5x11 Pre-Thoughts

Let’s just assume for the sake of discussion that the timeline has been irreparably altered by Sayid shooting Ben (I don’t believe this is the case, of course). What then?

I think the show would be in very dangerous territory, because we have all invested four and a half seasons in these people and their struggles. If that timeline is suddenly gone, then what was the point of it all? In order for it to work, it would have to be very clear how the actions that came all were crucial in causing the rupture in the timeline and then those past experiences would all have to be critical in establishing the new reality. And that would be tough to pull off.

One alternate history I would be interested in seeing, but don’t expect to of course, is what would have happened had the Hostiles and DHARMA managed to wipe themselves out completely absent one side winning decisively as was the case with Ben and the Purge. How would our survivors time on the island have been different had they not had a common enemy to band against? Would it have been Lord of the Flies time?

As has been pointed out by many, "He’s Our You" was the first flashback episode since "Cabin Fever". I’d expect we’ll get several more before the season is over--Kate and Hurley are prime candidates, as we need to see how they ended up on Ajira 316. Ben would always be great flashback material, and Faraday and Miles have never had centric-episodes other than the snippets in “Confirmed Dead”.

This never occurred to me until now, but when Jack, Kate, and Hurley see Jin, they don’t ask him any questions like "How did you survive the boat explosion?" or anything like that. The Oceanic Six believed that Jin was dead, although maybe they accepted Ben’s story at face value.

Roger (father of Ben) had some amusing comments about the DI being filled with morons, yet Sayid was captured by them, and Sayid retorts about how he mops their floors. But he also referred to the Hostiles as “Kings of the Jungle”, harkening back to that old early Season 2 mystique about the silent and stealthy Others. Which leads to the question, how many of the Others are old Hostiles. Obviously we know Richard, but we know that Juliet, Ethan, Ben, and Mikhail are not. It seems doubtful that some of the others were either. Who are the remaining Hostiles?

An interesting point raised elsewhere: after Sayid is given the truth serum, he tells Sawyer that he now knows what his purpose is (kill Ben of course). What if this serum is some sort of mystical potion that puts you in communication with the Island (like John’s paste or sweat lodge), and thus the Island revealed this purpose to him? Oldham did seem to be something of an island mystic himself.

This way, Sayid’s shooting of Ben can be seen as work he had to do for the Island, which can make the result destiny or the island attempting to course correct, depending on what you think about the whole Ben conundrum.

And who hired Ilana? As others have pointed out, was it really the family of the Seychelles golfer? Fat chance. My guess--Ben as his backup plan to ensure Sayid returned to the island, in the same vein as "Operation Aaron". But some other party (like, say, one who has spoken before about needing certain people to be on the island for the coming war--what was his name anyway? Witman or something?) could be in the running as well.

Faraday has said that "whatever happened, happened" which for reasons that will be obvious later is an important thing to keep in mind tonight. But what this really means is still in question, as seen by the Sayid/Ben conundrum. I believe that what it really means is that whatever happened in the past was the result of meddling by those from the future and is now inevitable. It’s not so much that the actors don’t have free will, but that they’ve already exercised it, and those choices in the past/future have shaped who they are now. So, for instance, Sayid is a killer, and his choice in shooting Ben contributed to world that he knows now. But…

Desmond, where are you? Faraday told Desmond that he’s miraculously special. Maybe he is the one who can get our people out of Dharmaville and back to wherever they are really supposed to be. It has been since "316" since Desmond has appeared, which is a long-time for a main character. And when I mentioned people who are ripe for a flashback, Desmond should be near the top of the list.

Rewatching 1x07 "The Moth", there is a scene early in the episode in which Kate tells Sawyer that she knows he doesn’t have anyone to go back to off the island, no one who cares about him, and that’s why he doesn’t care about getting off the island. This is echoed in what she tells Bentham in "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham". At the time, some people questioned the smarmy nature of Kate’s tone, and the way she looked down on Locke, as if it were out of character. But it’s not; she’s given the same speech before.