CONGRATS MICHAEL EMERSON!!!!

It’s about freaking time! Congratulations to Michael Emerson for winning Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his portrayal of Mr. Benjamin Linus!

The Loophole

I’ll come right out and say that I’m probably wrong on this.

In “The Incident” Man On Beach Guy says to Jacob that one day he’ll find a “loophole” so that he can finally kill Jacob. We get confirmation from Jacob in that last scene inside the statue that NotLocke is this same Man On Beach Guy and Jacob even says something like “looks like you found your loophole” – to the great delight of NotLocke. I don’t know about you but when I first watched this, I thought that John Locke was the loophole, allowing for Man On Beach Guy to infiltrate the Others and gain access to the statue, or merely to be tangible or something like that.

But I keep thinking about this and I’ve come to the opinion that John Locke was NOT the loophole Jacob and Man On Beach were referring to but that it was Benjamin Linus.  Ben is the one that has a grudge against Jacob and that is manipulated into killing Jacob by NotLocke. There’s got to be a reason why NotLocke couldn’t kill Jacob himself. Here’s my theory:

• Jacob can only be killed by a leader, or former leader, of the Others. They’ve talked many times about chain of command within the Others, Jacob being the guy in charge of the island and the leader being underneath him but still higher in rank than your average Hostile. Call it a Judas complex.
• If Man On Beach Guy is, as I suspect, the smoke monster, then why couldn’t Smokey just wipe out Jacob? Jacob is obviously not immune to dying. It was rather easy to kill him actually.
• Ben and Smokey have had a long and interesting relationship. If, as I again suspect, that Smokey is behind all of these dead people we see on the island, then Ben saw Smokey posing as his dead mama back as a kid – which is why Richard was scared as hell to learn that. Ben can summon Smokey and Smokey seems fairly willing to do his bidding. Furthermore, Ben got judged by Smokey and survived – something I think we all can agree would not have happened with a more benevolent spirit. Instead, Smokey, this time posing as Ben’s daughter instead of Ben’s mother, told Ben to follow NotLocke’s every command. That turned out to mean killing Jacob. Conclusion? Smokey has had Ben wrapped around his little smokey finger this whole time. The master manipulator was being played by the big ‘ole smoke machine.
• The ultimate loophole was to find a leader of the Others so disenchanted with everything, so dejected and so angry with his situation that he or she would be willing to kill the guy in charge.
• Adding more fuel to this fire, how much you wanna bet that Richard made a deal with the devil, aka Smokey aka Man On Beach Guy, to save young Ben’s life after he was shot? If that’s true, then we gotta figure out what Richard’s motives really are.

Am I crazy? I think this is at least a possibility.

Dead is Dead is Dead is…But Really?

So from my perspective, we got 4 types of dead going on in Lost land after this season finale. The fourth one is iffy.

1. Bomb dead – including the 1977 group, perhaps that entire island, and I would include Juliet in this one.
2. We saw you die dead – Jacob
3. We saw you die but were led to believe you were alive dead – John Locke
4. Everyone else in the 2007 story post-bomb dead(?) – Ben, Richard, Sun, The Others  and the 316 group

This is leading to mass confusion and conjecture as to what Season 6 is going to be like and who is even going to be on the show.

1. Bomb Dead – As I said on here yesterday, a hydrogen bomb was exploded in 1977 in the yet-to-be-finished Swan station. Even though that H-bomb was detonated underground, that blast would still have killed anyone in that area. This includes Juliet, Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Sayid, Miles, Dr. Chang, Radzinksy and all those other Dharma folks. You cannot tell me that the bomb would only have killed Juliet. It’s a hydrogen bomb. The explosion would have gone up that shaft Juliet fell down and destroyed that entire, already unstable area. Not to mention that the explosion would have been mixed in with all of that electromagnetism. They died.

But, they died in this reality. My theory for next year is that Daniel’s crazy plan sorta worked. Our Losties died in this reality but were thrust into an alternate timeline in which 815 never crashed on the island.  Lost version 2. I think the interesting part will be if our peeps remember everything that happened in these last 5 seasons.

