1. Eloise Hawking flashes just like Desmond, and she and Charles have been running their long con on poor Des at least since the day he met Penny at the abbey in Catch-22.
I was hipped to the idea that Eloise and Charles were conning Desmond during this season's Desmond-centric episode, Happily Ever After. It was their attempt to motivate Desmond to wake up (rather than really trying to get him to back off), and with that idea in hand so much else becomes clear. In Flashes Before Your Eyes and Catch-22, you can see that Ellie and Charles were working on Desmond (to get him to the Island, and beyond) from the very beginning. The notion of sacrifice is woven throughout those Desmond-centric episodes, as are clear signs that Des is being manipulated by Ellie and Charles.
But most of all what I saw was that Eloise "flashes" just like Desmond. I didn't fully comprehend what was happening to Des back then, and we had never met Eloise before, but now you can see that she knows things that could not have come from Daniel's journal, or from Jacob or the MiB. She was acting just like Desmond would act in the following episodes as he tried to save Charlie's life again and again
2. Season three was criminally underrated by all (myself included). In addition to really laying the foundation for all the mythology that would unfold and deploy in the following seasons, the third season of Lost had some of the most profound and affecting character-centric episodes of the entire series run.
A bonus #3: Ben was never quite as evil as we thought. Knowing what we know now, we can see that Ben was under orders to keep Juliet on the island. Obviously he loved her (or thought he did), and so it was something he was at first happy to do, but later we could see (through today's eyes) that he really did love her and felt a heaping butt-load of regret over what he had to do. There is a scene between Ben and Juliet in Ben's kitchen during One of Us where you can see that Ben not only loves Juliet, but that he would have let her go were it up to him. Watching it now I could tell that Ben was simply following orders he simply did not understand---Jacob's orders---and it was a heavy burden to bear.
In fact, Jacob is all over S3. His mantra of non-involvement falls apart when re-watching that season.
More (in more detail) to come before tomorrow's show.
As if Lost hasn't taken over enough of my life, now I have to go watch season three again. All of this makes a lot of sense, Schmoker, but I want to go back now and watch and see what I think. From what I remember, I want to agree with you. But I think I want to watch it all again now to see for certain.
ReplyDeleteI had been thinking about what it would be like to watch all the seasons again in light of all the information we now have, and now I am convinced I should do it before the finale. What did you think of S1 and S2 in light of your rewatching? Should I check those out, too? That's a lot of hours of TV to get through between now and the end of the show. Can you provide a list of the most important episodes to catch in your next post?