Lost: Whatever Happened, Happened…or Did It?

Posted by ScuzzBuster

April 4, 2009

anothers5lostlogo I’m going to cry lack of imagination on Lost this week. Not only did they feel the need to explain away something that really didn’t need explaining, they made the show inherently less interesting by doing so. This really starts at the conclusion of the previous episode when our favorite Iraqi castaway gunned down the puberty-primed Ben Linus.

The weak-minded, like Hugo, felt that the question that proved they had changed events was the fact that Ben Linus years later didn’t remember Sayid or being shot. For whatever reason, this seemed to stump the simple-minded Miles. Of course, for many fans (at least this one) the reaction wasn’t “why didn’t he remember” it was “of course!” Without going back and watching seasons 2 and 3 again, I don’t believe that there’s any reason whatsoever to believe that the older Linus wouldn’t have remembered and/or known any or all of the Oceanic Six or the others. In fact, it makes absolutely no sense that this question would seemingly stump Miles while it apparently never occurred to him to wonder why older Linus never seemed to “remember” Sawyer. Why would he remember Sawyer after only seeing him every day for three years? Hmmm, makes MUCH more sense that he would have piped up back in 2004 and say “Hey, aren’t you the Iraqi that shot me in the chest when I was 12?” There’d be no reason for him the say “Hey, weren’t you my Dad’s boss for 3 years before I left his rotting corpse in a van before helping the Others slaughter all the members of the Dharma initiative?”

hugomiles So the writers completely underestimated the audience’s intelligence on this one and in the course of trying to “smooth” it over created an even bigger plot problem. I think a lot of the audience the previous week was probably saying “OF COURSE!” This is why Linus instinctively knew that Sayid was a killer at heart. He knew in 2004 and later that if this guy would shoot a 12-year old kid point blank he would probably be prime material for manipulating into some personal vendetta hits. Not to mention poor Ben spent some incredibly tense moments back in the hatch with Sayid before his true identity was ever revealed to the survivors to begin with. It just felt so damned cheap when Richard Alpert has to ham out the speech that about being able to save him but “he’ll never remember any of this…” blah blah blah.

Overall, Lost is still in sort of a “holding pattern” to find the true nature of the characters’ quest. While it’s been quite enjoyable it’s really starting to feel like we are wandering too much to get to the point. All of the storylines continue to be intriguing, but when are we finally going to see it all come together? As the 5th season comes closer to a close it’s appears as if the entire run is going to be a set up for the final season next year. That’s the real difference between current Lost and the first few seasons. Initially, the show began with all the characters together in a quest for survival and rescue as they began to drift into a multitude of different paths and stories. Now, all of our characters are on different paths to begin with and are intersecting in erratic and unpleasant manners as they come together.

It’s quite a change up to see Jack still content to fall back and let events unfold with Sawyer in charge and running the show.

Ultimately, Whatever Happened, Happened still brought a satisfying advancement of the story, though I still feel quite let down by the overly simple closure of the Ben Linus shooting. The only tasty piece of the entire situation is the fact that Sayid, in a desperate attempt to avert the entire tragic saga that started with the plane crash 3 years earlier ended up actually being the cause by sealing Ben’s fate as a member of the Others.

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