2. We Saw You Die Dead – If Jacob is/was a deity, he’s an awfully mortal one. Ben stabbed him in the heart (watch that scene again, it’s chilling) twice and NotLocke kicked him into the fire. Seems pretty dead to me. It does raise the question, multiple questions, on what exactly Jacob is/was, why did NotLocke/Man On Beach Guy want him dead, and what was the loophole? That only a mortal could kill him? Seems like there’s more to it than that. Regardless, I think Jacob’s gone. Definitely could be wrong there though.

3.  We Saw You Die But Were Led To Believe You Were Alive Dead – I’ve been reading some comments on the finale that are somewhat very hostile to the idea that John Locke really is dead. His body tumbling out of that metal box (magic box? prolly not) was a pretty good confirmation that yep, Ben killed Locke back in L.A. and he was not reincarnated. At least not in that body. But wasn’t the lettering on Ben’s van in L.A. an anagram for “reincarnation”? Weren’t we led to believe through 5 seasons that Locke is someone special, someone tuned in to the magical properties of the island? Was that all just a ploy to get this Man On Beach Guy through his loophole?

Something very similar to this happened on the show Angel. In Season 5, Winifred Burkle was consumed by an ancient God named Ilyria. While Fred’s body was turned to rock, Ilyria retained all of the memories, characteristics, and emotions that Fred had when she was living. Applied to Locke, this NotLocke has the same mannerisms, the same memories, and the same gleeful pursuit of sticking it to the people who had made him crazy pre-time jumping that our known Locke had. Though not in the same body, this NotLocke figure looks, talks, speaks, tastes, sounds like Locke. So is Locke dead or has Locke just become what fate has always set out for him to be?

4. Everyone Else. – Hydrogen bomb goes off in 1977, doesn’t that negate everything happening in 2007, especially if it did indeed change the past? And by changing the past, I think I mean this theory of an alternate timeline – much like what the new Star Trek saga is claiming to be. If the bomb made it so 815 never came to the island then none of what’s happening with Locke, Ben and Jacob would be happening, at least in the way we saw it. So these characters are necessarily dead but they are nonexistent in the world we are going to venture into in Season 6.

On the beach, Jacob says “It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.” Right now, after thinking about the above, it seems to me that Lost is suggesting that time is an endless series of loops. What the hydrogen bomb did was start another loop. Again, the question I have, if this is semi-close to being correct, is if our people are going to remember what happened. Will this loop be any different or is Jack going to wake up in that jungle just like he did in Season 1?

This is all guesswork, me just trying to make some sense of this finale.

“That which will save us all” – Lost Season 5 Finale “The Incident”That

I’m not sure why you would not have watched but if you didn’t, obviously don’t read this.

Perhaps I should change the name of my blog to Regarding Jacob. Well, the season is over. Lost is officially done until next year. I don’t think we could have asked for a better season finale than that, easily the best they’ve done – and that’s saying something. Lots to talk about so here we go:

“Well, it’s a wonderful foot, Richard, but what’s it got to do with Jacob?” – FTW Moments (where do you even start?)

• First off, YAY Bernard and Rose!!! They aren’t dead! And Vincent!
• The Apollo candy bar in the vending machine in Jack’s hospital. WTF?
• The brief glimpse of the Black Rock pretty much rocked my world.
• Um, the statue!

• Everything having to do with Juliet. I can’t believe I once hated this character. She was brilliant in this episode from the heartbreaking scene where she tells Sawyer that maybe they shouldn’t be together to the heartbreaking “death” scene – I’m gonna cry again just thinking about it – to her big final scene which I’ll get to later. She finally became what this show has always needed: a female character we could really get behind. And then of course she…died?
• Obviously the bomb at the end, more on that below.
• Everything and anything to do with Michael Emerson. “I’m a pisces” HA! Strangers with Candy shout  out? Prolly not.
• I think what might have been the coolest scene of the show was that kick ass fight between Jack and Sawyer. I mean, how long have we waited for that to happen? I thought it was hilarious at the end of that scene that we see Jack in the background just roaming off into the jungle. It amused me.
• Again, obviously the enormous and surprising amount of screen time with and information about Jacob. Did not see that coming.
• Locke’s dead body tumbling out of that box.
• Oh yeah, didn’t Ben kinda like, oh I don’t know, go ape shit on Jacob at the end there? Damn.

