OK, so I’m seriously still reeling. Last night’s episode of LOST was simply the best this season. As Maria suspects, it’s only going to get better from here on in. Let’s debrief.
This week’s episode, titled “Dr. Linus” unsurprisingly followed Ben Linus through both the present timeline and the alternate one. In the alternate timeline, we learned previously, he’s working as a high school history teacher. In the present timeline he’s, well, himself. But despite being, literally, worlds apart, these two Bens are forced to make very important choices. Crucial choices.
Alternate Timeline
In the alternate timeline Ben teaches high school history. He’s good at his job but he’s clearly under-appreciated, and over-qualified for the work he does. He’s unsatisfied with the way the school is run and thinks, says, that he can do better. It’s incredible drama and symbolism; an awesome reflection of the island version of Ben, the ousted leader of the Others. Ben is also connected strongly to Alex Rousseau in this timeline. His adopted—or, stolen—daughter on the island is now one of his students in the alternate timeline. Alex comes to him for tutoring help and gives him some important information: that the principal, who’s job Ben is after, has been having an affair with the school’s nurse.
It’s with this information that Ben approaches the principal. He attempts blackmail, in all the true colours of the Ben we know and love (hate), but it back fires. Alex Rousseau needs a reference letter from the principal in order to get into college. She’ll not only not receive that letter, the principal tells Ben, but he’ll write the college and inform them not to accept her. This is Ben’s ultimatum: let his star student, his pride a joy, lose her chance at a future or get the position that he dreams of. Ultimately, Ben chooses not to go through with the blackmail, and the principal writes Alex a glowing review.
Back on the Island
Back on the island, things are moving speedily. We meet up with Hurley and Jack back in the jungle, on their way to the Temple. Hurley, knowing that something bad was happening there from his conversation with Jacob, tries to stall for time, but can’t persuade Jack to take the longer route. The pair bump into Richard, who seems to know what’s going on and who they decide to follow, but Richard is on his own mission. Interestingly enough, one of the popular theories of Richard’s arrival on the island was as a slave, on the Black Rock ship. This is the same ship which we see coming to the island when we first meet Jacob and his nemesis. This also explains the comment that Jacob’s nemesis made to Richard shortly after Jacob’s death. “Nice to see you out of those chains,” he said.
So it looks like Richard was indeed a slave on the ship when it crashed on the island because it’s here that he brings Jack and Hurley. It’s here that Richard has come to kill himself. He explains to Jack that Jacob has given him a special gift, because he touched him and that he cannot die. All this time, he says, he’s been serving Jacob; a man who said he had a plan. Richard is lost now, without Jacob, and feels like it was all for naught, but Jack isn’t convinced. In one of the most tense scenes on LOST, Richard and Jack sit face to face in the hold of the Black Rock as the fuse on a stick of dynamite slowly burns down. Richard, convinced that it will explode and kill them both, while Jack, assured that he’s there, on the island, for a reason. It was such an intense scene that you really didn’t know what would happen—are they going to kill of Jack?
The dynamite doesn’t explode though and Jack seems truly convinced, inspired, that he really is on the island to serve a purpose. It looks like Jacob’s plan—showing Jack the lighthouse, letting him know that he’d been watching him all along—really worked.
Back at the beach camp, Ilana, Sun, Miles, Frank and Ben are setting up camp. After having Miles “read” Jacob’s ashes, Ilana finds out that it was Ben who killed Jacob. Ilana explains to Ben that he has to die for what he did, and sets him about digging his own grave. But Jacob’s nemesis appears, explaining that he’ll take in Ben, and frees him from the chain Ilana secured around his ankle. When he has the chance, Ben takes off, with Ilana in hot pursuit. Tearing through the jungle Ben enters a clearing and finding a rifle left for him by Jacob’s nemesis, he turns to face Ilana. The two stand off and in perhaps one of the most dramatic, compelling moments in LOST history, Ben’s character comes to a head.
Ben begs to be left alone, to be let go. Ilana asks where he will go to which Ben replies that he’s leaving for Jacob’s nemesis, and the others that are with him. Why? Ilana asks. Ben tells her, because they’re the only ones that will have me, to which Ilana replies, “I’ll have you.”
The episode ends with Ben and Ilana returning to the beach. Jack, Richard and Hurley arriving there as well. And then, a submarine. In the last seconds of the episode we see inside a sub. It’s parascope, with cross-hairs, is pointing straight at Ben Linus on the beach. It’s pilot asks, “Should we proceed with the plan?” To which a voice replies in the affirmative. Then we see who the voice belongs to and, oh my gosh, it’s Charles Widmore.
