I Am DB

I read recently that Damon and Carlton see this season playing out in a traditional three-act structure. The first act centered on events at The Temple. This episode began Act II, which will focus on the ongoing gathering and actions of the two camps: Team Jacob and Team Smokey. And Act III we can safely assume will amount to the showdown…and an avalanche of answers.

Among the many things I liked about this flippin’ great episode, with its multiple Napoleon Dynamite references (well, not exactly) was that we got to spend some quality time with characters who’ve been only briefly seen during the last few episodes – namely Ilana and Richard (still not enough Lapidus, but I’ll take what I can get…). Before we get to the titular Dr. Linus, let’s pick up with Jack and Hurley on their way back from an emotional visit to the lighthouse.

FIRESIDE CHAT
Jack is anxious to get back to The Temple, and though Hurley tries to stall based on Jacob’s warning about someone “bad” heading there, Jack sees though his efforts. As they debate which way is the route back, Richard emerges from the jungle and points them in a third direction, saying The Temple is that way.

J: Where did you come from?
R: You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.
J: Try me.
R: Not yet.

Having left them with that mystery, he walks off toward The Temple and sure enough, they follow. As they walk, Hurley grills Richard on why he looks the same as he did 30 years ago. He throws out time traveling, cyborg and vampire as possible explanations, but Richard says no to all of them.  I was curious about this exchange, because if my memory serves, I don’t think Hurley and Richard have ever met before. I can’t think of a time when they came across each other in the normal island timeline, nor can I recall them meeting in the Great Dharma Debacle of 1977. If any of you remember differently, let me know…but I’m pretty sure I’m right. Overlooking that possible error in continuity, Richard’s only answer to Hurley is that Jacob gave him a gift. This piques Jack’s interest, and he asks what Richard knows about Jacob. All Richard says is that he knows Jacob is dead.

When they come out into a clearing, they have arrived not at The Temple, but the Black Rock. He admits to lying about leading them to The Temple, informing them that everyone there is dead. Jack asks with alarm if that includes their friends, naming Kate and Sayid specifically. Richard says they weren’t there and maybe got out alive. When Hurley admits to Jack that Jacob hinted at this, Richard looks stunned. “You spoke to Jacob?” He shakes his head, more frustrated. “Well whatever he said, don’t beleive him.” He walks toward the shipwreck, saying there’s something he needs to do. When Jack asks what, he answers, “Die.”

Richard enters the galley, looking around as if recalling a haunted past. He touches a pair of shackles, suggesting that the Man in Locke’s recent remark, “It’s good to see you out of those chains” may indeed mean that Richard was a “guest” on the Black Rock’s final voyage.

Richard, you trickster! You lied about The Temple and where you’d been just to arouse their curiosity so they would follow you and play Kevorkian. I like that even though Richard admits he’s not a cyborg, he does share a common trait with Schwarzenegger’s T-800, as revealed at the end of Terminator 2: Judgment Day: he can’t self-terminate. The scene continues…

“I’m not.” The last time Jack expressed such certainty was when he dropped Jughead down into the chasm at The Swan, believing it would negate the crash of Flight 815. As far as he knows – as far as any of us know for sure – that was a failure. So given his track record, I’d agree with Richard that he’s taking a pretty big risk. Still, I love that he is so confident in his logic. I also love that Jack really has come to accept what Locke told him all along: that he – that all of them – were brought to the island for a reason. The tables have turned again, and Jack is the Man of Faith trying to convince someone who has lost theirs that there is a higher power guiding them. Jack has become a man of both science and faith.

One other comment here is that when Jack tells Richard about the lighthouse and Jacob wanting him to see the mirror, Richard asks why. Richard has already admitted that he wasn’t in on Jacob’s plan, but did anyone else get the sense that he didn’t even know about lighthouse and the mirror? That surprises me. The lighthouse seems like a major tool of Jacob’s modus operandi, and it’s hard to imagine Richard hasn’t had some idea of what it does and how/why Jacob is using it. But maybe not.

It was nice to finally get some teases into the mystery of Richard Alpert, voted by fans in an Entertainment Weekly poll last year as the number one mystery they wanted solved. We dangled our toes in the water here, but I’ve heard that next week’s episode will be the deep dive into Richard’s full backstory.