“I don’t care who I looked at, I’m with you” – Heartbreaking and/or emotional moments

• I’ll give it to Darlton this time. That finale made me realize that I do in fact care more about the characters on the show than the mythology of the show. This episode had little in the way of action but was big on the emotions, motivations, and interactions of the characters we so love and love to hate.
• Ben just about killed me in this one. Talk about lost! “Locke” cut him down to the vulnerable, shafted little boy Ben’s been hiding inside all these years. What I love about it is who knew Ben would be more dangerous with his defenses down? Part of me can’t blame him for (repeatedly) stabbing Jacob after being told that he basically didn’t matter at all.
• Definitely Jack’s face after that bomb didn’t blow.
• Sayid’s last line “Nothing can save me.” Such a Debbie Downer.
• Sun and Jin’s very happy wedding. Made me cry cause I want these two back together so bad. What I can’t figure out is when this wedding took place. I mean, we’ve already seen their wedding haven’t we? And it didn’t look like that. Sun’s showing too much skin for that. Very confusing.
• The one relationship this show has brought about that I can really buy into is the Sawyer/Juliet one. They are a perfect match for each other. She brings out the best of him and he brings out the softness of her. You knew it was doomed. But my goodness did they pull on our heartstrings!

• I was definitely crying during this whole Juliet death scene. It was so plain that she was going to fall down that – very familiar – hole but you wanted Sawyer to hang on so badly! Josh Holloway ripped me apart in that. Wow.
• Of course, we were cheated here a little bit because Juliet didn’t die right then. Nope, she got to make the bomb go off by hitting it with a big rock. The flash of white light was an intense thing to watch.

“What about you?” – Ben and Jacob, BFF

Does this promo picture remind anyone else of Lord of the Rings?

• So the statue group has dead Locke in a box and is taking him to see Jacob at his cabin because Ilana knows Jacob from the real world (???). They get to the cabin and Jacob is gone, the ash circle broken. They find Richard and the Others at the base :::ahem::: in the shadow :::ahem:::: of the statue. Richard spouts of a line of Latin and gets to see that dead Locke is in the box meaning that whoever went into the giant foot with Ben is not John Locke. Dead is dead.  All the while, “Locke” is convincing Ben by Ben’s own brand of manipulation that he wants to kill Jacob as an ultimate act of revenge for Ben’s cancer, his daughter dying, blah, blah, blah. Ben finally succumbs to it when Jacob acts all pissy with him and offs the guy in charge of the island, much to “Locke”’s pleasure. Recap over.
• I’m not going to say I told you so cause parts of my theory about Locke were not correct but did I or did I not come damn close?
• Well, I don’t know how you come back from killing Jacob. Ben, my friend, you might be lost to us now.
• My thoughts are all getting jumbled. This whole plot is going to need its own post, should come later today.

“I don’t speak destiny” – That bomb is gonna blow!

• When is Richard not awesome? Hitting Ellie on the head like that was so cool.
• Coulda predicted that either Jack or Sayid would get shot in Dharmaville but it did surprise me that we didn’t see Sayid die. I thought we were gonna get a big death.
• I cheered when Hurley came flying into Dharmaville in the van to save Jack and Sayid.
• Sawyer’s passionate speech in the sub and then his uber passionate tete-a-tete with Jack (before the pummeling) was great. Sawyer all growd up.
• I cannot believe Jack was doing all of this for Kate. It’s touching but come on!
• I loved Miles’ line questioning whether the bomb is the incident and not the electromagnetism thing. A question we’ve all been asking.
• Thematically, it was very satisfying to see our Losties end up working together towards a common goal. They’ve all been so separate that to see them come together and help Jack fulfill his “destiny” was pretty powerful. That it didn’t necessarily work out made the whole thing heartbreaking. 

• Oh God, the look on Jack’s face when the bomb didn’t go off coulda killed me. Imagine, he’s so certain this is his path and then he has the dawning realization that not only was he wrong but he probably just killed himself and his friends and then all of a sudden, without warning, great big flash. Gotta love this island.
• When we look back on the series of Lost, I think the centerpiece of the show can be the scene with Bernard and Rose. They found a way to coexist with the island, be at peace with their fates and thus live a happily serene and easy life there on the island. Bernard’s reply “then we die” showed true acceptance. Bravo, very well done scene.
• Again, this whole plot deserves its own post. More on the Jack/Sawyer stuff at least.

“It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress” – Questions, oh the questions.

