Lower Decks

Two of my favorite characters on this show are Ben and Richard.  I’ve been fascinated by Ben’s character from the moment we met him as “Henry Gale” and I have the strong belief that Michael Emerson is easily the best actor on the show (and I think all of them are pretty solid).  Richard is simply an amazing character, and it seems like we learn something amazing about him every time he’s on screen.  So you’ll imagine my dismay when both characters were in mortal danger about halfway through the episode.

One of the themes of the show has always been faith – both finding it and losing it.  Locke was the primary example of this – in all his flashbacks, he continually finds ways to doubt his own faith from the tragedy with his father to his disastrous relationship with Helen.  Then he arrives at the Island, experiences the miraculous healing of his spine, and his faith is immediately restored.  The discovery of the Hatch led to an increase in his faith that he was brought to the Island to save the world, but Henry Gale helps erode that faith until he’s broken by the season two premiere.  That faith is eventually restored to the point that John is willing to sacrifice himself for the Island, only to be shown that the Island doesn’t really care about him after his time as Jeremy Bentham.

But Locke isn’t the only one who’s had faith issues.  Jack, recently, has gone from “man of science” to near-zealot last year – giving Locke’s corpse his father’s shoes and rambling on about his destiny when it came to Faraday’s plan to detonate the hydrogen bomb.  When the plan didn’t work, Jack lost his faith again, only to be restored again here (more on that later).

Ben’s crisis of faith in the episode deals with the fact that no one seems to want him.  His life has been a mess from the start, with his father openly blaming him for the death of his mother.  Like Locke, the Island convinces a young Ben that it cares, and Ben is installed as the leader of the Others.

But in the last few years, Ben learns he had a deadly tumor, has lost all his power, watched his daughter die in front of him, was manipulated into killing his spiritual leader, and has been physically beaten on more occasions than I can count.  It’s safe to say that Ben’s faith has been shaken.

The problem now is that no one wants anything to do with poor Ben.  The Monster simply used him to kill Jacob, and now that he’s with Ilana and company, he was forced to admit to the murders of Locke and Jacob.  Since Jacob was a father figure to Ilana, she literally forces him to dig his own grave before she kills him.

Before she can, though, the Monster saves him with the promise that he can rule the Island once LockeMonster and his crew have left.  Since power is the only thing that seems to interest Ben, it almost works.  Ben is released from his shackles, and he escapes into the jungle.  And when he finds a gun left behind by the Monster, he has the opportunity to kill Ilana.

But at the end of the day, Ben simply says that he wants to feel wanted by someone.  His father didn’t want him.  The Island didn’t want him.  The Monster didn’t want him.  The Others didn’t want him.  Granted, a lot of those things were his own doing, but it’s still a pretty depressing idea.

And so, for now, Ben decided to turn down the Monster’s offer and go with Ilana, who decided to forgive Ben for the murder of Jacob.

Will Ben be tempted again by the dark side?  Will he act as a double agent for the Monster in hopes of getting some kind of leverage to make sure the Monster carries through with his promise of power?  Or has Ben finally turned a corner after hitting rock bottom?  Is there a chance that Benjamin Linus could, after all these years, end the series as a good guy?

I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

The other character with a crisis of faith is Richard.  Despite being added to the main cast this season, we haven’t really seen much of Richard this year.  He was attacked by the Monster in the premiere before being released, and Richard has been running around in the jungle ever since.

And when he stumbles upon Hurley and Jack in the jungle, he decides to take them to the Black Rock because he needs their help to die.  For the first time, the show actually tells us that Jacob granted him the gift of immortality when Richard tells Jack that he cannot kill himself. 

We also get confirmation that Richard came to the Island on the Black Rock, which explains the “chains” comment that the Monster said in this season’s premiere.  It seems that Richard was a slave on the Black Rock, although we don’t know why Jacob chose Richard for his job.  I’m really hoping we still get some kind of Richard flashback because it’d really be something cool.

But while Richard can’t kill himself,  it seems that Richard can be killed if someone else does it.  So he needs Jack to light the fuse on dynamite to kill Richard and put him out of his misery.

So why is Richard willing to die all of the sudden?  Richard says that he’s spent his entire life following Jacob, and he believes it was all for a lie.  Seeing Jacob die, the Monster take power, and the Temple ransacked was apparently too much for Richard, who appears to believe that the Monster is going to win in the end.  And because of that, he decides that there’s nothing else to do but die.

And, in the end, he’s saved by Jack.  Jack has been rudderless since he learned that the H-bomb plan failed, but it was seemingly restored a couple episode again when he saw his name on Jacob’s lighthouse.  Jacob told Hurley that he needed to look out on the ocean for a while, and that apparently worked.

