Men of ill judgment oft ignore the good that lies within their hands, till they have lost it.
-Sophocles
If they were trying to make us feel sympathetic towards Michael, it didn't quite do it for me. Him being all suicidal just makes me think of him as a coward - I don't feel like he's suicidal from guilt, I feel like he is just kind of 'poor me.' Burdening his kid with that and all. Also, I used to kind of like Tom the Other, but now that I have seen him with his slicked back hair and calculating demands and 'indulgences,' I feel pretty good about his season 3 demise. Overall not one of my favorite episodes this season (and it would have been a lame finale if they hadn't gotten to make the five more episodes that start in a few weeks) but we needed to get the Michael story. The most intriguing part of the episode to me was:
"The island won't let you" ...Does 'the island' mean Jacob? Is it simply symbolic of Destiny? It takes us back to the question of, did the island pick these people, and what are the qualifications for being on Jacob's list? Is it really the island or just manipulation and a faulty gun?
Parallels with other LOST episodes: Cemetery in Thailand - it always comes back to Thailand. Michael's car wreck - I know his was intentional, but there are an awful lot of car wrecks in this show.
Even thought I don't care for Miles as a person, I would like to see a childhood flashback of him that describes his psychic ability and why he is so awkward.
Oh, so, phony plane by Whidmore confirmed, I suppose? When Michael said, 'and I'm supposed to believe this?' I was with him. Its Whidmore's folks and Ben's folks playing the Losties from both sides. Maybe Whidmore's group is assuming Ben's group faked the plane wreck and Ben's group is saying Whidmore did it to protect the truth of the island and its time warp phenomena. There's still the issue of very trusting Frank recognising that the body wasn't right though... It really has turned into a Who-Done-It.
Sayid is so smart, I wonder what he expects to get out of turning in Michael. He can't honestly trust the freighter folks, but maybe he thinks he can at least get them to trust him? It wouldn't be the first time that he did something that I thought was, un-Sayidish, but I hope he has an ulterior motive. The 'captain' didn't look super surprised - he doesn't have the right presence of authority that a leader should have and it throws me off.
I wish they would have addressed the odd pipe tapping (Morse code?) from last week. Also, my theory about Walt acting as the in between communication to Ben is out, so how is he still getting in touch with Michael and his Temple people now that he is 'captive?' Jacob?
Is Libby the angel or the devil on Michael's shoulder? Also, his whole, 'I'm here to die,' comment was odd. How can you be so sure that if you do this mission for Ben the island will let you die? Michael makes thoughtless decisions and he is willing to take more lives without knowing the truth. He's a little punch drunk; one too many hits with the snake, if you ask me.
Ummm, Ben won't kill innocent people? Huh. Sending a fake bomb on the boat with Michael was his way of showing him he was better than Whidmore? Why even bother? What if Michael hadn't tried to set it off? If he hadn't. and Ben was like, 'don't worry, its not a real bomb, it was just an elaborate show so you know how clever and awesome I am,' I don't think he would have bought it. Although, Michael is very unhinged right now. Did they just want to see if he is still willing to die? Would the island have even let him die? Maybe they figured it was worth a shot if it worked, but if it didn't then that note was the backup plan.
Ben, you jackass, killing off Alex's mom and boyfriend. Guess they weren't innocent. If he can't have her no one can, and all that. I have to admit, I kind of rolled my eyes when poor, forgettable Karl said he had a bad feeling. At first I was a little disappointed in Rousseau for buying the plan, but I actually think she knew the danger for her was coming and that her only concern was for her daughter's safety and that, though not safe for herself, this maybe is technically the safest place for Alex. I think Juliette should adopt Alex and they should be the ones who get to kill Ben. :) (Though I secretly hope Rousseau will heal - she is such a survivor to just go out like that and she needs a flashback).
Question: if it is the other Others who were shooting up the place, wouldn't they recognise Alex without her having to scream, "I'm Ben's daughter!" like a pansy?
Some other interesting thoughts:
I guess now we know why Kate wasn't Tom's type! (ha!)
Michael is told the island won't let you kill yourself. We also see that with Jack in trying to jump off the bridge and Hurley and his high speed chase and reckless driving.
Arturo (Tom's luva) totally looks like the guy gettign beat up in Ben's video of Whidmore.
The preview for the next episode confirmed that Aaron is in fact one of the Oceanic 6, along with Hurley, Jack, Kate, Sun, and Sayid. (True, they didn't show Ben in the preview but did show Aaron and they said all 6 were revealed. So how does Ben get off the island?)
So the leaving the island makes you suicidal but incapable of committing suicide? (Talk about catch-22)
Was Michael dreaming in the hospital or flashing-back? The hospital monitor was old and then when he woke up it was technologically more sophisticated. Could he have been flashing-back? (I know that's not a word, but you know what I mean.) He did have a car accident before his flight on Oceanic 815 – and Libby was in med school for a year before she dropped out to become a psychologist. So maybe it wasn't a Libby-haunted dream but a flashback in which Libby really was working at the hospital at the time of Michael's car accident. And maybe he was being jerked back and forth through time as the island attempted to save his life – or at least keep him from killing himself. (Interesting... I remember thinking it was a flashback at first as well, until I saw his reaction to Libby, but maybe that was just to mess with us?)
Except for the absence of flashing lights, wasn't the scene with Ben at the mic reminiscent of Professor Marvel/the Wizard of Oz at the mic manipulating others behind his curtain?
The Compass Bearing of 325 that Ben told Walt to go on at the close of Season 2 is the same bearing Faridy told Lapidis to fly the chopper in the "Eggtown" episode: Is that the only bearing where you can get on/off the island.Whidmore got the coordinates to the island. Did that happen in the Season 2 finale? Those two guys in the mountains called Penny, not daddy Whidmore. But… she could be working with him OR he could be listening in on her.
Who is funding the "Others" and Ben's group to stop Whidmore, how are they living it up in Penthouses with benefits, sending people to Fiji, transporting from island to island, stopping people from killing themselves, etc? Hanso? Just wonder how they are bankrolled and have people everywhere at all the right times. I wonder if Sayid just cost everyone on the island their lives or if he did the right thing in the end?
I'm still intrigued that the writers chose to name a character Captain Gault because the writer who created the original literary character – William Hope Hodgson – is also well known for a book about a group of survivors shipwrecked on an ISLAND after a TEMPEST. There they find the survivors of anOTHER wreck, stuck in the island's weeds, who have built a PROTECTIVE SUPERSTRUCTURE to shield themselves from the island's MONSTER. Apparently at the time the novel was written, scientists were discovering "the cellular parity of all things," so that the monster and the survivors were thought to be all part of the same "protoplasmic unity" (which is what made the novel so frightening). And maybe that's why our SMOKE MONSTER has access to the thoughts of the Losties: man and monster are one. Just seems to me that with this story (by the author who invented Captain Gault) and the Jules Verne book Regina was reading last week, the writers are giving us clues (or taking their cues) from the science fiction of the 19th century. (And I still think the germ of the entire series will turn out to be the 19th-century sci-fi thriller "The Coming Race.")
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