I Am DB

Given the title of this episode, I thought we might learn the whereabouts of Faraday. But whatever happened, that didn’t happen. Lots of other stuff did though, so here we go.

ALTERNATE PERSPECTIVE
Watching the recap of He’s Our You, I was struck by a long-shot thought. Early in the episode, Sayid asked Sawyer how he could live his life side-by-side with Young Ben. Later, when he’s tied to the tree and given the truth serum, he seems to have a moment of clarity, and eventually tells Sawyer that he knows what his purpose in returning to the island is. When he shoots Ben, saying, “I am a killer,” we assume that his purpose is to kill Ben. But what if his purpose is actually to set Ben on the path to the adult he will become? After watching Whatever Happened, Happened and seeing Sawyer and Kate bring Ben to Richard and the Others, I wondered if Sayid somehow came to a realization that he needed to set that future in motion. Maybe that’s why he only fired one shot; he needed to wound Ben, but not kill him. If this were the case, his comments about being a killer could be a way of shouldering some blame for the deaths that Ben will cause later in his life.

I doubt this is the case, but I like the idea. Maybe I only concocted it to help me justify the idea that Sayid wouldn’t fire just one shot. I mean c’mon! How many guys has Sayid shot on this show? And how many has he shot just once and walked away from without being sure they were dead?!?

A SOFTER SIDE
Roger Linus is around again, and in this episode we see someone other than the emotionally and physically abusive father we’re used to. Roger seems decent enough when meeting Kate and asking for her help extracting the charred van from the house, and that’s before Jin shows up with wounded Ben, turning Roger into the Concerned Father. Throughout the ordeal with his son, Roger expresses his gratitude to Sawyer and Juliet for all they’re doing, and when he talks to Kate as she gives blood, we see the regret of a man who was never able to get over the loss of his wife, and couldn’t deal with raising a son on his own, especially knowing that the son indirectly caused her death. It almost makes me feel bad to know that Ben will eventually sit next to him in a van and kill him without a trace of emotion. Though I wonder if Ben being shot changes his future, and perhaps changes the way his father treats him after that…

YOU ARE LOST AND GONE FOREVER, DREADFUL SORRY CLEMENTINE
There wasn’t much doubt, but we got confirmation that the thing Sawyer whispered to Kate before jumping out of the helicopter last season concerned his daughter, Clementine…whose mother, of course, is Kate’s platonic fling Cassidy. I wondered at what point Kate put that together. Even if Sawyer told her Cassidy’s name in that brief whisper (and it was a brief whisper), she would still have no way of knowing that Sawyer’s Cassidy is also her Cassidy. Yet by the time Kate goes to see her, she’s figured it out. Cassidy is not expecting Kate’s visit, but Kate knows exactly who she’s going to see. It’s not an important point, but one I wondered about.

Anyway, I liked the idea of Kate having a gal pal. We generally see her as such a loner, particularly in her off-island life, so the fact that she has a confidant is refreshing. I dug the fact that she told Cassidy the truth about the plane crash, and that she acknowledged that Aaron wasn’t her son when Cassidy asked her about it. As for Cassidy’s theory about Sawyer, I’m not sure I buy it. But it was interesting to hear someone else interpret his actions through a different filter.

THE LITTLEST LITTLETON
Earlier in the season, it seemed like the writers were sometimes dragging out the Oceanic Six coming back together and returning to the island. In writing about The Little Prince, I remarked that the appearance of Claire’s mother made for a neat red herring in Kate’s quest to learn who was trying to take Aaron away, but also seemed like an stalling tactic; a cool, but ultimately unnecessary diversion. But this episode proved me wrong. It turns out Kate left Aaron with his grandmother, which sinks my theory that Caesar and Ilana were somehow responsible for her, Sayid and Hurley getting onto Ajira 316. (Well, partially sinks my theory. It does hold true for Sayid, and time will tell if it’s true of Hurley.) But my theory about their involvement with Kate (and Aaron’s whereabouts) was wrong.