I BELIEVE THE CHILDREN ARE THE FUTURE
And from dynamite to Napoleon: turning away from the island and toward the man of the hour, our trip into SidewaysLand gave us a deeper glimpse into the life of Benjamin Linus, European History Teacher. We first see him talking to his class about the French emperor’s exile to the island of Elba, where he was frustrated not by his isolation so much as his loss of power. It’s a direct parallel to Ben’s own arc, as we’ve seen ever since he woke up on Hydra Island with a resurrected John Locke sitting at his bedside.

Ben clearly cares about his job and his efforts to help the students with potential, so much so that when he’s grousing in the lunchroom about how the school principal is disconnected from the classroom experience and the importance of reaching the kids, substitute teacher John Locke suggests that Ben be the principal instead. I love that it’s Locke who makes the suggestion, setting Ben on the path to a moral conflict. Oh, and let me also say how much I love that in this timeline, Ben and Arzt are disgruntled pals. Add them to my growing list of Lost spin-off sitcom duos…

Here in SidewaysLand, Ben is living with and caring for his ailing father Roger, who requires an oxygen tank to breathe. (Roger Linus is once again played by Jon Gries, or as he’s known in certain circles, Uncle Rico.) They appear to have a much better relationship here, and Roger regrets that Ben feels dissatisfied.

R: This isn’t the life I wanted for you, Ben. I wanted so much more.
B: I know.
R: That’s why I signed up for that damn Dharma Initiative and took you to the island and…they were decent people. Smarter than I’ll ever be. Imagine how different our lives would have been if we’d stayed.
B: Yes, we’d have both lived happily ever after.
R: No, I’m serious Ben! Who knows what you would have become?

Whoh. That’s the first time that anyone in SidewaysLand has referenced the island, which was sitting on the ocean floor when Flight 815 flew over it. Sure, the submerged island had the Dharma houses, swing set, etc. but we didn’t know for sure that those structures were associated with the Initiative. Now we can assume that they are.  So how long were Ben and Roger there? Why did they leave? How did the Island sink? It couldn’t have been as a result of the Swan explosion, right? If the island sank when the bomb detonated, Roger and Young Ben would have sunk with it. Was Ethan still born on the island, to Horace and Amy? Do Ethan and Ben know each other in SidewaysLand? What about Dogen? Was he ever there?
Ben’s doorbell rings and he opens it to find Alex, looking much sleeker and less disheveled than she ever did on the island. She asks about that day’s cancellation of the History Club, and says she was counting on some tutoring before her next test. Ben arranges to meet with her at the library the next morning. When they do, they discuss the East India Trading Company (an illustration of a pirate ship is deliberately shown to us in their textbook). Alex struggles under the stress of scoring a good grade, getting into college and succeeding in life. The pressure we put on these high school kids…

Ben remarks that Alex is one of his brightest students and that he doesn’t have any concerns about her future prospects. Although for such a supposedly bright girl, she seems to be struggling with some pretty basic stuff. I mean…tutoring in history? Math, science, even English I can understand…but history? You read the text, memorize the facts…and you’re done. What’s to tutor? Regardless, Alex has her sights set on Yale, but needs a recommendation from an alumnus to have a shot at getting in. The only one she knows of is the school’s Principal Reynolds, the bureaucrat whose job Ben has come to covet. He sees an opportunity when Alex offhandedly refers to Reynolds as a “pervert” and tells him that once after school, she heard Reynolds and the school nurse engaged in some Sex Ed of their own while she recuperated from a stomach ache in the next room.

Ben goes to Arzt and asks if he can tap into another staff member’s school e-mail account. When he tells him why, Arzt says, “You’re makin’ a play! You’re going after the Big Job, aren’t you?” He rhymes off a list of things he wants if Ben comes to power – new equipment, a cush parking space, etc. Arzt says Ben had him fooled with the sweater-vest. “You’re a real killer,” he laughs.

Ben soon goes to Principal Reynolds (played by the great William Atherton) and shows him print-outs of illicit e-mails he’s exchanged with the nurse during a six month period. In exchange for not exposing Reynolds to the school board and his wife, Ben comes up with a scenario for Reynolds to resign and name Ben as successor. But then Reynolds shows Ben an e-mail. It’s from Alex, requesting a letter of recommendation to Yale. Reynolds gives Ben a choice: follow through with his power grab and watch Reynolds “torch” Alex’s future, or back off and allow Alex to get what she wants. It appears at first that Ben sticks to his plot, but then we realize that he made the right choice and nixed his scheme. Somehow he manages to keep his own job and not get his ass tossed on the street by Reynolds (I guess Reynolds has to be careful in case Ben reveals what he knows at some later date). So it all works out in the end – even for Arzt, to whom Ben offers his parking space.

