Is Widmore really that much of a mystery, though? We know he was an island dweller. We know that Ben pulled a power play to get him kicked off the island. We know he used all of his wealth and resources to try to find the island again. He's an obsessed ex-leader of The Others who wants "his" island back. Not much else to explain. Remember, Ben's the one who basically built up Widmore as a big bad, and he's a tad biased.
The bigger unanswered questions tied to the Widmore storyline are: "Who exactly ARE The Others?" and "What are the rules?". (I have a feeling those rules are the same ones Jacob and Fake Locke play by, but I'm not sure.)
This season is all about Jacob, his nemesis, and the origins of the island. Hopefully, we'll get some answers about The Others, but I think we're done with some of the other island players like the Dharma Initiative and Widmore.
Originally posted by GameCrazy I'm still not convinced as to the other Others' motives. Dogen's choice of words when he told Sayid that he had too much of the "wrong" side in him instead of saying "bad," plus the fact that Smokey willingly took those smart enough to leave, makes me think there's something else going on and Smokey may still be in line for a face turn down the line.
I'm on board with the Jacob might not be good theories but I can't get on board with Smokey being good. Both Jacob and Smokey have used the "join me and I'll give you everything you've ever wanted" trick. A trick that is probably most famously used by Satan himself. I'm leaning towards neither being good and Jack/Sawyer/Jin/Sun/Kate/Hurley ending up on neither's side. With one of them going down in a blaze of glory, probably Sawyer.
I don't know how I feel about Walt. He is definitely one of the biggest loose ends but man is that kid a horrible actor. Plus, he's a lot less interesting without the real Locke. I'd much rather see a number of dead characters return (Charlie, Libby, Faraday) than ever see Walt again.
Originally posted by StingArmy "Wait a minute! They never explained why Richard Alpert never ages!!"
Take this with a grain of salt.
Spoiler Below: Highlight text to read
As a resident of Hawaii I've heard that Richard arrived on the Black Rock, and that will be covered in/around episode 14. Which means he's not Prometheus, as I'd hoped since the "chains" line of dialogue. /DocJensen
Originally posted by GameCrazy I'm still not convinced as to the other Others' motives. Dogen's choice of words when he told Sayid that he had too much of the "wrong" side in him instead of saying "bad," plus the fact that Smokey willingly took those smart enough to leave, makes me think there's something else going on and Smokey may still be in line for a face turn down the line.
I'm on board with the Jacob might not be good theories but I can't get on board with Smokey being good. Both Jacob and Smokey have used the "join me and I'll give you everything you've ever wanted" trick. A trick that is probably most famously used by Satan himself. I'm leaning towards neither being good and Jack/Sawyer/Jin/Sun/Kate/Hurley ending up on neither's side. With one of them going down in a blaze of glory, probably Sawyer.
Is it possible that the alternate timeline are the Survivor's way of getting what they always wanted without really knowing it. Sayid got to see Nadiya again, Jack was a good father, Claire keeps Aaron, Kate gets to be a part of their lives. I haven't really worked out all the kinks on this one yet ... or is this the obvious conclusion we should be drawing at this point?
I really liked how Kate told Claire about how she raised Aaron and came back so Claire and Aaron could be together. She handled that extremely well. Claire would have to be completely insane to not see Kate's sincerity.
Did you see the look that Claire gave her? She *is* insane.
Re: some comments about widmore and walt. I don't care much about Walt. It can be done away with in one-two lines. "He was a candidate but things changed" Same for Adam & Eve. Have someone mention 'oh there were thse two people that ran off into the woods 50ish years ago" No big deal. People expect too much.
But I am more curious about Widmore because all of that plays into the mythology for 2-3 entire season. Ben vs Widmore. Protecting & hiding the island. Not killing one another. There has to be some conclusion to that. They might have been pawns, but their relationship to each other AND the overal story has to be given at least a few scenes.
Got to watch it last night. Liked the throwaway of Jack passing Sayid in the hospital. NotLocke has definitely taken the torch of creepy from Ben. Also enjoyed Keamy - he was a great slimeball.
Miles was the best. "She's acting all weird, but still hot, though".
"As you may have read in Robert Parker's Wine Newsletter, 'Donaghy Estates tastes like the urine of Satan, after a hefty portion of asparagus.'" Jack Donaghy, 30 Rock
Originally posted by Alan Sepinwall (via Bill Simmons' Twitter account) I still feel Cuse and Lindelof made a tactical error in giving us the sliding doors timeline without telling us in advance what it is, because until we do, they have all the weight and meaning of a dream sequence. But the more we see of them, the stronger my feeling grows that we're seeing the series' epilogue in advance. It may not turn out this way, but at the moment it seems the flash-sideways are where the castaways wind up after the war with Smokey ends, as some kind of reward from one of the celestial powers going to war over the island, be it Jacob or Smokey. Smokey does seem awfully confident in the prospect of letting Sayid see Nadia again, after all.
