Friday, October 31, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
The Great Divorce
Here is some background info and context for the first book in our LOST Book Club, C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce. Even if you aren't in Chicago this summer, or just dont feel like discussing the book in a conducive group setting, follow along and enjoy the ride. I'll be posting the group's thoughts and analysis of the book after each time we meet.
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The Great Divorce:
A Starter Kit and Informational Guide to CS Lewis’ Masterpiece
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_MacDonald (Very important information on the man who inspired Lewis to become a Christian and to write this book….MacDonald is also a character in the book itself)
Lewis' book is a response to Blake’s erroneous philosophical belief that all roads lead to God. Blake (and many like him) believed that the “roads of life” are like radii of a circle. If we keep going down any path we will eventually end up in the middle. This argument eventually renders even the most egregious evil into good. Lewis is obviously arguing against this philosophy.
The intended audience for the book was (and is) anyone who has read Blake's book, but more importantly, anyone who has been influenced by the philosophical concepts endorsed in that book. This was as popular a train of thought in that day as it is now.
The dangers of a widely held erroneous view are potentially devastating to the Church and therefore to the world at-large. Lewis felt he needed to speak to that issue and bring some clarity. He lived in a time when this type of philosophy was growing in acceptance and popularity among the masses. The subjectivity of Blake’s views was a real danger to society at large. If any direction is as good as any other, then who can justifiably say anything is right or wrong in a society. The common good is maintained only by the common morality. Societies that become morally subjective are doomed to failure. Lewis puts it this way, "...some way of embracing both alternatives can always be found; that mere development of adjustment or refinement will somehow turn evil into good without our being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like to retain. This belief I take to be a disastrous error."
The contrasting themes within the book are powerful. For example, you see the people from hell as "phantoms" as opposed to those "bright solid people" from heaven. Lewis does a good job here with imagery. The way in which he describes things in Grey Town completely changes as soon as the bus nears and lands on the outskirts of Heaven. The colors are so strong they almost make the people disappear. They realize they are phantoms. The grass is sharp on their feet. The rain would go through them like bullets from a machine gun. They can't even pick flowers. The stems are far too strong for them.
Heaven is described as being immensely large, while hell is minutely small, smaller than a grain of sand. Lewis put it like this, "All Hell is smaller than one pebble of your earthly world: but it is smaller than one atom of this world, the Real World." We see first the physical contrast, but Lewis moves on to far more important ones: moral.
The phantoms have their reasons for coming to heaven which mostly involve getting their rights or stating their position. This is very well contrasted with the solid people attempting to explain the grace of God to them. The phantoms chose unwisely based on selfish motives (i.e. their own roads) yet still expected heaven to accept them anyway. They blame heaven for not accepting them. He shows the folly of Blake's philosophy in doing this. The silliness of such ideas is exposed in the actions and rationalizations and demands of the phantoms. Lewis powerfully contrasts the grace of God with the folly of man.
In each discussion between sets of characters we see examples of some of the most common things that keep men apart from God's love. His main character’s conversation with George Macdonald is great. They discuss the issues of the phantoms and the reality of heaven and hell. The question of choices comes up and Macdonald says this, "
The idea that God honors the choices of individuals is central to the theme of this book. There is the quote that reads, "There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.' All that are in Hell chose it."
Lewis' strengths in this book are his use of illustrative fiction to put his point across. He catches the imagination and addresses many different kinds of struggles that we all deal with on a daily basis. The mirror is held up to our own lives through these characters, and the same empty arguments can be heard in our own thoughts from time to time.
Additional Information/Resources:
http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/books/greatdivorce.html (A comprehensive review of the book from an Atheist’s perspective…very interesting)
http://www.cslewisinstitute.org/cslewis/index.htm (C.S. Lewis biography)
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
17 LOST Mysteries
Check out the list of yet-to-be-answered questions LOST has left us with as the season draws to a close next Thursday.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
I'm bringing "Something Nice Cabin Fever" Back
Lostaways-
So I realize its been a couple of weeks since the last JL's Pants post, and for those of you who have been upset by the fact it's taken me this long to disseminate my thoughts....oops.
Two episodes back was a Jack-centric flash-forward tale entitled Something Nice Back Home. This past week's was called Cabin Fever and via back st
ory followed our boy Locke's life from birth to sweaty existence on a creepy, magical island. For the sake of time and sanity I will be focusing at first on a few key points from SNBH and then sink deeper in to Cabin Fever parsing.
