Lost 4.04 - The Economist

[pocket1_pita]

I was on the flight from SF to DC on Thursday night on my way to a Ladies Weekend so when I got home from Shabbat dinner on Friday night I curled up with my laptop at midnight and watched the Economist. Lost just keeps getting faster and denser and I really can’t believe how much they packed into this single episode. 

 

 

 It turns out that Sayid gets off the Island and becomes an international assassin working for none other than Ben himself. And Ben is not the leader of a rag-tag band of Island hermits with an invisible pirate for a boss. It seems that he is actually the leader of some kind of international conspiracy to protect the Island.

 

First and foremost, let’s talk about how hot Sayid is. Be still my beating heart, but Naveen Andrews cleans up well. I appreciate how gorgeous he is in a tank top with curls, but he is absolutely delicious in a tuxedo with a blowout. On the Island, Sayid notices that Naomi is wearing a bracelet inscribed on the inside with “N, I’ll always be with you. RC”. He negotiates a trip to the freighter for himself and Des in exchange for the release for Charlotte. Because Jack is too emotional to deal with Locke without it blowing up, Sayid, Miles and Kate head off to Othersville. There they have some strange adventures. They get conned by Hurley of all people. Sayid finds a secret room hidden behind Ben’s bookcase containing passports of all kinds, currency from all over, suits and suitcases. Then he trades Miles for Charlotte and we see him and Des leaving the Island in the helicopter with Frank. Daniel tells Frank to follow the bearing exactly. I wonder what happens when you don't follow the bearing exactly. I guess in a boat you just go around in a snowglobe, but in a helicopter.....what?

 

Some strange things happen with the Freighties. They seem to have heard of Penny. I have a sad suspicion that Des might not be who he thinks he is. Or that, like Locke, he might be a tool with no idea who is wielding him. I mean, when you get right down to it, Des made the Island visible, he rescued Naomi from the tree when Mikhail would have found her and he turned off the signal blocker hiding the Island. There are a lot of fishy things about his background that he doesn’t understand himself. Maybe it is fate when a random woman you meet in a café gives you her dead husband’s boat. But maybe you are being used.

 

According to the pop-up-video version of Confirmed Dead, the woman that we see in Daniel’s first scene is not his wife, she is his caretaker. So I think that he is somewhere on the autism spectrum. Frank and Charlotte both seem sort of tender towards him, and he asks Frank’s permission to run his experiment. Frank tells him that he can only talk to Regina and has to hang up right away if Minkowski comes on the phone. Frank also refers to Naomi as Senior Management and Miles confirms that he met Charlotte on the boat. So now we’re starting to see some of the real dynamic between the Freighties. Naomi works for Abbadon, and they recruited this team of a psychic, an anthropologist and an autistic physicist to be led by Naomi on and off the Island. So on the Island we have 1) ghosts 2) really old shit 3) electromagnetic shit. Now we also know exactly the time discrepancy on and off the Island. It's 31 minutes. Not that big a discrepancy, but what could cause such a thing? I really think that the DHARMA Initiative made a time machine using the natural wormholes and the Casimir effect and that there were disasterous consequences.

 

Poor Kate. Jack may have feelings for her, but he just doesn’t get her. She flirts with him, and he either brushes her off or says the wrong thing. She seems like she is starting to have an agenda of her own, instead of just reacting to Jack’s agenda. She is seeing his clay feet very clearly now. Sawyer asks the questions I’ve been asking all along – what is Kate so eager to go back to? Now that they are in Othersville, which really looks quite comfortable, why not just stay and play house with Sawyer? That did make me swoon.

 

Off the Island, Sayid seduces the assistant of his mark to get close to her and ends up falling for her. Then it turns out she has seduced him to try and get information about his employer. Ah, the beautiful double-cross. After he shoots her, he sees her bracelet, the same one that Naomi was wearing. Whoever the Economist is, Naomi worked for him too or for his organization. Elsa was wearing that bracelet when they went to the opera, so he didn’t just see it then. He knew it all along.

 

One of the things that makes Lost such an amazing show is the way in which it taps our fear in a very modern way. The Others used terrorism against the Losties, Sayid was in the Republican Guard, he worked for the CIA to infiltrate a radical Islamist group, and now he is an international assassin. Is he good or is he bad? How do we even tell? I think that almost all of them end up converted to Ben’s mission whatever that may be. So I think that whatever Ben’s mission is, we will root for it too. I don’t think that Sayid works for Ben against his will. I think getting Sayid off the Island was part of a plan and that Ben is the one who makes the arrangements. In fact, Ben has always been able to get them off the Island. He just couldn’t take the risk before now. This is bigger than someone’s grudge against Ben, and it’s bigger than a bunch of people stranded on an Island. I think that the O6 all are part of a larger conspiracy to protect the Island and whatever is on it. They are all living with a terrible secret and they are very afraid.

Comments

[foos6la.livejournal.com]

In my gut, I feel like they've been playing the 'true love finds a way' card with regard to Desmond's relationship with Penny--defying her father's wishes, him sailing around the world to prove himself to her, pining away for her for years on the island while she searches desperately for him instead of moving on, etc--and I just don't see them betraying all of that
with a cheap reveal that she's been an antagonist all along.

> According to the pop-up-video version of Confirmed
> Dead, the woman that we see in Daniel's first scene
> is not his wife, she is his caretaker... I really think that
> the DHARMA Initiative made a time machine using the
> natural wormholes and the Casimir effect and that
> there were disasterous consequences.

Ok, this I can speak to (time travel is sort of 'my thing') I don't believe that Dharma made a time machine. That's too pat, and frankly, too implausible. A machine that transports a person or a vehicle, ok. A whole island? That's a little too
Brigadoon for my tastes.

So, for the sake of argument, the island is a natural phenomenon. Dharma found it and realized what it was,but found that it was already inhabited. We know from Ben's VERY revealing flashback episode last season that there were 'Others' before there was Dharma, and they were antagonistic. The Others were natural island dwellers, who seem (on the surface anyway) to be content to live on the island's terms. Dharma, conversely, is the stereotypical well-funded,
well-intentioned but ultimately ineffectual 'do-gooder club', coming in to live like hippies, do experiments and change the world with their discovery. They're the Conquistators showing up in the West Indies ready to rape and pillage from the innocent native people.

But these native people have a secret--they know how their island works, and how to play by its rules. All they needed was an inside guy--somebody who knew how to play both sides to the advantage of the Others. So Ben was tapped by Jacob as his chosen one and given dominion over the Others if he would help eliminate the intruders. If anyone is a dupe here, it's Ben.
Jacob/the island is using him in its efforts to remain undetected, but he's only given power so long as he is useful to the island, and as long as he remains effective in his position. When John Locke showed up, the island seems to have concluded that Locke is the new Ben, and now Ben is cast aside--old news. I think that Locke is being corrupted by the island's influence. Just as Ben has been raised into a monster under the island's care, Locke is becoming maniacal and autocratic, just like Ben. It seems like the island's investment in an individual is a corrupting influence on par with the One Ring in Lord of the Rings. The question is whether or not Locke will be able to return to his better self and 'throw the ring into the fire' before Ben/Gollum makes a final, possibly fatal, play for it.

[pocket1.livejournal.com]

I love this comparison between Locke and Ben! I completely agree - Ben as Gollum is such a good call, and Locke is certainly being corrupted by the Island. It plays on all of his weaknesses and desire to be Special.