Wading in the Velvet Sea

The Opening Scene

They are three-for-three in terms of truly jaw-dropping season openers. Did anyone guess what was going on until you saw Ethan? I sure didn’t. Having not seen the last episode of Season 2 for a bit, I was convinced for the first thirty seconds that we were following Penny Widmore, but alas, I was very wrong.

Buried in the seemingly innocuous mumbo-jumbo book club banter is, I think, an EXTREMELY IMPORTANT clue as regards to Ben (the notHenry character), his mindset, and the mindset of The Others (with the notable exception of Juliet) as a whole. A member of the book club says, with relative disdain, that the Stephen King book picked by Juliet (new character, possible key to escape for Jack, Sawyer, and Kate) forced Ben to skip the book club due to it being “without metaphor…religious mumbo jumbo…science fiction.” Juliet’s love of the book, coupled with her burning her muffins, coupled with her encounter with Ben post-earthquake, sets up the tension between her and Ben (and, by extension, The Others as a whole).

The Ethos of “The Others”

So, why is this important? It shows what Ben hates, which thereby gives an insight into what he in fact LIKES, or rather, believes. And that’s metaphor, realism, fact. He’s definitely a man of science, not a man of faith. And, as such, lines up quite nicely with the version of The Hanso Foundation we saw in “The Lost Experience”. It’s a vision of The Dharma Initiative that lacks any vision, any foresight, and instead focuses on clinical minutiae. Ben might be interested in who Kate cares about, but only so far as he’s willing to test those feelings out in a detached manner that can be recorded and studied.

Ben’s entirely intellect, with an insight into emotions as weakness, not strength. The Others manipulate Michael through Walt, they manipulate Jack through Susan, and they are manipulating Kate/Sawyer with each other. Whereas The Dharma Initiative was about saving the world, The Others seem quite keen on who should get the honor of populating it. (More on this in a bit.)

(As for the creepy bit about "the next two weeks"...well, Season 2 covered about two weeks, right? The time they captured Walt and ran a battery of tests? Are we about to see the SAME tests?)

Jack and Juliet

Juliet’s the only member of The Others to show even a hint of anger or hesitation around Ben. Everyone else jumps at his whims, or at the very least obeys without even asking why. His power of the group is complete, except when it comes to Juliet. Again, getting back to that first scene, when the earthquake hits, she says, “Here I am thinking that free will still actually exists on…” If these are the last remnants of the people that came with the DeGroots (unlikely), then scientific inquiry has been replaced by a benevolent dictatorship. If it’s a case of “The Stratford Scientists”, well, then everyone’s drinking the Kool-Aid except her.

Ben leaving her to die in the Aquarium of Psychotropic Drugs didn’t do a whole lot to foster any better relations between the two of them, and Ben could really care less. What that incident, and the eventual breaking of Jack, did was to further the gap between them. It’s fairly clear now that our hapless survivors will never be able to get out on their own, so outside help would be needed. While we might see Sayid, Locke, and others mount up a rescue mission, I feel Juliet’s going to be the ultimate key to their escape.

The Hydra

The name of the zoological station, and the location of The Others’ camp for poking and prodding our heroes. (Ben must love the fact that the zoological camp is named after a mythological creature.) Why this camp, other than for the writers to say, “Yes, in case you haven’t figured it out now, The Others both maintained the polar bears. Not that that still makes any damn sense, but then again, we’re not about actually answering anything yet.” After all, while Walt probably has some funky mental powers, he can’t create polar bears from scratch. He might be able to manipulate polar bears, and birds, and the minds of blonde women about to die, but he can’t create them. And I realize how ridiculous this all sounds so I am moving on.

The Hydra serves The Others well, however, due to the fact that it heightens the sense that they are treating the survivors as lab rats. Clearly, Ben’s elated when the plane crashes. He analyzes the situation with frightening speed, organizes a pretty kickass plan, and does all of this in the name of gathering data for the experiments that are about to finally start up again.

And these experiments are also done with help from outside the island. The dossier on Jack is thick, and rife with info that could not be gotten simply by posing as a crash survivor. Three possible explanations: 1) Someone off the island is feeding them info. 2) They have access to info in the “real world”. 3) They come and go from the island as easy as some of us commute to work, via the “325”.

Now, none of this addresses why all the passengers were on Flight 815, or why it crashed at that moment, and why these people may or may not be actually important to the Island, and oh look, my brain matter is oozing out of my nose again…

The Others, The Island, The Smoke Monster

In the “previously on” segment, the producers felt it necessary to remind us that The Others feel extremely strongly that, “This island…is OUR island.” There’s a propriety nature to their endeavors. It’s not the same attitude as those in “The Village”, or at least, it better not be, cuz “The Village” sorta kinda sucked. Whatever their relation to The Hanso Foundation, The Dharma Initiative, or the outside world in general, theirs is an attitude of evolution: whatever the intent was is irrelevant…it’s only what they do with it now that matters.

Course, that begs the question: what in the same hell are they doing down in Hysteria Lane? Making muffins and reading “The Stand”? (Least I think it’s “The Stand”.) Do they know about Smokey The Producers-Promise-It’s-Not-Nanobot Monster? Did they create it? Control it? Do they really just wait around for something to crash into the Island?

Two possible ways I can see it going, and I’m sure by the next ep both these theories will be abolished, but oh well:

1) I like the commuting idea. It would explain the various types of equipment we see, from the new washer/dryer in the hatch to the really fancy sound board in Jack’s room. These are not ‘70s-era equipment. The King books look fair new. They have CD players for crying out loud! These people travel back in forth, potentially in shifts, and working to complete (or improve upon) (or hell, destroy, why not, let’s cover my ass complete) what The Dharma Initiative did. The people on the island when the plane crashed just happened to be one shift of say, five or ten, and thus just happen to be at the island at the time this story commences. Ben, as the highest ranking member, in essence starts protocols long established and intimately known among The Others.

2) I also like The Rhodes Scholar theory. Not the school, but the Colossus of Rhodes, which is alluded to by the ginormous four-toed statue from the end of last year (and which I alluded to in my review of the Season 2 finale here). Whatever Dharma et al meant to do on the island was in fact changed (or, possibly, entirely predicated) by what the Island actually is. That is to say, a place that’s the cradle of life, a fountain of youth, an anomaly in the space-time continuum…whatever it might be. Locke is right: this island is different. And perhaps, just maybe, these people are not necessarily trapped, but are unwilling to leave, and unwilling to share the island with anyone else. Throw in the fact that time by all accounts moves much slower on this island than in he real world, and toss in the Valenzetti Equation predicting the end of the world, and you have a pretty sweet place in which to bide your time until the radiation’s over and you start the world over with “good” people.

Both theories have huge holes, but they are the best I can come up with at the moment as I try to screw my brain back on. Why The Others to this point dressed in rags…why they even had rags and makeup and fake beards in the first place...why no one seems to be too worried that the electromagnetic hatch is gone…you’ve got me.

And so does “Lost”, all over again.

Your thoughts?