'Lost': 'Letters from the Flame,' 'Namaste' edition

Tons of questions to get to in today's edition of "Letters from the Flame." I won't bore you with a long intro, "Lost" fans, as this is plenty long enough as is. We're talking Faraday, Sun, Lil' Ben, and...mustard. Yes, mustard: the most devious of all condiments.

Why isn't Faraday with them "anymore" (Sawyer's line)? Has he already made his video to the future with Pierre?
Andrei

I think you're correct in putting "anymore" in quotes, as the guy isn't dead. Not yet. I am sure we'll see a Faraday-centric ep between now and season's end that explains how he went from seeing Lil' Charlotte in the Barracks to ending up in the Orchid looking at that rock wall the way my wife looks at Jon Hamm on "30 Rock." Translation: with swoonage bordering on the inappropriate. On a related note: I'm coming for you, Hamm. I'm coming for you.

As for the video timing: it could go either way. Either he hid his face from view because Chang knows every face that's supposed to be working on there, or they have already made the video and he doesn't want Chang to realize he's spying on a limitless source of energy that if improperly accessed could cause one big honkin' incident.

Ryan,
Any thoughts on how Ethan goes from a Dharma bundle of joy to a hard core other? I'm thinking the others started kidnapping long before 815 crashed and "adopted" Ethan (and maybe others DI kids) before the purge.
Kevin

Here's my completely unsubstantiated theory that is essentially fanfic but I like it anyways: Ethan was one of the first to get Room 23'd. I think we've all known all along that Ben couldn't be the only person in the DI to help ensure the success of The Purge, and what better way to recruit moles from within than to slip in an alternative cut of the DI-approved Room 23 with Richard Alpert's Director's Cut?

That whole mustard speech was some kinda code. Wonder what was in the bag but I don't think it was a grilled cheese sandwich! This Sayid and Lil' Ben Freakin' Linus encounter points to Ben already being an OnT (Other in Training). I wonder what he got on his Latin/Others 101 test.
DCMeads

This isn't a question, I know. I just think it's absolutely correct, and wanted to give props to the first person I saw posit this. I know a few others of you picked up on this as well. Jeff Jensen over at Entertainment Weekly also had a doozy of a thought: that after flashing into 1977, The Others were waiting for Sayid, and gave him instructions. I'll up Jensen one and put words into Richard's mouth: "We need you to be on the inside. One of my people will be giving you instructions. The key word? Mustard."

In this scenario, Sayid wouldn't know who was coming, would be surprised to find it's a child, then be quadruple mind effed to learn it's Ben.

So any thoughts on why Sun didn't flash to 1977 like the rest of the O6? Could it have to do with the fact she was pregnant when she left the island and didn't bring Ji Yeon back to the island with her?
Perry

There's the easy answer: giving the two of them a reunion this early would be dramatically unsatisfying. But in a way, the simple answer points to the subtler one: the people that went on Ajira 316 each have a specific purpose, a role to fulfill. Inherent in such a role is the need to fulfill it, thus each person has to fundamentally lack the thing they want most in order to keep performing their function. Allowing anyone any type of piece of mind beforehand would almost assuredly lead to failure.

That being said, there's another way to look at who went where: it's not that someone ensured that Sun stayed in the present, but made damn sure she never went into the past. Remember, we have two sides: the light and the dark. And the light is in a desperate fight for its life right now. Maybe it wanted everyone back, but only could pull a few. Other Sean's question will help me explain this a bit better.

What do you make of the state of New Otherton in 2008? Do you think this signifies the "dark side" is winning, or has already won? If the Oceanic 6 + Locke can save the Island, possibly undoing the dark state of it in '08, why would Cabin Christian wanna steer Sun down that path?
Other Sean

I think at the time in which Lapidus lands the plane on Hydra Island, the dark has won. But it's not a complete victory. They are just currently in charge of the Island. There's no balance remaining between the two sides. Having an overrun Barracks, with a defunct sonic fence, symbolizes how overrun the Island currently is. But Jacob is not dead: he's merely impotent.

I truly think Cabin Christian does not think in any way that he can lose. So he can give out plenty of information, because people like Sun cannot do anything with it short of saying, "Oh...what?" Look at Locke and Ben: the last two protectors of the Island placed in a time when the Island's last past protecting. If you imagine a titanic struggle at the point of Ajira's entry over the Island between CC and Jacob, then tactically CC would focus on Ben and Locke.

But here's why I have hope that Jacob's not dead: the runway. For that, let's let mri's question segue us onto that particular topic.

SO, the whole thing hinges on Ben.  I agree on this point.  He knew what was coming and built a runway for it.  But HOW does he know?  Des dreamed about his encounter with Faraday after it happened, and incorporated the memory thusly. Does Ben "remember" things the same way?  After the fact? Because that would give Darlton a lohhhht of wiggle room as to how they're going to tie this mess up, and makes me nervous. And not in a good way.
mri

I don't think Ben remembers things differently due to events that occurred by people at the mercy of the Island's time flashes. That effect currently seems solely to exist within Desmond, with a teeny chance that Faraday experiences things in the same way as well. (This is how I posit that Faraday knocking on the Swan door worked to summon Desmond, but didn't work for Sawyer.)

