Exploring Dharma

So… there have been three episodes of Lost since i last wrote… However there has been sooooo much Tv on of late that i barely have time to watch it all, never mind write about it, plus I’m ill and that has to count for something right? No? Ok, i guess you have a point, i should have updated before now…

Not seen this weeks Lost, “ He’s Our You”? Stop reading now!

Ok, first off, this week is episode 10 of what appears to be a proposed (based on the listing in IMDB) seventeen episode season and as far as I can tell we’re no closer to knowing what the hell is going on.

This week’s episode sees a return to the Lost style format of story telling, yes, we have flashbacks. However these flashbacks tell us nothing and I can’t stress that enough, nothing! The first flashback tells us that Sayid once killed a chicken to save his brother from having to do it. Except as a poor “eko” (excuse the pun) of a previous flashback I really can’t see a need for this.

The rest of the flashbacks only show us information we already had or explain events we already knew to have happened, i.e. Sayid’s arrest. Unlike flashbacks of old that explored the character histories or added new layers of mystery these flashbacks were flat and boring, telling stories we already knew.

So, after my moan, lets get to the questions. Have the rules changed? Certainly the next two episode titles seem to suggest that “Whatever happened, happened”, the catchphrase of resident genius Daniel Faraday and “Dead is Dead.” However we all know that Dead is never actually dead on the island, Locke and Christian are both very much walking examples of this.

So have the rules changed as Ben so poignantly put it last season when Alex was murdered? Did whatever Locke did in the Orchid allow for history to be re-written? Certain Daniel was able to contact Desmond which he shouldn’t have been able to do. And Jin met Rousseau without future her having any memory of him. However then we also have evidence to support the nothing can be changed rules as well, for example Richard’s visit to young Locke.

The problem I have here is that future Ben doesn’t remember any of the 815 survivors when he lived amongst them for three years as a child, you would particularly expect him to remember Sawyer, no? Young Ben this week reveals that the conversation with Richard that we saw two seasons ago took place four years ago, that would mean that Ben was already living with the Dharma Initiative when Sawyer and the others arrived, when Juliet arrived. Many people have noted that Juliet had a look of the woman Ben married in the future, is she in fact the mother of that child? Is Sawyer the father? Also my theory about Ben being Charlotte’s father was shot to hell by the fact that he is only twelve when she is seven.

Another question i want to pose is why was Sun not brought back with the others? Did it have anything to do with Locke’s promise to Jin? When exactly are Sun, Ben and Frank? Certainly there is evidence to suggest they are in the present, the runway the Others were working on, the destroyed houses in New Otherton… and why is Christian suddenly appearing to every Tom Dick and Harry, when he took great pains to hide himself during the last four seasons?

Other questions pose themselves, like, how did Ethan escape the purge? Can the o6 stop it? Why haven’t we seen Daniel since Charlotte’s death? Why are so many people on contracts for the show but never actually appear in any episodes :P ? Will we ever get answers as to why Walt is special? Will Desmond return to the island? Has his son inherited his abilities? Why have the secrets concealed by the island suddenly taken on an Egyptian theme? What is the incident? Will it propel Kate and Sawyer and the others back through time to 2006? Or is their purpose to change the past, to correct a mistake? To prevent the purge?

I certainly don’t know and as we shamble towards a conclusion i find it difficult to believe that anyone knows. Certainly this new season has not been the “high-octane story telling” we were promised, in fact, it seems to have been little more than a set up for the final season, instead of being a great season in its own right. Certainly this weeks finale was good, but the execution (pardon the pun) was less than we have come to expect.

All that said, i did enjoy Mr. Ford’s comical observation. “Three years, no burning buses, y’all back for one day…!” An observation I have made myself on more than one occasion this season.

So, anyway, that’s my Two Cents, please feel free to leave inflammatory remarks telling me how i couldn’t be more wrong.

Lost is currently airing Wednesday 9pm on ABC.