May 11, 2007

Lost: Careful What You Wish For

On Lost, wishes come true. Examples:


  • Juliet wished to Richard that her husband would be hit by a bus.

  • Ben tells Richard to bring him the Man from Tallahassee.

  • Ben wished for a spinal surgeon to fix his tumor; the plane crashed with Jack on board.

  • When Ben (as a boy) meets Savage Richard in the jungle, and Ben says he wants to go live with the "Hostiles," Richard tells him, "If that's something you really want, I want you to think about it, but you'll have to be patient."

  • After The Purge, Richard asks Ben, "Do you want us to go and get [your father's body]?"

The common denominator: Richard.

Also: the title of the episode was, "The Man Behind the Curtain," an obvious reference to The Wizard of Oz. And we all know what the whole point of going to see The Wizard was, right? The Wizard grants wishes.

My take: Richard is some kind of genie. He doesn't age, he does whatever Ben wants (notice he always asks Ben what he wants him to do). I'm not sure why he listens to Ben (maybe he listens to others as well, which could explain some things); it's clear that it has something to do with Ben's ability to see his dead mother as a child, but I'm not sure what.

Can you think of other examples of wishes coming true on the island?

Posted by Greg at May 11, 2007 3:53 PM in | TrackBack
Comments

Claire wanted peanut butter and then the Dharma Initiative food dropped from the sky. But that had nothing to do with Richard. :)

Posted by: Shaindl at May 13, 2007 11:20 AM

Good one! We don't *know* it had nothing to do with Richard...especially now that we know the Dharma Initiative is done with...why are they still dropping food on the island??? There's so many questions we don't really know the answer to, I hope they're going to tie up the loose ends....

Posted by: Greg at May 13, 2007 1:10 PM

I think "The Man Behind the Curtain" refers to the mysterious Jacob--not to Richard. If Richard were so powerful, why would all the women and babies [conceived on the island] die? And why would Richard have had to recruit Juliette to save them? Couldn't he have done that himself? Also, maybe the "young" Richard we saw wasn't really Richard, but his father. That was our first thought when we saw him last week with Ben.

Posted by: Shaindl at May 13, 2007 7:25 PM

on an aside, what was the deal with young Ben and his girlfriend. They never really followed up. They show the interaction between the two and how Ben found someone who showed him compassion and wanted to be his friend. Did he just discard this friendship and kill her like the rest? They still showed him looking at the wooden doll on his birthday? Why would he do this? Does he have regret? Is he really that insane? Additionally, they did not disclose is joining the "hostiles" ever got him to see his mother again. ( along the same trend of seeing dead parents: jack saw his father walking throught the jungle in the first season)

Posted by: js at May 14, 2007 5:18 PM

I was wondering the same thing; I think the producers have said that we're going to learn more about the girl (Annie) in a later episode. Notice that right before he shoots Locke, Ben says that he was one of the few who was smart enough to avoid The Purge (when the hostiles killed the members of the Dharma initiative).

It could be that the whole driving force behind Ben is his goal to be with his mother again.

Posted by: Greg at May 14, 2007 5:23 PM