I had to give this episode an Excellent. It really made me sympathize with Ben and realize that he does have some good in him.
above average. Ben & Locke episodes always shine for me. And it's interesting to remember how Ben is such an important part of this saga and he wasn't even introduced until mid S2. Only gripe: While Lapidus became the fall guy again (literally - poor guy never seems to get a break), I felt Sun was just stuck in the wrong story, like she was waiting for a bus. I hope there is a better reason for her to be involved in this plot besides just being separated from her husband so we get a big Penny/Desmond reunion episode in the future. (good news- you're alive! bad news - i left our baby with my mother) They could have left her sitting on that porch for the rest of the season and I doubt she'd be missed...
I liked whoever's idea it was that the "what lies in the shadow of the statue" might refer to not being truthful to Cerberus.
Ben with a toupee doesn't sell it for me that he was young. He just looked silly to me. Who looks sillier with a toup Ben or Locke? I would have rated excellent if I ever bothered to vote. It was pretty good. All Ben had to do to summon the smoky was go down to his pit and drain the cesspool? Wonder why it didn't respond to him. I also agree that it was strange that Ben went to the trouble to make friends with Ceasar only to kill him minutes later.
I just saw "Man Behind the Curtain" yesterday and MAN did Emerson and the kid playing Young Ben age dramatically in two years! Emerson had almost no lines on his face in the Dharma scenes, yet in the Dharma scenes in this week's episode he full of wrinkles.
Lostpedia has an explanation for the Cerberus summoning sink drain: "It is commonly believed that dead souls cannot cross water. Since the Smoke Monster incorporates the souls of the dead, water serves as a barrier it cannot cross. * If we assume the above statement is true, this is further evidence for the theory that the monster can't reach Hydra island and has nothing to do with Ilana acting like she does, and also this debunks the theory that Locke is manifested by the monster. "
Excellent, as expected from a Ben & Locke episode. At this point, Lost is on a sort of autopilot of excellence...
^^^And even those episodes are miles above 95% of the crap out there. Excellent episode. Nice to know that Ben is no longer the smartest guy in the room. That look he had from the last episode that spilled into this episode when he saw Locke alive was priceless. Someone has to screencap that one. Speaking of which, there are some in this thread who believe that Locke is a construct made by Smokey and that the real Locke is still dead. I certainly hope that's not the case. I know there are some people who still want Lost to hold some semblance of "realism", but I'm sorry. Realism, as some people perceive it, had left the building long time ago. I thought that the idea of sentient smoke would convince people of that. Hell, the island (and half of the cast) have gone through time. That wasn't a deal breaker?? At this point, I consider the dead rising like Locke (and, I now suspect, Christian) par for the course. So relax and enjoy the nutty ride! I am!
I find it interesting that the island is powerful enough to replace the embalming fluid in Locke's corpse with real blood.
We were talking about this at work. We'd like to get some sort of explanation but realize they'll probably skip it if they didn't address it already. A coworker easily debunked my theory of them finding the real Locke in a coffin by mentioning they never did find Christian's body. My daughters and I just watched this episode again. They really wanted to see Smokey and were not disappointed.
I've been posting on the Doctor Who boards here for about a year or two, and I have no idea why I never noticed the "LOST" forum. Forgive me if a lot of this has been covered, but I'm going to think out-loud for a moment. Hopefully someone can set me straight on certain issues I'm probably getting wrong. I could watch an entire SERIES of Ben Linus just being the badass Michael Emerson makes him. That guy is awesome. But, the awesome award is split this week with Desmond. I laughed my ass off when he tore Ben to pieces with one arm. That was fantastic and totally unexpected. I really didn't think Penny was going to live. I'm glad she did, though. I doubt that's the last we see of Desmond, however. Maybe? As for the "disease" that Desmond and The Kurgan were worried about, I'm pretty sure that was something to do with the nerve gas that Ben used to kill Dharma. Those guys in the stations probably assumed it had something to do with the island, and started using the hazmats all the time. Remember, Clancy Brown was waiting for someone to relieve him, and used the disease excuse to keep Desmond pushing the buttons. The button-pushing station was some kind of electromagnetic field experiment thing that was attached to the island's power source, and when it wasn't released on schedule (a.k.a. Locke stopped pushing the button) the station imploded. The "infection" that Roussea was talking about screwed her husband and his crew, that was something to do with the Smoke Monster, right? The Smoke Monster has nothing to do with Dharma at all. It seems to be part of the island (defense mechanism?), and The Others (whether from the Black Rock or not) seem to "worship" it perhaps? It lives under their temple (not that Ben knew that), so I'm feeling it has some connection to whatever