• Who/what is this?
• The off-island scenes, were they the past? The future in the case of Sun and Jin? An alternate reality? A mix of both?
• Jacob can leave the island?
• Did Jacob bring Locke back to life when Locke fell out of the building?
• Was Jacob prodding these people along to get them to come to the island? Why?
• What is the consequence of Jacob dying?
• Is Jacob good or bad?
• Did that bomb go off or did the island flash in time again?
• Who the hell is going to be on the show next year?
• Better yet, what the hell is the show going to be next year?

I have so much more to say and I’m sure I will in future posts.

ETA: After reading some reaction online, I only have this to say: People, a hydrogen bomb blew up at the Swan. Everyone in that area, including all of our 1977 Losties are dead. Unless that was a time jumping flash instead of a bomb flash, they are dead. Next season is not going to start with Jack waking up next to the Swan site and saying “Oh man, I have a headache but at least I survived that hydrogen bomb.” Come on.

Say It Ain’t So

Just shy of 12 hours and counting down. Tonight we get the two-hour finale of Lost Season 5 and I have to say I’m very mixed about it. I know I need a break from the show – it has consumed my life since January – but I don’t want to go another 8 months before a new episode! And because this is the last chance for a big season-ending cliffhanger, I have a feeling it’s going to be painful. Very, very painful.

I have no idea what to think anymore about what’s going to happen. I like my theories on Jughead and Locke (see the last two posts) but I also could be entirely wrong. That being said, here’s my predictions on what we’re going to see tonight:

• At least one big death that is a final death, not included in my theory that everyone in 1977 is gonna die by that bomb going off. My guess would be Sawyer first, Juliet second, and, for some crazy reason, Hurley. :::gasp!:::: I know but I just have a hunch. Those are usually wrong though.
• The bomb is going off. It’s the thing I’m the most unspoiled sure about.
• We’re going to find out a lot more about what the hell is up with Locke.
• We’ll discover who the shadow people are working for (Ben?)
• I predict a Vincent, Bernard and Rose return.
• I predict a Claire return. MIA all season, we ought to get a tease there.
• I’m hoping for a Charlie ghost return but that might be pushing it.
• I predict tears, laughter, OMG! moments, and head scratching. The tears are mostly going to come at 11:01pm when the season is over.

So there you go. I’ll definitely be here bright and early tomorrow morning with reaction and probably for the next week or so and then, sadly, Regarding Benry will be on hiatus for a long time. Man, I’ll miss this blog after next year.

In the meantime, do us proud Jack!

Who are you and what have you done with John Locke?

Yesterday afternoon I went into my crazy – and increasingly not so crazy – theory as to what’s going to happen with that hydrogen bomb in next week’s finale. So what is going to happen to the second half of our story, the one with the creepy bald guy claiming to be an unchanged yet improved John Locke?

In short, I have no idea. I agree with Doc Jensen over at EW.com in that I have no clue as to where they are going with this, especially the part about John Locke killing Jacob.  So here’s some more thoughts about that:

Dead is Dead

My gut instinct is telling me that the person going around as Locke is not Locke reincarnate but some kind of being inhabiting the dead body of Locke, just like some kind of being is inhabiting the dead body of Christian Shepherd. The being? My money would be on Smokey.

• In the episode “Dead is Dead”, Locke goes out to the jungle when Ben calls Smokey from his house, asking the monster to meet him (Ben) outside. Ben walks outside and meets…John Locke. Ben falls through the floor underneath the temple and Locke goes to find something to pull him out which is exactly when Ben meets Smokey. Locke returns once Smokey is done with Ben.

The island has a habit of bringing back dead people to do its bidding. These dead people seem to be aware of who they are, what their lives had been. So is John Locke gone? Not exactly but he’s being controlled by whatever the hell the smoke thing is/represents.

Good John or Bad John?

The increasingly more interesting question that Lost is posing, and has been for quite some time, is whether or not Smokey, Jacob, Richard, the Others, Dharma, the island is good in nature or evil in nature. Which side is the right side? For my part, I’m inclined to think this new Locke, whatever it is that he might be, is not on the side of good. And this goes with the assumption that the Hostiles/Others and especially Jacob are on the side of good, which I think they are.

