Lost 4.03: The Economist... ContinuedThe discussion continues on the latest episode of Lost. One of the more intriguing questions was raised by Matthew, asking why the heck Miles is SO damn angry. We've seen a brief flashback of him and he's pretty laid-back, if a little sleazy, but when he comes to the island he's all wild-eyed and out for blood. Why is he so hellbent on finding Ben? Matthew wonders if maybe he had a relative or a friend who was killed in the Purge, which is a very interesting theory. Pete has posted suggesting that maybe Marvin Candle is Miles's father, which is a great idea.
I, too, was wondering about why Miles is SO angry when he's on the island, yet in the flashback he seems pretty lowkey. And I wonder if his power to speak to the dead is heightened on the island? If he really can communicate with the dead, and his dustbuster device is just for show, then maybe when he landed on the island he was lying on the flats for a lot longer than we think, and in that time he was communicating with all the many, many ghosts on the island, who were telling him that Ben killed all of them. That would get him pretty worked up. I believe he was sent there because he's the only one who can communicate with those who have died, and that THEY are the ones with the real information.
Then again, maybe he had just communicated with Nikki and Paulo. That would be enough to make anyone completely insane.
hmmm...good thoughts there. Abaddon asks Hurley if "they are still alive." If the "they" is Dharma, then Miles makes a valuable asset to the team then to get info from the dead on what exactly happened.
ReplyDeleteYou have to think Dharma's mainland division would show up sooner or later after after having the island staff wiped out.
If Miles truly communicates with the dead, which I believe he does, then he'll soon be talking with Ana-Lucia and Libby. And if Michael is Ben's man on the boat (an interesting theory) then that would lead to an interesting chat.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea that Miles might be related to Marvin Candle. Interesting.
ReplyDeleteI really do think these 4 are related to the Dharma people whom Ben killed. I think he probably sneaks back to the 'real world' to get rid of more people from the Dharma group who might know about the island. Thus, roping in Sayid to help him out.
I don't think Miles' anger is directed towards Ben. It seems like his employers told him to find Ben without filling him on any details.
ReplyDeleteIMHO, I think his anger is over the mission being not what he signed up for, and just wants to finish the job so he can go home.
I almost never disagree with Brian, but I strongly feel that the "Miles does anything for money" is a set-up by the writers to throw us off. Even the background conversation between Miles and Jack that we could barely hear is manipulation by the writers to make us think he's doing this for money. They knew we'd pay attention because of the way they produced it.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible that Miles spent time on the island as a child and that's where his powers came from? He could be angry about lost family/friends, lost access to research the Dharma group was doing or lost access to additional powers. He could be the 'stereotypical super-badguy' who gets some power and then has to have more at any cost. Ben has stood in his way of more powers.
I think the lost community is getting so smart and with three years to go, the writers can't let us figure it out this soon. I would expect as many fake clues as real clues just to keep us searching and interested. It would be death for the show to let us figure it out.
On the flip side, can you imagine being the writers and trying to figure out how to keep this monster of a community fed but not dangerous! If they can keep us happy for 3 more years, they deserve huge kudos!
Question: Do we know for sure that the flashbacks from "Confirmed Dead" were in fact flashbacks and not flashforwards (other than the one with Naomi of course)?
ReplyDeleteJust a thought....
Brian: great question - really made me think..
ReplyDeleteNaomi mentioned that they'd found the wreckage of 815 in a trench. We've always assumed that she said that after hearing the news and that she was telling the truth. If she's 'upper management' in this, there's a chance she's telling them something that will prove true in the future and had not actually happened yet. This would also explain Abbadon's "There are no survivors" meaning "There will be no survivors."
Charlotte saw it in the paper but I couldn't see the date on the page. That could be in the future which would explain her joy in finding the Dharma collar after having been on the island.
Dan heard it on TV which could be the cause of his grief having been on the island and known the survivors. He could be overcome by his personal knowledge and the cover-up he's forced to now support.
Miles could have gained additional powers on the island although he already seemed able to speak to Naomi's ghost. If Mile's segment is flash forward, that might explain it being Walt's bedroom and Walt in the coffin.
Frank is the one I'd have trouble saying is a flash forward. He seemed willing to pick up the phone and call Oceanic out on their false video footage. Even if he now never returns to the island, he's still seen enough. Why would he raise a stink about the pilot if he's bound to some other secrecy.
Could some be flash backs and others flash forward? Maybe... I really have to think they were all flashbacks but I could see being wrong... we've all been wrong about this show!
Could the plane in the trench be the final outcome of the show? The pilot might be a different body, but they could drag all the 'now dead' bodies and the wreckage and dump it in the trench. Might explain why the plane was in large pieces and upright instead of smashed into smaller pieces.
