5.11 Whatever Happened, Happened

It was brought to my attention that last week’s write-up was a tad Pro-child abuse. Well, more than a tad. I advocated for the beating of children to strength their resolve and learn life lessons and that Ben’s face should have been slammed into the bars of Sayid’s cell. So, I took to heart what my faithful readers had to say, and I wanted to offer my most sincere….what, are you crazy? Are you a new reader? I’m not going to focking apologize. Just out of principle this weekend, I punched a Girl Scout in the throat when I was coming out of the supermarket. I didn’t necessarily want to do it. But I felt that I owed it to her. Not to mention, I’d rather chew on a tasty morsel directly out of cat’s litter box than choke down one of those chocolate covered minty particle board chunks. Stupid cookies.

Next, let’s address this right away, from last week’s summary…
5.10
“Nevertheless, Sayid shoots Little Ben through the heart. THE HEART. Ben is dead. And make no mistake, BEN IS DEAD.”

So, I took to heart what my faithful readers had to say about this, and I wanted to offer my most sincere….what, are you stupid? Did you fall for this AGAIN? I’m not going to focking apologize for this either. How could I have been so wrong? Just plain old wrong. BECAUSE I WAS RIGHT, numbskull. Huh? No, not the dead part. Ben was shot through the heart last week. HEART. Guess what? This whole episode featured Ben bleeding from the chest, on the OPPOSITE side of his heart. That is why he did not die instantaneously. So, we have a really big problem here in continuity. How do we resolve this? There is a much larger issue at stake here, other than my ego. I just can’t explain it fully yet. It’s like watching an illusionist. He has you looking in a particular direction, but it’s the wrong direction. I’m sure I’ll have some random thoughts throughout my diatribe with an occasional observation or theory, but I suspect that alternate timelines are still occurring, despite that very misleading title of this episode. Whatever happened, happened? Not so fast, my friend. How about this thought: The island could very well be the fulcrum of parallel universes, where all possibilities can possibly happen, but only one does. What if Sayid shot Ben in the right side in some parallel existence. But then that possible alternative merged with this current reality. Sort of like having cable TV, with hundreds of different channels, like Sayid shooting Ben in the head, the foot, missing him completely, or that Jin overpowered Sayid. But of those different channels, only one pops up on your screen at a time. So Sayid shot Ben in the heart, but in 5 minutes, you have another channel, where Ben was shot on the right side instead. And the island is the TV screen. I need to chew on this little theory some more. Anyway….

Jin wakes up, picks up the alternately bleeding Ben. Horace is nudged by Jack to admit that one of the Dharmites had to have helped Sayid escape. Roger Linus uses a winch to bond with the wench, otherwise known as Kate. Yeah, I really dreaded that this was going to be a Kate episode, complete with flashbacks and horrible acting. Yipee. I nearly contracted carbon monoxide poisoning from sighing so much. I’m sitting here at my keyboard, and just sighed from thinking about the sighing I did throughout the episode. For the love of God, kill me now. Oh, right. I was talking about Kate flirting with Roger. She surreptitiously reacted negatively when ‘ole Roger mentioned his last name was Linus. Or maybe that was Kate having a stroke. Who can tell with her? The island’s statue has greater emotional range. So Jin pulls up in his hippie mobile, and yanks out Ben. Roger immediate yells out “hey, that’s my kid!!!”. Um, I may not be a parent, but I’m pretty sure that if my kid is bleeding like a rare steak, and is being rushed into an infirmary, I’d remember his name. Who was the genius that made this script decision. “Yeah, instead of Roger saying something like Oh my God, Ben, What happened?, um, let’s have him remind everybody in the Dharma village that the victim is his “kid”, something that a proud parent would shout during a graduation ceremony or a school play for example. Like “hey, that’s my kid”. That should work fine. Never mind that 10 seconds ago he told the audience that his last name is Linus. We need to remind everybody yet again that Ben, scratch that, “the kid” is his son. Sigh. My nit picking has reached a ridiculous low, hasn’t it? Meanwhile, as Kate arrives at Cassidy’s house, we got the first confirmation of what I and other semi-intelligent people have been assuming all along. That Ben is dead. No, no, no, that Sawyer told Kate to look after Clementine, his daughter, before jumping out of the helicopter and doing a cannonball into the big blue ocean that Ron Burgundy would have been proud of. I mean, what else could it have been that Sawyer whispered? I love you. Please, don’t make me turn into Hulk Smash mode. So with Aaron in tow, Kate announces “Sawyer sent me”. Sigh.