Few noteworthy events, thoughts, and theories from two weeks ago:
-Rose pointed out that Jack got sick (which is similar to Ben getting sick). This may be the island's attempt to teach both leaders of their respective packs a lesson. Right when each group needed their leader, Ben got a tumor and Jack had appendicitis. Rose reminding us that people dont get sick on the island, they get better was too much of a clue for it not to have some broader significance. Both men are in need of correction in certain moral and character-trait flaw areas.
-When Jack heard the smoke alarm go off, he came out and saw his daddio sitting in the waiting room on a couch. I feel like the hint of using a smoke alarm is pointing to the Smoke Monster being responsible for making dead people appear not only on the island, but in this case (and possibly Charlie showing up at Hurley's mental institution), off the island as well.
-Jack seems to be getting past many of his issues in the future (this episode, in case you didnt put it together, is after the trial scenes we saw in Kate's flash-forward earlier this season) but then cant handle things when someone (Charlie via Hurley) tells him he shouldn't raise Aaron. Thats the last thing a guy with self-esteem and self-worth issues needs to hear. Compound that with the fact he obviously has issues with even looking at Aaron who reminds him of the sister he most certainly learns about before getting off the island. I think Jack makes the call to leave Claire behind (if she's not already dead...more on that later) and it eats him up inside every time he looks at the little blonde-haired tyke now that he and Kate made it off safe.
-Jack is reading Alice in Wonderland to Aaron near the start of the episode. The obvious and numerous allusions and connections between LOST and Lewis Carrol's classic could fill up two blogs. Something interesting I found related to Alice lore is the poem called The Jabberwocky which is about a brave soul (as opposed to an old soul, of which I know two that live in the Ukrainian Village) who ventures out in to a mysterious wooded area (jungle) to slay a mysterious, black, smokey monster. Read it and love it.
-Have to mention the Millennium Falcon/Star Wars reference...Jack steps on a toy figurine of the legendary space ship. Are they trying to tell us that Jack is really Han Solo, or, due to the fact that he steps on it and says "S of a B" is that an homage to the fact that those who care to know see similarities between Sawyer's character and the smuggler who stole Princess Leia's heart? Sawyer is still the thorn in Jack's side and the tension between those three lovers is palpable even off the island. The person Kate was talking to on the phone was Sawyer's ex-girl Cassidy who is the mother of his daughter Clementine. Kate promised Sawyer to go and help both ladies, and Kate was laughing on the phone with her when Jack walked in because the Kate and Cassidy met last season in Kate's back-story when Cassidy helped her find her mom. Trust me on this one.
===========
Okay, so enough about Something Nice Back Home.....on to the Locke-centric masterpiece Cabin Fever, which, as Doc Jensen on Entertainment Weekly's website said, was for the hardcore LOST fan. (Reid his first paragraph to hear why he believes that to be so)
Obviously Locke is my favorite character (ever), and so any chance we get to see what makes this complicated man tick is going to scratch me right
where I itch. We find out that Locke's mom gave premature birth to the boy wonder after being hit by a bar as she ran out of the house on her way to a date with, presumably, the father of baby John. Names are important in this show, and just like John the Baptist's father insisting the boy be named as such, Locke's madre yelled after he baby boy, "Call him John....His name is John." Locke is a miraculous story on the island, and it appears he has been his whole life. Instead of embracing the reality of who he is and the gifts/talents he's been given, Locke has consistently run away from his destiny. But destiny has come-a-calling time after time after time for JL.
First when he was born and still in the hospital when Richard Alpert appears outside the window of his room. Five years later, while in foster care (after his mother rejected him, or didn't want him, or, perhaps, was told not to raise him....hmm), Locke is re-visited by the Ageless Wonder Alpert yet again. This time under the guise that he has a school for gifted chilren....that is on an island where if you don't get Dharma-ed, purged, or Smokey Monstered, you won't be able to leave anyway because some short bug-eyed freak has the only keys to a rickety old submarine that allegedly shuttles folks too and fro real world and LOST Time (Mittelos). The objects Alpert lays out for Locke to choose between can be seen here for review. Little Locke is playing Backgammon (Walt-like) and drew some bizzare, disturbing pic of stick-figure dude getting smothered by a black cloud of smoke.
