I Am DB

DEATH WISH
Michael’s back!

After a season-and-a-half of waiting, we finally got to see what happened to Michael after he and Walt shipped off from the island. Or at least, we got to see some of what happened. The episode skipped many of the most potentially interesting parts, but we can get to that later. We picked up with Michael back home in New York, where all he wants to do is kill himself. Talk about lost – he’s lost his son, he’s lost himself – killing Ana Lucia and Libby and betraying his friends has left the man a shell. But his suicide attempts are in vain, and he learns why when he receives a surprise visit from one of our favorite Others: Tom – the very man who, wearing a fake beard, grabbed Walt off the raft and set Michael down the path to the dark side in the first place.

You saw the episode, so I don’t need to rehash all the crazy goings-on involving Thai cemeteries, fake bombs, and gigolos named Arturo. The point is, we know how Michael got on the freighter and what his plan is. And we know that Sayid just threw a major wrench in that plan. I have to admit that given all the recently-introduced concepts about the way space and time relate to the island, I was surprised that Michael and Walt’s return home seemed to be so straightforward. Despite Ben’s pointedly specific instructions that Michael follow a compass bearing of 325, we have no idea how he actually got from that little boat the Others gave him all the way back to the states. Perhaps there is more to come on this, but usually the show gives a hint when things aren’t what they seem, and Michael and Walt being in New York carried no such vibe. It would seem, for the time being, that what we see is what we get.

That means that an awful lot has happened to Michael in an extremely short timeframe: he’s alienated the son he destroyed himself trying to save (ironically, by explaining to his son just how far into hell he descended); he’s also alienated his own mother, who is taking care of Walt; he’s sunken further into despair, so much so that he’s tried repeatedly to kill himself; he’s been contacted by the Others and sent to Fiji to board the freighter; and he’s back in the vicinity of the island. All of this – from his departure with Walt to his encounter with Sayid – has happened in the span of roughly a month, maybe a little less.

Also, it seems awfully mundane to have Walt just hangin’ out at home with Grandma, bad dreams notwithstanding. There’s been no indication from the producers as to whether or not Walt will return to the show as a main character, but with his unique abilities and repeated spectral appearances on the island, doesn’t it seem like there’s a lot more to be done with him? I have a hard time accepting that the show is done with him other than more of these fleeting glimpses the islanders keep having. The possibility of Walt’s return in the final two seasons is among my biggest curiosities. (And couldn’t they have even sprung for Malcolm David Kelly to play Walt for the brief moment when Michael sees him in the window, instead of forcing some puffy-cheeked lookalike on us?)

If you’re interested, here’s an interview with Harold Perrineau about his return to the show.

http://www.tvguide.com/news/lost-harold-perrineau/080320-01

THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS
In the previous episode, Captain Gault told Sayid and Desmond that the freighter was owned by Charles Widmore, and that his crew is looking for Benjamin Linus, the man responsible for staging the wreckage of Oceanic 815. In this episode, Tom tells Michael that Widmore is the man who faked the wreckage, and he provides invoices, receipts and photographs to back up his claim. So a question I posed last week, and which you were probably all thinking about anyway, comes more sharply into focus: who do we believe?

I have to side with Ben on this. Sure, he’s an amazingly manipulative, self-serving little bugger, but I look at Charles Widmore and I sense something evil in a way that goes beyond even the things Ben has done. Still, the man who says to Michael that when he’s at war he’ll do what he has to do to win but won’t arbitrarily kill innocent people is the same man who kinda sorta gassed all those Dharma Initiative people to death. Maybe he perceived them as less than innocent? It seems likely that there is more to learn yet about the Dharma Initiative, and how the Purge came about (including what role Richard Alpert had in it; remember, he was there when Ben gassed them all. I know I keep mentioning Richard Alpert in all of these write-ups, but man, there is something about that guy! He doesn’t age! Who is he?? We’ll see him again later this season).

Another reason I’m inclined to believe Ben is that Sayid is working for him post-rescue. Unlike Jack, a hothead who lets emotion rule his decisions, Sayid is logical, thoughtful and strategic. So for him of all people to come around to Ben’s point of view? And to do so as a hired killer, no less? That’s a compelling argument for taking Ben’s side. Here’s an interesting thought: what if Sayid turning Michael in ends up being a mistake which costs Michael his life and jeopardizes the lives of the crash survivors? That could set up a scenario in which Ben coerces Sayid into working for him as repentance for what he did, just as Ben got Michael onboard by playing on his guilt over killing Ana Lucia and Libby and betraying his fellow survivors. I’m just sayin’…

One thing is for sure: the show brilliantly maintains the mystery that is Benjamin Linus. He’s the Severus Snape of Lost, played to utter perfection by Michael Emerson.

Anyway…if Widmore is our bad guy, it begs the question: is he looking for the island only because he thinks Ben is there, or does he know that the plane crashed there? What is the connection between Widmore and Ben? If he does know about the plane landing there…how does he know? And how does he know about the island at all? How has he discovered its coordinates? And where is Penny’s boat in the meantime? One possibility that I’ve flirted with – not heavy, going-out-of-my-way-to-get-you-to-notice-me flirting, but lite, catching-your-eye-and-smiling-a-lot flirting – is that Ben and Widmore are actually on the same side, using all these other people (the 815 survivors, the freighter crew, etc.) as pawns in some sort of game that we have yet to learn about. I have no idea what purpose such a ruse would serve, but it doesn’t seem beyond Lost to spring that sort of surprise on us. If Ben and Widmore are aligned against a common enemy, who might it be? Matthew Abbadon (or whoever he represents)? Or is the coming war indeed a Ben vs. Widmore showdown, in which Abbadon is one of Widmore’s captains?

