LIVE "The Man Behind the Curtain" Discussion - Part 2, LOST News, and "Greatest Hits" Spoilers

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Following are notes based on the second half of the live discussion of "The Man Behind the Curtain," followed by some LOST news and highlights from the latest Official LOST Podcast, and finally some spoilers for the upcoming episode, "Greatest Hits."

• Ben kills his father
• Ben showed his brutal, unforgiving side in doing so; his father showed signs of repentance, saying that he would do his best to remember Ben's birthday next year, but Ben murdered him anyway
  
• By contrast, Locke wasn't able to kill his father with his own hands, but didn't have any problem setting up a situation where someone else would murder him
  
• Kate also killed her real father, who she thought at the time was her stepfather
• Since Ben had access to the codes for the pylon fence, this could explain how the hostiles made it into the Dharma village
• Ben chose to leave his father's body in the van rather than putting him in the mass grave
• Ben shoots Locke once in the stomach and leaves him for dead
• Why didn't Ben just shoot Locke again to make sure he would die? Ben knew that the island could heal him!
• "OceanBeach"/Pam in the live podcast pointed out that Ben can be added to the long list of those on the island with "daddy issues"
• Pam also pointed out that there may be some parallels between Ben and Annie's relationship and Alex and Karl's
• Pam suggested that Rousseau might turn out to be Annie (which would mean that Danielle lied about how she originally got to the island, among other things)

I have a few notes that aren't specifically related to this episode, but they're worth mentioning. A blog reader named Rebecca asked me to detail the connection between Ruth and Naomi on the show since these names are connected in the Bible. On LOST, Ruth is the woman to whom Desmond was engaged before he became a monk, and Naomi is the woman whose helicopter crashed recently. In the Bible, Ruth was Naomi's mother-in-law, and the two women were very close (click the link for more information and related chapters). The only connection I can conceive that might exist between LOST's characters of the same names might be if Desmond's ex-fiancée Ruth found out about Penelope's plan to find Desmond, and then Ruth could have hired Naomi to double-cross Desmond rather than save him, but that seems really far-fetched and is completely speculative. Personally, I think Ruth will prove to be a very minor character on LOST, and I don't think she has anything to do with Naomi, but I agree with Rebecca that it's interesting that both of these names were introduced and associated with Desmond in the same episode.

On the Black Rock podcast, they recently brought up the Locke's sweat lodge dream sequence from the beginning of the season, and wondered how Desmond being the pilot ties in with what's going on right now. Is there any significance to Desmond being a pilot in the dream? Does this indicate that he will become a leader among the Flight 815 survivors? There are several other elements of the dream sequence that may also be worth reexamination since the executive producers told us that it would set up a lot of what would happen in Season 3. If you have any thoughts about the dream sequence, please post your comments here on the blog or e-mail me at thelostmeister at gmail dot com.

Another thought that I've mentioned briefly before on the blog: Is Juliet pregnant? She was with Goodwin, and with the five times higher sperm count on the island it wouldn't be surprising if Juliet is pregnant, too. If she is, she's probably keeping it secret so she doesn't become a test subject. Juliet being pregnant would be a very good explanation for why she wants to get off the island so badly: she doesn't want to die, and she hopes that by leaving the island she'll have a better chance of survival.

I didn't point this out in my live post-show discussion of Catch-22 because people started to figure it out later on, but in Desmond's flashes at the beginning of the episode, Charlie dies, and then there's another flash of him being alive when Desmond cuts Naomi down from the tree. Do Desmond's flashes follow different timelines? Does this mean that Desmond was destined to save Charlie after all? Or was this just a production error?

Could there possibly be any connection between Isaac of Uluru (the healer from Australia that Rose went to), Jacob, and Ben? In the Bible, Isaac was the father of Jacob (aka Israel), who was the father of Benjamin. It doesn't seem very reasonable that Isaac could be Jacob's father, and we know that Jacob is not Ben's father, so there's obviously not a direct correlation. I don't really have any good theories about how all three of them connect, but on the most recent Black Rock podcast, there's a lot of good discussion about how the characters Jacob, Ben, and Locke might be connected based on Biblical accounts of Israel, Benjamin, and Joseph.

The remainder of this post contains spoilers.

From the preview for next week:

• Desmond says to Charlie, "I'm sorry, Brother, but this time... this time you have to die."
• Will Charlie really die in this episode?
• Jack says, "We stop hiding. We stop running. We stop living in fear."
  
• Ben says, "If any of 'em get in your way, kill 'em."
• Jack says, "When they show up, we're gonna blow 'em all to hell" and we see an explosion as someone on the beach puts two wires together
• Some people practice shooting Dharma cans, and one of them looks like Rose's husband Bernard, who we haven't seen yet this season
• Charlie and Claire kiss
• Someone hands a gun to someone else, and the person receiving the gun has a bloody hand (it's a close-up shot of the gun exchanging hands, so we don't know who the people were)
  
• Karl comes running out of the jungle toward the beach saying, "My people... they're coming right now!" and Sayid grabs him
• In the live podcast, Amanda said that Charlie's Driveshaft ring can also be seen sitting on a blanket, perhaps in Aaron's bed, and someone is seen handling the dynamite (perhaps Charlie?)