So Ben Linus, with a little love and respect in his life, turns out to be a nice guy who cares about his family, friends and students. How sweet. But what of Island Ben?

TO SERVE AND PROTECT
After fleeing from Creepy Sayid, Ben re-joins Ilana, Lapidus, Sun and Miles as they make their way from The Temple. He suggests that they go back to the 815ers beachfront property, and with no other logical alternative for the time being, Ilana agrees. As they travel there, Ben tells Miles that the thing at The Temple is what killed Ilana’s friends at the statue. But Ilana is suspicious when Ben doesn’t include Jacob in the list of victims…rather like Buttercup doubting Prince Humperdinck’s dispatch of the four fastest ships in his armada. She asks Miles to confirm that he can talk to the dead, to which he says he can only pick up on how people died and what their last thoughts were. She gives him the sack of Jacob’s ashes and asks him to do his thing. Reader Lorelei D. thought she recalled Miles telling someone in his flashback last season that what he does works best when there’s a body. My recollection is that while Miles did say that, he never said that he absolutely had to have a body in order to commune with the dead. So while this was probably a continuity error, it still plays. And whether consistent or not, it certainly works this time, as Miles tells Ilana that Ben stabbed Jacob. Ben looks incredulous, while Ilana stares daggers at him. “Jacob was the closest thing I ever had to father,” she says.

Wow, really? This is a reminder of how much we have yet to learn about Ilana. The only slice of backstory we have on her is that Jacob came to see her in some kind of hospital that looked like it was probably in a third world country. Her face was heavily bandaged, and Jacob came and sat down at her bedside. She said she was very happy to see him, and he told her that he needed her help. Next thing we know chronologically, she’s pretending to hit on Sayid at a Los Angeles bar, later claiming to be in the employ of one of Sayid’s Widmore-web murder victims, but even that’s a ruse to get him on Ajira 316. So when will we know what Ilana’s story is? Some have wondered if she, like Richard, has been around for an unnaturally long time. I hadn’t thought about that, but when Jacob visits her he’s wearing gloves. It didn’t show whether or not he touched her, but in light of what Richard said about Jacob’s touch, it might be worth noting.

As the group tries to make the wrecked beach site habitable, Sun approaches a still-upset Ilana.

S: How long are we going to stay here?
I:  I told you, I don’t know yet.
S: I need to find my husband!
I:  Trust me, if anyone wants to find him it’s me. But I don’t know where to look.
S: Why do you want to find Jin?
I:  Because, your last name is Kwon. So is his. And I don’t know whether I’m supposed to protect you, him or both of you.
S: Protect us, what are you talking about?
I:  You’re candidates. To replace Jacob.
S: Replace him? To do what?
I:  If you’re the one selected, I imagine you’ll find out.
S: Wait…you said candidates. How many are there?
I:  Six. There are only six left.

So who are the six? Definitely Hurley (8), Sawyer (15), Jack (23) and at least one Kwon (42). Although she doesn’t have one of the numbers assigned to her, Kate’s name was not crossed out yet on the lighthouse dial, so can we assume she’s still in the running? Sayid’s name wasn’t crossed out in the cave, but surely Ilana has now ruled him out since Ben told her that he killed Dogen and Lennon and chose to go with Locke. So if Kate and both Sun and Jin are candidates, that’s the six. But what if only one Kwon is under consideration? Who might be the missing link? And if Ilana doesn’t know whether she’s meant to protect Sun and Jin or just one of them, how can she even be sure how many candidates are left?

As Ben sifts through items in one of the tents, he passes over a copy of The Chosen, by Chaim Potok, a book that I’m pretty sure every teenage Jew is required by international law to read. Does the title offer some foreshadowing for Ben? When Lapidus comes by and tells Ben to help him gather firewood, Ben finds a bottle of Oceanic Airlines water and says he can remember the plane breaking in half overhead like it was yesterday. Frank says he sounds nostalgic. “Maybe I am,” Ben says. Frank says he was supposed to be flying 815 but he overslept that day (Wow, that’s the reason? I think somebody owes Mrs. Captain Seth Norris a big fat apology).