I don't know if this makes ANY sense to anyone, but thought I'd throw it out there. I seem to recall an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where Tasha Yar had died before but this episode was an alternate warped reality where she was alive, but she had a "feeling" that she should not be there, yet everyone around her never knew that she died. It was only after she died "again" that normality was restored. What if this sort of situation applies to the Oceanic 6? They knew that their fate was to die on the plane (the one on the bottom of the ocean) and that they needed to do everything to get back to the island in order to fulfil their destiny? I dunno, its crazy, just putting it out there.
ReplyDeleteHey Brian: I thought a similar thing when that episode first aired, wondering if they were in fact flashbacks. In each one, there's the announcement of the plane being found, as if it had just happened. Charlotte seeing it in big letters would suggest that it's new news. Frank sees it on the TV, and Miles hears it on the radio. In each instance you hear or see the person saying the plane has JUST been found. Last season, in "Greatest Hits," Naomi tells Charlie that they'd found the plane with all the dead bodies in it, and they'd released a greatest hits album of DriveShaft, and it had happened a couple of months prior. So based on her explanation -- as if finding the plane is old news -- and the reporters in the scenes treating it like it's new news, I'd say those were flashbacks.
ReplyDeleteRoland: Great theory! I love it. And I really think there's going to be something to it when it comes down to it. One of the main themes of this series is fate and destiny vs. the ability to change one's future, and that episode of TNG definitely played into that idea.
ReplyDeleteMy boyfriend's first reaction upon watching last week's (he hasn't seen this past Thurs yet!) was that the team was the mainland version of Dharma...or hired by them...to get revenge for the purge. I suppose that could be true.
ReplyDeleteAs for the flashbacks/forwards...that makes your head spin! I think it would be REALLY cruel to mix the episode with flashbacks AND forwards! LOL My feeling was that they were giving us background info on these new characters but then again, it could be a trick!
Nikki: You're assuming of course that Naomi was telling the truth about the crash, although I don't know why she would lie about that.
ReplyDeleteI listened to a podcast featuring Father Roderick last night and he tried his best to explain a theory where time on the Island is moving much slower than time outside the island. It didn't all make sense, but one thing he said stopped me and really made me think.
ReplyDeleteHe suggested that the current day off the island is way in the future and the character struggle with the flash forwards is that everything they knew was gone. Explains why Kate's not in jail, why Walt might be grown and old enough to be in trouble. We didn't see any familiar faces at the mental institution with Hurley.
He tried to explain that electrical communication might happen in Island time, but physical communication would jump the characters ahead in time?? His example: The reason Penny didn't know who Naomi was or anything about a boat was because the boat wouldn't even leave for quite some time in the future. Maybe Charlie's communication sets in motion Penny's work to actually find them.
I don't think I believe most of this, but I've always thought it strange that they could find the wreckage of a plane in 100 days if they didn't know where it went down and it was miles deep below the ocean.
Could the outside world be months if not years ahead of the island? If the Island is stuck in time, it would also explain Richard's lack of aging...although it doesn't explain Ben's growth...hmmm
I've also been wondering if Miles, Dan, Frank, and Charlotte's flashes have been forward instead of back. If Naomi was in on "it" and lied about everything (for whatever to be determined reason) then it is possible, and would explain why Charlotte refused to believe they had found the plane, why Dan was crying, etc.
ReplyDeleteThe only problem with the theory is, if the finding of the plane was later, why didn't the news reports make some mention of the Oceanic 6, survivors who had been rescued earlier? Given this show, I'm sure there could be a reason, but I can't think of it. At any rate, I love this motif, showing us flashes forward now too, because we really are never sure what (or when) we're seeing.
Could the finding of the 6 cycle around again and actually happen after the finding of the crash (not before it)... all of which happens in the future?
ReplyDeleteOr could the 6, by going back to the island, effectively change the future to where the 6 were never found?
If Desmond's visions were a possible outcome for the future then maybe all the flash forwards are only possibly outcomes based on the 6 not returning to the island. The Island decides to interfere, coaxing the 6 back (to the past) thus changing the present...which is really the future!
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
I read that they're moving Lost to 8pm on Thursdays, meaning it conflicts with Smallville. So I'll have to watch Smallville on Wednesdays, meaning it conflicts with Little Mosque on the Prairie. Which I'll now have to timeshift.
ReplyDeleteOne thing about the Strike being on - you didn't really have to worry about shows slots conflicting.
