[QUOTE=Hampshire]
How’s this for a wild-assed-guess:
Ben is the one controlling the smoke monster and uses it to shape shift into various people and communicate with them.
Juliette knows Ben has the ability to do this.
When pshychiatrist lady shows up it’s just the smoke monster taking form controlled by Ben and Juliette doesn’t act all that suprised.
Psychiatrist lady / smoke monster / Ben tells Juliette to kill the two heading towards the chemicals.
Later Juliette lets slip in front of Jack that it was Ben who told her to kill them.
[/QUOTE]
This makes so much sense and has so much internal logical consistency that there is no way in hell it is the actual explanation that will be used on the show.
[QUOTE=Risha]
I’ve always found Juliet painfully irritating. That’s still true, but this season she’s about 10% less irritating. So this episode managed to be fairly good despite the continuing urge to slap her around.
Except when she refused to tell Jack anything during the trek through the jungle. Then I moved up to the urge to punch her.
[/QUOTE]
So the big plot is that Widmore wants to “exploit” the Island by charging people to come there and witness miracles and Ben wants to stop him. That’s it? Really? That’s about the most mundane, uninteresting explanation I can think of. I’m disappointed in that one.
[/QUOTE]
The age old phrase, how do you know that Ben is lying? Because his lips are moving.
While we can reasonably assume that Widmore is trying to find the Island, I don’t think we can believe anything else Ben said. Except for maybe who his “man on the boat” is, but we didn’t actually hear that yet.
[QUOTE=well he’s back]
I’ve been trying lots of various scenarios in my head and can’t come up with a good one that would cause Sayid to work for Ben. Unless of course Ben has somehow resurrected Shannon in an alternate timeline and is holding her hostage. But seriously…
[/QUOTE]
The only hint we have is from this exchange at the end of The Economist
I thought it was just an OK episode, given the quality we’ve seen so far this season.
Maybe I’ve forgotten something really evil he’s done, but Goodwin seemed a very likable character last night. After Juliet accidently said his wife was mean and vindictive (or whatever), as he was leaving I swear I thought he was going say “About my wife. You’re right.”
It really struck me how normal and relatable the Others could be compared to the initial “wild animal ghosts in the night” image we had. We’ve come a long way.
I should be really mad that Locke let Ben out, but as we know Ben makes it to “flashforward” time, I can;t get too worked up. I still think to have a satisfying end, Ben has to die and how. What was interesting was that in addition to the likely suspects for giving Ben his ultimate comeuppance Jack, Locke, Sawyer) and my dream choise (Hurley) I think it now might be very likely that Juliet will do the honors. Finally free herself from Ben and save her Jack-sweetie at the same time.
When the tailies were making their way across the island, Goodwin snapped the neck of one of them whom Ana Lucia wrongly accused of being an other, and he didn’t do this out of self-defense. And Goodwin likely aided and abetted the kidnapping of children.
[QUOTE=BobT]
When the tailies were making their way across the island, Goodwin snapped the neck of one of them whom Ana Lucia wrongly accused of being an other, and he didn’t do this out of self-defense.
[QUOTE=kangaroo_in_black]
The age old phrase, how do you know that Ben is lying? Because his lips are moving.
While we can reasonably assume that Widmore is trying to find the Island, I don’t think we can believe anything else Ben said. Except for maybe who his “man on the boat” is, but we didn’t actually hear that yet.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, that’s what I was thinking. There is probably a grain of truth in what he says, but not the whole truth.
Nitpick: That happened before they started crossing The Island. It was “Nathan” whom he killed. And we can safely assume that Goodwin gave Ben a list of whom to kidnap, although it seems that children are automatically on that list.
Re: Ben sending Juliet to stop Charlotte and Faraday when she had already betrayed him once and how could he trust she would do it.
My WAG, he really didn’t care about stopping Faraday and Charlotte, it was more about manipulating Juliet and reminding her of his power.
If Ben knew they weren’t really trying to release the gas but stop its release he was probably fine with them not being stopped because he’s really not in a position to put on a gas mask to save himself, unless he has one showed up his butt at all times … which could explain the swishy walk. But unless there’s some sort of audible warning alarm, how would he know that it’s time to put on a gas mask?
Ben is always manipulating. Like the saying, “how do you know he’s lying? His lips are moving”, well, how do you know he’s manipulating? He’s still breathing.