• In Season 4’s episode “Cabin Fever”, John Locke goes to Jacob’s cabin to find out how to save the island. In there, he meets Christian Shepherd who says he is not Jacob but can speak for him. It is Shepherd that tells Locke to move the island and he tells him so again right before Locke turns the Frozen Donkey Wheel earlier in Season 5. We take it on faith that Christian Shepherd is speaking for Jacob. How do we know if he is? I’m right about Smokey inhabiting dead people and if I’m right that Smokey is actually evil in nature, not good, then moving the island was not Jacob’s idea but Smokey’s.
• When Jacob said “help me” in Season 3’s “The Man Behind the Curtain” (the first time we go to Jacob’s cabin), what if he meant that Smokey had him trapped and not, as many people are saying, that he wants John Locke to come back to the island in 2007 and kill him? Sorry, not buying the latter for a second.

Putting It Together

Assuming all of the above is what is happening, let’s piece this together into some kind of meaning.

If Smokey = Christian Shepherd, then Smokey ordered the island to be moved, thus thrusting the Losties back into 1977 (skipping over the whole time jumping part because Smokey wanted Locke to turn that wheel, not Ben) and ejecting Locke back into the “real world.” There, Locke meets Widmore who tells him there is a war coming and while Widmore can’t be trusted, this piece of info seems plausible enough to believe. Locke dies and comes back to the island, now a tool in which Smokey can enact its plan to get rid of his arch nemesis = Jacob.

• The war Widmore is referring to is between Smokey (whatever that is, I don’t have a better name for the force) and Jacob.
• Locke has been corrupted into being on the WRONG side. He was corrupted because he died. He thought he had to die because Richard told him to but it was baddie Locke that told Richard that.
• Jacob and the Others/Hostiles really are the protectors of the island and distrust anyone new that comes because of Smokey’s tendency to dress up as dead people.

“We’re the good guys”

Where do Richard and Ben fall into this theory above? Well, if all that above is true, then wouldn’t Ben and especially Richard be the good guys? I think it’s fairly reasonable to suspect Richard and Ben are in cahoots or will be shortly. Richard doesn’t trust Locke and Ben hates Locke – they have similar and different reasons for their feelings. But Ben and Richard have a connection to each other.

• Richard facilitated Ben being healed by the island, in what I’m guessing was a plea of help to the dark side. Richard stood by Ben during the Widmore days and when Richard came to Locke in Season 3 and suggested he and his people were tired of Ben’s experiments with infertility, I’ve always suspected that it was Ben asking Richard to do that in order to gain Locke’s trust falsely. Plus, they make such a cute couple.
• Though Ben is compromised by his very human emotions, ageless Richard is not, thus explaining why Richard comes off as more level headed yet more potentially threatening than Ben ever has.

The more I think about this theory, the more I like it. I at least think it has the potential of being somewhat correct, though it probably won’t be. I have a horrible track record with these things (see my Charlotte is Annie theory from last year).

And you know me, I’ll do anything I can come up with that justifies Ben being Ben.

ETA: As to Locke insisting that no one has ever seen Jacob, I think he’s as wrong as Ben thinks he is. Michael Emerson is a wonderful actor and this show has great editing. Why would they choose a reaction shot of Ben when Locke accuses him of never seeing Jacob that wasn’t so much “Oh crap, he figured it out” as “WTF?” If I could find a screen cap of it, I would post it.

My Crazy “Lost” Finale Theory – Partially – Explained

Come on, just hear me out on this! I think we may have something in this idea that our Losties are going to all die in the finale next Wednesday. Here’s some reasons/explanations on this theory:

Note: Any spoilerish (as in interviews from cast/creators about the finale and Season 6) are in white for those of you who are angellically 100% spoiler-free.

Does spoilerish  count as spoiler-free?

• In recent multiple interviews, Damon Lindelof and some of the cast have said that the Season 5 finale is so mind-blowing that we’ll be asking ourselves if they are even allowed to do that.
• Michael Emerson said in a recent interview that after the finale, we’ll be asking ourselves who will be on the show in Season 6.
  
• Damon Lindelof said in an interview early this week that the finale is a complete and total game changer.
  
• All of the above lead me to believe we are in something truly huge next Wednesday, bigger than we’ve seen yet on the show. And with one season to go, what do the creators really have to lose?
  

So that’s all well and good but why do you think our peeps are gonna die next week?

