BEWARE THE SPOILERS

There was a time when I thought Lost was moving fairly slowly in its storytelling. Now, I’m impressed at how many issues it can deal with in a single episode.

Where or where to begin this week??

“The Economist” pretty much confirms that Jacob’s cabin is indeed moving all over the island. Ben took Locke to it last season, then Hurley found it in a totally different place, and now Locke can’t find it again. I think this is further evidence for my theory that Jacob is all the hallucinations people have had on the island (Jack’s father, Kate’s horse, Ben’s mother, etc.) Whatever Jacob is, he must have the ability to appear as whatever he wants, which explains both the cabin and the fact that when Locke “met” Jacob, he couldn’t see him but Ben could. Perhaps Jacob wouldn’t let Locke see him, for whatever reason. There’s a good chance Jacob is also a ghost; the expedition came to find Ben and they brought a ghost hunter. I can’t imagine what else he’s for. I really didn’t call Sayid as being one of the Oceanic Six. He had about as good a chance as anyone else from Jack’s side and there weren’t any clues pointing to him that I saw. He’s working for Ben—which was a great, if not slightly predictable reveal—which naturally brings up a lot of questions. What power does Ben have over Sayid’s “friends?” I’m assuming he was referring to the others who got off the island, and if Sayid doesn’t kill everyone Ben wants him to, they’ll be in danger. I just can’t imagine how Sayid got himself into this situation or how Ben got into such a powerful position again. What really drives me nuts is that we have no idea how long after the Six get off the island that this flash-forward is happening, nor do we know how long it’ll take them to get off. I really thought it would happen within a couple of episodes, but now it’s looking more and more like it won’t be until the end of the season. But at least Sayid gets into the helicopter at the end, which helps propel the plot toward the flash-forwards.

Sayid’s predicament is more evidence for both Jack and Hurley’s belief that they should never have left the island in the first place. The flash-forwards seem to be getting progressively worse, and I wonder if this is the logic behind placing them in this particular order. Jack is depressed and wants to kill himself.

Hurley gets thrown back into a mental institution—that’s a little worse. Sayid is an assassin working for Ben. That’s WAY worse! Will the forth be even worse than that? Is that even possible? We know Kate’s one of the Six but she hasn’t had her own flash-forward yet; how bad is her situation?

I’m also wondering if any of the Six other than Sayid know Ben is watching them (assuming they were the “friends” Ben mentioned). Maybe Ben was the “he” Kate mentioned in Jack’s flash-forward when she said “he’ll be wondering where I am.” Obviously, this rules Ben out as the man in the casket Jack went to see. And there are really no good clues to back up this prediction, other than the fact that Sayid’s flash-forward doesn’t connect to the other two unless I’m right… but I think whoever is next on Ben’s list, whoever Sayid was about to kill, is whoever’s in that casket. But now I have no idea who that person is.

The flash-forwards are starting to tell as much plot as the stuff in the present. In fact, the present in this episode almost served as flashbacks to Sayid’s flash-forward. So it’s looking more and more like the present will catch up with the future; my guess is, by the time we get there, most of the future stuff will be revealed and the plot will then focus on whoever’s left of the Six trying to get back to the island.

Locke is taking prisoners, setting up his old friends, and he can’t find Jacob to tell him what he’s supposed to do. Has John fallen off the right path once again? I guess we’ll find out, but the fact that he couldn’t find Jacob is a good sign that he’s messed up again. Unless he shouldn’t be listening to Jacob, either…

Hurley faked us out! I thought for sure John tying him up and leaving him behind was how he would get back with Jack’s people so he could get off the island. But no, he’s being loyal to Locke, even though he’s obviously not sure about it. That’s a great conflict and I’m looking forward to seeing more of it. I don’t especially like watching John and Jack at war, but John and Hurley at odds is really interesting.

In one of their best scenes together, Sawyer finally asked Kate why she wanted to get off the island. Sawyer says he’s not looking to leave and she shouldn’t be either—she’s just going to go to jail. It looked like Kate wasn’t sure why she wanted to leave either and that she was just doing what was expected of her. I’m not sure she had even really thought about it before. Neither of them, and frankly no one on the island, has anything to go home to.

We’ll see if any more of this stuff with Ben in the future is explained next week… but that was such a big reveal they’ll probably leave us hanging for a while.

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan

Tags: ABC, Ben Linus, John Locke, Lost, Oceanic Six, Sayid Jarrah, science fiction, Television

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 10:22 am and is filed under Capt Logan, Lost, Sci-Fi, Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.