As far as the objects go, Locke ends up passing over the compass and vile full of sand in favor of the weapon he wants to be the thing that he would own out of all the choices. Even at age 5 Locke wanted to be a super-hero. It's like he's always known that he is special but no one else does. And even when people do recognize his abilities and like him for being him (i.e. Alpert and his high school science teacher and Helen, the ex he fell from grace with because he couldn't let his dad go) Locke then messes things up himself some how. Alpert, as he's showing the items to Locke, asks him "Which one is already yours?" This ritual is apparently very similar to how the next Buddha is chosen each time. The child participating either knows the right thing to pick or he doesnt. It seemed as if Locke knew, even at 5 years old, that he shouldnt pick the knife, but he wanted it. It made me think of the episode from Season 3 when Locke loses his voice and goes in to a sweat-shack with some narcotics to commune with the island. In that episode's (Further Instructions) flash-back Locke talks with Eddie (the undercover cop) about being a farmer or hunter and even the cop knew John was a farmer. Locke is a lover, not a fighter...but he's a fighter too, so dont get any ideas.
Moving further along, Locke's high school teacher tells him Alpert wants him to come to summer camp at Mittelos Bioscience's labs near Portland. He refuses and utters his catch phrase, "Don't tell me what I can't do!" If only poor Locke could've embrace who he is meant to be earlier in life...The next flash-back is Locke rehabilitating his limp legs when who should appear but Matthew Abbadon, our friendly Widmore recruiter and Hurley stalker. He pushes Locke
symbolically and literally to the edge of the stairs and then offers him a challenge to go and try a Walkabout in Australia. It's as if Abbadon, who we assume worked for Widmore at the time, is one of these guides along the way that are prompting different eventual Lostaways toward their destination on the island. (Think: Desmond's old lady telling him not to marry Penny)
Side note: "Australia is the key to the game," is what Hurley (one of the special ones) said in Ben's episode when the boys were playing Risk in Othersville. Rose and Bernard were told that Australia held one of the special places on earth that could heal people when they went to that weird healer dude in the outback. Obviously everyone on the plane was in Australia as well, for various reasons. (More on Australia next week, but think about it and if you have any good theories before then, let me know.)
In present island time, Locke, Hurley, and Linus travel through the jungle to find Jacob's cabin and along the way my boy Horace Goodspeed makes an appearance to Locke. He tells Locke that they've been waiting for him for a long time. I think Locke has obviously been being groomed since the earliest age for his task/place on the island, but like Alpert says to little Ben when in his backstory he runs in to the woods and meets Alpert for the first time, Locke had to choose it for himself. He had the "goods", but had to choose to use them voluntarily. Same with Ben, who has apparently fallen from graces with Jacob and the island. When the trio finally finds the cabin, Locke goes in and finds Christian Shepard and Claire. They tell John to "move the island."
Thoughts, theories, ramblings from Cabin Fever:
-Claire is dead, dying when her house blew up in Othersville. She can be seen and even touched, but so could Yemi when Eko saw him, or the black stallion when Kate saw it, etc. The island is trying to get Aaron off the island for some reason and Claire was a sacrifice the island demanded because she had broken the rule the psychic had given her back in season one and let Charlie help raise Aaron (who paid with his own life).
-Widmore has agents leading people to the island, just as Ben does. They are jockeying for position over who will control the island, like they told us, and Locke is the chosen one. Ben knows this and wanted to off Locke and keep control because he knows if Locke gets his rightful position of power on the island, Widmore will be able to gain control. They are competing for information and influence in and among the Lostaways before, on, and after the island.
-Or...I've heard a few people say now that maybe Ben is Locke's dad. He is the mysterious lover of Emily Locke. They never show us who the father is and Anthony Cooper might really have just been a con-man. He can time-travel, went back, knocked up Emily, and now has been waiting for his son to come to him. Just like Ben put the island before his other daughter, Alex, and let her die (Which was so sad, wasn't it)....he didnt hesitate shooting his son in the kidney and leaving him for dead in the Purge Pit. Or....Widmore is Locke's dad and that is why he sent his guy, Abbadon, to check in on Locke as Ben sent his guy, Alpert, in as well. Again, the competition thing between Ben and Charles.
Okay, I seriously can't write any more, and you likely do not want to read any more (if you've made it thus far to begin with). For more fun facts and analysis, check out the lostpedia links I've put here or read Doc Jensen's excellent columns at EW.