He wonders how different his life would have been if his alarm had gone off. “How different would it have been,” Ben asks? “The island still got you in the end, didn’t it?”

GRAVE MATTER
Right about that time, Ilana shoves her rifle in Ben’s face and marches him around the bend to the castaway’s cemetery, where she puts a makeshift clamp on his leg, ties it to a tree and forces him to dig his own grave. That’s never fun. Under her watchful eye, he doesn’t have much choice. When Miles walks by later on, Ben asks him if he’s still interested in the $3.2 million he tried to extort not so long ago. He says that if Miles lets him loose, he can get off the island, where he has “a vast network of people and resources that will get you that money.”

(This goes back to my question from last year about what seemed like a whole group of off-island Others like Jill the butcher, who helped Ben out in his efforts to reassemble the Oceanic Six.. Are these people like some kind of Illuminati? I doubt we’ll learn more about them, but that will always be one of the minor mysteries that rattle around in the recesses of my brain.)

Miles says he doesn’t need the money, since they’re standing steps away from a couple named Nikki and Paulo who were buried alive with $8 million in diamonds. Ha! So Damon and Carlton found a way to make Nikki and Paulo relevant after all! Ben says that Ilana is going to kill him for killing Jacob, who didn’t care about dying anyway. But Miles corrects him. “No, he cared. Right up until the second the knife went through his heart, he was hoping he was wrong about you. I guess he wasn’t.”

As Ben nearly completes digging, he hears the Smoke Monster – who must be quieter than usual, as the noise doesn’t attract Ilana, who’s maybe a half-yard away. Staying out of her sight, Man in Locke asks what Ben is doing. Ben fills him in on what’s about to go down, describing Ilana as Jacob’s bodyguard. Man in Locke used the same term back at the statue, when Bram and his companions came into the chamber. I thought he was being facetious, but now I wonder if that’s what it boils down to. Are Ilana and her people essentially Jacob’s Secret Service?

Man in Locke explains that despite Ben’s assumptions, he doesn’t want him dead. He even went back to the statue to find him. He says that he’s gathering a group of people to leave island for good. “But once we’re gone, someone’s gonna need to be in charge of the island.” But why is that? He told Sawyer that the island didn’t need protecting. Maybe we can mince words and say that being in charge of the island doesn’t equal protecting it, but to me the concepts seem interchangeable.

“Me?” Ben asks? Man in Locke says he can’t think of anyone better. With a little Jedi Mind Trick, he undoes Ben’s leg brace and says he and his group will be on Hydra Island. Ben says Ilana will follow him, but Man in Locke tells him there’s a rifle leaning against a tree stump in a clearing 200 yards away. If he runs, he can get drop on her.

“See you soon, Ben” he says and walks away. Why does he leave? Why not just kill Ilana? Is it that he wants Ben to act for himself? To make the choice to come with him?

Ben looks toward Ilana. She looks back at him. And then he runs. She pursues him, but he makes it to the clearing in time and aims the rifle at her. She puts hers down, and for a moment they just stand there until finally a look of heartbreak and defeat settles on her face, as if she wants to die. The exchange that follows is a powerful one.

Emotional stuff. I just might have gotten a little misty-eyed. Hey, wouldn’t be the first time Lost has moved me to tears. When he says Locke is the only one that will have him? Wow. If they gave Emmy’s for single line readings, Michael Emerson would be a frontrunner for that one. Ben is usually lying about something, but this is one of the cases where he appears to be telling the truth. The raw honestly is something I don’t think even Ben could fake. But the way he talks about choosing the island over Alex seemed inaccurate. Was it really a choice so much as a leap of faith? When Keamy held Alex at gunpoint, Ben seemed to think he was bluffing. He called the bluff and lost, uttering in disbelief, “He changed the rules.” “He” meaning Widmore. Ben didn’t think Alex would be killed, at least according to how it was presented to us. Just something to chew on…

So Ilana walks away and leaves Ben to make his choice. And just as he did in SidewaysLand, just as I’ve said he would all along when the time came, Benjamin Linus makes the right decision. He always claimed, cryptically, that he was one of the good guys. Now he might actually be living up to it.

