Crappy "Namaste" Analysis

You’ll have to forgive me for the delay and rushed nature of my “Namaste” Analysis. For me, the greatest four days of the year surround the start of the NCAA Tournament, and traditionally involve taking off work, drinking, and watching basketball for about 48 hours over the course of four days. This year, it was even sweeter thanks to the Dayton Flyers not only making the tournament – but winning a game in it for the first time in nearly twenty years. On top of it all, the wife scored us tickets to go watch the Sunday games live and in person back at the Happiest Place on Earth (UD).

Add it all up, and it equals no time for Lost for Brian. I toyed with the notion of just skipping the “Namaste” Analysis, but had some base thoughts in my head that I figured should be posted or else you’ll be confused when I reference them later and you don’t understand what I’m talking about. So it’s going to be short and sweet this week – with “Namaste” Analysis tonight, and “He’s Our You” Preview tomorrow.

 

Take a deep breath, here comes the fastest episode analysis of the year…

 

Ethan. We learned this week that Ethan Rom is the potentially-miracle baby love-child of Amy and Horace Goodspeed. Why the different last name? How did he survive the Purge? Ethan would have been 15 at the time of the Purge – so it’s not as though the Others took him away at that time and raised him as one of their own (“Raised by an Other”, in your face Aaron!) – by that time, he would have probably been well on his way to becoming a card-carrying Dharmite, and probably would not play friendly with Ben and Alpert – who killed his parents.

 

This must mean one of two things:

1. He was taken away from Amy and Horace well before the Purge, and raised as “Ethan Rom” among the Others, explaining how he survived it. We’ve already seen Horace give up Paul’s body to keep the “truce” with the Others – what if they break it again and this time the cost is much steeper – like giving over Horace’s first born son? This theory definitely has a Biblical / Mythological feel to it, which would fit in with Lost.
2. He became a Rebel Dharmite with Ben, and believed so strongly in their purpose that he was cool with killing his mother and father, along with a host of other innocent people. Lest we forget that Ethan was the same guy who hung Charlie, probably killed Scott, and threatened numerous other Survivors in Season One… plus he would have been in that rebellious teenage stage at the time.

 

This is one of those rare situations where I like both of my theories (as opposed to most of the time, when I like neither), but I’m not sure which is more likely. But depending on which comes true, it will definitely help shape just how “good” or “evil” Ethan Rom really was.

 

Faraday. We also learned this week why Faraday has been strangely absent among the scenes of our Dharma Survivors. After Sawyer briefly explained the “rules” about being 30 years in the past to Jack, Jack asked, "Faraday’s here?" to which Sawyer responded, "Not anymore."

 

Personally, I took this comment quite literally – like Faraday had left the other Survivors and Dharma. Others took it to mean that Faraday had mentally left the Survivors – reverting back to the crazytown state we saw him when we were first introduced to his weeping character in Season Four.

 

To me, it looked like the Faraday we saw at the start of the season, inside the Orchid, was altogether “there” and hatching some mischievous plan – not a basket case needing someone to help take care of him. I also think having Faraday leave Dharma provides him with a chance to interact with the Others, and give the audience a chance to learn a little bit more about them, their motives for carrying out the Purge, the nature of the truce, etc. We need at least one of our characters to interact with them to pull these answers out, why not make it Faraday, who might happen to be the child of two current / former Others in Ms. Hawking and Charles Widmore?

 

This would also keep Faraday as a “wild card” – who might be accidentally bringing about the end of the world in his efforts to save Charlotte… or might be the hero saving all our Survivors and sending them back to their proper time through his actions at the Orchid. I like keeping these options available!

 

Radzinsky. I think the biggest question from our introduction to Radzinsky this episode is “why was he so concerned that Sayid – who he believes to be an Other – saw his plans for the Swan?” It’s pretty clear that Dharma building the Swan Station is either in violation of the truce between Dharma and the Others, or that it is going to cause some sort of negative impact on the Others – which would explain why Radzinsky would be so concerned with keeping it secret.

 

If it was as simple as a violation of a truce about where Dharma was allowed on the Island, these fears would seem pretty silly. I think it would be obvious the Swan Station was being built when they excavated the land and actually, you know, BUILT IT. It’s not as though that thing would spring up overnight. It would require a lot of manpower, a lot of hours, and make a lot of noise to create that concrete underground fortress we all knew and loved. So that doesn’t make a lot of sense.

 

The other option would be that the creation of the Swan would be a “bad thing” to the Others. Some have come up with some pretty wacky theories about the Swan Station being used to keep the Island from moving by releasing the Island’s “unique electromagnetic energy” every 108 minutes – which would be a “good thing” to Dharma (easy trips to and from the Island), but a “bad thing” to the Others (easier for the Island to be found by no good outsiders). The only problem with this is that according to Pierre Chang (as Marvin Candle), it wasn’t until after “The Incident” that the 108 Numbers became necessary – and “The Incident” didn’t occur until after the Swan was built and operational. Unless Dharma was really forward-thinking, this doesn’t seem to make sense either.

 

But if you keep in mind the original aim of the Swan Station – “to study the unique electromagnetic fluctuations” of the Island, you can begin to formulate a theory where Dharma used the Swan Station to get close to the gooey core of the Island – which might have been the key to understanding what it was, how it worked, and some other very fundamental things about the Island… things that the Others might take as very secret, important, and sacred. If Dharma was able to “figure out” these powers, they might have been able to “harness” them – for good or evil – and you could see how that would be something the Others would be against. Therefore, even though it was built on “their side” of the Island, if Dharma found out about it – they would almost certainly do everything they could to stop it from being built… which would explain the secrecy.