The official ABC synopsis for this week's Charlie-centric episode, "Greatest Hits," is as follows:

While Jack devises a plan to do away with "The Others" once and for all, Sayid uncovers a flaw in "The Others'" system that could lead to everyone's rescue. But it requires Charlie to take on a dangerous task that may make Desmond's premonition come true.

In which "system" does Sayid find a flaw? Their means of hiding the island? Their tactical plan? Perhaps the system spoken of is their walkie-talkies, and the flaw is that The Others would probably speak freely over them since they don't know that the crash survivors have one.

The episode title certainly seems to be a hint that Charlie will die. Typically, "greatest hits" albums are released after a band is no longer together or a musician dies. My guess is that Charlie will sacrifice himself in a touching manner that will help the crash survivors beat The Others, and this act will demonstrate Charlie's selflessness and his love for Claire.

Also from ABC's episode synopsis press release, the guest characters listed for this episode are Alex, Karl, Richard Alpert, Danielle Rousseau, Ryan Pryce (an Other we've seen before), Mikhail, Naomi, Charlie's brother Liam Pace, a new character named Roderick, a Simon Pace (probably a relative of Charlie), young Charlie and young Liam, Rose and Bernard, Nadia from Sayid's flashbacks, and two new characters named Greta and Bonnie who will also appear in the Season 3 finale.

Danielle Rousseau being in this episode could tie in with the dynamite that she took from the Black Rock. Also, in an Official LOST Podcast the executive producers stated that when Rose and Bernard return this season, they will not merely come back as background characters. Rumor has it that the actors who play Rose and Bernard have been working on other projects this season, so there's surely a good reason for them to be back. I wouldn't be surprised if Rose protests Bernard's desire to help fight The Others; she seems like a generally peaceful person, while Bernard has already shown that he'll stop at nothing to keep Rose safe from harm (e.g. taking her to see a healer and donating a large sum of money to him, trying to get the survivors rescued so Rose wouldn't have to be trapped on a dangerous island, etc.).

This wouldn't be the first time that Nadia has shown up in someone else's flashback other than Sayid's. Nadia was also in a Locke flashback where he was an inspector, and she indicated to Locke that she was not married.

According to Kristin at E!Online, as of March 1st, actress Evangeline Lilly (who plays Kate and has been dating Dominic Monaghan who plays Charlie) said that Dominic didn't know at that point in time whether Charlie would die. On March 19th, however, Kristin reported that she had heard that Charlie would die. On April 3rd, Kristin reported that there would be a swimming pool scene (presumably in Charlie's flashback), and Kristin said she was worried that someone might drown.

Ryan Ozawa from The Transmission saw a flashback scene from the episode being filmed. He said that it seemed to be a continuation of the Desmond/Charlie flashback crossover from earlier this season. It's raining, and a woman is getting mugged in an alleyway. Ryan thought it was Naomi, but Amanda pointed out during the live podcast that it makes more sense for it to be Nadia since we know she appears in the episode. Charlie saves the woman from the mugger.

According to SpoilerFix.com, the episode was formerly known as "Truth About Lying."

Following are some notes from the May 11th Official LOST Podcast.

The executive producers confirmed a recent ABC press release starting that after this season there will be 48 more episodes of LOST, spread out over 3 seasons, which means 16 episodes per season. In total, there will be 6 seasons of LOST.

Carlton: "Jacob is more of a question for Season 4 than he is for Season 3."

Carlton said that more than one of the Dharma Initiative members survived. (While not explicitly stated on the official podcast, this leaves open the possibility that Annie could have survived the purge.)

They hinted that John Locke is not dead.

Carlton indicated that Ben took Locke out to see Jacob as a litmus test to see whether Locke was in fact "special"—to see whether Locke could see or hear Jacob—and when Locke was able to hear Jacob, Ben felt threatened "because he doesn't want his leadership of The Others challenged by John Locke."

Carlton: "When you watch the [Season 3] finale, you'll get a pretty good idea of what Season 4 is going to be about. You won't... necessarily know where it's going to go, but we do launch the story in the direction that will define what the bulk of Season 4 will be."

Damon: The part of the purge we saw in "The Man Behind the Curtain" was "only a taste of things to come."

Damon: "We will see how Dr. Candle lost his hand and we will find out how Montand lost his arm," hinting once again that there will be Rousseau flashbacks.

Carlton: "There's definitely going to be more about the history of the Dharma Initiative."

In response to a question about whether the powdery substance that Locke found on the ground keeps Jacob confined to his cabin, Carlton said, "I think that there's kind of a couple of possible explanations. One explanation is that yes, that substance combined with other things perhaps might be keeping Jacob confined. The other explanation is that the volcano that Annie was making spewed out a lot of ash, and that ash happened to fall in a nice symmetrical pattern around the cabin." While the comment about "the volcano that Annie was making" seems to have been an attempt at a joke, Carlton does have a good point that this episode introduced us to the fact that there's a volcano on the island.

Carlton: "[What happened to Annie] is a chapter of Ben's story that I think we very much would like to see in the show LOST."

Damon: We're going to see the Dharma shark again.