Remember last May when I thought it was Ben in the coffin for the Season 3 finale of LOST? I've come to revise that. Yes, I think it's still "Ben" in the coffin, but it's not Ben.

The reason I thought it was Ben is because of the lack of friends and family. Ben has none, at least off-island. Jack is also broken up, not for Ben's death, but he figures Ben is a way back to the island, which he wants. Now with no Ben, there's no going back.

Remember the last time we saw a closed coffin in the show it was for Locke's father, who had staged his own death. I think Ben has staged his own death. Jack doesn't want to see the body when the funeral director asked him, but if he had, it would have not been Ben, but someone taking Ben's place. There is a reason, other than just keeping us in suspense as to who it is, that the person in the coffin is not shown, it is because whoever is in the coffin isn't the person that is really supposed to be there, but just some hapless victim.

Remember this season when (was it Sayid? or Kate? Sorry, I can't recall) went to New Otherton and they find a room in a house full of Ben's passports? He obviously has many alternate identities (not just Henry Gale).

"Ben" is in the coffin, but Ben is still alive.

LOST will last 3 more seasons (including the present season). I don't think it will end abruptly and discomfortingly unnerving like Twin Peaks did with a Black Lodge Bob-possessed Agent Cooper set loose on the world. Although that has become part of the unintentional mystique and mythology of Peaks, there was more planned had ABC not pulled the plug. Hmmm...ABC is LOST's network too...but I have hopes. I don't think we will be left with a suicidal drug-addicted bearded feral (I put that last word in because Stan likes to call Flashforward Bearded Jack "Feral Jack.") Jack wandering the streets of LA. Not that I want a "and they lived happily ever after" wrap-up either. My suspicions are that there's sort of a time loop thing going on and the series finale will end with the very same passengers boarding Oceanic Flight 815 (Or maybe Oceanic Flight 1623), leaving us to ponder will they crash and start all over again, or will they end up landing at their destination to continue their lives, as if the original crash never even happened? Just a thought. I don't like neat wrap-ups, I like it where the audience can put their own spin on it, perhaps to live on in our own little mental exercise hypothetical fiction that we think up ourselves.

Labels: LOST