prolix
4581
My guess is Jack gets involved treating Ben for his injury, which makes for a nice parallel to his previous (ok, future) surgery on Ben in season 3. It would also create some nice tension at the compound – hey, you’re no workman!
Yeah now that you mention this, I’d be surprised if it didn’t happen. It would explain why Ben would trust Jack to ultimately save him when he grows up despite all the manipulation involved in getting him there and they’ve also kind of already set this up in a few earlier scenes showing that there isn’t really a nearby doctor on-call to deal with these sorts of things on an emergency basis (which seems like a dreadfully bad policy, given their isolation and the danger involved in a lot of what they do, but whatever).
Hunty
4583
Quote:
Originally Posted by WildElf 
I thought he said “everything short of genocide.”
Without wanting to be a pedant, those two readings have very different meanings. The first is "Ben has done everything bad except genocide. The second is the correct one, I think, and was delivered in such a way as to mean “A monster who has done no less than commit genocide” (i.e. has committed genocide). So Sayid knows, somehow. I think. Man, the time travel pales in comparison to the sentence intonation!
DT1
4584
I assumed he was referencing the purge where Ben killed all of the Dharma people (including his Dad). Not technically a genocide, but still unfriendly.
The technical term would be “dharmacide”, I believe.
That’s right. It had already happened.
Miles is my new hero.
Jack remains a putz … Stubbornly tantrums, then eventually relents.
Damn. My theory goes down in flames.
Weren’t you making a Donnie Darko joke?
Wader
4589
I assume we are supposed to infer from this that whatever changed Rousseau’s friends is the same thing thats going to happen to Ben as a child?
If so, thats awesome. They really are tying this all together.
Bogus. Professional assassin Sayid leaves a live enemy behind…??
DT1
4591
Yeah, kinda feels like a reanimation vibe. The smoke monster creates good-looking zombies? The island captures their ghosts, or the ghosts of others, and sticks it back in their bodies? Should be fun to find out.
Menzo
4592
I don’t think the smoke monster is as directly tied to the Temple as that. The smoke monster may guard the temple, but there’s something else going on there.
The island can obviously do miraculous things. It healed Locke twice (wheelchair and then gunshot), it can do the same for Ben. In fact, it obviously does, since he survives.
The whole “he’s going to forget all this” non-explanation was a little too easy, though. I mean they had to give some reason why he wouldn’t remember Sayid and the gang years later, but that was lame.
Yeah I’m not a huge fan of the “he won’t remember any of this” thing and the Hurley/Miles discussion that goes with it. Mostly because I don’t think they need to do that. Ben has always held his cards super close to the vest and he presumably knows how things work time-loop wise when he first meets Sayid (er, first in terms of what we saw on the show, not chronological order), so I don’t think they need to explain why he didn’t say “OMG YOU’RE SAYID THE DUDE THAT SHOT ME IN THE PAST!” or anything.
I get what they were trying to do with the whole “you guys made Ben what he is in the first place” angle and I’m pretty ok with that, though it is a bit cliched and IMO they handled it in too much of a Richard Ex Machina fashion, but having Ben just forget everything seems like a lazy and easy way out of something that could be written around without too much effort. Also, unless they surprise me with where they take this I think the time loop plot might be weaker than I was anticipating it to be.
Still a pretty good individual episode, though, IMO. I did like the way they fleshed out Roger “Workman” Linus as an obviously flawed but not totally shitty person.
The scene between Miles and Hurley might now be my favourite scene in this show’s history.
Agreed on all counts.
Yeah, ‘he’ll forget all this’ and ‘then how come Ben doesn’t remember Sayid’ were awful, doubly so because they were such unnecessary points.
So after the treatment they have to take him back to Dharma, right? And that’s when Richard starts appearing to him? That’s about the only aspect that would make the indoctrination bit a nice tie-in, as to why the Others are interested in Ben, moreso than the reverse.
Also, have the Others ever referred to themselves by their proper name? They surely don’t refer to themselves as ‘The Others’.
I sure hope they get back to the Widmore/Dharma history soon, too. That’s been the most interesting part.
Cut him some slack, it’s not like the boy got up and ran home… he needs to be saved by some kind of ancient Egypt monster. Considering how often we see children being shot on television, I thought what we got was already more than i expected. What, did you want a scene where ben’s head blows up as if Sayid was using VATS?
Chuck
4597
“Shoot to wound, then execute the wounded. Burn them.” *
*The Jackal Tapes #1
I don’t disagree with your points, but I think for the plausibility of the character they could have given him either more pressure to beat a retreat or exposed some struggle within him to make it any more gruesome. As it was, it just seemed sloppy, and we’ve already seen how thorough he’s been in past jobs.
BTW, what ever happened to Daniel?? Didn’t he end up in the Darma camp with the others? We have not seen him since. Babysitting Charlotte??
That’s a mystery. From a recent episode, somebody asked about him and “he’s not around any more.” Presumably, they will totally address that issue and you’re supposed to be all curious and junk about it. They might need to put the “Where’s Poochy?” rule into effect, though, to remind people that he’s supposed to be something you’re wondering about.
