Lost in LOST -- Men In Trees

The good thing about the two-word "home work" is that I get to multitask. So it’s just like in those long ago days when I did the one-word "homework": there's some electronic device belching forth decadent sounds and images into at least part of my consciousness, while the rest of it is engaged in a respectable activity.

And so it goes that over the last few weeks I've rewatched 4 seasons of LOST in preparation for the new season.

I've even seen a new commercial where Hurley is carrying a gun. HURLEY! The man who sees more dead people than Haley Joel Osment and who, when last threatened, reached for a fully loaded VW bus as his weapon of choice! They damn well better have a good reason for turning him into a mini-Rambo or I'm heading to wherever writer J J Abrahms hangs and pelting him with harsh words.

But my viewing marathon has put many theories into my head, some of which I'll share today, and maybe some later. My track record on this is just so-so, and I haven't yet paper-listed the reasons why I think Vincent the dog is the true island mastermind, so take everything here with a grain of salt. Following the Gospel According to St. Buddy too closely will just get you into trouble.

Lesson #1 -- beware men in trees! They're always up to no good! If someone doesn't pop up out of a hole or crash on a beach, they're most likely wishing our heroes dead!

There's a whole litany of ghosts, doppelgangers and imaginaries that crawled out of the forests. Jack first saw his dad in the trees. And the smoke monsters never leave the trees. We even first saw both Jack and Vincent in the forest! I'm fairly certain Jack is one of the good guys, but I'm warning you -- Vincent's an evil mastermind!

The most obvious MIT [Man in Tree] is the former Henry Gale, now better known as Benjamin Linus, once leader of the Others, and presently a globe-hopping manipulator of the rich and famous. We first saw him hanging from a hot air balloon, a ruse to get him into the confidence of our hapless survivor's camp.

Linus has Special Forces skills, a poker face that would make him a natural at Texas Hold 'Em, and no redeeming social graces that we know of. He also seems to have been transported 10 months into the future and stranded in the Sahara Desert as punishment for following Jacob's orders to move the island. [just an aside here -- I refuse to believe, despite events that involve Ben, Daniel and Desmond, that there's a real time machine involved. That creates more logistic problems than it solves; they could then just send our castaways back in time to the airport and they could chose to get on the plane or not. The only real mystery a time machine solves is why Richard Alpert is apparently the same age in all events depicted from 1986 to the present. With Ben, I think he was frozen for nearly a year and thawed out in the Sahara. That scenario still requires non-existent technology, and also the involvement of outside forces, likely the Smoke Monsters or their controllers, but creator Abrahms did something similar on ALIAS]

Two more of the Others came out of the trees to infiltrate the survivor's camps -- Ethan Rom and Goodwin. Their purpose was to create lists of names and observe, even though their tasks seemed somewhat unnecessary since Mikhail was shown canvassing the flight manifest and then tapping world wide databases for information on the passengers.

And that leaves 2 other MIT introductions, both of who have motives I believe haven't been revealed yet.

The first is Seth Norris, the pilot that crashed Oceanic Flight 815 on the island. He replaced Frank Lapidus in the flight crew at the last minute, and the poor guy was immediately killed by the Smoke Monster when he popped his head out the cockpit.

I boldly suggest that it was Seth’s mission to get these castaways to the island. We've already seen how all our characters lives are intertwined and apparently chosen by the island forces to be on that flight. If so, rather than leaving their destination to chance, a Hanso [probably] operative delivered the goods.

Plus his death was odd. Usually the Smoke Creature judged its victims before killing them or sparing them [Mr. Eko twice, Juliet]. In the case of Mayhew, one of the men from the freighter, whatever Ben had done in the tunnel caused the monster to kill him, so that doesn’t fully count.

So then why was Norris killed? I suspect that he somehow failed in his mission -- perhaps both plane sections were supposed to be together or there were too many survivors -- and was punished by the Island, much like Ben's later banishment into the Sahara.

That gets me to my favorite MIT -- Bernard Nadler. Sam Anderson is too recognizable as a character actor to be wasted in a minor role. And he was found sitting in a tree still strapped in his seat, fer chrissakes. Just like Ben!

But more importantly -- he's the *only* remaining survivor from the tail section not killed nor taken by the Others! [awww ... I miss Mr. Eko!] He's also one of two current characters -- Sun is the other -- not yet shown face-to-face with Ben.

And, besides, he's a friggin’ dentist. I hate friggin’ dentists!

I think he's been a plant since he first met Rose in the snow. He's outwardly motivated by a desire to save Rose from her cancer -- which is why he'd be in league with the island forces -- but I still haven't figured out his true motives.

So, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to figure out why Seth was killed and what Bernard is up to. Since he's a MIT, you can be sure it’s no good.

But I'm still keeping an eye on Vincent. That mutt knows more than he's letting on!

Next time, when the spirit moves me: what Shakespeare and Leslie Neilsen have taught us about Smoke Monsters.