Of course, we knew that Widmore knew where the island was: he sent his team of assassins before, on the freighter, to kill Ben. I guess it was only a matter of time before he tried it again.
Ben and Ben
I think that “Dr. Linus” was so incredible because it developed Ben’s character to such a point that he’s really reached his climax. If he dies in the next episode, which it looks like he may, he’ll die, I think, a completed man.
In both the alternate reality and the present timeline, Ben is faced with the same choice. In the alternate reality, he has to choose the fate of Alex Rousseau. Will he put his own ambitions and self-preservation aside and do right by her, or will he choose to take the principal’s job? Ultimately, he makes the right choice and Alex can go to college. In the present timeline, Ben already made this choice and it ended in Alex’s death. When the mercenaries, sent by Charles Widmore on the freighter, offered Ben a deal, he bluffed, said he didn’t care about Alex, and she was instantly, and shockingly killed. Ben admits, and has admitted in the past, that he made a grave mistake there, and wishes he could take that back. In the alternate reality, he does. He makes the right choice. These two Bens are the same person, in different situations, making very different choices. One is the right choice; the other, the wrong.
The Dharma Initiative
Also featuring in this episode is Roger Linus, Ben’s dad. In the alternate reality, Roger is an old man, living with Ben, and breathing with the help of oxygen. Roger laments Ben’s current position and says that maybe he could’ve made something of himself, maybe, if they had stayed with Dharma on the island. This tidbit of information is like a bombshell, really. Whatever happened to the island in this alternate reality, Ben and Roger were there, and then left. What does that mean? It means that the island existed, that Dharma existed, and that whatever Juliette did, it reset things. Remember, Ben and his dad were still on the island when the hydrogen bomb went off. If the alternate timeline is simply what would’ve happened if the bomb went off, like it did, then wouldn’t Ben and Roger be dead? The whole island under water?
Touched by Jacob
The idea of being touched by Jacob is interesting. Remember, we saw Sun and Jin, John, Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Sayid and maybe Hurley get touched by Jacob last season. If being touched by Jacob is, like Richard said, a gift, then what gift has he given to these survivors? It obviously isn’t immortality, like Richard’s received, because John died. So, is it something different? What if Jacob touching people brings them to the island, gives them a second chance to right wrongs, or to correct mistakes they’ve made. Does that make sense? The island is obviously a place all about choices, all about good and evil, right and wrong and Jacob clearly intervened in the lives of the survivors at crucial points in their lives, trying to steer them a certain way.
Jacob touched Sawyer’s life, and tried to steer him away from a life of vengence, avenging the death of his parents. He also touched Jack, trying to give him the confidence in himself that he needed, and reminding him not to listen to his father’s putdowns and lack of faith. Jacob intervened in Sun and Jin’s marriage, reminding them that it was sacred. He touched Kate’s life, telling her to stop stealing.
I originally thought that Jacob was trying to steer these survivors off course and away from the island, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Jacob knew that was in store for these people; maybe he knew Kate would continue in a life of crime, Sawyer in a life of vengance, and maybe his touch was a merciful act to bring them to the island to try and right these lives they were destined to lead. I don’t know.
Candidates for Jacob
We find out more, too, about the idea of candidates in this episode. The survivors, we learn, are candidates to replace Jacob. I thought this was the case and theorized in the past about Jacob and his nemesis looking for people to replace them. This is what’s going on in the cave and the lighthouse but what all does it really mean? I have no idea. What makes a candidate for Jacob, I don’t know either, and how does somebody uncandidate themselves? It seems that Ben, who was a candidate, was still a candidate right up until he killed Jacob. We know this because Jacob’s last thoughts were that he hoped he was wrong about Ben. Or, maybe Ben stopped being a candidate because the choices he made, but could become a candidate again by making a good choice, and not killing Jacob.
Back from the Dead
This review is getting huge but it’s because this episode packed so much in. The last thing I want to say is about the return of characters who were previously killed. I suspected something like this was going to take place when “The Lighthouse” took us back by the caves, and reminded us about Shannon. Last night’s episode only further convinced me. Now we’re back on the beach. We’re reminded of everyone who has died when Ben is forced to dig his own grave in the graveyard. We’re being set up, I think, in a none-too-subtle way, for the return of previous survivors. Whatever form it takes, I don’t know, but it seems to be leaning that way. I think people like Mr. Eko and Charlie, who died making good choices, still have an important role to play. If ever there were candidates to replace Jacob—a force for good on the island—its people like them.
LOST is absolutely heating up, and if last night’s episode is any indication of what we can expect next, then hang out. It’s about to get awesome.
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