So Kate, between half truths, being caught in lies, and various mumbling grunts manages to tell Cassidy that Sawyer is alive and here is some money. Sigh. Cassidy, in a classic woman scorned speech, informs Kate that Sawyer was jumping off the chopper to break up with her. One would think there might be an easier way to say “It’s not you, it’s me.”, but, hey, that’s just me. But Cassidy is a pissed off woman, and she will spend the next few years influencing Kate to become even more annoying, and bitter, and selfish. Ay, caramba. They should have Sun over for afternoon tea, which is being lovingly prepared in a bubbling cauldron. Kate felt that she needed to lie because she was protecting Aaron. All we need is Kate to develop an Australian accent and scream My baybeeeeeeeee every 5 minutes. Did I mention that the stupid Girl Scout looked like Kate? I didn’t really need to spit in her hair after I punched her, but I felt I owed it to her. Horace catches stealth mode Kate after 15 seconds of conversing with Sawyer. I’m sure Kate would have made a lousy spy, and you can bet Sydney Bristow would have gotten some information and disappeared into the background after stealing a Rambaldi artifact in those same 15 seconds, but other than that, Horace seems to barely be making an obvious connection. Gee, all this weird stuff has started since the new recruits arrived. Jack corrected me in public. Here is this Kate person whispering with LaFleur. Seems mighty suspicious if you ask me. Horace’s hamster in his head isn’t spinning the wheel properly quite yet. Oh, but I think he will get there eventually. While Ben was skilled in cleaning up a murder scene in Locke’s hotel room, he awkwardly left the keys behind in the jail cell. Or, he wanted his father to know exactly what he had done, by being obvious. Chew on that one. Miles wrangles up the Ajiras and isolates them in a house. So, for those paying attention, yes, I am now going to be using Dharmites (the original guys) and Ajiras (Kate, Jack, Hurley) for brevity sake and when appropriate. Sawyer knows Roger doesn’t have his keys, so he just saved Jack’s ass from suspicion and from a round with Oldham, Darryl, and Darryl. Ben isn’t in good shape, as Juliet is drenched in blood, which is obviously coming from the bucket of pig’s blood that just got overturned above her head or possibly from Ben’s right side of his chest, which is the wrong side. The Ajiras are under house arrest when Miles and Hurley start to debate life, the universe, and everything as compared to Back To The Future. That premise was all about Michael J Foz needing to ensure that his father and mother fell in love and got married and had kids when he time traveled to the past, otherwise Fox and his siblings started to fade away in family photos like they didn’t exist. Interesting enough, the names Michael Fox and Matthew Fox is a bit of a coincidence for this episode, which to me is more significant that the title of this episode. Holy smokes, having Hurly and Miles trying to explain paradoxes in time travel as related to this show is like giving a couple of monkey typewriters and telling them to type out the next week’s script for Desperate Housewives. Hmm. That wasn’t quite fair. I’m sure those monkeys do a fine job for that fine show. Yuck. So the debate centers about whether the future can be changed by the time travelers. And this debate was been a frequent topic in these write-ups lately. Here is my summary. Well, if they can’t change the current future, then we are seeing alternate timelines. If they can change the future, well, then Daniel was wrong. But Sun, Locke, Frank, and Ben are currently in a different future than what should have happened, whether they are in an alternate timeline/universe, or victims of whatever the time travelers changed. Sawyer asks Jack for help, and Jack says “No”. Well, that was certainly interesting. Our new Simple Jack is a very laid back fellow.

