Lost Wishes & Dreams

It's difficult to write with my hands all shaking in anticipation of season five, but I'm working through it to put together a list of my wishes and dreams for the new season. They are as follows:

1. Juliet dies. Please. Just please. I know she's from Bainbridge and is local and all, but if I have to look at her blank stare oozing out of my TV again this year ... so help me.

2. Ben's a good guy. If Widmore is the "big bad," then Ben MUST be the good guy (by default). I'm ready to whole-heartedly root for him in season five.

3. Jaters get thrown a bone. Because Juliet is now on the island drooling over Sawyer, Jaters will get a Jack-Kate exclusive romance with no other interested parties. Nice.

4. No more legal stuff. Kate's trial was about as realistic and believable as when Santa Claus went on trial in "Miracle on 34th Street." And I HATE seeing Kate in makeup. She just looks like another person.

5. More Dharma. Much more. I'll be specific: I would love to see a worker walk into the Dharma Division of General Mills, stick a Dharma label on a jar of peanut butter (or ranch dressing), then pile the jar on a pallet. He asks his supervisor, "Where does this stuff go?" The supervisor says, "Back to work, Bob. Hanso paid for 100 years of pallets in advance and then disappeared. Everyone knows that."

6. More Desmond. Much much more. But first, Penny's brain must be picked clean. Who is Charles Widmore? How much does she know? Of course, this won't happen. Everyone will sit silent on Penny's boat staring at the ocean, just like they did with Juliet on the beach. Asking nothing. Argh!

7. More Faraday. I love this guy. And he's the only one that tells us the truth! And Desmond is his constant - so he will keep Desmond on the show. And maybe he can get some answers out of Penny. In the Lost Experience, Alvar Hanso said the purpose of the Dharma Initiative was "to change the core values of the Valenzetti Equation." Faraday is really the only one who's up to the task.

8. Fewer questions, more answers. Would it really be so bad to give us some answers, J.J.? You never did on Alias. Well, I take that back. The big, red Rambaldi ball turned people into flesh-eating zombies. That's a head-scratcher. Even the answers are puzzles! Who would want an uncontrollable army of flesh-eating zombies? Search me. Maybe I don't want answers.

9. Sun turns evil. Ben finds out she has done a deal with Widmore, and he sends someone to kill her -- Sayid, perhaps. But it turns out Sun's piece on the side, Jae Lee, taught her more than just English. She is also a fighting master. She and Sayid battle to the death. Oh, and her baby is Michael's.

10. More underwater missions. My favorite Lost episode is the second episode of season four -- when a submersible finds Oceanic 815 (4-8-15 anyone?). I would even keep Juliet around if she found a second submarine and started scooting around the island in it, finding neat things at the bottom of the ocean, new Dharma stations, Charlie. Turns out before Ethan strung him up, he gave him an injection that allowed him to breathe underwater. Now he just needs to be rescued from the control room!

Others' Child Protection Agency

A new podcast available on the Lost Podcasting Network is simply awesome and has given me the seeds of a wicked new theory. The podcast is "The LOST Mystery Podcast with Anton and Evan." The concept is Evan has watched Lost and Anton is watching it for the first time. They watch the episode and then run down all their thoughts about it.

On episode 2-1, Anton said the way the Others always took the children was like CPS taking them out of a dangerous situation. As if psychological experiments, torture, hunger, and terror were part of a business model of Ben's. Ben's investors said all this is fine to do to the plane crash victims, as long as all the children were first taken out of harm's way.

So the Others quickly brought the children to safety and put them in foster care. They were then free to unleash the smoke monster, polar bears or any other terrors on the Lostaways.

This theory makes so much sense to me. It explains how we might be able to tolerate Juliette for another season. Last season, I kept saying to myself, "She steals children in the middle of the night! With no explanations! How can you people let her live with you on the beach??" It's a different story if the Others did this to remove the children from a situation that was sure to get more and more dangerous.

Add this to my last post, which posited Ben was the show's hero and Widmore the big bad, and Ben has an even stronger position as a hero. Now if I only knew how he was saving the world / making money for his investors by unleashing a mechanical smoke monster on plane crash victims...

Lost Power Struggle Is A Classic Tale

It's time for a new theory in anticipation of the Jan. 21 commencement of Lost season 5. In a previous post, I mentioned the importance of Horus, an Ancient Egyptian god. I would like to widen this theory a bit, and return to Ancient Egypt for answers to Lost's infinite questions.

Osiris is the father of Horus, and the legend of Osiris is one of what Neil Gaiman (one of my faves) calls the "great stories." Great in that the characters, names and times may change, but the fundamental story appears again and again in human supernatural myths across cultures: the just king murdered by his cruel brother, only to be avenged by the prince who follows in his father's footsteps.

In the Ancient Egyptian telling, Osiris was killed by his jealous brother, Set. After the slaying, Osiris' wife, Isis, hid their son Horus on an island where Set could not find him. On his island, Horus grew to manhood and strength. Set sent many serpents and demons to kill Horus, but he defeated them. Horus soon challenged Set's throne and, after a battle of many days, Horus defeated and castrated Set. Meanwhile, Isis was able to resurrect Osiris, but he could not return to the land of the living. Thus Osiris went to Duat, where Anubis yielded the throne to him and he became the lord of the dead.

So...how to connect this to Lost. Taking into account the fact that Carlton Cuse called Charles Widmore "the big bad," I think he is Set. Ben Linus is Osiris - the son who was hidden away on an island and is now exacting revenge. Ben is also the age that a son of Widmore would be. Ben's father then is Jacob, who raised him on the island and from whom he takes orders - having never respected his birth father. We can also assume Ben was chosen as Jacob's "son" by the original Others when he passed a test that Locke (the Others' first choice) had failed.