Doc Jensen, En Fuego

Doc Jensen over at Entertainment Weekly sometimes loses me when he seems to go out of his way to come up with the most ridiculous theory possible. Gets platitudes and bonus points for creativity, but I find myself often rolling my eyes and clicking another link.

But this week's episode review was a paragon of restraint by his standards, very insightful and well worth a full read from start to finish. A couple choice tidbits:

And how about this for a crazy theory: Remember back in Season 3, when the Others made Kate and Sawyer do hard labor on Hydra Station Island? According to Lost lore, the thing that they were helping to build…was an airplane runway. So…what if instead of getting magically downloaded out of the sky by The Island like Jack, Kate and Hurley, Ben's Ajira contingent merely landed safely on that runway? What if the very reason that Ben wanted to build that runway was because somehow (Jacob? Time loop? Precognitive powers?), he knew that one day he would need it?!

Very cool thought. In fact, I wish I had thought of it myself.

I must admit my new bias about Ms. Hawking. My romantic affection for her has bit the dust, in large part due to Fionnula Flanagan's arch portrayal. It was hard to take her seriously — which was a problem for the episode, given that she may have been supplying us with some monumentally legitimate intel: How The Island, like The Lamp-Post, sits on a pocket of ''unique electromagnetic energy,'' and that all these pockets are connected. The mystery engineer behind The Lamp-Post was particularly interested in finding The Island. Problem: For some reason, The Island keeps moving. ''Why do you think you were never rescued,'' Ms. Hawking said. The only way of hopping aboard, she explained, is to anticipate where and when it will manifest in space-time and then travel through one of its windows.

Look, I'm all for the weird stuff. But as I listened to Ms. Hawking's hammy elocution, even I found myself rolling my eyes.

I felt this way 100% during the episode as well. Ms. Hawking is awesome in small doses, but don't you think she's starting to suffer from overexposure just a tad?

But for me, the most provocative moment of the episode came aboard the plane, when Jack and Ben had the following exchange:

JACK: ''How can you read?''
BEN: ''My mother taught me.''

Ben was lying, of course. We know from ''The Man Behind the Curtain'' that Ben's mother died during childbirth. He saw a vision of her on The Island, during his hard Dharma adolescence, when the only parenting he got was neglect and abuse from his sad, heartbroken father. When Ben saw his mother, all he wanted to do was run away with her…whatever she was. But she said ''No. Not yet.'' So...when?

....

What does Ben want?

Simple.

He's trying to change time in such a way that will dramatically alter the nightmare of his personal history — and allow his mother to live.

Who knows? Maybe in the rebooted world Ben wants, his mother will teach him how to read.

I think this is pretty interesting too. Maybe Ben's real motivation is trying to change people's fates. Must suck if you have an Island that can make people time travel and has a Magic Box that allows you to do juuuuuust about anything... except the thing you want the most - bringing your mother back to life (or, perhaps, changing your miserable childhood).

Read it all and enjoy your weekend everyone! :)