Instead, Kate left Aaron with Claire’s mother, but not before telling her the truth about the crash, the island and the fact that Claire may still be alive. And now, after being interrupted during her conversation with Sawyer in the last episode, we know Kate’s reason for returning to the island: she has come back to find Claire.

Awesome.

JACK 2.0
Juliet can only do so much to help the wounded young Ben, and the Dharma doctor is unavailable for days. That leaves Jack as the only person around with the skills to help. But when Sawyer comes calling, Jack refuses. He recalls agreeing to perform spinal surgery on Ben because Kate pleaded with him that doing so would spare Sawyer’s life. He says he won’t save Ben a second time.

Jack: When we were here before, I spent all of my time trying to fix things. But did you ever think that maybe the island just wants to fix things itself? That maybe I was just gettin’ in the way?
Kate: I don’t like the new you. I liked the old you, who wouldn’t just sit around and wait for things to happen.
Jack: You didn’t like the old me, Kate.

For my part, I do like the new Jack. I like the Jack who doesn’t feel like he has to be in control and who isn’t running around with a hero complex. I like the Jack who is reserved, thoughtful, sad and open to possibilities. When Juliet confronts him later, he tells her he came back to the island because he was supposed to. He says he doesn’t know why yet, but I love that he has embraced the notion that the island has a plan for all of them. Seems like somebody might owe John Locke a big fat apology.

BEN LINUS AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE
So let’s get into this, because it’s the crux of the whole episode: To save Ben or not to save Ben? That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and flaming arrows of Other’s fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by letting Ben die, end them. I’ve had a lot of conversations with people about this over the last week. The dilemma has proven to be one of the show’s more provocative storylines. Where do you fall?

Kate and Juliet fought to save Ben’s life while Jack refused to help. And I gotta say, I’m with Jack on this. Despite Miles’ attempts to explain the Time situation to Hurley (and we’ll get to that), Jack doesn’t know how accurate Miles’ statements are. And we the audience only know marginally more than he does about the rules of time travel as they apply to the castaways. So if we put ourselves in Jack’s shoes, for all he knows Adult Ben will cease to exist if Young Ben dies. And given what he’s seen Adult Ben do, why should he help? I think his justifications, first to Kate and later to Juliet, are perfectly understandable. And while the series end may prove that Ben was, as he has said, one of “the Good Guys,” he has still resorted to countless Machiavellian machinations to achieve those good guy ends.

In the past I’ve compared Ben to Severus Snape, arguably the richest and certainly the most enigmatic character in the Harry Potter series. Spoiler alert for you poor fools who have not read the Harry Potter books: to further my comparison, I’m about to discuss some big, huge, these-answers-didn’t-come-until-the-very-end-of-the-seventh-book facts about Snape. So skip the next three paragraphs.

Seriously, even if you think “I’m never going to read those stupid Harry Potter books or see those dumb movies”…don’t read this. You might have kids someday and change your mind. Or you might decide that all those years of resisting peer pressure have left you hardened and lonely, so you’ll find yourself reaching for Potter to try and connect, before it’s too late, with the friends who have forsaken you. And if that day comes, you won’t want to know the things I’m about to bring up (as they relate to Ben). Here, I’ll even make it easy and change the text color for the part you should skip.

In the end of the Potter series, Snape turns out to have been on the right side of the battle all along, but Rowling glosses over the fact that while his ultimate role was good, his motives were selfish and sort of twisted, and he was still pretty much a bad guy along the way. The part he agreed to play in Dumbledore’s master plan didn’t require him to be such an asshole…to everybody…all the time. Regardless of what he was trying to do, he still abused his power, favored Slytherins, treated everyone like crap…I mean, maybe being ceaselessly cruel to Neville Longbottom for seven years is a small price to pay for the sacrifices he makes, but couldn’t he have still worked his good deeds without being ceaselessly cruel to Neville…and everyone else?