Good day to you,
JL's Baby Booties
So I realize its been a couple of weeks since the last JL's Pants post, and for those of you who have been upset by the fact it's taken me this long to disseminate my thoughts....oops.
Two episodes back was a Jack-centric flash-forward tale entitled Something Nice Back Home. This past week's was called Cabin Fever and via back st
ory followed our boy Locke's life from birth to sweaty existence on a creepy, magical island. For the sake of time and sanity I will be focusing at first on a few key points from SNBH and then sink deeper in to Cabin Fever parsing.Few noteworthy events, thoughts, and theories from two weeks ago:
-Rose pointed out that Jack got sick (which is similar to Ben getting sick). This may be the island's attempt to teach both leaders of their respective packs a lesson. Right when each group needed their leader, Ben got a tumor and Jack had appendicitis. Rose reminding us that people dont get sick on the island, they get better was too much of a clue for it not to have some broader significance. Both men are in need of correction in certain moral and character-trait flaw areas.
-When Jack heard the smoke alarm go off, he came out and saw his daddio sitting in the waiting room on a couch. I feel like the hint of using a smoke alarm is pointing to the Smoke Monster being responsible for making dead people appear not only on the island, but in this case (and possibly Charlie showing up at Hurley's mental institution), off the island as well.
-Jack seems to be getting past many of his issues in the future (this episode, in case you didnt put it together, is after the trial scenes we saw in Kate's flash-forward earlier this season) but then cant handle things when someone (Charlie via Hurley) tells him he shouldn't raise Aaron. Thats the last thing a guy with self-esteem and self-worth issues needs to hear. Compound that with the fact he obviously has issues with even looking at Aaron who reminds him of the sister he most certainly learns about before getting off the island. I think Jack makes the call to leave Claire behind (if she's not already dead...more on that later) and it eats him up inside every time he looks at the little blonde-haired tyke now that he and Kate made it off safe.
-Jack is reading Alice in Wonderland to Aaron near the start of the episode. The obvious and numerous allusions and connections between LOST and Lewis Carrol's classic could fill up two blogs. Something interesting I found related to Alice lore is the poem called The Jabberwocky which is about a brave soul (as opposed to an old soul, of which I know two that live in the Ukrainian Village) who ventures out in to a mysterious wooded area (jungle) to slay a mysterious, black, smokey monster. Read it and love it.
-Have to mention the Millennium Falcon/Star Wars reference...Jack steps on a toy figurine of the legendary space ship. Are they trying to tell us that Jack is really Han Solo, or, due to the fact that he steps on it and says "S of a B" is that an homage to the fact that those who care to know see similarities between Sawyer's character and the smuggler who stole Princess Leia's heart? Sawyer is still the thorn in Jack's side and the tension between those three lovers is palpable even off the island. The person Kate was talking to on the phone was Sawyer's ex-girl Cassidy who is the mother of his daughter Clementine. Kate promised Sawyer to go and help both ladies, and Kate was laughing on the phone with her when Jack walked in because the Kate and Cassidy met last season in Kate's back-story when Cassidy helped her find her mom. Trust me on this one.
===========
Okay, so enough about Something Nice Back Home.....on to the Locke-centric masterpiece Cabin Fever, which, as Doc Jensen on Entertainment Weekly's website said, was for the hardcore LOST fan. (Reid his first paragraph to hear why he believes that to be so)
Obviously Locke is my favorite character (ever), and so any chance we get to see what makes this complicated man tick is going to scratch me right
where I itch. We find out that Locke's mom gave premature birth to the boy wonder after being hit by a bar as she ran out of the house on her way to a date with, presumably, the father of baby John. Names are important in this show, and just like John the Baptist's father insisting the boy be named as such, Locke's madre yelled after he baby boy, "Call him John....His name is John." Locke is a miraculous story on the island, and it appears he has been his whole life. Instead of embracing the reality of who he is and the gifts/talents he's been given, Locke has consistently run away from his destiny. But destiny has come-a-calling time after time after time for JL.First when he was born and still in the hospital when Richard Alpert appears outside the window of his room. Five years later, while in foster care (after his mother rejected him, or didn't want him, or, perhaps, was told not to raise him....hmm), Locke is re-visited by the Ageless Wonder Alpert yet again. This time under the guise that he has a school for gifted chilren....that is on an island where if you don't get Dharma-ed, purged, or Smokey Monstered, you won't be able to leave anyway because some short bug-eyed freak has the only keys to a rickety old submarine that allegedly shuttles folks too and fro real world and LOST Time (Mittelos). The objects Alpert lays out for Locke to choose between can be seen here for review. Little Locke is playing Backgammon (Walt-like) and drew some bizzare, disturbing pic of stick-figure dude getting smothered by a black cloud of smoke.
