Lost: I’m sure the monster will understand

Episodes like this one are what make this show so fantastic.

Lost has finally fulfilled its initial promise. The five years of uneven episodes bolstered by strong acting, characters, and behind-the-scenes plotting have finally paid off. Now, we’re seeing what it boils down to: That a group of people crash-landed on an island that doesn’t care that much about them. They’ve entered into a world that’s existed for centuries or millennia or whatever. Most of them aren’t even really relevant to the show’s throughline, for all their grandstanding. But they’re doing the best they can with the circumstances they’ve been given. And in the meantime, there are these other people who do matter. And finally, all those people, the important ones and the just-along-for-the-ride folks, are mixed up together in a situation that makes no sense at all, except that it does, and man, is it cool to watch.

Much has been said over the years about the Lost writers having no idea what they’re doing or where they’re going with the island’s mysteries, and it’s been clear for a while that that’s no longer the case, but now I’m not convinced it was ever all that true. I have no idea if they planned any of this stuff back in the day (and by “the day” I mean season 2, which is when the show really got going, hype aside) or if they just made it up later to fit the scenario they’d already created, but either way, I think it’s awesome how they strung together so many bits and pieces from so many long-ago episodes spread out over five years and created such a coherent, and fun to watch, history for this island. Did the writers, like, have an off-site retreat a while back and come up with this entire weirdo universe? Because right now, it’s looking like everything has indeed been meticulously planned, from the careful scenery in every time-jump in this season’s early episodes (indicating that every movement took the travelers to a specific time in the island’s past or future, and that the writers knew exactly what those times were), to the Claire flashback in season 2 that revealed what happened when Ethan kidnapped her and gave us our first glimpse into the inner workings of the Others.

This week, they were able to tie together so many things so seamlessly: the fact that Charles Widmore had a daughter who didn’t even know about the island, the reason Ben didn’t kill Rousseau, the excuses for Charles’ exile, the background on Alex’s death, and, oh yeah, that whole thing where Ben killed Locke. And probably a bunch of other things that I’m forgetting.

So all of that, about the impressive weaving of storylines, is a big part of what made this episode so awesome. But then there’s also the fact that Ben is an amazing character. His prominence in the show now almost makes up for all those seasons when we kept having to watch Jack blather on self-righteously episode after episode.

For the record, I still can’t stand Locke though. On top of everything else, he’s just so snotty.

The basics:

It’s a Ben episode. Our “present” story (2007 this week) follows Ben and Locke, with a side of Sun and Frank, as they move to the main island. Sun wants to find Jin, and Locke promises he can help her with that, but he doesn’t explain how, because Locke is annoying. Ben wants to go be “judged” for having caused Alex’s death last season. Judgment, in this instance, does not involve getting tattoos, like it did that time Juliet went on trial in season 3 (probably because that only happened to justify the bizarre flashback of Jack getting a tattoo from a Tahitian hooker, or whatever that episode was about). Instead, Ben has to crawl under the temple and be assessed by the smoke monster (with help from Locke, who suddenly knows everything about what’s happening on the island, which irritates Ben a lot). The monster doesn’t kill Ben, but it does manifest in the form of Alex (or maybe it was Jacob taking Alex’s form, who knows). “Alex” orders Ben to obey Locke’s every command from now on. Ben looks very unhappy about that.

This week’s flashbacks give us some glimpses into Ben’s relationships with Charles Widmore and Alex. We see Lil’ Ben in the Others’ camp, immediately following his bullet extraction in the temple (man, I find myself writing a lot of weird sentences when reviewing this show). Charles is grudgingly accepting of Ben’s presence and agrees to let him join the Others. Then, we see a young adult Ben with hilarious hair living with the Others (and a preteen Ethan) under Charles’ rule. Ben defies Charles’ order to off Rousseau by kidnapping/adopting Alex and letting Rousseau live. Then we see Ben a few years later, bidding farewell to the newly exiled Charles (whose crimes include fathering Penny, since Penny’s mother is an “outsider”). Then, we find out why Ben was so beat-up looking when he got on the Ajira Airways plane: He got himself beaten up. Ben somehow found out where Desmond, Penny and Charlie were docked, and he went to kill Penny as retaliation against Widmore for Alex’s death. He shot at Desmond (who was apparently protected by a bag of groceries), but wavered at shooting Penny when he saw little Charlie. Then Desmond jumped on him, beat him up, and threw Ben into the water. I love Desmond so much.