Kate whines “what are you doing?”. Let me present our first and very likely last Jack Is Great Moment of the Week “I’m making some sandwiches, I figured we might be getting hungry.” FACE. Jack very properly points out that he saved Ben’s life once before, for Kate of all people because Ben was going to have Sawyer killed. Maybe the island needs to fix things. I was just getting in the way. Just thinking about all the time I spend praying that Matthew Fox would quit Lost so he could film Speed Racer 2, wow, what a waste of time. Well, I suppose waste of time could be a fair classification for Speed Racer. Come on. Did you really think they were going to make a sequel to that steaming pile of Girl Scout cookies? You know, I really didn’t have to kick that crying Girl Scout in the head, but I felt I owed it to her. Anyway, Jack doesn’t suck. How about that folks? Jack is off my sh!t list. For now. You better mind your P’s and Q’s, mister. Meanwhile, Kate screeches, well not so much as a screech as begins talking. But I’m sure I’m not the only person out there that feels like her voice is like listening to fingernails being dragged slowly across a chalk board. Or maybe something that only dogs and bats can hear. She makes her opinion known “I don’t like the new you.”. Shut up, Kate. All of American likes the new Jack. So shut your piehole. Jack with yet another FACE moment “You didn’t like the old me, Kate.” Jack is swinging for the fences, and every pitch is yet another tape measure home run. At this point. Trust me, Jack. You peak right here. It goes downhill later. Enjoy the standing ovation from me while it lasts. Basically we are friends right now because we have a common freckle faced enemy. Kate goes to volunteer her blood, during which time she confesses to Juliet that she and Jack were engaged. Juliet seems uncomfortable hearing this is. I suppose Juliet still has feelings for Jack, and there is the possibility they end up with each other when all is said and done. Ever since Jack dumped Kate a few minutes ago, Kate is despondent that no one is paying attention to her. Oh, there’s Roger. Kate pretends to be nice to him so that she can be put back up on her pedestal by somebody, anybody. Roger was an epiphany and realizes that Ben must have allowed Sayid to escape. He blames himself for not raising Ben properly, and does a nice job of giving his character more dimension and more sympathy. Still think Roger is a monster based on last week? This is s conflicted, miserable guy who get stuck raising the spawn of Satan. I applaud Roger to giving Ben a five knuckle sammich each once in a while. So take that child abuse talk and stick it where the sun don’t shine. Ben takes a turn for the worse. Miles and Hurley keep debating what is actually happening to all of them. My big issue with this conversation was when Miles explained “when Ben turned the wheel”. First of all, who told Miles about the wheel. Locke didn’t come back and he had no idea there was a wheel when he climbed down the rope. So, who exactly told Miles about the frozen donkey wheel? Did the dead of the island tell him? Did a Daniel spying mission come back with information? But this really bugged me. Juliet tells us the only hope Ben has is the Others. Once again, Juliet flaunts that she knows a lot of what is really going on but just doesn’t show the cards. By the end of the season, I could see her tying Sawyer to some train tracks and walking away with her black hat, black cape, and twirling and old-timey Rollie Fingers type of mustache. That might be fun.