As far as the objects go, Locke ends up passing over the compass and vile full of sand in favor of the weapon he wants to be the thing that he would own out of all the choices. Even at age 5 Locke wanted to be a super-hero. It's like he's always known that he is special but no one else does. And even when people do recognize his abilities and like him for being him (i.e. Alpert and his high school science teacher and Helen, the ex he fell from grace with because he couldn't let his dad go) Locke then messes things up himself some how. Alpert, as he's showing the items to Locke, asks him "Which one is already yours?" This ritual is apparently very similar to how the next Buddha is chosen each time. The child participating either knows the right thing to pick or he doesnt. It seemed as if Locke knew, even at 5 years old, that he shouldnt pick the knife, but he wanted it. It made me think of the episode from Season 3 when Locke loses his voice and goes in to a sweat-shack with some narcotics to commune with the island. In that episode's (Further Instructions) flash-back Locke talks with Eddie (the undercover cop) about being a farmer or hunter and even the cop knew John was a farmer. Locke is a lover, not a fighter...but he's a fighter too, so dont get any ideas.
Moving further along, Locke's high school teacher tells him Alpert wants him to come to summer camp at Mittelos Bioscience's labs near Portland. He refuses and utters his catch phrase, "Don't tell me what I can't do!" If only poor Locke could've embrace who he is meant to be earlier in life...The next flash-back is Locke rehabilitating his limp legs when who should appear but Matthew Abbadon, our friendly Widmore recruiter and Hurley stalker. He pushes Locke
symbolically and literally to the edge of the stairs and then offers him a challenge to go and try a Walkabout in Australia. It's as if Abbadon, who we assume worked for Widmore at the time, is one of these guides along the way that are prompting different eventual Lostaways toward their destination on the island. (Think: Desmond's old lady telling him not to marry Penny)Side note: "Australia is the key to the game," is what Hurley (one of the special ones) said in Ben's episode when the boys were playing Risk in Othersville. Rose and Bernard were told that Australia held one of the special places on earth that could heal people when they went to that weird healer dude in the outback. Obviously everyone on the plane was in Australia as well, for various reasons. (More on Australia next week, but think about it and if you have any good theories before then, let me know.)
In present island time, Locke, Hurley, and Linus travel through the jungle to find Jacob's cabin and along the way my boy Horace Goodspeed makes an appearance to Locke. He tells Locke that they've been waiting for him for a long time. I think Locke has obviously been being groomed since the earliest age for his task/place on the island, but like Alpert says to little Ben when in his backstory he runs in to the woods and meets Alpert for the first time, Locke had to choose it for himself. He had the "goods", but had to choose to use them voluntarily. Same with Ben, who has apparently fallen from graces with Jacob and the island. When the trio finally finds the cabin, Locke goes in and finds Christian Shepard and Claire. They tell John to "move the island."
Thoughts, theories, ramblings from Cabin Fever:
-Claire is dead, dying when her house blew up in Othersville. She can be seen and even touched, but so could Yemi when Eko saw him, or the black stallion when Kate saw it, etc. The island is trying to get Aaron off the island for some reason and Claire was a sacrifice the island demanded because she had broken the rule the psychic had given her back in season one and let Charlie help raise Aaron (who paid with his own life).
-Widmore has agents leading people to the island, just as Ben does. They are jockeying for position over who will control the island, like they told us, and Locke is the chosen one. Ben knows this and wanted to off Locke and keep control because he knows if Locke gets his rightful position of power on the island, Widmore will be able to gain control. They are competing for information and influence in and among the Lostaways before, on, and after the island.
-Or...I've heard a few people say now that maybe Ben is Locke's dad. He is the mysterious lover of Emily Locke. They never show us who the father is and Anthony Cooper might really have just been a con-man. He can time-travel, went back, knocked up Emily, and now has been waiting for his son to come to him. Just like Ben put the island before his other daughter, Alex, and let her die (Which was so sad, wasn't it)....he didnt hesitate shooting his son in the kidney and leaving him for dead in the Purge Pit. Or....Widmore is Locke's dad and that is why he sent his guy, Abbadon, to check in on Locke as Ben sent his guy, Alpert, in as well. Again, the competition thing between Ben and Charles.
