Line of the night – “As long as the dead guy says there’s a reason, then everything should be just peachy!” – Frank Lapidas
We are dealing with a Benjamin Linus episode this week, which means lots of dialogue and questions posed with obscure or no answers. I hate that about him. We begin with Prince Charming riding through the forest to the meet his fair maiden, only in this fairy tale Prince Charming is Charles Widmore (1977) and his fair maiden is the ageless Richard Alpert. “You brought one of them here?” Richard explains that he’s ‘the boy’, and ‘Jacob wanted it done, the island chooses who the island choose.”
A much younger Charles Widmore enters the tent and I am waiting for him to present the sword Narsil, the sword that cut the Ring from Sauron's finger, to Aragorn. Sorry the flaming fire pit and tent linens make this scene look a lot more like Lord of the Rings than tropical island. Widmore learns that Ben wants to be one of them and introduces himself. “I’m Charles…Charles Widmore.”
Whoosh and we bear witness to John Locke watching over Ben as he wakes up. Ben opens his eyes, craps his pants, and says, “My god…your alive, I knew this would happen!” To which John responds, “If you knew this would happen, why do you seem surprised to see me?” Great question J-lo. Ben explains that he wants to get to the mainland to be judged. “We don’t have a word for it, but I believe you called it…the monster!” Awesome.
Ben goes down to the beach and un-necessarily strikes up conversation with Jordin Sparks and her crew. “What’s in the crate?” Seems like Benry is feeling out these crash survivors and also seems quite suspicious. Caesar questions Ben and brilliantly Ben turns it back on John by saying that he didn’t remember John on the plane. Maybe he wasn’t even on the plane and he came from the island??? This gets Caesar’s attention and he shows off his…sing it with me…‘sawed off shotgun…hand on the pump’.
Whoosh and we see Ben in the bushes with a teenage boy. “Shut up and stay here Ethan!” So it would appear that Ben has already completed the purge and Ethan is now an ‘other’. They are at a beach camp and this has to be Danielle’s base, right? Right. Ben enters the tent and a little baby girl begins to cry. Holy crap, Ben didn’t know there was going to be a child involved!? First off, Kudos to Danielle Rousseau for delivering a baby by herself and being able cut the umbilical cord, etc. all by herself. I find that hard to believe, but this is LOST for crying out loud. “If you want your child to live, every time you hear whispers you run the other way.” So we finally find out how Ben took Alex. His purpose was to exterminate Danielle and instead walked away unintentionally with a daughter.
Back to the Zoo island (smaller island) in 2007 and Ben is searching for something in an office. He finds a picture of Alex and him. Locke enters and wants to talk about the elephant in the room. Ben bluntly says that the only way to bring everyone back to the island was to kill John and Ben convinces John that he knew it too, so that’s why he was committing suicide. Ben says, “I didn’t have time to talk you back into killing yourself.” So that’s why he murdered John once he got the information he needed. He did it in the best interest of the island. Ben and John head down to the canoe’s and Caesar tries to stop them. Ben pulls a fast one, and swipes the sawed off shotgun from Caesar, “Are you looking for this!” BAM – shot in the chest. “Consider that my apology.”
Whoosh to the past and Ben enters the “others” camp with Baby Alex in tote. This would be around 1988 (because that is when Danielle arrived on the island 9 months pregnant). Widmore still wants Ben to kill the baby. “Every decision I’ve made has been about protecting this island.” Ben won’t kill Alex, and Charles wont’ do it either so he walks away. At this point I am searching the screen for Penny, but I don’t’ see her anywhere.
Back to 2007 and John / Ben have arrived on the mainland and are making there way to the barracks. John asks, “You killed all the Dharma folks, and then moved your people into their homes, how come?” OK – now we are getting somewhere, but he’s asking the question to Ben, so I shouldn’t get my hopes up. Ben’s response, “Do you disapprove?” Weak sauce. A light comes on in Ben’s old house and he goes to check it out.
