GOOD DAY, LOSTIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!well it's taken me a full weekend to digest the first episode back: The Shape of Things to Come...and if this episode is an indication of things to come, I'm even more in than I was before!!
I was well aware that they would be packing as much in as possible due to the strike shortened season, but dang! they jammed it all in this week!
First let's start with the above picture...Ben wakes up in the Sahara Desert, in a DHARMA parka, with the surname Halliwax on it....This is a deliberate illusion to the Orchid Station and a certain Dr. Halliwax who runs certain "experiments"...I posted a youtube video of this station in an old post(look in Archives 2/17-2/24)..feel free to watch it...It was entitled The Orchid, of course....
That being said, there's still no proof that Ben did in fact time travel...but there's nothing so far saying he hasn't.. :)
One other thing we saw Ben do was go through a secret room inside of his secret room, through a door marked with hieroglyphics, much like what was on the time clock in the Swan Station...proof that things have been on this island for a very long time...
In this room, Ben apparently has the key to controlling the Black Smoke Monster....And boy howdy, did he unleash the beast after Keamy killed Alex...who saw that coming??? I thought ol' Ben had it all under control and then Keamy does the unthinkable, leading Ben to say: He changed the rules. Which was interesting considering that he referred to Alex as just a "pawn"...A high risk game of Chess with an unknown player...well not exactly unknown, considering Charles Widmore's name has been dropped more times than footballs thrown to Terrell Owens... So we've established that Widmore is the foe of Mr Linus but with the breaking of game rules, we see him to be a truly evil mastermind, on a level with Ben himself...But I have a theory about ol Charles and we'll get to the ol' part in a second..First let's look at the freight train that is Smokey:
WHOOSH!!!!!! Very cool...but not exactly effective if next week's promos are to be believed....It looks like a good deal of Keamy and his men are left...but is Smokey finished?? Ah, maybe, maybe not....The question raised here is that how much does Ben control anything at this point?....
Ah Sayid...poor poor Sayid...We learned how he got roped into being Ben's hired gun...willingly so it seems...Ben told him to beat it but Sayid wanted more...Look at Sayid, exercising that FREE WILL....the same free will that Jack exercised by operating on Ben...Apparently, Ben can't really ask for anything but he can plant such copious seeds that you believe it's your own idea to join the team....crazy....But Sayid dropped another unseen bomb, in that he found his lost love Nadia and married her! Yay! But then she was killed! Boo!..Such a roller coaster of emotions!!
And let's not sell Ben short..he proved to be quite the resourceful one, especially when Sayid asked him how he got off the island..Ben lied about using the Elizabeth, Desmond's boat that he was given by Libby...the fact that they used that little blast from the past, makes me think we may still see more of Libby again this season, in some capacity....maybe, maybe not...
And then we saw Ben kicking a little arse in the desert and getting himself to Tunisia, Lawrence of Arabia style....very cool....not exactly all brains only, that Mr Linus..
And now let's conclude with the aforementioned Charles Widmore.....Who is this cat?? We know him to be Penny's father...we know Ben now wants to kill Penny, although he finds Charles a year later to tell him that little unsavory ambition...Ben crept in, like a thief in the night(read your Bibles for that reference) and was within inches of ending Widmore's life if he so chose....
"Are you here to kill me, Ben?"
"You know I can't do that Charles"
Why not, I yelled at the TV.....and then it hit me....Read the words carefully..it's not that Ben CAN'T kill Widmore himself....Here's my whopper theory: It's more likely that Widmore CAN'T be killed...He's what I like to call a LIFER....I'm introducing a new word into the LOST lexicon...You see, we've already met one LIFER: Mr Richard Alpert....I contend that Charles Widmore is just like Richard in that he doesn't age...I think he's part of the crew that crashed on the Island on the Black Rock...which if you go back and watch very carefully, Widmore sleeps with a painting of the Black Rock beside his bed...
Then he says this to Ben:
"I know who you are, BOY! Everything you have, you stole from me!"
But Widmore must have trusted Ben at some point and Ben tricked him and then applied some sort of cloaking device to keep anyone from finding the Island....It's all very tricky but that doesn't mean it isn't plausible....which is really all I need to frame a theory.. :)
And with that, I leave you all to think and discuss amongst yourselves...I must depart and concoct more theories that will continue to provide more smoke and confusion, only to be ultimately proven wrong by next week's episode...which looks to be taking a cue from Grey's Anatomy and causing Jack to contract appendicitis.... YAY!..I mean, BOO!..Go Speed Racer!!
Later!
El Prez JB