If it seems like I’m going off on a tangent, well…maybe I am. But only slightly. The point is that the end does not necessarily justify all the means. Snape shouldn’t just be forgiven for all the bad stuff he did (which I sort of felt like Rowling did in the epilogue), and neither should Ben (if he turns out to be kinda decent after all).

Spoiler complete.

When Juliet says, “That kid was bleeding out,” Jack’s reply is, “That kid is Ben.” Juliet says, “He’s not Ben yet. He’s just a kid.” But I would argue that he is Ben; or at least, he’s already heading in that direction. As I said last week, he has developed an ease with lying and manipulation, and was willing to plow a flaming van into an occupied home in order to get what he wanted. Now some might feel that Richard’s comments at the end of the episode suggest that he and the Others are responsible for Ben forging the path that he does, and I’ll admit there is some merit to that idea, given how things are worded (we’ll get to that too). But for now, I’m maintaining that Ben has already shown signs of the man he will become. And as that man has given Jack and the rest no reason to believe anything he says, nor any true indication that his actions serve anyone’s interests but his own, I’d be inclined to refrain from intervening as well, and let fate – in the form of Sayid’s bullet – run its course. Avada Kedavra, motherfucker.

At the risk of exhausting the topic, I do have to say that I was intrigued by the respective positions held by Juliet and Jack over what to do about Ben. We have a surprising role reversal here: Jack, usually so noble and quick to act under whatever circumstances, refuses to help. And Juliet, who has always been more calculating, lets emotion rule her and isn’t concerned about allowing Ben to live. Knowing the effect that he will have on her future, I’m surprised she fought so hard to save him. This is the same woman who tried to convince Jack to kill him during his spinal surgery. Now she is able to separate the boy on her operating table from the man who will land on Jack’s. Go figure.

PARADOX PUZZLES
Damon and Carlton have always kept an ear tuned to feedback from the fans, and they keenly and humorously addressed some of the time travel questions out in the ether by positioning Hurley (and who else but Hurley could it have been?) as the audience’s surrogate in grilling Miles – who seems to have been listening closely to Faraday’s lessons – about the complications of traveling through time. These were great scenes, and did help clarify a few things for me.

While I found the scenes quite amusing, I also found them useful for somewhat clarifying what can and can’t be ramifications of actions taken by Jack, Kate, Juliet, Sawyer, Jin, Hurley, Sayid, Miles and Daniel in  the 1970’s. (And Rose and Bernard, wherever the Christ they are.)  I am still fuzzy on Miles’ explanation that the conversation he and Hurley are having has already happened, “but not for you and me. For you and me, it’s happening right now.” Or the similar notion that, “Your maniac Iraqi buddy shot Linus. That is what always happened. It’s just, we were never around to experience how it all turns out.” But hey, whatever. I’ll basically roll with it. It’s time travel, it’s freaky, end of story.

Now if I might briefly don my Continuity Police cap: how does Miles know about the wheel that Ben turned? I find it hard to believe any of them have seen the wheel in the three years they’ve been living the Dharma life. Early in the season, when they were first jumping through time, Daniel said that whatever Ben did down in the Orchid seemed to dislodge them from time. He didn’t mention a giant wheel. Now, we do know – from the very beginning of the season – that Daniel was present during the construction of The Orchid, when a foreman showed Dr. Chang a sonar image of something wheel-like. But we don’t know a) if that has happened yet, b) if Daniel actually saw the sonar pic or knew specifically about the wheel, c) if he shared possible knowledge of said wheel with Miles or the others, or d) where the Christ he is. Maybe Daniel, Rose and Bernard are all camping out together somewhere in the middle of the island, getting stoned and listening to Geronimo Jackson.

