LOST REVIEW: Ep. 5.6 "316" (Additional Thoughts)

Something wasn’t sitting quite right with me last night. It wasn’t the albondigas soup – that was fantastic. It was more the dilemma I face daily as I try to make sense of this puzzle that is Lost. It started with the simple question, “where did Ben go and how did he get so bloodied?”

Well, I think the obvious answer is that Ben went to kill Penny. He had seen Desmond minutes earlier at the church, and his eyes lit up in “future recognition,” although he had never actually met Desmond or known about his connection to Penny or even known that Penny has accompanied Desmond to Los Angeles in the first place (not from his past experience – only from his future experience). But Ben left jack in the church saying that he had made a “promise to an old friend” (i.e. that he would kill that old friend’s daughter) and had that loose end to tie up before heading back to the island for good. Clearly something went wrong with his plan – no, I don’t think that he did kill Penny – he was thwarted and barely made it back to the plane in time to get back to the island, which – ultimately – was more important to him than revenge. So Ben made it on the plane following the plan that Hawking set up to get him back to the island.

But when you start pulling on that string, other strings begin to unravel. Like this:

Why can’t Widmore use Hawking to get back to the island?

When Ben promised Widmore that he would kill his daughter, and Widmore said “you’ll never find her” Ben gave a “right back at ya” remark in regards to the island. But – hang on a minute – because this is the same Widmore who pointed Desmond to Los Angeles in the first place, to go find the mother of the guy who’s research he had been funding for so many years. If Widmore knew Hawking was in LA, he must also have known about the lamppost Dharma station and the island-finding pendulum. Infact, if Widmore is really trying to find the island and he is really funding someone’s research, isn’t it reasonable to expect that those two things go together? In other words, Widmore should be able to go to LA and look at the swinging pendulum himself and know exactly where the island is going to be in time – where the “windows” will open and close.

So why doesn’t Widmore do it himself?

Probably the same reason you don’t use your king to make aggressive moves in Chess. You get your pawns and bishops and knights to clear the way.

Which explains, I think, who these other people on the plane are with the Oceanic 6. The woman escorting Sayid – the Arab man who spoke to Jack – these guys are part of Widmore’s “next group” to go to the island for him – the group after Naomi, Faraday, Charlotte, Miles, etc. Heck, even clean-shaven Frank Lapidus is flying the plane, and he was a part of that previous group as well.

This flight is yet another attempt of Widmore to get back and regain control of the island. Widmore may even be the reason Sayid (captured) and Hurley (released from jail) and Kate (Aaron taken away) changed their minds and got on board in such a short amount of time. We already know he has something going on with Sun.

But Ben keeps gumming up the works, doesn’t he? John Locke was supposed to turn the donkey wheel, but Ben did it instead. John Locke was supposed to round up the O6 and take them to Hawking for a ticket back to the island, but Ben did that instead. Now Ben is situating himself once again between Widmore and his objectives. It would not surprise me at all to see that Ben is somehow undermining this third or fourth or whatever number attempt Widmore is making to get back to the island.

It also wouldn’t surprise me to see that Faraday is the “clever man” who created the lamppost station for Dharma in the early 50’s as the culmination of a research grant from Widmore that started in the early 80’s and that Widmore’s reason for including Faraday as part of Naomi’s first group to the island was to get him back to the 50’s to create that lamppost station that finally finds the island for Widmore after years of searching. He has the tool to find it, but the only way to get back is to ride the coattails of someone that the island really needs – like Jack Sheppard or John Locke or the other O6 who’s roles and overall importance are slowly coming into greater focus. I like all the Narnia and Caspian references I have been seeing from Doc Jensen and elsewhere. It really is looking like the return of the noble family of Narnia or something. They don’t really know who they are yet.

Such a cool show.