it is they worship or the reason for the temple's existence. "What lies in the shadow of the statue?" I would guess the Bounty Hunter from ROME and her guy are part of Widmore's group, backtracking against Ben. Why they asked that question and what it means, I have no idea. Maybe it's the "Temple" that lies in the shadow of the statue? Maybe a spaceship lies in the shadow of the statue? Maybe she and her posse are part of an entirely new contingent that's just entered the fray? What is the temple? Who is Richard Alpert (or as I call him, "Guyliner"...for the seeming eyeliner it looks like he wears) and why doesn't he age (whereas the rest of his group does)? Speaking of Widmore....am I to understand that he came to the island with an army contingent? I can't remember. I remember the h-bomb the army brought with them, but it seems that Richard's group was in control of that one, right? So, was that army group killed and their stuff taken by The Others? Was Widmore always an Other, or did he come with the military? And is it me, or are we seeing a slight Christian religion analogue? Jacob--Father/GOD Locke--Son/Jesus (raised from the dead after three days, "virgin birth", etc.) Richard--Holy Ghost (ageless and lives for the will of the "Father") Widmore--Lucifer (cast from Heaven/the island) Ben--Judas I'm sure that's on purpose, as are the rest of the religious amalgams we've seen on this series. I'm still of my original Season One mind that the island is the original, Biblical "Garden of Eden", the Smoke Monster being the Angel with the Flaming Sword that guards the Gate of paradise. I could be wrong, but it fits. As do a couple of other things, of course. Man, I wish Jeph Loeb had never been part of this show. This season feels as exciting as the first one. Thank god his mediocrity has been removed from the show. Go Brian K. Vaughn (with his well-deserved "Y: The Last Man" plug a few episodes back). Does any of this make sense? LOST fries my brain, man...
Jeph Loeb never wrote for the show nor did he have anything to do with it. He was credited in season two but his son died during that season and then he left to do Heroes.
I still think it's a riddle, and "lies" is actually being used to mean "tell an untruth". As in, you can't tell a lie when you're in the shadow of the statue, or something like that. "Jughead" seemed to imply that Richard, Widmore, and Ellie were always with the Others, and not associated with the US military. The US military came to the Island, and the Others fought them off. The Others had military gear of their own, which they might have stolen from the Americans. It's also possible that some of the Americans defected, and were absorbed into the Others, but since Widmore is British, it seems unlikely that he would fall under that category. What I want to know is, why did the Americans choose that island to conduct their H-bomb test on? Does that imply that they knew about the island beforehand? (And if so, how?) I mean, they wouldn't have just been wandering the seas, and stumbled across it, and then said "Hey, let's test our nuke here." Normally, if you're looking for an island to test a weapon on, you would start out by looking at a map, and picking an island that you actually know about.
If he didn't write anything, why is he in the credits? And that pretty much tells me why Heroes went down the tubes, as well. What a hack writer...
Nice! I hadn't thought of that one. Should I know "Ellie"? Good point! I wonder if they'll go back and touch on that one? Maybe the island once had solid coordinates (and thus, mapped) but after the military invasion, they moved it?
An inevitable EXCELLENT from me. The Ben-centric episodes have all been excellent so far. Having said that, this will definitely be in my Top 5 of the season. The interactions between Ben and "Locke" were the big plus point for me this week. Plus we saw lots of answers in the LOST mythology: how Ben acquired Alex from Danielle, how his rivalry with Widmore began, and most importantly what happened to his "loose end" in LA. Like everyone else, I was mighty relieved that Penny didn't drop. And looks like Desmond "I'm so kick-ass I shit Bauers" Hume will survive his pistol wound intact - I mean, I guess the Island won't let him die as it's "not done with him" yet. (Although I would have liked Desmond later in the season take Our Mutual Friend back to the Island to find Ben and take revenge on him for murdering Penny had it come to that...) But ZOMG Ilana! What is with her all of a sudden?! "Locke" really does seem to act very strange since his resurrection - almost like "Christian" does since he "died". Maybe "Locke" is pretending to be Locke and instead is another conduit through which the Island or Jacob or whoever is talking? And as far as attempting to unveil big mysteries goes, they don't come much bigger than addressing the origin and purpose of the Monster. Great to see "Alex" back again. Jack. http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Image:Sarahpullsalocke.jpg
Ellie is the blonde-haired Other in 1954 who takes Faraday to inspect the nuke. She is also mentioned in "Whatever Happened, Happened": http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Ellie Faraday says that there's something familiar about her, and everyone presumes that Ellie = Eloise Hawking, Faraday's mother, as the names are similar and the ages would work out.
Not to mention of course that their mannerisms and accents were somewhat similar, and of course that they're both HAWT.