme against MIB Sawyer pathetically failed at.
So Ben did what he had to do to con MIB: he "killed" Widmore before MIB could do it for real after questionning him. Nicely enough for Ben, by handling things this way he took back the initiative from Widmore, who also would have tried to con MIB (he had no choice).
That's an excellent theory, I hope it's true. That'd kick ass.