![]() ![]() Both of them are, on the outside, cold-hearted killers, but both are also grieving on the inside. The same mingling of regret and revenge occurs in “The Shape of Things to Come.” In retrospect, the idea of having Ben and Sayid work together is rather brilliant. Regret and revenge work hand in hand here. Just as he killed Elsa, he allowed Nadia to die. He cries at the end of this episode not just for Elsa but for Nadia. Sayid’s assassination of Elsa is both revenge for Nadia’s death and a symbol of his regret over it. He fell hard for Nadia, and, now, he’s falling hard for Elsa, probably because she reminds of him of his lost love. ![]() However badass Sayid tries to be, he is, at heart, a hopeless romantic. At the same time, though, Sayid falls for Elsa, probably trying to recapture his lost love for Nadia. In “The Economist,” Sayid works for Ben to get at Widmore to get revenge for Nadia’s death. It’s clear that they all regret leaving the rest behind.Įpisodes: “The Economist,” “The Shape of Things to Come”Īnalysis: Here, the “time theme” is not only regret, but revenge. The memory of the Island haunts them, too. Sun doesn’t actually see the literal ghost of Jin, and Kate doesn’t literally see Sawyer’s ghost, but their memories clearly haunt them throughout the season finale. Sun regrets leaving Jin to die on the freighter, and Kate is clearly thinking about Sawyer all the fricking time. Likewise, in “There’s No Place Like Home,” the Oceanic Six are haunted literally by ghosts (Charlie, Libby, and Claire-does this mean she’s dead?) and figurative ones. From a plot standpoint, Charlie is a real ghost who arrives to tell Hurley he’s made a huge mistake: Hurley and the others must go back to the Island, and Aaron must not be raised by Kate and Jack on the mainland. From a psychological standpoint, Hurley sees the ghost of Charlie because he regrets letting him die. Ghosts also tend to live outside of time. Ghosts, while not directly related to time travel, are usually metaphors for regret. Hurley is also visited by ghosts-specifically, the ghost of Charlie, and, later on, the ghost of Mr. ![]() (I hasten to mention, for those of you who do not know, that regret isn’t possible without the passage of time.) Hurley regrets leaving the Island, just as bearded Jack did at the end of the last season. So rather than try to force a single reading of the season, I’ll give you several of them, and you can decide which, if any, makes the most sense to you.Įpisodes: “The Beginning of the End,” “There’s No Place Like Home”Īnalysis: In “The Beginning of the End,” the “time theme,” if you will, is regret. The season was so packed with plot, however, that it’s difficult for me to see if there’s one thematic through-line that ties the whole season together. If season four of Lost was about anything other than being incredibly addictive television, it was about time: time travel, paradoxes, rates of change, memory. Time Keeps on Slippin’, Slippin’, Slippin’ ![]()
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