While Juliet and Kate take Ben outside, and stuff him and his bleeding wounds into a filthy van, I can’t help but wonder where everybody is. You mean to tell me that one of the Dharmities get’s shot, and nobody, absolutely nobody is waiting around the infirmary to see how Ben is doing other than his father. NOBODY? I guess that makes moving the body easier, with another plot hole. It’s all in the details, folks. Another random thought, how much longer will the Losties and LostDharmities be able to remember to call Sawyer or LaFleur appropriately. You just know someone is going to slip up at some point, and confirm the seed of suspicion that must be growing in Horace’s head. Right? Back in California, Kate is giving perplexed Jack a whole bunch of sh!t about going back to the island. Aaron wants a juice box, so off to the supermarket we go. As Kate continues to not pick up when Jack calls, Aaron disappears. Kate panicks. She runs the length of the store before she finds him walking around with someone that looks a bit like Claire in weird makeup, making her seem a bit like Claire if she appeared in Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun music video, where people’s faces got stretched to demonic proportions, or what some of the folks looked like in reality in The Devil’s Advocate. But it does bother me how Aaron got to the opposite side of the store so quickly, especially when Kate ran in full stride in that direction, but Aaron was quicker? Can Aaron teleport himself? How did he do that? Sawyer catches up with Kate at the pylons, calls her “Freckles” again, and says he is there to help. Much to my eternal disappointment, Sawyer does not throw Kate into the pylons and crank up the juice.

After arguing with Jack at the pier, Kate drives over to Cassidy’s house to have a ridiculous conversation. They are going back to the island. I expected Aaron to be taken. And then when Cassidy spins the conversation into “Sawyer broke your heart, so you needed Aaron.” That is the frontrunner for most insanely idiotic thing ever uttered on this show’s history. The only competition is when Jack, staring into open ocean, denied that Locke moved the island. So, by Cassidy’s logic, every time I break up with a broad, I should drive down to the local playground and abduct a child. Because I “need’ one to get over my heartache. Are you kidding me? How about you get a cat? Have you ever heard of eating a box of Ben and Jerrys? Get drunk. Yet, now stealing a kid is now considered therapeutic. You just can’t make this sh!t up. Let me guess. The Anti-Christ Oprah must have been pushing this idea on her exploitative sh!tty TV show. You remember Oprah? She was Jerry Springer before Jerry Springer was cool. But now she is considered “nice” and “generous” when she gives out sponsors products on her show that she didn’t pay a nickel for. And then there was that rape school she built in Africa. And she went public trashing a department store because they refused to open after hours to allow Oprah to go shopping so she didn’t have to mingle with the unwashed masses of her adoring public. Yep, while Oprah hosted all the Nazi’s, mental patients, random crazies, and especially Tom Cruise on her evil tabloid show, and eventually unleashed the Imbecilic Beast Dr Phil on the unsuspecting Earth, the American audience fiddled, and Rome burned. Dr Phil looks like a man that drinks rubbing alcohol, eats dog food from a can, and has daily sex with a Dust Buster. And Oprah is considered mainstream and nice? She is a hack. And stop pretending you are not a lesbian. We all know it. So cry some more about how you can’t lose 10 pounds while you can go home and fill your ass crack with your billions of dollars you out of touch ungrateful hump. Drop dead. Back to the pylons. Sawyer informs Kate that he is helping to save Ben for “her”. I assume that this is a reference to Juliet, not Clementine, but whichever way it goes…FACE. Another low moment for the Kate. Meanwhile, Juliet is ogling the size of Jack’s d!ck as he steps out of the shower, to satisfy her curiosity over not ever sleeping with him, but probably will in the near future. Oh, come on. You know she looked. Hell, I would have taken a peek myself. I replayed their conversation a couple times to catch a glimpse of Jack‘s mule, er, rather as it was hard at times to distinguish whether it was about Ben or about Jack and Juliet’s relationship that went *poof*. “I needed you. You made it perfectly clear that you weren’t interested. I cam back for you.” Phrases like those made the conversation seem very layered and complicated. Of course, Juliet gives Jack a beating for not knowing what the Oceanic 6 were supposed to do when they came back. As much as this lessens Jack and beats him down some more, at least he was honest. And to be fair, do any us really know what the purpose of Oceanic 6 is on the island after returning. No, not really. As Sawyer carries Ben deeper into the jungle, jostling the kid, probably making the injury infinitely worse, Kate tells him about Clementine, Cassidy’s theory of him jumping off the chopper. Sawyer gives Kate a few punches to the face. You and me were never going to work out. I grew up a lot in 3 years. FACE. Yeah, Sawyer did become a whole other person, and let’s face it, he has probably spent a hell of a long time with Juliet in Dharmaville than the month or so of the on again off again tug of war “relationship” with Kate. Kate, sweetie, listen. Jack and Sawey have now both rejected you. Roger is a good guy, a bit of a drinker. Hurley can cook. Miles would be a hit as séances. Just set your standards lower and you might end up with a man. Wait. Every woman that Sayid sleeps with ends up dead. You should definitely go find Sayid. Richard appears out of thin air, the closest I’ve come to wondering whether the Others can turn invisible, or simply move through alternate timelines and reappear in another universe seemingly out of nowhere. Sounds ridiculous? Yeah, well the bullet hole has me thinking all sorts of crazy thoughts. I might just get totally nuts and change the channel of my TV playing in the background to PBS. Oooooooooo. That just sent chills up and down my spine. All of the sudden, I have all these thoughts about the show bouncing around in my head, and I have to make them line up in a pattern of some sort. I think I’m catching a whiff of the final solutions, if I can just snap the pieces together. With Desmond’s help.

