5x10 Pre-Thoughts

This post will mostly focus on the things I missed while watching “Namaste”, or at least for got to discuss. First is the obvious parallels between the scene in which Ben visits Sayid in the DHARMA jail and the encounter those two men will have in the hatch many years later. It even has all the “is he or isn’t he” intrigue as it relates to being a member of the Others/Hostiles, but in reverse.

Some people are fretting about the potential for serious contradictions and continuity problems in having the young Ben interact with Lostaways, but I think that’s a little overblown. I don’t think we can say with any certainty how the time travel works anyway. Were our people always part of the past, or are they now creating a new string of time? If it’s the latter, there’s no need for any concern on the specific Ben front, although it could open up a new can of worms in terms of complaining about that story structure. Anyway, my guess is that little Ben will not be overly significant in the lives of our heroes and that he won’t be getting that much screentime. A little reminder that Ben Linus and his father were with DHARMA at that time is enough.

I noted that the baby was Ethan, of course, but that raises the question of “How did he survive the Purge?” Did he too rebel against his community and seek out its enemies? Did he follow the older Ben around like a puppy dog and become his acolyte? Was he persuaded logically to join the Others as an adolescent/adult? Was he kidnapped by the Hostiles? Did he flee to the real world and then get recruited back? There are any number of possibilities.

Screencaps show that there was a woman visible in the DHARMA shack where Sun and Frank chat up Christian. There is some question as to whether or not this is a production error, but many believe that Claire is still hanging out with her dad. I have said this before, and I’ll say it again: the return of Claire is one of the inevitable events of the season that I am most looking forward to. I’m not quite sure why--I like her, but she’s not the most interesting or important character and I wouldn’t describe her as a favorite. But I’m looking forward to seeing her again much more than I was Michael in Season 4, and my opinion of Michael is much higher than most LOST fans.

It seems as if off-island stories have been left behind, but of course there is one big exception: Desmond. Desmond has not appeared since “316”, and of course we are still waiting to find out what happened between Ben and Penny. I hope that Desmond’s return will enable us to see some of the outside world’s reaction to the Ajira 316 crash, including the revelation that the Oceanic Six was aboard. Perhaps that news will be the spark that causes Desmond to jump back into action.

One of the mysteries of the Ajira crash is why Sun was not flashed off the plane like everybody else. I now have a theory on this, which makes perfect sense to me. Christian, or the entity using Christian as the case may be, needs someone with knowledge of the island to help it fulfill some mission. That person must be in the present.

So what choices does it have? Ben? No way, he won’t do anyone’s bidding with the possible exception of Jacob? Hurley, Kate, Jack, Sayid? No…they all know or know of Christian Shepard. Remember the seemingly unimportant detail that Sun was not at Christian’s funeral…where there was a big honking picture of him? Any of the other Oceanic Sixers would have recognized Christian and been freaked out. Sun knows of Christian, but has never met him or seen his face. And that, I believe, is why Sun was not flashed off the plane.

More fun lyrics from "Ride, Captain Ride": "On your mystery ship / on your way to a world that others might have missed".

Rewatching 1x06: House of the Rising Sun, one thing that stands out is the discovery of the Adam and Eve skeletons. This is an enduring mystery, one of the oldest on the show, and the recent time traveling has only made their identity more interesting, as it’s possible they are people we know. However, the fact that Charlotte’s dead body disappeared as the survivors jumped through time makes it seem as if bodies would not exist outside of the lifetime of their owners.

As a rough estimate, Jack says the degrading of the clothing makes them look 40 to 50 years old. 50 years would be 1954, which does make Rose and Bernard an interesting possibility, although I tend to believe they are still alive.