The 'Lost' Hour: Season 5 -- Episode 11: 'Whatever Happened, Happened'

Has "Lost" got you a mite confused and ready to hurl at the next mention of smoke monsters? Or do you have the fate of the Oceanic 6 and the Jack-Kate-Sawyer-Juliet love square all figured out? Who got Scooby Dooed this week? Are you a new viewer, adrift on an unfamiliar isle or an old hand ready to bare knuckle some quantum physics? In either case, we're here for you and armed with more mediocre puns and pop culture references than a hunky con man can shake a stick at.

Post.com "Lost" bloggers Liz Kelly and Jen Chaney will attempt to get to the bottom of these matters every Thursday. Liz and Jen, both obsessive "Lost" fans, have been writing their weekly dueling analysis of the show since 2006.

When not debating the merits of Sawyer's hotness, Liz Kelly writes the Celebritology blog and Jen Chaney acts as movies editrix and DVD columnist for washingtonpost.com.


For episode analysis, discussion transcripts and more, visit washingtonpost.com's Lost Central.

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Jen Chaney: Between the blog comments and the questions/comments already piling up in the queue, there is plenty to discuss. But I want to throw this blog comment out there for wider analysis, something one of you smart raised after reading our analysis:

"A tad bit of irony I noticed. Jack refuses to help Ben because of what Ben had become when the Losties first arrived on 815. He said he had already fixed Ben once (for Kate) and that he wouldn't do it again. Of course, as we found out when Richard said "he will be different [from the current lil' Ben]," the island-healing Ben basically makes him into the evil big Ben. If Jack had just saved him, he probably would've continued to be good little Ben, his daddy issues would probably have been resolved thanks to the remorse of Uncle Rico, and he would have lived happily ever after."

I think this is an interesting idea. But I am not sure if it's correct. Again, if time is progressing according to the Miles/Daniel Faraday explanation, then it wouldn't matter what Jack does. The universe would course-correct to turn Ben into the Purge Instigator/murderer/fake Henry Gale regardless. But Liz -- and readers -- what do you think?

Liz Kelly: I think it bears discussing because it calls into question this whole idea of fate that we keep coming back to with "Lost."

But let's get started...

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Kansas City MO: Personally, I felt that most of the Hurley/Miles bits were nods to you gals and us your loyal readers... the Back to the Future reference sealed it for me.

My question is: if the Others are so great at digging up every detail on the Losties, did they turn up DI files from the 70's on Kate Austen the mechanic and Jack Shepherd the workman and other such folks? A yes or a no would seem to carry a lot of implications.

Jen Chaney: That's flattering, Kansas City. Personally, I kinda doubt that the "Lost" writers are nodding anything at us, or for that matter even having vague, passing thoughts about our scrappy little analyses. Lots of people probably thought about "Back to the Future" because of the time travel connection, so I think they were just touching on what many fans have running through their minds. I mean, I didn't INVENT the flux capacitor. Although maybe I should create a Wiki page that says I did and see if I can start turning that into reality.

To your second question: If I understand correctly, you're inquiring about the Others circa 2004, yes? Ben definitely had some paperwork on Jack, Kate and Sawyer, so I think it's fair to assume that the Ben-led Others hung on to their files.