Lost 3.01-3.03: Benjamin Linus, Fishbiscuits, and Polar Bears, Oh My!

So are you all enjoying the new LOST season so far? All pausing your video recorders and poring over screenshots of easter eggs and Googling left and right for clues? Me, I’m especially liking how LOST is able to maintain an aura of the unknown. I had feared that the increasing sci-fi-ness of the plot, plus the big DHARMA reveals in “The Lost Experience,” were beginning to detract from the overall narrative mystery, but as the “Book Club” scene showed, LOST can still pack a surprise or two.

I’m very much behind on recaps and analyses, so I’ll just note a few quick bullet points, and leave the rest to the Pompatus.

* Well, now that we know that Fake Henry Gale’s real name is Benjamin Linus, what’ll the fans call him now? Henry, Fenry, Benry … I guess now he’s BLENRY.

* Kate seems a lot less conflicted about kissing Sawyer than Jack, eh?

* It’s kind of implied that a lot more went on at Kate’s breakfast with Ben than was shown on screen, since she came back crying and all. What happened?

* Fishbiscuit gag = brilliant. The writers know that Sawyer makes great comic relief when he’s flustered (e.g. the boar episode, or Hurley jumping on him) and him dancing to polar bear reward music only to receive fish biscuits and animal feed played that humor advantage to the hilt.

* Well, they certainly establish what happened to the Hatch: imploded to foil. No more showers or Island Network Chat and Numbers games for you.

* The character of Locke suffers a constant tension between the Crippled and Coercible Codependent and the Survivalist Mystic Island Shaman. The Hatch brought out the former, but now that it’s imploded, Locke is back to his knives and spirit quests.

* Desmond appears uninjured from the Hatch Failsafe release, but naked. A reference to Adam in the Garden, perhaps? Who’s Eve, then? Kate? Rousseau? Kelvin?

* That polar bear sure looked fake. Real world explanation is that the 3D animators probably had a hard time making realistic bears, but I’m sure there’s some DHARMA-based excuse. Maybe fishbiscuits cause bear ugliness.

* Locke’s being mute until his prophetic sweat lodge vision was a clear allusion to Zechariah the prophet, who was mute until the naming of his son John the Baptist, who would prepare the way for Christ.

* I’m not entirely convinced that Desmond is really there. As of LOST 3.03, the only people who have been depicted as directly seeing him are Locke (who talks to islands in sweat lodges), and Hurley (who had an imaginary friend). Note how in 3.03 there is no solid acknowledgment from anyone else but Hurley of his presence. (Update: Okay, never mind, he talkes to Claire and Charlie and Paulo too.)

* Speaking of Christ, Desmond, and Hurley, they’re certainly going to great lengths to make Desmond look like someone, added on to his newfound power of omniscience and precognition. Someone profoundly famous through history, someone who was a great prophet and a teacher to many. You know who I mean:
Desmond and The Dude from Big Lebowski
That’s right, Desmond is The Dude! I mean come on, think about it: what does Hurley call him???

More from DCeiver:

The Pompatus of Lost: 3.01–Jack In A Box

The Pompatus of Lost: 3.02–The Glass Mendacity

The Pompatus of Lost: 3.03–Panic! At The Sweatlodge

Also more from Faded Boxers: 3.01, 3.02, 3.03.