I also don't think that Ben knew about the purpose of the runway. This is a slippery slope here, but I do think Jacob commissioned it, and may have commissioned it long before Kate and company were captured at the end of Season 2. Kate and Sawyer worked on the runway for what, a few days? I doubt they cleared an entire runway during that time.  In short, it wasn't Ben who saw the need for a runway, it was Jacob.

Remember: Ben turned the donkey wheel with tears in his eyes, convinced it was the last time he would ever be on the Island. For the better part of three years afterwards, he was focused on vengeance, not return. Only when hearing the name "Eloise Hawking" escape Locke's lips did the plan to return spring into motion. But your worry about retcons and wiggle room is duly noted, and to share my thoughts on that, let's let Justin ask his question.

This is my first time posting. Ryan, love your writing, read it all the time, but have never posted till now. I decided to post cause basically you have me worried. I've noticed in the past couple weeks you keep mentioning how introducing young Ben will either make or break the show. I'm just wondering why you think this? Do you really think this one storyline will make and break the whole show? I know it's significant, but why do you feel so strongly about how it will affect the show? Just wondering. Thanks.
Justin

OK, I could write a chapter of a book on the potential pitfalls inherent in this choice, but I'll try to be as brief as possible. At the outset of "Namaste," Ben claims he has no idea where Sayid, Kate, Hurley, and Jack have gone. But he is in fact finally putting together a fact that's lingered in his head for 30 years: he once brought Sayid a brown paper bag while the latter was incarcerated. What the show now has to reconstruct and recontextualize everything we have seen Benjamin Linus do without completely violating everything that's come along since Henry Gale's arrival in Season 2.

After all, it's one thing to argue about whether Danielle Rousseau remembered Jin in 2004 having already met him in 1988. That's a question that's peripheral to the main story, easily explainable, and ultimately unimportant. But if we learn that a young Ben Linus came into contact as a child with people that 24 years later he'll terrorize, then that means we'd all better hope and pray that the writers thought this through a long time ago.

After all, Ben's not a dumb kid. When captured as "Henry Gale," he's almost instantly tortured by the same man he met in the Dharma Sheriff Station. And yet, he doesn't say a damn thing about this. Either the writers didn't realize they would send major characters to interact with a younger version of this character, or they have intentionally made Ben's motivations so obscure for the specific purpose of now unleashing this new revelation. Because almost nothing to date has shown that Ben has been interacting with people that are somehow they same age in 2004 as they were in 1977.

Now, even if the show long-term planned this twist, they are far from out of the woods. Because fans are going to go back and dissect every...single...thing that Ben has ever done or said. Luckily, the show has two aces in its hole: 1) Ben almost never reveals anything about himself, and 2) what he does reveal is inevitably shown to be a lie. But there still needs to be a sound, consistent motivation given to Ben that governs how he acts with the Lostaways.

It's simply not enough to say, "Oh, Ben knows them, just didn't tell them." Not nearly enough. Did Ben know that Oceanic 815 would crash on the Island? Why did he eventually go after them, intentionally or unintentionally getting caught in Danielle's trap? Why put four people from his childhood on a list for kidnapping? How do babies, Walt, Widmore, Hawking, Annie, and the Purge fit into this knowledge?

See where I'm going with this? All of these things are now affected by a freakin' sandwich. (Assuming it's a sandwich and not a bomb. Which it might be. This is Ben we're talking about.) And if the show presents a scenario in which the last three years of watching one of television history's most compelling, fascinating, and even sympathetic villains are suddenly rendered senseless, then the show as a whole is forever crippled. Period.

I'm not saying there's a good chance this will happen, but to deny this possibility is impossible for me. It's one thing to screw up an episode like "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham." A lot of people liked it, a lot of people didn't, and in the grand scheme of things it's not that big of a deal: it's a qualitative decision about 42 minutes of a much larger story. That's the type of micro mix-up that doesn't sink the ship overall. But if they screw up Ben Linus, then that's a potentially fatal mistake for "Lost" as a narrative whole. And by placing familiar character in his past, the show has opened up this possibility.

Personally, I'm not jumping ship, calling bull, or saying anything that rhymes with "humping the bark." But there's a bead of sweat there, no doubt. But ultimately, just because I can't see a way to get through this mess doesn't mean they don't. Lord knows I put more faith in them figuring this out than I put into myself. That's why they write the show and I just write a blog. A critically acclaimed, ladies-wanna-be-with-me-guys-wanna-be-me blog, but a blog all the same. So while I advise caution, I hardly suggest panic. Save panic for when they reveal that Jacob is the buried-alive love child of Nikki and Paulo.

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.

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