Tangled Up In Wires

Even though he spent most of the episode facing the killing end of an angry Ilana’s rifle, I was never too worried about the safety of my favorite character Ben. Why? Because the guy who narrates the “Next Week on Lost” preview said Ben would die and, if we learned one thing this season, that guy is a huge liar. Seriously, he is a menace that needs to be stopped. But I was never gladder to see him be wrong than this week, which saw Ben make his first steps towards a kind of redemption and release, even as we got a glimpse into an AlternaBen who didn’t really need either.

The episode started with Ben, on the island, running away from crazy Sayid and the Temple mayhem (new band name?) only to run back into Ilana and the gang. It turns out that Ilana doesn’t really believe Ben about the whole Smokey killing Jacob thing (maybe she knows that’s against the rules), and she happens to have a bag of his ashes handy and a ghost whisperer in the group to talk to it. Miles does his thing and reveals to the group that Ben killed Jacob. Awkward!

Meanwhile, AlternaBen teaches his students about a power-hungry leader exiled to an island and removed from his position of leadership, doomed to live out his days a pawn in issues too big for him to understand: Napoleon Bonaparte. After class, the obnoxious, douchey principal tells Ben that he needs to skip History Club and run Detention because of cutbacks and staff shortages and stuff. How do we know he’s an obnoxious douche? Because he’s played by 1980s Obnoxious Douche Hall of Famer William Atherton (its true…this man has no dick). AlternaBen is fed-up with this nonsense and, egged on by his friend Dr. Arzt(!) and the new bald substitute, he starts to think that maybe things would be better if he were in charge.

Meanwhile, Hurley and Jack are trying to get back to the Temple (well, Jack is…Hurley’s trying to keep them as far away from there as possible) when they run into Richard Alpert. More on that later.

Team Ilana heads back to the beach and starts making a fire and stuff. Ben looks through some of Sawyer’s collected reading materials and waxes nostalgic with Lapidus about the crash of 815 (a plane that, longtime viewers will recall, Lapidus was supposed to fly), until Ilana comes and points a gun at him. Then she hauls Ben over the grave yard and orders him to dig his own grave.

AlternaBen, like Locke, has a much better relationship with his father (“much better” being defined here as “not homicidal”) and lives with him as his caretaker. A few important things to note in this scene (which was also great, just for seeing Michael Emerson play the kinder, gentler Ben):

1. This episode was directed by Mario Van Peebles!

2. Roger Linus notes “who knows what you might have become” if they had stayed with the Dharma Intiative (in keeping with this episode’s motif of hitting every point a little too hard).

3. Unless my memory is going, we last saw Roger Linus shooting at Jack and Sayid during “The Incident,” after the sub had left the island. How could he have survived the bomb? He never got on the sub right?

4. One of his pupils is Alex Rousseau!

Alex is in History Club and was disappointed it was canceled, so Ben agrees to come in early to help her prep for the AP exam. When he does, Alex gives Ben some gossip about the Principal: he and the Nurse are carrying on a torrid affair on the high school premises. Ben gets Arzt to hack into the Principal’s e-mail account and getting hard evidence. Ben confronts the Principal and tries to blackmail him into resigning and recommending Ben take over. The Principal counters by saying he’ll do all that, but he’ll also write Alex a lousy recommendation. Does Ben protect his (very) new-found power and authority by gambling with Alex’s future? Or will AlternaDoc Linus save Alex?

Meanwhile, on the island, Ben tries to bribe Miles into helping him, but Miles refuses (he doesn’t need the money now that he knows about Nikki and Paolo’s diamonds! awesome!). Feeling alone and helpless, Ben gets a visit from Smokey, who offers to let Ben join his crew and protect the island after he’s left…as long as he kills another threat for Smokey.

Ben makes his move, grabs the rifle Smokey left for him, and points it at Ilana. Then he begins to explain why he killed Jacob. And though it was a little too flat and on-the-nose as written, Michael Emerson really sold the hell out of it. As always, he found a way to take a character who has done terrible, terrible things, and make you feel for him. And it was a powerful contrast to see broken, on-island Ben reduced to his really sad admission to Ilana, while off the island, Ben put Alex’s well-being ahead of his own.

Meanwhile, in the most mindblowing part of this week’s show, Richard takes Jack and Hurley to the Black Rock(!) and goes inside because he wants to die (man, its been a dark couple episodes). He’s been touched by Jacob, which is more of a curse than a blessing, and he can’t kill himself, but apparently he can be blown up by the dynamite. He asks Jack to light it and Jack obliges, before sitting down for a little chat with Richard. Jack tells him that Jacob wanted him to see the lighthouse because he wanted Jack to know he was special. So, if Jack really is special, then the dynamite won’t go off. Jack’s gambit works (the fuse goes out at the last second) and Richard decides to follow Jack. Jack wants to go back to where it all began, so they head to the beach and reunite with everyone.

This week’s episode was packed with the emotional punch and mind-bending weirdness that I felt last week was missing (and it doesn’t hurt that there still hasn’t been a bad Ben episode). I do wish the writing had been a little less direct. Everything (from Ben’s lesson about Napoleon to his final speech to Ilana) was hammering away at the episode’s big themes about Ben’s moral choices and fate vs. destiny. But I’m just nitpicking at what was, by and large, an excellent episode. “Dr. Linus” may have been the most tragic interplay between the tortured characters on the island, and the lives they could have had.

And then we cut to Charles Widmore, sitting in a sub at the bottom of the ocean, watching our Team Jacob and moving to the other side of the island.

Jonah’s Score: 81

TUIW Grade: A-

Some Theorizing

-So, Widmore? It seemed that he wanted the sub to keep going, so I guess he’s meeting up with Smokey. He also looked a whole lot more evil than usual.

-Also, I think Jacob didn’t want Widmore to find the island, which is why he was so okay with Jack smashing the mirror.

-This episode pretty much all but told us that Richard came over on the Black Rock. And, in general, I loved the scenes with Jack/Hurley/Alpert; its been a while since we’ve had that much satisfying weirdness.

-I don’t know if saying the Losties are all better off without the island is exactly true, but they are all certainly less burdened and guilt-ridden people. Jack has Daddy Issues, but is able to overcome them with his son; Locke may still be paralyzed, but he is at peace with who he is; Sayid may still have been a torturer, but he’s been spending the rest of his life trying to make up for it. And here Ben is willing to put his own selfish desire for power aside to save Alex.

-Interesting that AlternaBen is a doctor, since part of what made 815 so interesting to Ben was the fact that there was a doctor on board.

-Smokey appears to be the ultimate manipulator in a show full of them. In “The Substitute,” he offered Sawyer the chance to be done with the island forever, last week, he offered Sayid the chance to see Nadia, and this week he offered Ben the chance to be the island’s protector. His ability to surmise what it is the Losties want and convince them that he’s able to give it to them is just an amped up version of what Ben and Sawyer have been doing all along.

-Where does William Atherton rank in the Random Lost Guest Star Pantheon? I’d put him below Jimmy Barrett and Oscar Winner Fisher Stevens, but above Paul Giamatti.

-This is very late, but Lennon: totally Kenny Powers’ brother from Eastbound and Down.