As for Hurley’s last question – the one about why Adult Ben doesn’t remember that Sayid is the man who shot him as a child – my thought in the moment was that Ben has recognized Sayid all along. Which would be pretty cool. (And in keeping with that line of questioning, why didn’t Rousseau recognize Ben when she captured him? I should probably wait until after tonight’s episode to pose it; in the preview of tonight’s episode, it looked like Ben has an encounter with young Rousseau; whether or not he directly kidnaps Alex from her remains to be seen, but if they do meet at some point, why doesn’t she know exactly who he is later on? File that question away…)

Anyway, the answer to Hurley’s question comes later, from Richard, who says conclusively (and ambiguously) that Ben will not remember any of this when he wakes up. So let’s talk about that…

SPECIAL DELIVERY FOR RICHARD ALPERT
When Jack refuses to operate on Ben and when Juliet can do no more to save him, she suggests that maybe the Others can help. Why? What does she think they can do for him? Does she simply think they might have doctors on hand? Or has her own time as an Other made her aware of possible – perhaps supernatural – cures that Richard might be able to utilize?

Kate and Sawyer exit Dharmaville, at risk of violating the truce, to bring an unconscious, dying Ben to Richard. When they find him, he of course recognizes Ben from their previous encounter and offers something of a warning to Sawyer and Kate.

Richard: If I take him, he’s not ever gonna be the same again.
Kate: What do you mean by that?
Richard: What I mean is that…he’ll forget this ever happened and that his innocence will be gone. He will always be one of us.

The weight of this hangs in the air for a moment.

Richard: You still want me to take him?
Kate: Yes.

As if the encounter weren’t thick enough with mystery, one of Richard’s men leans into his ear and says, “Richard, you shouldn’t do this without asking Ellie. And if Charles finds out…”

Richard cuts him off. “Let him find out. I don’t answer to either of them.” Then he takes Ben in his arms and walks away without another word to any of them. Turns out they are just around the corner from The Temple, last seen when Jin and Young Rousseau waited for her companions, who had climbed down a hole after the Black Smoke. Richard pushes open a doorway and disappears inside.

Whoa.

First of all, he’ll never be the same? His innocence will be gone? WTF? What are you guys gonna do, take him in The Temple and gang rape him?

Second of all, will Ben really never remember this? Does he not recognize Sayid later in life because of something that happens to him in the course of his healing? And do all of those memories come crashing back to him in the moment before he wakes up to find Locke at his bedside? (More on that in a minute…)

Third of all, what is this Ellie and Charles business? Is Richard no longer the leader of The Others, as he appeared to be when we first met Ellie and Young Charles Widmore in the 1950’s? If he is no longer in charge, how did that come to pass? And are Ellie and Widmore sharing power? And more importantly, are Ellie and Widmore gettin’ it on? Is Ellie indeed Eloise Hawking? Are Penny Widmore and Daniel Faraday siblings?? Do I have any reason to suspect as much? No? Think that’ll stop me from suspecting it anyway?

Let’s say that somehow Richard fell out of power (I’ve speculated this before, when I wondered if that would explain his looking so uncharacteristically unkempt when he met Young Ben in the jungle. If he’d been exiled by his people – or left for his own reasons – perhaps his appearance would have suffered from wandering the island). If he did, then that might put him at odds with Charles Widmore, who was already pretty insubordinate back in the 50’s. You could sense tension between the two men even in their brief scenes. And if Ben is loyal to Richard, that might put Ben at odds with Charles Widmore.

Then again, consider Ellie. She appeared to respect Richard’s authority back in the 50’s. What if Richard eventually decided he didn’t like being the one in charge, and instead preferred to advise the leader from the background, initially asking Ellie to take over and then continuing in an advisory capacity through subsequent changes in leadership? Remember that when The Purge occurs, Richard is asking Ben for instructions on what to do. Even though he brought Ben into Otherhood, he’s taking his orders – ostensibly, anyway – from Ben. This continues to be the case throughout Ben’s leadership…though in the later days he does take steps to undermine it (planting the seed for Locke to recruit Sawyer into killing his father, for example). If Ellie became leader of The Others, and if she and Charles did get romantically involved, Charles might have come believe that her power as leader extended to him as well. All of which might make sense of the remark Richard, you shouldn’t do this without asking Ellie. And if Charles finds out… Not to mention Richard’s reply that he doesn’t answer to either of them.

