Lost Thoughts - Week 3

"The Economist"

Wow. Another stellar episode. The writers, directors, and cast are really running on all cylinders this season. My observations are below, plus some interesting bits from the producers, and a description of a weird deleted scene from last night.

The Title
Obviously, it refers to Elsa's employer, Sayid's target. But Sayid can also be considered the "economist" in the episode, because he's doing a cost-benefit analysis of his own. Is it worth becoming an assassin if it means "protecting your friends"?

Future Sayid
It was interesting to see the juxtaposition between present-day, Island Sayid, who was seen praying and taking such good care of the dead body of a stranger (Naomi), compared to the flash-forward, Real-World Sayid who was a cold-blooded killer. Like all of the Oceanic 6, something significant has happened to Sayid to make him behave so differently. Ben alluded to the fact that Sayid had to kill the people on his list in order to protect his friends. What friends? The rest of the Oceanic 6? The remaining 815ers who are still stuck on the Island? I've always loved Sayid, not just for his neck-breaking skills, but because he symbolizes a combination of Jack and Locke. He's a Man of Science and a Man of Faith at the same time.

The Bracelet
So what's with these bracelets? Naomi and Elsa both wore similar silver bracelets around their wrists. Naomi's said "N. I'll always be with you, R.G." on the inside. There are no known-of characters on Lost with those initials. Since we saw Sayid take it from Naomi's dead body, we might assume that he gave it to Elsa as a gift, but that doesn't make sense, because Elsa would likely see the inscription and be like "Yo, Sayid, who's this 'N' chick?"

My guess is that Naomi and Elsa work(ed) for the same employer, and that this man is on the bad side of the war I spoke about (see posts below) in my Lost Theory earlier this week (more on the two sides later).

Dan's Experiment
My favorite part of Season 4 thus far. Dan the physicist got bored moping around the helicopter, so he asked boat-bound Regina to fire a rocket at him. The beacon he set up on the Island was obviously a transmitter that the rocket was configured to follow. However, the rocket took an extra 31 minutes to get there. Back to the Future anyone? That scene near the beginning where Doc Brown puts his dog Einstein into the DeLorean and compares clocks when he comes back?

So what does this say about the Island? Well, if the clock from the Freighter was 31 minutes ahead of the clock on the Island, there are two possibilities: 1) Time must pass more slowly on the Island than it does in the outside world, or 2) The rocket had to travel further than the 80km between the boat and the Island. The question then becomes, are the clocks on the freighter 31 minutes ahead, because time passes more slowly, or is just the clock in the rocket 31 minutes ahead, because it had to travel through one of the Vile Vortices (the Wharton Basin vortex, to be precise, if the freighter really is near Bali)? Both answers could be because the Island exists within a closed time-like curve in Minkowski space.

Jacob's ShackBoy does this thing get around. What confuses me, is that I assumed that Ben placed that circle of volcanic ash around the cabin as a means to hold it in place. I thought he was keeping Jacob a prisoner within it. But Jacob appears to be moving, along with his crib, to wherever he wants. Did Ben, or someone else, create a break in the ash ring somewhere? So that Locke wouldn't know where to look?

And the more mobile the shack becomes, the more it reminds me of the Russian myth of Baba Yaga, an old sorceress who lives in the woods, in a cabin that moves around with chicken legs (see picture above). Perhaps even more interesting, Baba Yaga is said to fly around in mortar that she mixes. Remind anyone else of the Black Smoke? However, I'm still of the opinion that Jacob and the Smoke are two separate entities, as symbolized by Christian Shepherd's chat with Jacob in the season premiere.

Ben's a Travelin' ManSo Ben's got a secret room filled with business clothes, passports, and tons of money (in fact, one of the bills contained the face of Michael Faraday, Dan's namesake). What does this tell us?

1) The Others are extremely well-funded. It proves, to me, that they are only a part of a larger organization in the Real World (more on that below).

2) Ben goes off-Island all the time for various reasons, and lies about it to the Others. He wants to maintain a sense of self-sufficiency, which is why he probably refused to go off-Island to have spinal surgery.

3) It confirms that, even though we see him off-Island in the flash-forward, it doesn't mean that he's left the Island for good. Apparently, he can easily travel whenever he desires.

4) There must be another means of leaving the Island, other than the submarine, that Ben used.

Also, his name on the passport above is Dean Moriarty, after the On the Road character and Sherlock Holme's nemesis, and he lives in Zurich, where Arvin Sloane, from JJ Abrams' Alias operated.

"There are two sides. One light, one dark."