Okay, I seriously can't write any more, and you likely do not want to read any more (if you've made it thus far to begin with). For more fun facts and analysis, check out the lostpedia links I've put here or read Doc Jensen's excellent columns at EW.
Good day to you,
JL's Baby Booties
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Sorry dudes
I apologize for not having a new post about last week's episode, Something Nice Back Home. This was my finals week and I also re-injured my back (insert fake, sarcastic, crying noise here), so I'll 
have to make this week's blog a double-feature and cover both episodes. Anyway, this one tonight is all about Locke, my boy, so enjoy it and look for an extended version of JL's Pants coming this weekend. Here is Entertainment Weekly's re-cap from last week's episode in case you need something now. Enjoy.
have to make this week's blog a double-feature and cover both episodes. Anyway, this one tonight is all about Locke, my boy, so enjoy it and look for an extended version of JL's Pants coming this weekend. Here is Entertainment Weekly's re-cap from last week's episode in case you need something now. Enjoy.Sunday, April 27, 2008
The Shape of Things to Come
Lostaways-
Wow. Omg. Yikes. Gasp. Burp.
Those were just some of the sounds and words you might have heard had you watched this week's episode of the greatest thing ever put to celluloid with me. This week's Shape of Things to Come episode was 2nd on my all-time list of all-time listed episodes of LOST, right after Desmond's thriller earlier this season, The Constant.
Ben went globe-trotting, a game of Risk provides insight to the show's broader themes, how 
Sayid became the #2 man in Al-Linus was revealed, and Jack's got the shakes...oh, and that smokey monster thing pulls a T-Rex from Jurassic Park and becomes a hero to the inhabitants of Othersville. Beat that, Gay's Anatomy.
Sayid became the #2 man in Al-Linus was revealed, and Jack's got the shakes...oh, and that smokey monster thing pulls a T-Rex from Jurassic Park and becomes a hero to the inhabitants of Othersville. Beat that, Gay's Anatomy.First things first...the title of the episode is also the title of a literary work of fiction by one H.G. Wells (of Invisible Man and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea fame). Few interesting facts about Mr. Wells:
-He was a self-proclaimed, and adamant, supporter of Socialism
-He believed in eugenics, which means he thought it was a good idea to follow Darwin's "Natural Selection" theory to its logical conclusion and the only humane thing to do to keep civilization and mankind going was to "breed out" the sickly, weak, and disabled among us
-He was nuts
In his book, The Shape of Things to Come, Wells creates a future for the world that is centered around his own pet idea: a one-world government. Without going in to too much detail (cause I just ordered the book off of Half.com and havent read it all yet), this one-world government is based out of Iraq (see:Babylon in the Bible) and tries to "fix" the world's problems by installing their own brand of authoritarianism. Also interesting about the book is that Wells predicted way back before WWII many inventions and military tactics and weapons that would be later used in the 20th century. It was a visionary account of what was to come before it came. Almost like he knew the future.
But on to the show itself.....
So it turns out my theory was right on it being the Boat People who snipered Krazy Karl and Rousseau at the end of the last episode. The boys from the Boat who had gone to run an "errand", as the captain put it to Sayid and Desmond, ended up clipping a few more inconsequential no-names en route to executing Alex, Ben's fake daughter. (More on that later) Speaking of the boat, its doctor, the one who we'd seen talking to Dez and Sayid in previous episodes, winds up deader than Jack in Titanic. His throat was slit, and to make matters weirder, when Faraday finally got his SOS on, the crew sent the message back: "What do you mean? The doctor is fine."
Hmmm, something's amiss here. I'm no CSInvesitgator (though I have a cousin who has appeared on a handful of episodes of the CSI Miami series), but I dont think the doctor is fine. In fact, he was murdered and either the Boat People are lying or are still stuck in a different time and the doctor isn't dead yet where they are sitting (floating). But the thrust of this episode isn't what went on at the beach, so our focus will now turn to Ben and Smokey and Widmore.
