Lost theories
By Thoreau
Here are my best guesses:
1) The team from the freighter has obviously been ordered to kill somebody (otherwise their snipers wouldn’t have opened fire on Alex, Danielle, and Karl). But I think it’s an order to take out The Others, not the survivors of Flight 815. Why? Because of what Frank Lapidus (the helicopter pilot) said to Michael about how he thinks there are survivors. The logic is a bit complicated, but if you think about it there’s no real reason for Lapidus to be telling the deckhand about possible survivors unless he actually believes it’s a possibility and wants to see them rescued. If Lapidus was in on an extermination mission, he’d be better off just saying nothing to Michael. You could say it’s a ruse to make Michael think that they’re on a noble mission. But it would be easier to spread negative propaganda about Ben and The Others.
OK, so Lapidus is probably sincere. What’s to say that Lapidus isn’t just somebody’s dupe? Well, if Widmore was interested in exterminating the 815 survivors there’d be no need to hire a chopper pilot who wants to find them. He could just hire a chopper pilot who is on board with what the extermination team is there for.
So I speculate that the freighter crew has been sent to capture Ben, kill the rest of The Others, and find out the status of the 815 survivors (whether rescue is on the agenda is a separate issue).
2) Who put that plane in the ocean? I say Ben, not Widmore. If Ben and Widmore are fighting for control of the island then both have incentives to keep the world from knowing about Flight 815, but Ben and The Others have a history of elaborate deceptions. We know less about Widmore, but he seems to be more direct about going for what he wants.
Ben, OTOH, always does an elaborate deception. For instance, he could have just said to Jack a couple seasons ago “Hi, I know how to get you and your people off this island, and I need spinal surgery. How about we help each other?” You can say that Ben doesn’t want anybody to leave, so he’d be lying if he offered to get them off the island. OK, but that would be a much simpler deception than capturing Jack and Kate and Sawyer and playing off of Jack’s emotions. Or the way that he gave Michael the fake bomb. He could have just told Michael to sabotage the boat from the start, but instead he did the fake bomb. And you could say that the fake bomb was a necessary test of “character,” but it was also a big risk.
Those are my best guesses on the biggest mysteries from this evening.
Comment by jeff —
March 21, 2008 @ 10:37 am
You think it was freighter snipers that shot Karl and Danielle? I had assumed it was the Others. Ben has never made a secret of his hatred of Karl and I doubt he appreciates having Danielle in Alex’s life either. Eliminating those two gives him control over Alex again (for whatever purpose).
Comment by fish —
March 21, 2008 @ 10:39 am
I think it is possible the snipers were sent by Ben. They killed his two main competitors for influence with her daughter, but she is not dead. The counter to that however is that there seems to be a setup for tension in the next episode when she admits to being Ben’s daughter.
Can’t resolve the two issues, but am not convinced one is more right than the other.
Comment by Thoreau —
March 21, 2008 @ 11:11 am
Ooh, yeah, maybe the snipers were sent by Ben. He did, after all, send Alex on that trail.
I hope Danielle lives. She was one of the very first island mysteries.
Comment by Andyjunction —
March 21, 2008 @ 1:53 pm
Did you see the look in Ben’s eyes when he saw Karl’s hand on his daughter’s hip? Right then I said to myself, Ben is going to have that kid killed. And then, a few scenes later, it happens and Karl is the primary target. The sniper(s) could have killed any of the three but started with Karl and took three shots at him.
Comment by brucedene —
March 21, 2008 @ 4:54 pm
My hunch is that it’s the freighter snipers, sent by Widmore to capture Alex as a bargaining chip. Ben has had lots and lots of opportunities to kill Danielle; he seems to have an anomalous tender spot for his child’s mother.
Comment by Thoreau —
March 21, 2008 @ 5:23 pm
Ben has only encountered Danielle twice on the show: First when she caught him in her trap, then when he was a prisoner of Jack and Locke (and later just Locke). He hasn’t really had a chance at her on-screen.
Sure, she’s been on the island for 15 years, during which time he could have sent somebody after her, but the island is a dangerous place even for the Others (there’s that smoke monster that they have a fence to guard against) and she’s a pretty good survivor. He probably figured it isn’t worth going after her.
Comment by Steve V —
March 21, 2008 @ 9:23 pm
It never occurred to me that anyone but Ben might have sent the snipers. He was, after all, the one who sent them off to the “sanctuary.” I think the writers are trying to add complexity and dimension to Ben: Yes, he’s utterly ruthless (as shown by this incident and others), but in the end, they will reveal he is indeed with “the good guys.” You just know that’s coming.
Comment by Joshua Holmes —
March 22, 2008 @ 9:44 pm
Ben and the Others are part of the good guys, albeit in a relative sense. Widmore is not.
The Earth is actually the Zoo Hypothesis. The island is their base of observation. Widmore has found out the mysterious properties of the island and is looking to exploit them. One of the observers - named Jacob - has begun to gather various humans to keep the secret of the experiment. Ben is their leader, and Jacob speaks with Ben on a semi-regular basis. Ben’s seemingly limitless power, authority, and ability comes from the experimenters’ ability to alter minor variables. Obviously, altering major variables would ruin the experiment.
The Others are relative good guys because Ben has learned that if the experiment is exposed, the experimenters will have no compunction about shutting the experiment down. And that means all humans will be dead. As to why Ben prefers such odd machinations instead of straightforward answers? Wetworks - Ben was chosen for his ability to get things done, not for his inherent goodness.