Friday, November 02, 2007

I Can't Wait To Get The Rest Of
This Story!













Danielle returns and so do the questions. For example,
why doesn't she just tell Sayid I have a guy in a net instead
of the rifle trust exercise? Why doesn't she just question
Ben herself? She managed torture Sayid just fine. Granted
that torture pad is now Kablooey, but she's creative.
How does Danielle know Sayid is a torturer? I couldn't find
it, but I didn't look very hard.

And what about Ben? Why did he run when Sayid released
him from the net? Afraid Danielle would recognize him kind
of like Claire's flashes in the next episode?

More Ben -- his cover story is that he crashed 4 months ago.
Do you think the real Henry Gale crashed then, a mere
2 months before Flight 815? And then the story of his wife's
death--sick and 2 days later dead. I guess that wasn't based
on Danielle's team's "sickness" or she wouldn't have needed
to shoot them.

Can anyone remember whether or not they thought the man in
the orange polo was telling the truth or lying? Michael Emerson
was so good I'm pretty sure I changed my mind each and every
scene he was in. We've been promised more information on what
Ben was up to when he was trapped, accidentally. I hope
it's soon.

5 comments:

hatchling23 said...

Supposedly Ben was on his way to another location which has yet to be revealed (can't remember where I read this though).

Lostpedia says Ben was on his way to the survivors camp.

I thought Ben was going to find Locke to get him to come back to Othersville. He probably didn't or couldn't trust anyone else to approach Locke. I don't believe he meant to be captured, especially since he knew about all their backgrounds, including Sayid.

I think it was one of the best character introductions on the show. He is such a slimey little weasel and everything that comes out of his mouth seems to be a lie.

However, In the LOST universe, I think Ben will somehow redeem himself and turn out to somehow actually be one of the "Good Guys", although I don't know how this will transpire.

Capcom said...

Really, they said this???? Awesome!

I too am very curious to find out more about the true Henry's story, if TPTB would be so kind.

Well certainly in the vein of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," Ben will surely become the Losties best buddy if the New Guys turn out to be a threat to everyone. I also have a feeling that the intentions of the New Guys will be just as ambiguous as Ben's seem to us now. If TPTB make us comfortable trusting Ben, they will need a replacement to confuse and perplex us. :-)

memphish said...

Yeah at Comic Con Carlton said that Ben didn't mean to get caught in Rousseau's trap. They did not reveal where Ben was headed.

I know I shouldn't read too much into these S2 scenes given the original plan for Emerson's character and where we are now, but "the guy in the orange polo" (aka Ben, Henry, Benry) was clearly scared of Rousseau and I guess part of why he ran was because he didn't want Sayid to bring him in either. Good call H23 about him knowing Sayid's background.

I'm not sure if I think Ben was going to the LOSTies camp or not. I think not because if that was his plan why not let your story be "We saw your plane crash; then my wife got sick and couldn't move; she just died and I decided to try to find you." I don't think Henry Gale ever gives a reason for being in the jungle.

I think the story he tells John about coming for him is just Ben playing John's weaknesses. Ben starts undermining Locke pretty quickly with the whole "are you the genius or in the shadow of the genius" stuff starting in the next episode. And of course undermining Locke is very important for Ben if he's going to stay large and in charge.

As for Ben being a "good guy" it's still going to take a lot of work to rehabilitate him in my eyes. I do like that he's not your typcial comic book villain. The fact that I still don't know what underlies Ben's motivation both drives me nuts, but drives me back for more.

Capcom said...

That is true, there are a lot of other things that Ben could have made up that would help him sound more credible to Sayid and Danielle at the time.

It was so fascinating to see Fenry's manipulation of Locke unfold there in the Swan wasn't it! He just started pushing all of Locke's buttons, and at the point that we were at as viewers, it was impossible for Ben to know that much about Locke! I loved the way he played the 'Jack pushing Locke around' thing to get it going in Locke's head. That was the point where it was confirmed in my head that Locke was not as cool and collected mentally as he liked to make people think, when he swished the dishes off of the sink after Fenry said that. And the look on Ben's face was priceless!

Amused2bHere said...

I remember wanting to torture him myself! Yeah, I also went back and forth, every other scene he was scared but truthful, and then he'd say something nasty to Locke or smirk and I'd be back to screaming "Liar! dont' trust him!"

I'm so glad that Michael Emerson took on this role. He's so oily in the part it's delightful to hate Ben.

Oh, but I agree totally that he could have come up with a better story...he must have had to improvise when he was caught, and it showed a bit. Still, using Henry Gale's balloon was genius. Whoever would have expected Sayid to dig up a grave and desecrate a burial site? Isn't that against his religion?
Go Sayid!