Or maybe I’m light years off base and absolutely none of this will be correct.

Getting back to things we know: we know that Ben does not stay with Richard and the Others, because he is part of The Dharma Initiative – at least for appearances sake – when The Purge happens (he’s wearing a Dharma Work Man uniform just like Roger’s when he takes Roger out in a van to a remote location and kills him. (It just occurred to me that when Hurley, Jin and Sawyer discover that van in Season Three, complete with Roger’s corpse, Sawyer has no idea that the skeleton sitting next to him will soon be a flesh and blood man that lives alongside him. I wonder if that’s occurred to him…)

So what does Richard do to save Ben? And where will Ben go from there? And did Kate have any second thoughts about what she was about to do after Richard issued his warning? What will the consequences be when the Dharma authorities, and Roger, find out that Sawyer and Kate took Ben to The Hostiles? And how will his return – his wound healed – be explained?

Lastly, I loved the way Richard taking Ben into The Temple fluidly brought us back to 2007 and Hydra Station-Ben waking up from his injuries to find Locke – noticeably absent from the last few episodes – sitting by his bed. I also like reader Shirley M.’s comment on that transition, which didn’t occur to me in quite this way when I first watched it: “Oh, and based on those explanations, don’t you think that when they showed Ben wake up to Locke at his bedside that he’d been dreaming/remembering his own memories that are concurrently happening in the past?  Like how Desmond woke up from a dream and knew they were memories, not dreams?  Also, Charlotte was only able to remember Daniel from her childhood when she was in a dream-like/dying state.”

If Shirley is right, then does that mean that while Ben did not remember Sayid shooting him, or remember Sawyer, Juliet and others from his childhood, that he is about to remember them now for the first time? Perhaps we’ll know in a few hours…

LOOSE ENDS/FOOD FOR THOUGHT
-This episode seems to settle the question of whether or not Kate’s reappearance will throw a wrench into Juliet and Sawyer’s good thing. I imagine the relationships could still get complicated, but for the time being at least, Sawyer says clearly that he’s helping Kate with Ben for Juliet. He also says things never would have worked out with him and Kate. Not off-island, anyway. He admits to growing up a lot in the last three years – and his experience in The Dharma Initiative is largely the reason for that.

On a related note, last week I included Doc Jensen’s rebuke of Sawyer for putting his own well-being ahead of the right thing to do by refusing to let Sayid go free. Well Sawyer redeems this failing with his decision to help Kate save Ben’s life. Or, well…saving Ben’s life may or may not prove to be a “right decision.” But in the context of Sawyer’s actions, it’s right in that he risks his own standing with The Dharma Initiative in order to save a kid’s life.

-I liked that the woman who finds Aaron in the grocery store when Kate loses him looks like Claire. A distorted, kinda scary, sorta freakishly ugly version of Claire. But still…

-I said in my last write-up that I’d like to see more of Juliet’s reaction to living in the company of a young Ben. Although it didn’t play out quite how I wanted it to, we still got to see how she regarded her future boss. So that was a good thing…even if her reaction to him wasn’t what mine would have been.

-I also wondered in my last write-up if Jack and Kate were together again on the island. From their conversation about Ben in the kitchen, it sounds like they aren’t. Though again, who knows where that’s going…

-Seeing Juliet treat Ben’s wounds made me wonder: why is she still in the motor pool now that she’s revealed herself to be a doctor? I know she delivered Horace and Amy’s baby just recently, but what’s a girl gotta do to get some promotion love? Or, to examine her delivery of the baby from another point of view, did the introduction of her medical skills lead to questions from Dharma’s powers-that-be about why she never told them she was a doctor, or at least had medical experience?

Tonight’s Episode: Dead is Dead (Based on the preview, methinks this one is gonna be good. Lots of Ben gaps and Island lore will be filled in!)