I SURVIVED A SHIPWRECK ON AN UNCHARTED ISLAND FOR 16 YEARS AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT
Time now to turn our attention away from the big picture and focus on more immediate issues. Concerned that the people on the freighter will try and use his “daughter” to get to him, Ben urges Alex to leave Locke’s camp and go to the Temple – an apparent Dharma station that he says might be the last safe place on the island, and which is where the other Others are currently hiding. Rousseau concurs that Alex may be in danger, and agrees to lead her and Karl to the Temple using the map Ben gives them. When Karl asks why Claire, Hurley and the rest can’t come, Ben matter-of-factly replies that the Temple “isn’t for them. It’s for us.” (Also not in keeping with his claim of not wanting to kill innocent people, seeing as he’s convinced that the freighter crew will kill every living person they find on the island.)

But wouldn’t you know, en route to the Temple, the trio falls under attack, and Karl and Rousseau are killed, leaving Alex alone and trapped. So who fired the fatal shots? At first I was thinking there was only one logical answer: Frank had flown a crew from the freighter to the island to make this strike. The previous episode was setting Frank up for something he was not comfortable doing and not looking forward to. Being a party to murder would certainly fit the bill.

Then another possibility occurred to me: that the shots were fired by some of the Others. True, killing Karl would be killing one of their own…but he hasn’t exactly shown a lot of loyalty. I’m not sure yet why they would attack, though. Perhaps Ben’s wayward leadership of late has led them to turn on him and they want to use Alex to get to him, just as he fears the freighter crew does. How many Others have died recently thanks, indirectly at least, to Ben’s leadership? Tom and his cronies on the beach, Pickett (the Sawyer-hating dude who Juliet shot), Pickett’s wife (shot by Sun), Ethan, Goodwin, Mikhail, Miss Klugh, those two gals down in the Looking Glass…it’s been like a nonstop wake at Camp Other.

Or if it was the Others, maybe they were acting on Ben’s orders. If they killed Karl and Rousseau, could it have been to get them out of the way so that Ben could reclaim Alex as his own? What if, in the time since Ben was released by Locke, he has been able to communicate with his people…perhaps in a hidden room like the one Sayid discovered earlier this season and where we saw him on a microphone giving instructions to Michael? What if he told his people at the Temple that he was sending Alex their way and they should take her and kill the others? He’s never liked Karl, and what use does he have for Rousseau? They were following his map, after all…and if he did knowingly send Karl and Rousseau to their death, well, there’s that whole “not killing innocent people” line proven wrong once again.

I’m definitely sorry to see Rousseau go. I suppose the best way for her to die is protecting Alex, but after all the time she’s survived on the island, after all her years of hoping to find her daughter, I wanted the show to explore their relationship a bit more. Clearly there are bigger issues to deal with, but they could have devoted a little time to that dynamic, yeah? And if she were going to die, they could at least have let her go down in more of a blaze of glory. Her death (and I’m assuming she really is dead, but 15% of me thinks maybe not) seemed awfully quick and anticlimactic given her continually intriguing presence as a recurring character. Hell, she just got to change into a pair of nice, fresh clothes after who knows how long wearing that grimy tank top. Give a girl a break!

FINAL THOUGHTS
I love the notion that the Island will not let Michael kill himself. I love all the notions about the power the island holds over people. Show creator Damon Lindelof mentioned in an article that the no-I-won’t-let-you-kill-yourself idea was demonstrated previously, when Bearded-Jack failed to jump off the bridge. I had assumed that Jack was just hesitating, not really sure if he wanted to do it or not. But maybe it was the Island that caused the car crash which brought him down from his perch and sent him into Captain Jack mode.

The Island may not allow for suicide, especially if “it” feels like one still has work to do, but what about after that work is done? If Michael manages to redeem himself, will he wind up dead as a result? I pose the question because in recent weeks, I’ve begun to wonder if Michael isn’t the mystery man in the coffin that Bearded-Jack visits. At the third season’s end, my money was on Locke or Ben. But we’ve seen Ben alive, directing Sayid’s hitlist (although we don’t know when Sayid’s flash-forward takes place in relation to Jack’s, so Ben isn’t totally safe). The producers have said that we’ll learn the identity of the coffin’s inhabitant by the end of this season. Of course, with the show’s new flash-forwarding, time-jumping structure, just because a main character shows up in the coffin doesn’t mean that person has to leave the show anytime soon. So Locke and Ben are still contenders, and I think Michael now seems to fit the bill as well. Bring him back for a run of episodes, play out his storyline, and close the book on him. I’m certainly not convinced, but once again, I’ve been doing some lite flirting. (One potential snag in the theory is that the funeral home was (I think) in Los Angeles; Michael is from New York.) What if the person in the coffin is not even who Jack thinks it is? That is, what if whoever is supposed to be in there has actually faked their death and arranged for another body to be in the coffin? Sounds like something Ben might do. Remember, whoever is in the coffin, Jack learned about the death by reading it in the newspaper. I can’t remember how much of the paper we saw, but if memory serves, we can at least tell that Jack is reading an article, not just an obituary. And if it is an article, the person must be someone who would warrant that level of coverage, even if the article is just a small one.

Finally, it is worth noting that Michael wasn’t the only cast member to resurface in this episode. We also got some fleeting glimpses of Libby. Could more substantial visits be in store? After killing her off, the producers said they were not done with the character, and that she would continue to show up in other characters’ flashbacks in such a way as to flesh out her own backstory. We saw her in a Desmond flashback, and we saw her in the mental institution with Hurley (during his initial, pre-island stay). Do the producers still plan to bring her back on a recurring basis?

Tonight’s Episode:
Uhhhh….hang on, I have it here somewhere, it’s called, ummm…I’m sorry, what? Ap…April twenty-what?  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!