Ben is at the door of Alex’s old room. So who’s gonna be inside? I am guessing Alex’s ghost or Christian. Survey says…Sun. Ben looks dumbfounded, and Frank enters the room. They show Ben the picture from 1977 and his eyes are wide open again. He can’t believe that their friends were in the Dharma Initiative. They are there to wait for John Locke but Sun and Frank find that simply ridiculous because John Locke is dead. Sun looks out the window and there’s John waving to her. That was good. John explains how he is alive, but I am not so sure he explained the time traveling flashes that happened to them when they first left the island. Locke seems to think that he can help Sun find Jin. He has some ideas, but first Ben has to take care of some unfinished business. He opens the secret door and goes through the ancient door to the secret passage. Once inside, Ben crawls through a small opening into a cavern with a pool of muddy water. He sticks his hand inside and reaches around for something. At this point, I laughed out loud and imagined Ben pulling a quarter out of the water and saying, “Yeah, but you know what? This one, this one right here, this was my dream, my wish. And it didn't come true. So I'm taking it back. I'm taking them all back.” But instead Ben turns a lever and the muddy water goes down an earthy drain. “I’ll be outside.”
Whoosh and Ben is pushing little Alex (probably around 5 to 6 years old) on the Dharma swings. So figure this is the early 1990’s. Charles is being escorted towards the sub in handcuffs. “You brought this on yourself Charles, you broke the rules. You left the island regularly, and had a daughter with an outsider!” To which Charles says, “What makes you think you can take what’s mine? I’ll be seeing you boy!”
Whoosh and Ben finds Sun sitting on the porch by herself. Sun still can’t believe that John was dead. Now Ben says, “Trust me, I’m sure” which really means, “Uhhh I killed him myself, so don’t question it anymore.” “Dead is dead and watching John Locke walking around this island scares the living hell out of me.” Smokey still has not showed up, and Locke decides that they’ll go to Smokey.
Back from commercial and we see a Flashmiddle of Ben contacting Charles Widmore. “Hi Charles, it’s Ben….what’s shaking? Well I am going back to the island today! Yippee!” – in an energetic tone. Charles explains that the island won’t let you just ‘go back’, he’s been trying for 20 years. (Now that doesn’t make sense because if he were trying to get back to the island for 20 years, then that would have put us at 1987 before Danielle ever landed on the island!) Ben hangs up the phone on Charles and makes his move to kill Penny Widmore. Ben shoots Desmond in the chest (but it ricochets off of the groceries. Ben is about to the pull the trigger when little Charlie comes out of the ship’s cabin. Ben wasn’t expecting this and he gets flustered. Then BAMMM, Desmond comes to the rescue and beats the living piss out of Benry. I think we all just did a collective, “Hell yeah!”
Whoosh and Frank Lapidas just made it back to the zoo island. Jordin Sparks aka Ilana is getting ready to take off for the main land. She asks Frank, “What lies in the shadow of the statue?” Now at this point I am convinced that not only is Ilana working for Charles Widmore, but she also had a number of accomplices on the plane with her. I guess this is a riddle for anyone that is friendly to Widmore.
Back on the mainland, Ben and Locke enter underneath the wall of the temple. Ben falls through a floor into an ancient alter room. Give Ben a Fedora hat, a whip and a little asian sidekick and he might as well be Indiana Jones. Smokey creeps out of the holes of the alter as if someone tore open the side of an Etch-A-Sketch and dumped out all the magnetic dust. Ben is encircled by Smokey and has the past events of his life involving Alex flash before his eyes. Smokey goes back into the alter and HOLY CRAP IT”S ALEX!! Ben apologizes, “I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault.” Alex goes Lara Croft on him and slams Benry into the nearest temple footing. She warns Ben that she knows he is planning to kill John Locke but, “If you so much as touch him, I will hunt you down and destroy you!” Ben is to listen to every word Locke says, and follow his every move.
Alex disappears and Ben makes his way back to the entrance where John his waiting with a rope to pull him up. “So, what happened?”
Ben’s last response of the night, “It let me live!’ BAMM END CREDITS.
So I am still stuck on the fact that Ben, John and Sun are on the mainland in 2007, yet our other Sixer friends are trapped in the same location, just in 1977? I am still waiting of one of the 1977 Sixers to show up and really stir things up for John.
No comments:
Post a Comment