• Richard said so and if you can’t trust a naturally eye-lined man, than who can you…
• Jack’s on a mission to erase the past three years of these people’s lives. And if you think these sci-fi geek creators would introduce a bomb early in the season and not have it go off, then you are crazy.
• Our peeps are stuck in 1977. Since the island isn’t flashing anymore, how are they going to get back to where they are supposed to be? And by everyone dying, I’m specifically talking about our peeps in 1977.
• It would make one killer of a cliffhanger.

Okay, but what is your theory exactly?

• My theory is that Jack is going to succeed in blowing up Jughead, killing anyone on the island or at least nearby in a great big flash of light. That big ‘ole flash of light will be the last scene of the show this season. Richard saw the people die because he’s immortal, thus he can’t be killed even by big ass bomb.
• The cliffhanger is what the hell happens now? What is the show going to be in Season 6? I’ll save my theories on that until I know if I’m right or not about the finale.
• I do not as yet of a theory about the Locke/Jacob storyline but I’m sure I will soon.

Interesting side note:

On the Fuselage message board, there is a thread under the “Follow the Leader” episode in which a poster poses this question: Could this all be some big hoax? As in, what if the finale next week was THE finale? Of the show. The hoax being that there is no Season 6. The finale ends next week with Jack waking up in the jungle just as he did in the pilot.

I gotta say, even though I’d be devastated, I love this idea. That would be so shocking of an ending to a show, I don’t think we’d ever forget about it. I don’t think this is true but it’d be damn ballsy if it were.

“Why do you think I tried to kill him?” – Lost 5×15 “Follow the Leader”

Spoiler Alert: The following post contains spoilers only for the latest episode of Lost. If you didn’t watch it yet, you really should not read this post. I do not know or care to know spoilers for anything beyond what has already aired, please refrain from inadvertently posting them here. Thanks!

I don’t know, Ben. How are you going to stop John Locke?

Wow! That was a WOW episode, easily one of the best of the season. You know the finale is coming when you get all these chess pieces moving around. I loved that everyone got a tiny bit of action and that we were jumping all over the place in time and space. It was a great, intense hour of television. Here’s my highlights – though really you could just assume it’s the entire episode. I loved this one:

1977 – “Who’s the President?”

• Seriously, Radzinsky is an annoying character and I cannot wait to see him blow his brains out.
• Poor Suliet! Sawyer was really taking a beating there. I did jump when that weasel guy hit Juliet but he’s right, that’s a good way to get Sawyer to talk.
• I cannot believe that Sawyer sold out his peeps to get himself and Juliet on the sub! That was really unexpected. I kept waiting for the twist and it never came! BWAH!
• Kate coming down into that sub was one of the highlights of this whole messy quadrangle. God, I love this island!
• Hands down, the funniest moment of the season if not the series was Dr. Chang questioning Hurley. That was priceless.
• Dr. Chang seems to be a decent guy, no? That was touching, his little moment with Miles.
• They sure did evacuate quickly. Makes me think they’ve been ready for this kind of thing.
• WHERE THE HELL IS ANNIE?!!!!

1977 – “No, not through the water”

• Though she did seem a little shell shocked by killing her own son, Ellie sure did recover quickly didn’t she? She’s all business that one, making her extremely dangerous and untrustworthy.
• For once, I actually agreed with Kate. This plan of Jack’s to follow through on Daniel’s idea of, ahem, blowing up a hydrogen bomb sounds to me like a bad one. Good for her that she left.
• Sure, it’s nice to see Jack with a purpose again but I really don’t think he should blow up this bomb. And I really think he’s going to.
• Loved, loved Sayid’s reappearance to the show. FTW! And his line to Jack at the end was your typical, tortured Sayid just wanting to do something, even if it is wrong.
• I’m going to save the Richard stuff for later, though his snarky line about Widmore and Ellie bickering because they’re in love was…interesting?
• So there are tunnels underneath the island, you gotta assume connected to where Ben was visiting Smokey. How did they get that bomb down there?

You can break Lost into two stories: the Losties and how they deal with being on the island and the mythology of the island. Jack has always symbolized the one and, to me, Locke and Ben have always symbolized the other. What I love about this season is the two sides of this show are literally separated by 30 years. Fantastic.

2007 – “What’s he doing here?”

