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

[fatsella.livejournal.com]

Yay - I've been waiting forever for your thoughts on the show!!

I don't know - I didn't think Sayid was a willing participant. I thought he was working for Ben in order to protect (from Ben) whoever is still on the island. You seem to have a better handle on all of this though, so I like reading your ideas.

[allez-cuisine.livejournal.com]

I think Ben will end up being the lesser of two evils (the bigger evil being Abbadon/Widmore/Hanso), which is why Sayid will end up working for him. I don't think we could ever have Ben be 100% good, and actually it's the amibiguities in this show that I both love and am driven insane over.

What do you think of the absence of the cabin? At first I thought, well maybe Hurley wished it away. But, maybe Jacob is hiding from smartass Ghostbuster dude. That guy is shady, but he does seem to really be able to commune w/spirits.

[foos6la.livejournal.com]

I sent this analysis to my husband and he wrote a big long response chock full o' theories and ideas. Do you want me to post it here? I don't want to clog up your journal but he was very intrigued by your post.

[polarama.livejournal.com]

It was so nice meeting you in person on Friday!

What is your take on the chronology of the flash forwards? One of my friends thinks that the golf course scene takes place *after* he kills Elsa--when he tells Ben "They know we're after them." The guy he shot on the golf course seemed really scared of him.

[foos6la.livejournal.com]

Alright, here you go. I'll also send him the link so you two can talk amongst yourselves. :) It's not that I don't enjoy LOST, really, I do! I like it a lot. However, I'm not into figuring it all out and coming up with theories. (I left the first sentence in for reference to what he's responding to)

> It turns out that Sayid gets off the Island and
> becomes an international assassin working for none
> other than Ben himself...

I agree with this--the creators of LOST are self-avowed big Star Wars fans, and the comparison between Ben and Darth Vader is pretty clear. He's the bad guy with bad ways of doing what he truly feels are good things. For him, the ends always justify the means, and until we know what the island really
signifies for the rest of the world, who are we to say he's wrong? I suspect he'll go out like Darth Vader in the end of the series--nobly sacrificing himself in a redemptive act that will ultimately protect the island, if not help/save our heroes.

> First and foremost, let's talk about how hot Sayid
> is... I guess in a boat you just go around in a
> snowglobe, but in a helicopter.....what?

I believe this implies some sort of wormhole, as you suggest. Daniel's comment that Frank must follow the exact bearing they came in on echoes Ben's advice to Michael when Michael and Walt left the island by boat.

Seems that anyone going in any other direction is screwed. There have been many hints of this--Hurley and (someone...maybe Charlie?) sitting on the beach at night playing with the radio and tuning in some random broadcast of 1940s dance music; the still-unexplained pirate ship; the two skeletal bodies found locked in an embrace in the Eden-like cave in the first season,
which the creators promised would pay off at the end of the series, etc. There is much to indicate that time travel is involved. Check out the orientation video they put out over the summer, if you haven't already. It seems Dharma was very much aware of the time travel/time-space game.

> Some strange things happen with the Freighties... But maybe you are being used.

I think I disagree with you here. I don't think Desmond is a dupe (at least not one who is currently being used effectively). He's thwarted the Freight peoples' agenda as often as he's inadvertently helped it, and everything he did to help their ultimate objective (finding the island) was done with only the noblest intentions. He's a good guy--I have no doubts about that. Penny is a bit of an unknown, but I suspect that the reason for Daniel/Frank's knowing look to one another at the mention of her name is because she's extraordinarily wealthy and therefore likely famous in certain circles, and if her agenda is truly to comb the Earth in search of Desmond, no
matter the cost, then her interests are at once running parallel and running counter to those of the Freighter people. So yeah, they'd know Penny, but whether they know her as a rival, an enemy or--as you seem to suggest, a friend--is a big unknown right now.

[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.

[foos6la.livejournal.com]

Now, the time travel thing. Yes, the island seems to be 31 minutes behind the rest of the world. But that 31 minutes wouldn't be fixed--it would be relative to the speed of the rocket, the distance from the ship to the impact point on the island, etc. As more time goes by, that 31 minutes will compound as the island slips further and further behind the rest of the world. We know the Losties have been on the island
for about 100 days at this point. Well, all things being equal, if we assume that the rocket flight--which should have taken 3 minutes--actually took 31 minutes, then it's fair to say the island is moving forward in time at a rate of about 1/10 the rest of the world. So 100 days on the island is about
1000 days back in the world, or about 3 years. Did you notice Sayid's gray hairs in his flash-forward episodes? A few strands in his beard, a bit at the temples, nothing too dramatic but DEFINITELY intentional. You can really notice it at the golf course. My theory is that we're going to find that
the Oceanic 6 have been back in the world for a while--several years, I would guess--and that will be used to justify little continuity issues like Walt having rather obviously aged quite a bit more than 100 days over the 4 years of the show--that when our heroes inevitably make their way back to the island to
rescue the rest of the Losties, they'll find them unchanged, and that not much time has gone by, while they themselves have done quite a bit of living (and drunken pill-popping) since they left. That 31 minutes is pretty revealing...

[yaya-mama.livejournal.com]

OMG. I loved that episode, and I love this discussion in your journal. I have nothing to contribute -- I'm just eating this all up.

[yaya-mama.livejournal.com]

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.
---

WAIT A MINUTE! I just read on lostpedia that Random Woman is LIBBY! How did I miss that?? I didn't notice. You must have noticed.

Who was Libby connected to, and how might she have been playing Des???