From the 5.06 writeup…
But don’t forget, that if she took Aaron back to the island, and if Claire is still alive, and Kate has no reason to doubt it, how could she remain Aaron’s mother. She can’t. So rather than bring Aaron back to his mother, she selfishly gave him away. To who? Well, she knows that Aaron’s grandmother is in town and where she is staying. That seems like a good place to take him to. Maybe she takes him to Cassidy, the mother of Sawyer’s child. Maybe Kate’s sick mother is looking after Aaron. I guess we will find out at some point, but I think Claire’s mother is the likely destination.

Not too shabby. I was all over this one, as did many of you I‘m sure. Especially the ones that read spoilers. You do realize that you are not enjoying the pure magic of this show when you know what is already going to happen. But that is the burden that you must deal with. I am so anal about that stuff, I refuse to watch previews. Kate drops in on Mrs Littleton who apparently has not returned to Australia but is living in a hotel room for roughly the same time frame as the boys from My Name Is Earl. This is the day after Jack visited, thinking Claire’s grandmother was trying to get Aaron back by way of lawyers. Kate blurts out she lied, Aaron is your grandson, Claire is alive but disappeared, I had to protect him, I needed him. This is maddening. This focking woman is admitting to kidnapping your grandchild, lied to make you think your daughter dead, and she still might be because ditzy Kate saw her disappear, and you mean to tell me that you “needed” Aaron. I would pick up the nearest lamp and not stop hitting her in the head until my hands were entirely covered with her blood. You needed him? For what? Oh, that’s right. Some guy you have sex with 3 or 4 times supposedly broke up with you, and you kept a child from his rightful family because you were sad. Boo fock you Hoo. I hate this Kate character so much. Everything, I mean everything is all about her. What she wants. What she needs. Just thinking about it makes my teeth hurt. I have goose bumps at how awful that whole scenario is. Then, then, you try to score some brownie points by saying, oh, you can have him back, I’ve already done enough damage to his psyche. By the way, I left him alone in a hotel room to come over here and let you know that you can take him out for a test drive. And if I find your daughter, whenever I’m not flirting with Sawyer, I can bring her back, and tell Aaron that I’m not your real mommy, but Claire is your real mommy. Oh, I’m sure Aaron won’t be fazed a bit by that. If I’m Mrs. Littleton right now, I’m speed dialing a child psychologist and the police. Kate goes to kiss Aaron goodbye on his enormous forehead, more like a five head. I suppose Jack and Kate Plus 8 is now a full 8 babies short. But Kate is feeling very unhappy, as she is crying. Bood friggin‘ hoo. Hey, Kate, I know what would cheer you up. Go kidnap Clementine. You need her to make you happy. In your mind, it’s the right thing to do. Go for it. Richard addresses the jungle group. He knows Ben from a previous meeting, and met Sawyer 3 years ago during the whole shooting incident. He doesn’t know Kate until now. Again, these are all characters that ended up on Jacob’s list when Michael led the Losties into the ambush at the end of season 2. Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sawyer. All were time travelers, and now half of them have met Richard. All of them will soon enough. “If I take him, he will never be the same. He will forget any of this ever happened. His innocence will be gone. He will always be one of us.” Ok, hold on there, Kemosabe. Ben just stole his father’s keys, caused a flaming bus to drive into an occupied, yes occupied house, and freed an uncooperative prisoner. What innocence are we talking about? The innocence of that Girl Scout that I set on fire this weekend. I didn’t have to do it, well, actually THAT I had to do. But Ben is not an innocent. He will remember nothing? How conveeeeeeeenient. There is no way to explain this plot hole, so you give a character selective amnesia. So now Ben won’t remember Sayid shooting him, Kate and Sawyer rescuing him, Jin and Sayid being buddies, nothing. All that will be a blank so that Ben can grow up to lead the genocide against Dharma. That was very well thought out Ajiras and Losties. Save Ben, kill one hundred. Well, make it a thousand. Ben grows up to be a busy boy. I really don’t like the amnesia angles in stories. It’s a cop out to coming up with an intelligent solution. Before Richard goes, he is asked if they should check with Ellie and/or if Charles finds out. Richard declares he doesn’t answer to them. So, Widmore was telling us the truth when he said he was a leader of the Others are one point. Ellie is Eloise Hawking. I went back to check the spelling of her first name on IMDB from the Jughead episode. She is listed as Young Eloise Hawking.