Those are the words of John Locke from the pilot episode, and I still think they describe the overall narrative of Lost. Every episode this season has reaffirmed this idea for me (but that could be just because I want them to). One side wants to protect the Island, the other wants to exploit it. I'm making a prediction right now, that by the end of the series, Ben will turn out to be on the good side, despite his nefarious means of accomplishing an end. Like he said to Michael in the Season 2 finale, "We're the good guys..."

The Protectors
This group is represented by Ben (Benjamin = one of the sons of Jacob, founder of the 12 tribes of Israel, Linus = one of the sons of Apollo). It includes all of the Others on the Island, Locke, and whatever organization is funding them in the Real World. They don't want the power of the Island to fall into the wrong hands (see my Lost Theory below for what I think that power is: the manifestation of Will). Sure, Ben has done some terrible things, but we don't know the context of his actions yet. And in Juliet, Alex, Karl, etc. he appears to have been protecting some wonderful people.

On the Island, this group is symbolized by Jacob, who understands the power of the Island's ability to manifest his conscious will so well, he is no longer enslaved by time or space.

The Exploiters
This group is symbolized, at least right now, by Matthew Abbadon (Matthew = the tax collector of the Gospels, Abbadon = Angel of Destruction). It includes the Temporal Police like Brother Campbell and Mrs. Hawking. It includes the Dharma Initiative and the Hanso Foundation. It includes the corporate might of Penny's dad Charles Widmore and his company and Sun's dad and his company Paik Industries, both of which helped fund the Initiative. I don't think the Initiative was really on the Island to "save the world." I think the Valenzetti Equation is a bunch of PR crap to justify their means. These people are trying to exploit the power of the Island for some unknown reason, and they were involved in manipulating Desmond into being marooned on the Island. And, these are the people that Ben is using Sayid to get rid of.

On the Island, this group is symbolized by the Black Smoke, a Dharma security system gone haywire.

(However, this doesn't mean that everyone affiliated with each group is necessarily good or evil. Not all of the Dharma members were bad. Not all of the Others are good.)

Stray Observations

Ben is one creepy veterinarian. I was shocked to see him utilizing some kind of medical knowledge when he sewed Sayid up.

Sayid's first victim sure sounded scared when he heard that Sayid was one of the Oceanic Six. This is because he's one of the Exploiters that Ben's trying to eradicate, so he would know about 815. On a trivial note, that victim, Mr. Avellino, is named after an Italian town who's patron saint is celebrated on February 14th, the day that this episode aired...

Yay for Jack for not flirting back with Kate. I can't stand Kate. She consistently uses people over and over again, either to accomplish something selfish, or to stroke her ego. I feel bad for Sawyer, who's now being used by Kate since Jack isn't letting her anymore. I bet the only reason Kate stayed behind in the Barracks was to use Sawyer. Guess we'll find out next week.

On a similar note, Juliet is still drop-dead gorgeous.

Sayid found a Koran on Ben's bookshelf.

So Ben's using Sayid to kill people. Ben also used Jack to get rid of his tumor. And Kate and Sawyer to get pregnant on the Island for more testing. And Claire for similar reasons. And Sun and Jin for similar reasons. And I think he's using Michael as his "man on the boat." The more I think about it, the more it seems like he hand picked all of the 815 passengers, manipulated them onto the plane, so that he could use every single one of them.

Ben's bedroom looks just like mine! Books and masks galore! Plus I have a star map, although it's not hanging on my wall.

Teases from the Producers
According to Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse:

"Miles isn't here to make friends. He's here for something else. And it ain't what he told us at the end of Episode 2. (That they had come for Ben.)"

"Physics can be fun. They can also be incredibly dangerous. Watch Faraday demonstrate both."

"Lapidus is like a lot of fans of Lost— he never takes anything at face value. A true conspiracy nut, he has probably seen every episode of TheX-Files, and that's going to pay off for him."

Deleted Scene
According to super-fan DocArzt, who saw an early screening of last night's episode, an interesting scene was cut where Miles, Kate, and Sayid approach the sonic fence. Kate and Sayid try to figure out how to turn it off, but Miles goes into his ghost-trance again, and then decides to walk through the fence. It's off. Did the Island ghosts tell him that? Click here for DocArzt's full description.

Next Week
"Eggtown," written by Elizabeth Sarnoff and Greg Nations, directed by long-time vet Stephen Williams (who directed "Confirmed Dead" last week). We find out one more member of the Oceanic 6, according to the preview, which means it must be a flash-forward (Kate's from the look of it, though we already knew about her...). Word on the street is that this episode has one of the biggest ??? moments in the history of the show. Really? Bigger than off-Island, head-hunting, puppy-fixing, bullet-wound cleaning Ben last night?