• Okay, what the hell was Richard doing with that big ass ship in a bottle? That was either really funny or something we don’t get yet.  But wait, more on Richard at the end.
• If I thought I loved the character of Benjamin Linus (and of course Michael Emerson) before last night, I found a whole new level of appreciation during this episode. Ben playing the reluctant, wise ass second to Locke is only overshadowed in hilarity by the scene with Dr. Chang and Hurley. I said it last night, Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emerson need to have their own spinoff after next year. The Locke and Ben show.
• Must have been very uncomfortable for Ben to go back among his former people as a subordinate to Locke. Poor guy.
• Sun has never been more annoying than she was here. Every line she had was a variation on “Find Jin!” Understandable but really, really irritating.
• One of the flashes from the season premiere was to 2007 island shortly after the O6′ers came back. Locke was the one to tell Richard to save him. Mind officially blown. You know, to Locke, all of the past three years has happened in the course of what, a couple months?
• Why did Ben look genuinely astonished during that night jungle scene. More than astonished, he looked scared. And so did Richard.
• The speech to his people Locke gave was quite a turn of events, was it not? He’s becoming such a leader…?
• “I’m going to kill Jacob” – might be one of the greatest WTF? endings to a Lost episode, very much akin to Locke last season saying “He wants us to move the island.” This obviously deserves its own post, to come shortly.
• As Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have stated, when in doubt, end on a close up of Michael Emerson. Think he looked shocked to the core? Uh, yes!
• Much more on all this later.

“I’m starting to think John Locke’s going to be trouble” – Eyeliner Man FTW!

• Ugh, there’s just so much to cover here.
• I think it was fairly cemented that, at least to the Others/Hostiles, Richard is an advisor that has been on the island a very long time…without aging. Gee, think there’s something we’re not being told there?
• Why does Richard take orders from these people so easily? First Ellie then Ben then Locke? He gives in way too easy. Why? WHY?!
• There was a strong rumor floating around that last night’s episode would be Richard centric. Not really the case but we got more of him than we ever have before.
• Richard isn’t taking to this new and “improved” Locke, is he? So much so that he’s going to Ben with his concerns. Are Richard and Ben in cahoots to take down Locke?
• I thought Richard didn’t know where Jacob was? Or was that just another Linus lie?
• Really, what’s up with that ship?
• And the kicker: “I saw all of them die.” Richard saw our Losties die. My guess? He survived this crazy plan of Jack’s to blow up the hydrogen bomb, thus seeing all these ‘77 peeps kick the bucket. This all leads me to…

CRAZY THEORY OF THE WEEK/SEASON: My mother has already informed me this is far-fetched but I don’t think it is. Prediction for how this season is going to end: Jack will succeed and that bomb is going blow, “killing” all of our Losties. And I mean, killing them. They are gone. They are dead. And that is how Season 5 ends. ETA: And I’m not the only one who thinks so. The Fuselage has a thread on it. I think this would be very, very cool. So cool in fact, that I’m going to do another post on it.

There will be a separate post for all of the “I’m going to kill Jacob” stuff cause that’s a really big issue that can’t fit here. Man, what a fantastic episode. What a fantastic show!

Lost “Follow the Leader” – Quick Hits

I’ll be back in the morning with my usual recap post (including a frenzied discussion about that end declaration – holy crap!) but I gotta hit on a few things here real quick:

• Who – or what – is John Locke now?
• Is Jack right or is he, as I suspect, very VERY wrong?
• WTF is up with Richard?
• Seriously, post Lost Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emerson need to have their own sitcom.
• Sawyer, I cannot believe you got on that friggin’ sub.
• I fucking love this show!

“So?” – Lost’s Top Ten Ben Scenes

I’m bored, I’m sick, I’m waiting for my dinner to cook. Seems like a perfect time to me to tally up the top ten best Ben scenes – not episodes – of the series thus far. Silly I know but I indulge myself when I’m sick.

Honorable Mention: “How many times do I have to tell you, John? I always have a plan.” – Season 4, “There’s No Place Like Home, Part 1″

#10. “Consider that my apology”  – Ben kills Caesar, Season 5 “Dead is Dead”
-  Included because it was, for me anyway, completely unexpected and 100%  bad ass Ben. The action also sizes up Locke, that he is someone in which a gesture of violence means more than a confession of apology. It was just so cool.