Because Jack agrees to light the fuse, but he also agrees to sit with Richard to see if anything happens.  Because Jack expects to survive the experience, and he helps Richard see that, even after Jacob’s death, they’re both still significant figures on the Island.

So Richard and Jack both return to the beach, faith restored, and meet up with Hurley, Sun, Lapidus, Ilana, Miles, and Ben at the beach.  And it seems like the two groups are now set, with every major character either with Jacob’s group or the Monster’s group.

Elsewhere on the Island, we get an interesting connection to Nikki and Paolo.  While he’s digging his own grave, Ben offers Miles a bribe to let him go – it almost worked when Miles first arrived so it was worth a shot, huh?

Miles, however, turns down the bribe when he learns about the diamonds that Nikki and Paolo were buried with.  Later in the episode, Miles is seen holding a diamond, meaning that Miles actually dug down to get them at some point.  It’s an interesting reference to that story, and it goes to show you that, while the fans never liked them, the writers still appreciate the value of Nikki and Paolo.

The episode ends with a revelation that, I imagine, was supposed to be a big surprise.  It was ruined for me, though, when the opening credits announced that Alan Dale was guest starring.  It also was spoiled by the episode information provided by my local cable carrier.

I realize that these actors need to be paid, but as soon as I saw Dale’s name in the credits, I was immediately looking for him in the episode.  I figured there was a chance that he could appear in the flash-sideways (maybe as the principal), but as soon as that storyline wrapped up, I knew we’d see Widmore show back up on the Island.

I realize it wasn’t really a spoiler, but can’t they keep his name a secret?  I know they’ve done so in a couple of Walt’s surprise appearances, and it would’ve been much more of a surprise if I hadn’t been looking out for him.

That being said, it’s really interesting that Widmore is back.  Does that mean that he’s the man that Jacob wanted to bring back to the Island?  I assumed that it was Desmond, but if it’s Widmore, that means that there’s a chance that Widmore could be a good guy.  Or, at the very least, on Jacob’s side.  Why else would Jacob want him brought back to the Island?

On the other hand, I watched the “enhanced” episode of “Sundown”, and the pop-ups made a reference to a Widmore line from “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham.”  He was talking to Locke about returning to the Island, and he referenced the “war” that was coming.  And he told John that if he (John) didn’t return to the Island, the “wrong side” was going to win the war.

John returning to the Island allowed the Monster to take Locke’s form.  Which allowed for Jacob to be killed and allowed the Monster to ransack the Temple.  Just like Christian Shephard guiding Locke to his death (and presumably working for the Monster, if not the Monster himself), it all seemed to be part of the Monster’s plan.

Of course, if the whole thing (including Locke and Jacob dying) is part of Jacob’s plan, it makes things more interesting.  But, as of now, we don’t know who Widmore is working for.  Either way, it’s odd to think he might be good.

As far as the flash-sideways goes, I found it to be the most interesting one yet.  I thought the David bombshell was the most interesting nugget, but this whole story just felt right.  Ben manipulated and planned his way to power, just like on the Island, and it felt just the way I would imagine it would work in this parallel universe.  Working with Arzt and working with Alex worked perfectly, just like you’d expect with LOST destiny.

But there were also nice little differences.  The main one, obviously, is Ben deciding to save Alex instead of fighting for his power.  Ben admits to Ilana that he chose his power over Alex in the “main” universe, and he takes the other path this episode.  There was also the fact that Ben was taking care of his father (more on that in a minute).

So what caused these changes?  According to the new timeline, Ben still would’ve been shot by Sayid and brought to the Others by Kate.  And, according to Richard, he still would’ve been “changed” by Jacob’s healing pool.

So was the Island simply a bad influence on Ben?  Did all the power of leading the Others drive him to be the man we know on the Island?  Because Ben even found a way to forgive his father, who he hated even before he discovered the Hostiles.  I’d be interested to see what happened after the bomb.

Which is another revelation.  Roger Linus surviving proves that everyone on the Island wasn’t killed by the explosion of the hydrogen bomb.  And it proves that the Island didn’t sink immediately.

Which leads to the question of what happened to the Island.  Why did it sink?  Who got off, and who died with it?  Did flash-sideways Widmore survive?  Flash-sideways baby Daniel?  Flash-sideways Hawking?  Flash-sideways Richard?

All interesting questions that have to be answered.

All in all, I just really liked what they did with the flash-sideways, and it was just really nice to see the beautiful Tania Raymonde (Alex) return again.  She and Michael Emerson have great chemistry.

So another great episode, and now we have less than ten episodes until the series finale.  This season is moving quickly, and before we know it, there won’t be any more LOST.  Savor it while you can.