Also, the survivors of the Ajira Airways flight are finally doing something. Ilana and some dudes have found guns and announced that they’re in charge. Then Ilana smacks Frank and tells one of her dudes that it’s time to go, and that Frank is coming with them.

The good:

• It’s hard to pick out good individual scenes when the episode overall is so strong. But the flashback to Ben’s attempted assault on the Desmond family was really well done.
• Ben killed Caesar! I did not see that coming at all and literally sat up and said, “Whoa.” It wasn’t like when the Red Shirt got killed – that guy was obviously expendable. Whereas it seriously looked like the writers were setting Caesar up for something. Something, I mean, other than getting shot in the chest by Ben.
• Desmond and Penny and Charlie are OK! Well, probably. I was worried that we’d lost at least one of them, since it had been so long. But I think they all survived Ben’s bout of craziness.
• To add to the Ben-is-a-complicated-character file: Ben, like Kate, apparently has a soft spot for children in general due to having adopted/stolen an infant and raised her as his own.
• Ilana is cool again!

The bad:

• I didn’t care for the climax, in which the smoke monster showed Ben a clip show of Alex’s life and death. It felt too conventional for this season. Michael Emerson mostly saved it, though, as he often does.
• The writers are getting increasingly creative about how the flashbacks tie in to the main story. The justification for showing Ben’s attack on Penny, for example, is that its motive stemmed from Alex’s death. Which is a stretch. (This isn’t really all that bad a thing, but this episode was awesome and I don’t think it’s proper to have a list of bullet points with only one bullet in it.)

The stuff that will matter next week:

• Ilana and her dudes are hauling “some stuff” in a big crate with poles, Ark of the Covenant-style. This could just be them commandeering all the food and supplies, like Sawyer did once upon a time, or it could be something tied in to Ilana’s apparent knowledge of the island’s true nature. I’m hoping for the latter.
• Ben tells Locke he knew bringing him back to the island would bring him back to life. Then Ben tells Sun he had no idea that Locke would be resurrected and that it has scared him silly. We don’t know which of them he lied to, but I’m betting on Locke.
• Locke apparently thinks he knows the secret to time-travel, since he’s so sure he can reunite Sun with Jin. My guess is that he’s going to go back to the Orchid and try to turn the wheel again, but I suspect if that would’ve worked, Daniel would’ve already tried it. But whatever. I should never presume to know more than the all-knowing, all-boring Locke.
• We get to see Ben sneaking around through lots of secret passageways, including one leading from the closet of his old house in the barracks into an underground monster-summoning lair. Did that secret passage exist in the Dharma days? If so, who lived in that house then? Maybe Horace. I didn’t get the impression Horace was all that in-the-know about the island, though. But then, Ben didn’t seem all that significant either when he first showed up.
• When Ben goes under the temple, he sees a bunch of Egyptian-style hieroglyphics (in a room that reminded me a lot of those low-budget “temples” they used to have all the time on Angel, although it was better lit here. I blame the WB). Also, Ilana asks Frank, right before she whacks him on the head, a code question: “What lies in the shadow of the statue?” She’s presumably referring to the four-toed statue of Horus that we’ve seen in other eps. Granted, all this Egypt stuff probably won’t actually matter next week, since next week’s ep looks to be all about Miles (yay!), but I’m sure we’ll come back to it down the road. Maybe next season will be set in 2000 B.C.E.

Season 5, Episode 12: Dead Is Dead (originally aired April 8, 2009)

For another take on this episode, check out Trial By Smokey by J.B. Perlow.

For more on Lost, click here.

Wednesdays, 9/8c on ABC

Photographs courtesy of ABC