I think the six are the people who were allowed off the Island (by Ben?) and the people Sayid are protecting by helping Ben are the ones still on the Island. I also think the boat team were in flashbacks. Seemed to me like an episode about how they came to be on the team.
Hi Nikki! I'm a huge fan of your blog and I enjoy particularly your posts on LOST. I'm a HUGE fan of the show and I love how Season 4 kicked off.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I'm here to share with you an interesting theory that popped up to my mind when today I was chatting with a colleague of mine about LOST and its recent new developments.
What if Ben's man on the boat is... Sayid?!? I know, at first it could seem strange, but I came to grow on this theory when I tried to connect the dots with the latest episode's first and last scenes. At the beginning we see Sayid as if he's praying... but maybe he's communicating with Ben. Could it be that these two characters are more close related than we thought about so far? Could it be that Ben is using telepathy to communicate with Sayid? Could it be Ben is trying to persuade Sayid to go for a mission on the boat, promising to him he will leave the island very soon and then return to Nadia? Is Sayid becoming the Faust of LOST, selling his soul to the devil?
I remember that someone actually theorized some time ago that Ben is actually a clairvoyant and he's able to see the future. If that's the case, he already knew that Sayid would go on the boat and so becoming his "man on the boat". Could it be that he's using Sayid and manipulating him? In the flash-forward scenes we have seen how the two characters become tied to each other, so maybe that mission is the beginning of that...
What do you think about all that?
I love your blog, Nikki!
Cheers,
Maurizio
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Follow this link to read DocArtz's description of a deleted scene he was able to see from "The Economist":
ReplyDeletehttp://www.docarzt.com/lost-news/lost-403-the-economist-a-delet.php
It seems to suggest that Miles is communicating with one or more island ghosts. It makes me wonder...who is speaking to him? There are so many dead characters to choose from, which one of them would be likely to help Miles' cause?
Also, I'm really into what Maurizio just posted above. But rather than some clairvoyant power in Ben, I would point to the time discrepancy we've seen as evidence that Sayid is the man on the boat.
If it is far into the future off the island (where the boat is), it's possible that all the events that would have had to transpire to switch Sayid's allegiance have happened in the time plane the freighter is in, allowing future-Sayid to aid Ben while he is on the island. It might also explain why Ben is such a know-it-all all the time--he actually knows what will happen in the "future" (off the island).
The only problem I see with this is the absence of a gap in communication between on and off island we saw in the communication with Regina and Daniel.
Maurizio: Also, we don't know for certain that Ben's info on Charlotte comes from his man on the boat. He could have gotten that information elsewhere, and only implied it was his man on the boat
ReplyDeleteemilia, you are brilliant. well, at least your theories have a certain brilliance about them. well, at least that last one is cool. can't wait to see what happens next!
ReplyDeleteFrom what I've read, as soon as Grey's Anatomy returns with new episodes Lost will be moved to 10 pm(pst). This is supposed to take place sometime in April.
ReplyDeleteIs it just me or does "Naomi's Bunch" know more than they're letting on? Here's my theory: Abbadon, or whoever he works for, has Michael. Either willingly or unwillingly, Michael has given up inofrmation on the plane crash, the survivors, the "Others" and the Island. When Michael left, at the end of season 2, Ben gave him coordinates to take him from the island but said that he would not be able to return. This explains how the Freighter is in the area but couldn't pinpoint the exact location of the island. I think that this crew, "Naomi's Bunch", already knew that there were survivors from the crash. Think back to the question Namoi asked about survivors and Abbadon's answer, "There were no surivors". I believe that he knows there are survivors and he's instructing her terminate them. Naomi knew that she'd find Desmond on the island. Her story, which we know to be fake, was that she was hired by Penny to find Des. How lucky for her to crash on the island he's been stranded on!! She knew he was there and had her cover story ready. Frank's studied the passenger manifest so he's able to distinguish between those who were on 815 and those who weren't. None of them are surprised that there are survivors, as if they knew that the plane found in the Sundra Trench is a fake.
If not Michael, then Abbadon must have a spy in Ben's camp. Someone has supplied them with information. They know who Ben is and that he's on the island.
Here's a question: If their main objective is to capture Ben, then why not send a merc group? Why send a Physicist, an Anthropologist, a Ghost Whisperer and a pilot? Faraday and Lewis are obviously there to study the island. Miles is more than likely there to communicate with the dead. Frank, I'm still uncertain here but his knowledge of the plane, and the survivors, could come in handy. Plus, he's a pretty good pilot. So I ask again, why send this particular group to capture Ben? I think you'd want to send people who are skilled in hunting, trapping or capturing. I don't believe that capturing Ben is their main objective. I think they're there to gather information and getting Ben just falls in with that.