Unless of course Jacob is the bad guy, Man in Black is the good guy and the whole world is wild at heart and weird on top. Cue Chris Isaak…

DOWN PERISCOPE
Ben walks up to Sun and asks if he can help her as she hangs a tarp over a tent. The look of “are you for real?” surprise on her face is comical, and Frank and Miles also look surprised to see that he and Ilana have made peace. Everyone takes refuge in solitude. Frank sits by a newly lit fire. Ilana clutches the sack of ashes. Miles sit alone admiring a small diamond between his fingers. Looks like he did partially dig up Nikki and Paulo. Damn, they couldn’t have smelled too good. I wonder how things will play out for Miles. He’s always been motivated by greed, but what role does he have to play? Is there a redemption arc for him? Will his greed be his undoing, or is it the reward he’ll get for the difficult life he’s endured?

As they each have their moment, Jack, Hurley and Richard come around the corner, making for a beach reunion scene that recalls the old days – Michael and Jin returning after the raft incident, Jack returning after his stint with The Others…it’s nice that the writers have been able to tell the story at this season’s level of required intricacy, dealing with all there is to deal with, while still invoking the simple pleasures of earlier seasons. As the two groups reconnect, Jack looks toward Ben, who stands meekly off to the side. I actually feel bad for him.

But then we get the feeling they are all being watched from afar. A periscope pops out of water and spies them. We see a submarine below the surface, and the officer inside says, “Sir, there are people on the beach. Should we stop?”

And there, seated next to him and looking at a laptop, is Charles Widmore. “No,” he says. “Proceed as planned.”

Huh?!? How did Widmore finally get back to the island? We know he was keeping tabs on the whereabouts of the Oceanic Six. Is that why he helped Locke find them all? Did he have them followed to The Lamp Post, Eloise Hawking’s holy Dharma station? He was in Los Angeles last time we saw him, outside the hospital where Desmond was recovering from a gunshot wound inflicted by Ben.  He spoke to Eloise, who slapped him when he said that Faraday was his son too, so I don’t think she was inviting him back to the hatch for tea and a shag. Yet I’ve long wondered how he could have spent 20 years desperately trying to find the island again when his ex-special ladyfriend, whose whereabouts he’s always known, held the keys to the kingdom. So what is he doing there? What plan is he proceeding with?

LOOSE ENDS/FOOD FOR THOUGHT
-Only one comment here this time. Many fans have speculated that the final scene of Lost will echo the opening scene of Season Five’s finale, in which we first met Jacob and the Man in Black. The assumption is that the roles will of course be re-cast, with Locke as the Man in Black and…who as Jacob? Some think Jack. Some think Ben. And maybe those opinions have changed in light of some of the things we’ve learned so far this season. I’m still thinking that Ben is not going to survive whatever is coming. He seems to have chosen the right side, but if there is redemption to be had for Ben, I believe it will involve a noble sacrifice. Not that it couldn’t work out that he remains eternally stuck on the island, playing out the Jacob/Man in Black drama; I suppose there might be a poetic justice to that. And what about Jack? To have Jack and Locke transfer their dichotomy as Man of Science/Man of Faith to Man of Free Will/Man of Fate offers some poetic justice of its own. But if Jack survives, isn’t he owed a chance at a happy life back home? I think so. But maybe Jack is a tragic hero, destined to remain on the Island forever. And perhaps his path toward staying would somehow clear the way for everyone else who’s still alive to leave once and for all – allowing him to fulfill his longtime promise to get everyone off the island. Remember that when he and Ben were off-island, attempting to reunite the Oceanic Six for a return trip, Ben told him to pack a suitcase, saying “If there’s anything in this life you want, pack it in there. Because you’re never coming back.” Not that Ben knew at the time what would happen once they got back to the island. I think he had a very different plan. Another thing to remember about Jack, even though it’s ancient history: the creators of the show originally intended for him to die three-quarters of the way through the very first episode. Maybe they want to come full circle and finish that thought.

Anyway, this whole tangent is based on the idea of the final scene being a take on the Jacob/Man in Black beach scene, so it doesn’t really matter. But it’s fun to speculate…

-A friend of mine sent me this today. This artist applies Simpsons style to all kinds of other pop culture material. I recommend checking out his blog for a larger picture of this and to see his other work. Fun stuff…

LINE OF THE NIGHT
“If you change your mind I’ll be like a mile away.” – Hurley

Tonight’s Episode: Recon