And if that's the case, the rewards seem mixed at best. Locke gets Helen back (and gets to live, for that matter), but is back in the damn chair. Jack gets a son, but also a life that's otherwise as broken as the one he had the first go-round. Kate is free of Marshal Mars, but still a fugitive. And Sayid has Nadia in his life, but not really.
But from what we know of these characters, and of their tortured histories, maybe this is exactly what they asked Smokey and/or Jacob for. Sayid knows in either timeline that he's too much the killer to deserve Nadia, but at least this way he gets to know her, and to have a pretext to see her whenever he can stand it. Kate isn't rewarded for her return to LA like she was as one of the Oceanic Six, but she's also not in a cell and for now gets to be around Aaron's mother. Jack has a means to address his daddy issues that don't involve his actual daddy. Dogen gets his son (and his life) back. Etc., etc. Not wholly happy endings, but the best anyone may feel they deserve.
"All RAW is these days is a cheap version of Saturday Night Live, so if you wanna tune in to watch the amazing star power of Al Sharpton and Nancy O'Dell, go ahead! Who's gonna host next week, Big Bird? Wow, that's must-see TV!" - John Morrison (10/16/09 Smackdown!)
The alt-timeline is taking place in 2004, while the island-timeline is in 2007. The producers have said we're done with time travelling. Also, I think they've said
Originally posted by QuezzyI'm on board with the Jacob might not be good theories but I can't get on board with Smokey being good. Both Jacob and Smokey have used the "join me and I'll give you everything you've ever wanted" trick. A trick that is probably most famously used by Satan himself. I'm leaning towards neither being good and Jack/Sawyer/Jin/Sun/Kate/Hurley ending up on neither's side. With one of them going down in a blaze of glory, probably Sawyer.
I'm leaning toward it being not as simple as good vs. bad. Jacob seems to have done things that I consider pretty bad himself. Playing with people's lives like puppets doesn't really ring well with me.
When Locke is recruiting Sayid, he doesn't actually say, "Do this for me & I'll make it happen." He asks "What if I told you..." & "What if you could?" If Sayid takes that as a deal, that's his own foolishness. (And shame on him for getting manipulated yet again.) However, if Sayid takes that as "have a little faith & see how things turn out", that's different to me.
Similarly, when Locke is recruiting Sawyer, he uses a similar "What if I told you I was the person who could answer the most important question in the world?"... "Why are you on this island?" ... "That's not why you're here. And if you come with me, I can prove it." That second part is a deal. And Locke makes good on that deal by taking him to the cave & telling Sawyer about being a candidate. So here are your 3 options. "The third choice James is that we just go. We just get the hell off this island. And we never look back." "And how do we do that?" "Together. So what do you say James? Are you ready to go home?" Again, that to me is more of a "have some faith that it's possible", rather than a proper Faustian deal.
Couple of things that keep coming up in my mind:
-- There are a couple of belief systems where a good guy dies & becomes the entity who judges the dead. In that capacity, he's not necessarily nice - that's not part of the job description.
-- In the greek paradigm, there's a lot of both gods & mortals being fallible. The gods fight, destroy & corrupt just like the humans do. There isn't even a point to looking for "the perfectly good human".
-- IIRC, generally in most systems with multiple deities, the gods are immortal & there really isn't any obvious way for most of them to kill each other. At least without using some sort of loophole.
-- Besides the obvious Persephone trapped in the underworld, there's also Daedalus trapped by King Minos on Crete, so that the knowledge of the labyrinth wouldn't be exposed. (Nice of Minos not to go the way of some of the egyptian temple builders & just kill the builder.)
-- There's also the whole deal of Odysseus trapped by Calypso for 7 years. I've always been pretty sure that there's an Odyssey/Ulysses theme throughout Lost, but never decided on an individual to pin it to.
I'm not sure where I'm going. I think I'm heading along the lines of Jacob being a "good vs evil" proponent, & MIB being a fallible humanist. Or something like that. But that's OK -- I'm fine this season with just rolling with it ...
Originally posted by BigDaddyLocoIs it possible that the alternate timeline are the Survivor's way of getting what they always wanted without really knowing it. Sayid got to see Nadiya again, Jack was a good father, Claire keeps Aaron, Kate gets to be a part of their lives. I haven't really worked out all the kinks on this one yet ... or is this the obvious conclusion we should be drawing at this point?
Obvious? Not even a little bit! Plausible? Yes. That's an interesting concept. If true, I can't wait to see how TPTB weave it back into the storyline... ETA Calypso/Odysseus, which I forgot to type about...