From 5.3
…Eloise Hawking, where Elle would be a natural nickname. We learned that Eloise was her first name through an enhanced episode repeat. Then again, don’t forget that the first rat Daniel trained to run through the maze in his lab was named Eloise. Could this be the person that becomes Hawking? Could she be Daniel’s mother? Then, who is the father? Is it crazy to think Charles Widmore is Daniel’s father? Charles and Eloise would be about the same age off the island, both were young 50 years in the past. Maybe they left the island because Charles got Elle pregnant, and mothers were dying on the island. Widmore is funding Daniel. Hawking and Widmore are both interested in the island, but seemingly not working together, if Ben is working for Hawking. So Charles and Elle had a falling out. Let take it even further. Desmond is Scottish, and I believe Penny is too. We now that Penny is possibly Widmore’s kid. Daniel might be….

She is Daniel’s mother for sure. If she is romantically linked to Charles Widmore, which is certainly possible, then she is Penny’s mother too. Danile and Penny are brother and sister. Something I don’t think Ben realizes. If he is working with Eloise Hawking to find the island in the present, why would he be looking to kill her daughter, Penny? Weird stuff. Richard carries Ben to the Temple, and slips inside. There is no evidence whatsoever of the smoke monster. Could this current time predate the smoke monster? Or is it just protecting the Temple from certain people, clearly not worried about Richard. We do know that Ben mentioned in past seasons that the Temple was a haven for the Others. Although I wonder how Smokey would have reacted to Rousseau arriving last season if she wasn’t met by Keamy and his men before she got there. Ben wakes up with very little face wounds, as opposed to the last time we saw him on the cot. He looks up and Locke is there to wish him a warm Hi, buddy. Ben looked a bit surprised, or maybe he is simply looking for some more extension cord just behind Locke.

Decent episode, really seems to be setting up the next few episodes. The purge timetable is most likely been pushing up in time. The cover of Sawyer and the imposter Dharmites, along with Ajiras will all be blown. Soon.. The future is still murky and gloopy. Desmond will have to show up at some point this season. What year and what episode though? The Temple is taking on an increasing importance on this show. I am really, really curious about it.