What I considered to be a very important scene was early on when Locke, Hurley, and Sawyer were playing Risk. Hurley makes the comment to Sawyer that "he" (ostensibly he is referring to Locke in this instance) is just trying to get us to fight each other. A few seconds later Hurley says "I cant believe you're just giving up Australia...its the key to the whole game." Oh really, Hugo? I see these carefully chosen/written words as being emblematic of the bigger story arch of the show. Ben could really be the "he" who has been trying to get everyone fighting among themselves on and off the island. The comment about Australia might have implications as to where the island really is, or that there is something more to the fact that all the passengers boarded a plane specifically from Sydney, Australia. Something we've missed thus far. And the fact that Hurley, someone we now know has "special" powers of his own, said all of this only reaffirms in my mind the importance of it.
I want to wrap up the action that went down in Othersville here and then focus solely on Ben and his Around the World in One Episode escapades. The Boat People obviously wanted Ben alive, but for what reason remains to be seen. I think it has to do with the "rules" Ben references, and with the fact that Ben told Widmore "You know I cant do that" when Charles asked Ben if he was there to kill him. But killing Alex changed those rules. I, for one, was not all that sad Alex is gone for one main and cold-hearted reason: that action taken now gives Ben the motivation for almost everything else he does the rest of the series. It was genius writing and a great idea to have Ben's "daughter" (who all of the sudden wanted daddy's help) killed because it shows us that Ben has real feelings and gives him the fuel on his sadistic fire to hunt down Widmore's daughter and other employees of Widmore Corp (with Sayid's help of course).
The big moment was Ben leaving down his secret corridor to "call up" Smokey the Monster. He returns covered in soot and a moment later Smokey does his thing on the unsuspecting Boat Mercenaries. I love how this show can take a creepy cloud of smoke and make it a central, key, fascinating character. Whatever the "rules" involved, Ben isn't happy and his first instinct is to go and get Cerebus the smokey watchdog of Hell Island to lay waste to the gunmen in the woods. But the group in the house escapes the situation and Sawyer leads a team back to the beach. Hurley, Ben, and Locke in turn head off to find Jacob's cabin, the man Ben says will tell them what to do now.
The reason this episode was amazing to me were all the scenes of Ben off the island and in the Middle East. The opening one finds Ben in the middle of the Tunisian desert, dressed for the 
arctic, with a cut on his arm and no tracks anywhere around him. When we first see him there on the ground, he violently wakes up, breaths what appears to be cold air out of his mouth, and then proceeds to hurl. Icky. He's in the middle of the desert and wakes up with cold air in his mouth and dressed for sledding. Hmmm. Ben can transport not just his mind, but his body. Desmond could only do it through his consciousness, but Ben has learned how to send himself as a whole, in tact, to other times and places. Important here is the name on the jacket Ben is wearing: Halliwax which happens to be the alternate name for Dr. Marvin Candle who you might remember from such Orientation films as The Swan and The Pearl. Dr. Candle calls himself Halliwax in the Orientation film for the Orchid Station. This is the one they released last Fall and it did not appear on the show itself. In this clip, Dr. Halliwax is startled when a bunny shows up unexpectedly in the frame with him. It's a bunny that has the same number and look as the bunny he himself is holding in the video.
arctic, with a cut on his arm and no tracks anywhere around him. When we first see him there on the ground, he violently wakes up, breaths what appears to be cold air out of his mouth, and then proceeds to hurl. Icky. He's in the middle of the desert and wakes up with cold air in his mouth and dressed for sledding. Hmmm. Ben can transport not just his mind, but his body. Desmond could only do it through his consciousness, but Ben has learned how to send himself as a whole, in tact, to other times and places. Important here is the name on the jacket Ben is wearing: Halliwax which happens to be the alternate name for Dr. Marvin Candle who you might remember from such Orientation films as The Swan and The Pearl. Dr. Candle calls himself Halliwax in the Orientation film for the Orchid Station. This is the one they released last Fall and it did not appear on the show itself. In this clip, Dr. Halliwax is startled when a bunny shows up unexpectedly in the frame with him. It's a bunny that has the same number and look as the bunny he himself is holding in the video. I think the Orchid is where Dharma people had harnessed the Island's powers to move through time and space and had sent animals (you know, like Polar Bears) as guinea pigs to test this out. That would explain the bear being in Tunisia when Charlotte Staples Lewis found it back in the beginning of this season. Ben must have sent himself to Tunisia many times before, or maybe different forms of himself. Maybe, like the bears and bunnies on the island, there are more than one Ben's running around the world. His story to Sayid about using Desmond's boat and chartering a plane doesn't add up. Plus you add in the fact that at the hotel in Tunisia (of all places) Ben is known as a preferred customer. He went under the name Dean Moriarty, which was one of the passports we saw in his secret room back on the island when Sayid first found it. So obviously somehow Ben can transport items with him, where Desmond could not.