#9. “Get your ass out here, Ben” – Keamy kills Alex as Ben watches, Season 4 “The Shape of Things to Come”
- This entire scene makes the list with Ben looking on as Keamy shoots his daughter in the head. Ben’s basically denying her as his daughter in an effort to stop Keamy so that the last thing Alex ever hears is that her father doesn’t care about her. A lie, but still. I also love Ben’s line “He changed the rules.”

#8. “Got any milk?” – Ben, posing as Henry Gale, freaks out Locke and Jack, Season 2 “The Whole Truth”
- Back to the beginning when we didn’t know if our Benry was good or bad (not that we know that now either). In this scene, Jack brings out Henry for some dry Dharma cereal in the hatch and Henry proceeds to describe how he’d, if he was in fact an Other, set up a trap for Sayid and Ana Lucia who are going to try and find Henry’s hot-air balloon. It’s really the first time we see Ben’s manipulation in the spotlight. He plans out the big, elaborate thing just to mess with Jack and Locke and then ends it with “Got any milk?” I think this is when my love affair with Benry started.

#7: The fyadora!!!!  – Season 5 “He’s Our You”
- Come on!

#6: “You’re mine!” – Ben comes clean with Juliet, Season 4 “The Other Woman”
- An otherwise forgettable episode became classic thanks to this one scene. In a flashback, Ben has taken Juliet out to the jungle so she could see her lover Goodwin’s dead body. Juliet freaks and starts accusing Ben of all sorts of things, bringing out the immature, romantically challenged side of him. She asks him why he’s doing all this to her and Michael Emerson delivers one of his creepiest line readings yet: “You’re mine!”

#5: “But Thomas was not remembered for this act of bravery” – Ben and Jack in church, Season 5 “316″
- I love this scene. The image of Ben presumably praying is really striking at the beginning and then Ben launches into this sermon of sorts to Jack about the biblical figure Thomas who doubted the resurrection of Jesus. At the time, I thought the speech was mostly about Jack but now I don’t think so. I think Ben was the one doubting Locke would be resurrected on the island. Doubting, hoping it wouldn’t happen, not believing…all the same. “Sooner or later we’re all convinced, Jack.”

#4: “So?” – Ben blows up the freighter, Season 4 “There’s No Place Like Home, Part 2″
- Do I have to explain this one? Locke yells at Ben over Keamy’s dying body “You just killed everyone on that boat!” to which Ben replies “So?” Very cold, Ben. Very cold. And awesome! Again, Michael Emerson FTW!

#3: “Good-bye Dad” – Ben kills Roger Linus, Season 3 “The Man Behind the Curtain”
- We knew Ben was ruthless, we knew he was a manipulator but we did not know he was this dangerous until this episode, until this scene in which he kills his father. Really intense scene, especially with Ben just sitting there while his father spasms and thrashes beside him from the poisonous gas. Also awesome because we had already met the dead Roger Linus in an earlier episode in a much more lighthearted way. Leave it to Lost to freak us out like that.

Very difficult to choose between the next two, which are on another level from any other Ben scene:

#2: “I’ll miss you, John. I really will.” – Ben kills John Locke, Season 5 “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”
- Epic, epic moment of the series. Ben talks John down from killing himself then turns around and strangles him to death. Just plain chilling to watch. I still can’t decide if Ben was doing it for the island or for more selfish reasons. Time will tell.

And finally…

#1: “And you’ll wish you hadn’t changed the rules.” – Ben meets Charles Widmore in London, Season 4 “The Shape of Things to Come”
- It’s just a perfect scene, that’s all there is to it. I love Michael Emerson in that snazzy black suit with his hair slicked back. I love the shadows in the scene, the exotic environment. But seeing Ben face off against Charles Widmore, not only did we get great dialogue but we got a peek at the bigger battle going on for control of the island. It expanded the scope of the show tenfold. Oooh, and I just love that little eyebrow raise Michael Emerson does when talking about Penny. It almost makes me sad that he didn’t end up killing her…almost.

So many scenes left out of this from the more recent scene in the Temple to the older scenes from Season 3 when we were learning about the Others. It’ll be fun to do this list again next year and see how many more amazing moments we get from Ben and from the wonderful Michael Emerson.

Am I obsessed?…

….yes.