[QUOTE=tanstaafl]
I think Charlotte and Faraday didn’t say what they were up to because they don’t trust the Losties; they don’t know who may be working for Ben. (They know Kate was with Locke’s camp for a while so that may be why they didn’t trust her.)
I thought Ben’s whole “You’re mnie!” speech was out of character. It seemed kind of forced to me, like maybe TPTB thought we were getting to sympathetic towards Ben and so needed to do something to make us dislike him more. I dunno.
And someone explain to me how this makes sense… Ben (who is locked up in Locke’s basement) somehow contacts the Others. Instead of having one of them go to the Orchid and simply wait for Charlotte and/or Faraday to show up, they instead send someone to go to the beach and recruit Juliet to do it, even though he knows that Juliet has already betrayed him once. What the hell does Ben think he is doing? (And how did Ben get in touch with his people anyway?)
Speaking of Ben’s people… Yeah, it’s obvious that Michael is the person on the boat. Well, we should know next week.
So the big plot is that Widmore wants to “exploit” the Island by charging people to come there and witness miracles and Ben wants to stop him. That’s it? Really? That’s about the most mundane, uninteresting explanation I can think of. I’m disappointed in that one.
I dunno… I thought the episode was “meh” at best. A lot of it felt like forced retcon to me, and retcon to introduce some boring, uninteresting background and motivation too. Worst episode of the season so far in my opinion.
[/QUOTE]
I agree with this pretty much in its entirety. (Although after last week’s super-awesome episode, I should have been prepared for a let-down).
I might have to watch this episode again. I had people talking in my ear all last night and I missed some dialog. Otherwise, good show. Ben just proved again he is still my favorite. “Take all the time you need” was delivered perfectly.
[QUOTE=ivylass]
Oh, that bugged me last night, when Charlotte told Kate and Jack “Come on into the complex and I’ll explain how Ben was trying to kill you and we stopped him” and Jack says, “Nope, I’m good” so he can stay outside and get smooshy face with Juliet. And we couldn’t follow Kate!!
[/QUOTE]
When Jack and Juliet were smooching, I said to my wife, “Better not let Kate catch you doing that! She’ll go running back to Sawyer!”
I thought the best line of the episode was, “It’s stressful being an Other.”
I don’t agree with all of the hating on this episode. I like Juliette; she seems to be slightly more intelligent than the rest of the Losties, while still maintaining some of the natural stupidity/absurdity that is customary on the island. She’s a good balance.
The entire show has gotten to the point where, at least for me, speculating what is going to happen is worthless. The producers can–and have done so in the past–throw a monkey wrench into the plot at any point, which completely changes everything. Going from flashbacks to flashforwards is an example of this.
I still like the show and will continue to watch until the end, but my expectations have become pretty low. Last night’s episode was “egh, fine.”
[QUOTE=msmith537]
But usually they only appear to a single person. That’s why it was a little surprising when Jack was like “who the hell is this?”
[/QUOTE]
Another time that the whispers appeared to several people was in the finale of Season 2 just before Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley were darted by The Others as they were heading up that hill.
BTW, Lostpedia has a whole section on The Whispers. I haven’t checked it out in awhile, but last time I looked they had transcripts of what The Whispers were saying. Not all of it is English either.
[QUOTE=Mahaloth]
Oh, come on! Just say “Michael is the man on the boat!” The lame tease is pathetic, especially with Harold Perineau’s name in the credits.
I wish they had found a way to re-introduce Michael without announcing it in advance.
[/QUOTE]
Seriously. There was never any point in putting his name in the credits before the actual reappearance.
[QUOTE=Hampshire]
How’s this for a wild-assed-guess:
Ben is the one controlling the smoke monster and uses it to shape shift into various people and communicate with them.
Juliette knows Ben has the ability to do this.
When pshychiatrist lady shows up it’s just the smoke monster taking form controlled by Ben and Juliette doesn’t act all that suprised.
Psychiatrist lady / smoke monster / Ben tells Juliette to kill the two heading towards the chemicals.
Later Juliette lets slip in front of Jack that it was Ben who told her to kill them.
[/QUOTE]
I’m going to retract this. Just watched the episode again and it doesn’t really fit with her coversation with psych lady.
