'Lost': My recap for "Whatever Happened, Happened" is live
I've already gotten a lot of feeback indicating this was a divisive episode in the "Lost" community, but honestly, isn't that going to be par for the course from now on? Every episode between now and the Season 6 finale is going to polarize in some fashion or another. Hey, it could be worse: we could have week after week of unbridled apathy. Assuming such a thing is even possible.
Go check out my full recap of the episode here. And leave all your burning questions below for insertion in next week's "Letters from the Flame!" Thanks to the two-part interview with Sterling Beaumon this week, I didn't get to answer any questions, so I'll try to make the next "Letters" as jam-packed as possible.
Ryan also posts every 108 minutes over at Boob Tube Dude. He invites you to join the hundreds already in Zap2It's Guide to Lost Facebook group. He also encourages you to subscribe to the Zap2It's Guide to Lost Twitter feed.
Darmawhat?
Ryan your recap was the most on point and the funniest recap all season. Sham WOW!
my question is.... Could an Other or Richard have taken the dead Christian and Locke to the Temple or did they be reborn on the spot like Lockes legs?
Great recap this week of an emotional and mythologically-packed episode, Ryan.
My question is this: what do you think are Richard's motivations for taking Ben into the Others at the end of the episode? Although he doesn't have enough proof of it, he must strongly believe by that point that Locke is their true leader, so why bother with Ben at all? Did he just want another convert, or did he simply see the strategic implications of having a mole inside Dharma? Or regardless of what he might know about Locke, did he still want to put Ben "on the throne" merely as a way to oust Widmore and Ellie?
Okay so that was a bunch of questions, my bad.
I personally thought, that even if it was a stronger episode than last week's...it was still weak.
Why? For one, their was no cohesion to Kate's story off-island. They mixed in the Sawyer stuff with the Aaron stuff. The main issue for me though was that I don't think they really did a good job of explaining Kate's reason for wanting to save Ben.
Just because things are supposed to be a certain way, doesn't mean you have to take an active role in making those things happen. Seems contrived. I loved that Jack refused. That seemed more logical to me...Big Ben is not a good person (PURGE!). If it was meant for him to live...he would've lived without the Losties intervening, but you become an accomplice to all the murders by helping him.
I enjoyed the Miles and Hurley convo...and it was nice to see that I was right about Kate's reason for coming back to the island. The Richard scene was brilliant. And I think that Ben will only forget the immediate present (as in being shot, almost dying, and saved by Kate and Sawyer).
I just can't get past the actions of the characters in this episode. To me, it seemed that some of their motivations seemed forced. Why do you think Kate helped young Ben?
(to me it just has to go beyond not letting a kid die...this is Ben)
Also, what is Juliette hiding? There seems to be something more there...did Ben discuss all these events with her...gave her instructions on what to do...etc
Her knowledge of the Others and delivery of said knowledge is creepy. lol
One word regarding Kate and Roger - ICK!!!
WWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLTTT!!!
Short question for the Flame:
What now for Sayid? Do you see him making it to Season 6?
Good morning, fellow Morning-Afters!
Fan-TASTIC (and I mean that in every sense of the word) episode! This was hands down the best character-centric episode of the season.
The majority of the credit goes to Evie for such great acting. My wife and I were blubbering over her final goodbye to Aaron. And then when she said she was going back for Claire, we were both like "Yes!!! Go save her and bring her home!"
The paradox conversation was VERBATIM what the fans have been speculating for the last week. And if you think about it, the writers wrote that scene well before any of that fan speculation would begin, but they knew we'd be thinking those exact thoughts. Kudos to the writers for that one!
One thing you seemed to kind of gloss over in your recap, Ryan, was the emotion and great acting in the scene between Juliet and Jack. While not as powerful as watching mother and son part ways, the dynamic between these two was AWESOME. There was such familiarity and memory in that conversation, and for once you got to see Juliet break down and Jack actually TALK to someone. It felt like these two people have known each other for a long time and have finally let their defenses fall. I really like the new Jack. He's still not my favorite character, but Matt Fox was right; Jack is a changed man and he's wide-eyed and ready for whatever destiny has in store.
Finally, there's the aspect of Ben's fate. I don't think it's a cop-out to have him forget because we don't know the process he's about to undergo. I fully agree with you, Ryan, that this is Ben's "birth" on the Island. I disagree that he doesn't remember anything about who he was, though. I think his meaningful memories - those of Annie, his relationship with his father and the hauntingly sad spirit of his mother - stayed a part of him forever. But the real speculation in the coming week(s) will be by what process was Ben saved and is he more closely linked/connected to the smoke monster than we ever previously thought?
I know this entry is getting long, but I also wanted to point out an aspect about this episode that is the essence of why I love LOST. The writers took two of the things we (or at least I) largely ***umed were coming - 1) that Sayid shooting Ben was pretty directly what made him the man he is today and 2) that Ben always remembered the Losties but didn't say anything - and just turned them both on their ears, giving us an amazingly complex and mythologically rich explanations over mundane ones. Being wrong never felt so good!
Loved, loved, LOVED this episode. It made me fall in love with the show all over again. It had elements of Season 1, yes, but really those are the key ideal elements of ANY episode of LOST. It's just that it's taken 11 episodes to get there.
"Why do you think Kate helped young Ben?
(to me it just has to go beyond not letting a kid die...this is Ben)"
Never underestimate the power of a woman's motherly instincts. And Kate is a very emotional person --- I don't find it at all hard to believe, personally, that she'd want to save Ben simply out of comp***ion for an innocent kid. Or maybe she just figured that the right thing to do is the right thing to do, regardless of the consequences.