Ben heads to Iraq from Tunisia to recruit Sayid for his terrorist organization, the afore mentioned Al-Linus. Now it goes without saying that the guy Ben tells Sayid killed his wife Nadia 
does work for Widmore, but I dont think he was the one who killed her. I think Ben did. I think Ben killed her to set up Widmore's people so that Sayid would want to join up and wreak some havoc for the creepy little guy while Ben does what he can to find Penny and keep Widmore from finding the island. We learn of this more in the final scene when Ben sneaks into Widmore's London town home in the middle of the night.
does work for Widmore, but I dont think he was the one who killed her. I think Ben did. I think Ben killed her to set up Widmore's people so that Sayid would want to join up and wreak some havoc for the creepy little guy while Ben does what he can to find Penny and keep Widmore from finding the island. We learn of this more in the final scene when Ben sneaks into Widmore's London town home in the middle of the night. These two are opponents in some sort of "game" to control the island, and possibly, the world. The name Moriarty that Ben used in Tunisia might shed more light on to this. Moriarty was Sherlock Holmes' fictional nemesis. He was a criminal mastermind and legendary manipulator. In some of the stories, Moriarty was said to have figured out how to control time and actually had time traveled. Sound familiar? The struggle between Holmes and Moriarty culminates with Sherlock falling to his death, but grabbing on to Moriarty as he falls, thus killing the most evil man in the world along with him. Just some things to consider, but I really think we're being given clues to the fact that Ben is truly the evil one here (if you hadn't already thought that).
Couple of thoughts/theories to wrap up:
-There is a good chance that when Ben went down in to that secret room where he keeps Smokey, that it was during those few moments that Ben traveled forward through time and all the things we saw in the "future" happened between the time Ben shut the door on Sawyer and when he came out and said "Excuse me, James." Think about it.
-I like the idea that the cold breath of air that comes out of Ben's mouth might have something to do with the guys Penny hired to monitor electromagnetic activity at the end of season two. Not sure how it fits in, but that is really the only other cold place we've seen on the show so far. Maybe Ben went to where they were and killed them or to find out where the person who hired them, Penny Widmore, might be found. And tying in what Rose was told by that healer in Australia about there being many other special places on the planet, maybe Tunisia is one of those special places, like the island, and that is why polar bears and Ben end up there. Ben's relative lack of surprise to find himself in the middle of the Tunisian desert really points to the fact that he must have done this many times before.
-We're soon gonna find out what Christian Shepard's, Jack's dad, role is in all of this. I really think he's got some connection either to Dharma or Widmore or Ben. Still trying to come up with a good theory on what that connection is though.
-"Australia is the key to the whole game"....someone's gotta have some interesting take on that line, right? Post it for everyone to enjoy if you do under the Comments section below.
-Star Wars tie-in's: Tunisia is where the original Star Wars film was shot. Another important location in the original trilogy is the Hoth planet of snow and ice, where the characters (i.e. Luke and Han) wear jackets somewhat similar to the one Ben has on when he breathes out cold air. Luke = Jack. Han = Sawyer. Princess Leia = Kate (or Claire). Darth Vader = Locke. The Emperor = Ben. Obiwon = Widmore. If you dont like Star Wars you're probably already navigating away from this page. Sorry.
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I didnt need Wikipedia to identify the homage to my favorite movie of all time, Lawrence of Arabia, that takes place when Ben walks in to the hotel in Tunisia and rings the bell. If you haven't seen this movie, go to where movies are sold or rented and buy it or rent it and watch it.
I didnt need Wikipedia to identify the homage to my favorite movie of all time, Lawrence of Arabia, that takes place when Ben walks in to the hotel in Tunisia and rings the bell. If you haven't seen this movie, go to where movies are sold or rented and buy it or rent it and watch it. I have finals this week, otherwise I'd write much more. But please send me your own theories and thoughts of not only what I've written here, but of the episode and show in general. Things are heating up and we've got four more hours of the show to go this season.
Onwards and upwards,
JL's Pants
Friday, April 11, 2008
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