 

Or, maybe Radzinsky was just uber-paranoid about stuff and concerned about copyright infringement on his sweet designs.

  

Ben. I think it was pretty obvious that when Ben heard there was an Other being held in the cell underneath the Barracks, he put himself in a situation to interact with that mysterious Other – the question is whether this was his first contact with a “hostile”, or if he had already been in contact with Richard Alpert at this point.

 

Depending on the timeline, this interaction could lead to two very different repercussions.

1. If it’s Ben’s first meeting with an Other, it could have taught Ben that there was nothing to fear about them, giving him the confidence to venture out beyond the Sonic Pylons and learn more about them. It’s Sayid’s fault that Ben turned into the creeptastic adult we all know and fear!
2. If Ben has already been in contact with Richard, things get a lot more interesting. Then, he could be acting as a spy for the Others – reporting back to Richard about their “fellow Other” that has been captured, working to help him escape, and learning the truth – that Sayid is not an Other at all.

 

But for me, here’s the most important thing – I think we’re close to finally having the confirmation we needed that the Others knew a hell of a lot about our Survivors before they arrived on the Island. We now know that Ben met Sayid and Alpert met Locke / Sawyer (and talked to them about time travel). While they might not have enough to go on to actually work up the full life histories of these characters (yet – aside from Locke), they have about 30 years until they come back to the Island with the crash of Oceanic Flight 815, which is plenty of time to start researching EVERYTHING about them.

 

How was Ben seemingly always one step ahead of our characters? Because he had full files about some of them before they ever arrived on the Island – because he knew they would eventually be there (especially true of Locke, Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Juliet – who just conveniently happen to be the characters he has “messed with” the most over the years). While he didn’t know exactly when or how they would arrive, he knew they would eventually get there – which is why he quickly sent out Ethan and Goodwin to work up “lists” of the people who survived the Oceanic 815 crash. He probably did something similar each time ANYTHING crashed on the Island. He was waiting for them.

 

Runway. Of course, the one thing this prior knowledge doesn’t confirm is how the Others knew to start building a runway in 2004 in preparation for a plane to crash-land there in 2008. We have yet to see any proof that the Others themselves were able to hop around in time at ease – and things like Alpert being surprised and skeptical when Locke starts talking about time travel makes me think they never did. Was this a command of Jacob? Were the Others just planning on using a plane to go to and from the Island instead of the submarine? Or was it just a lucky coincidence / fate?

 

Barracks. One item that seems to be confusing a lot of people (and making them question Faraday’s claims of “whatever happened, happened”) is that the buildings that Sun and Frank entered on the Main Island were way more derelict and boarded up than they were in 2004 (when Locke and Co. were living there), even though they are in 2008. But here’s the thing – those weren’t the Barracks. They were the “Processing Center”.

 

The Dharma Barracks are more in the “center” of the Island, whereas the Processing Center is near the shore. Aside from flashbacks we saw in Ben’s flashbacks, I don’t think our Survivors have ever explored the Processing Center – which means it could have fallen into shambles after the Purge, hiding those pictures of our Survivors in 1977 all these years… or maybe the Others found those as well at some point, which helped them do some research on our Survivors.

 

At any rate, I don’t think it proves that Sun and Frank are in a “new timeline”, or that the past has changed – simply that up until this point, everything was taking place at the Barracks, not the Processing Center.

 

Sun. When Christian tells Sun “I'm sorry, but you have a bit of a journey ahead of you." I instantly thought it was some type of journey to reunite with her friends… but why would Christian Shephard care about helping Sun out like that? Rather, I think this phrase means something far more cryptic – like Sun needs to do “her part” to help bring the Survivors back to 2008 (in preparation for the “battle for the Island”). I still stand by my belief that there will be only one more time jump on Lost – and it will involve everyone from 1977 coming back to the present. So to have Sun jumping around in time seems superfluous at this point.

 

Numbers. If you noticed, when the Ajira 316 co-pilot tried to place a mayday call, he briefly hears the Numbers broadcasting… even though in 2008, not only have the Numbers been replaced by CFL’s distress signal, but that was shut off by Jack in the Season Three finale. So what gives? I think it’s the same thing that happened with Sayid and Hurley picked up the “old time radio station” on the beach. The unique magnetic properties of the Island make radio signals bounce around and get “stuck” around the Island, making it possible to pick up things that haven’t been broadcast for years.

 

Creepy Girl. Finally, we have the mystery girl in the background of the Processing Station building that Sun, Frank, and Christian were in. On first glance, she looked like a blonde (Claire!). Upon further review, she seems a little “bigger” than Claire, and the hair might be more reddish than blonde (Charlotte!). While Claire would make sense – since we’ve seen her hanging with Christian in old cabins before, Charlotte’s inclusion would seem to give legs to the theory that “dead people on the Island come back as creepy spirits.” Although, that doesn’t explain why we don’t also see any of our other deceased Survivors walking around on the Island, so I don’t know that I’m sold on that one either… and it doesn’t actually look like either person.

 

(Or maybe this is finally a case of us catching a “production mistake” and that was just somebody in the shot that shouldn’t have been. This is by far the easiest and most boring explanation, but it’s always an option given the rushed nature of shooting Lost.)

 

…and breathe.

 

Okay, sorry for the craptasticly rushed analysis. But it’s better than nothing, right?

 

Until tomorrow’s episode preview…