Lost Rewatch On VHS: Dead is Dead

 

VHS Notes:  Not much to report that hasn’t been there the last few weeks. We see trailers for the forgettable sequel to the forgettable Jason Statham vehicle Crank, for the Channing Tatum-Terrence Howard vehicle Fighting and for the Robert Downey, Jr. Jamie Foxx weepie The Soloist, which would turn out to be the lesser Downey feature in 2009. (He’d play the title character in the Guy Ritchie reimagining of Sherlock Holmes.)

 

This episode is significant for a couple of dubious reasons. The first is this particular episode was watched by the fewest viewers in Lost’s history, well below 10 million viewers. It’s also the episode that features the fewest cast members from Season 1 and indeed all of Season 5. (Three characters who will be regulars in the final season, however, do appear and are all critical to the story.)

I have no idea why this episode was not watched by more fans, considering that it centered on Ben, and given the teaser we got at the end of last week’s episode it sounded very much like Ben was going to face some kind of punishment for his actions. Unlike many teasers, including some that Lost had done, this preview was accurate. Ben Linus does face judgment for his action and it’s worth noting from a character standpoint, after this episode Ben is never the same again.

In hindsight Dead is Dead represents a critical point in the story. Up until this point Ben has been considered such a monster that when Sayid shot the young Ben Linus, an action Darlton was certain would lead to immense hostility from the fans, most viewers were actually okay with it. Some may very well have been rooting for Ben to die, despite whatever Miles said in the previous episode about it being impossible. Despite whatever we might hear about whether Ben or Widmore was the villain in the piece, by this point it was purely a judgment of the lesser of two evils. We’d had sympathy for Ben after Alex’s death for a bit but all of our sympathy for that had been gone watching Ben’s actions to manipulate the Oceanic 6 so that he could return to the island. Young Ben might be sympathetic but grown-up Ben had shown no sign of being anything but evil incarnate. Even when Ben tells Locke that he was going to be judged, it’s second nature that not for a moment do we truly believe it. This is Ben, he lies without even thinking once.

But this episode is significant in how it shifts how the viewer forever sees Ben. Though we don’t know it, watching this episode Ben becomes more honest than we’ve seen him be in the entire series to this point. Some is inadvertent, to be sure but he’s more candid in Dead is Dead than he has been to this point. The flashbacks show a different side to Ben, one that we’ve no experience with. And by the time the episode ends we see that Ben, who has seemed the ultimate manipulator of events for nearly three seasons, is now a position where he is truly powerless and that begins to undo him in a way that not even the events of Season 4 did.

It’s fitting that the theme of the episode deals with Ben’s breaking the rules because all of the episodes that have centered on Ben have broken the rules of how episodes centering on a character work. In ‘The Man Behind The Curtain’ we saw Ben’s birth, how he was a child in the Dharma Initiative and how as an adult he participated in the Purge. All of the previous flashbacks had dealt with events in relatively close succession; this was the first that dealt with huge passages of time between some of them. In The Shape of Things to Come we saw a flashforward that was different from the ones we’d already seen; Ben’s spent much of the episode traveling the globe in a way none of the other characters had done. Now in Dead is Dead we have a flashback (or flashforward, depending on how you look at it) that breaks the rules of the ones we’ll see in Season 5. It spans nearly thirty years, takes place almost entirely on the island and jumps a decade between each set. Holding them together is Ben’s conflict with Widmore as we see the true nature of what has been a thirty year struggle for control over the island.

Because the final season did much to undercut almost everything we had learned about Charles Widmore during the previous two seasons one could look at what we see here as meaningless to the plot of Lost. But it is relevant and both powerful because Widmore and Ben have been parallel to each other for the last two seasons particularly involving struggles for power. The flashbacks do an incredible job of this in a way they rarely do and much of it is because of the masterful work of Alan Dale in what is really his finest hour on Lost.

We’ve already known Widmore was capable of violence even as a teenager in 1954 and it’s clear little has changed when we first meet him. He snaps as Richard when he learns that he has acted to heal the young Ben Linus and only falls back when he is told that Jacob wanted it to happen. We have no idea if this is the case but the mention of Jacob is enough to cause Widmore to back off, even though he clearly disagrees. In their first scene together, it’s clear Widmore is trying to find a way to manipulate this young, healing boy and put him under his palm.

Ten years later Widmore sends Ben (and apparently a very young Ethan) on a mission to kill Rousseau. Clearly Widmore is following the Other party line that outsiders are a threat to the island and he wants to see if Ben has the mettle to be a triggerman. Twenty-five year old Ben clearly doesn’t have what it takes yet (the Purge hasn’t happened yet) and he can’t bring himself to kill either Rousseau or the infant Alex. Whether Ben is being merciful or a monster depends on how you look at it; while he does spare Danielle’s life, his opinion both of her or his abduction of Alex never change in sixteen years. He justifies it by saying Danielle is insane, but he never considers that this action might have driven her over the edge.

Widmore no doubt proves that his actions were correct; he would have had no problem killing both of them and has no regard for Alex as a human being. Ben challenges Widmore in front of the camp, again bringing Jacob’s name into play – and once again Widmore storms off. We never know what the factor is that leads to Ben usurping Widmore as leader of the Others but the fact that Richard witnesses the event – and has never felt much about Widmore – may be the turning point.

Roughly ten years later Ben watches as Widmore is officially exiled from the island. Despite what he tells Widmore we know Ben is there to gloat. We know based on what we saw in Season 4 that Ben is guilty of much the same sins Widmore is when it comes to leaving the island so this isn’t about breaking the rules. Ben tells Widmore that he will never lead the island the same way Widmore did, and as we have seen Ben’s leadership wasn’t really much better. Ben always told us that everything he did was for the island, but much of the time that was an excuse for what he thought was good for the island. When Ben learned he had a fatal tumor on his spine and two days later John Locke managed to walk out of the wreckage of Oceanic 815 Ben knew that things were changing on the island and that those changes were not likely to include him.

He spent the next hundred days trying to be the Wizard of Oz but it was clear that his time was over. (If Richard hadn’t been off the island when the crash happened, it might have ended sooner.) All of his actions since he left the island have been getting revenge on his enemies and manipulating the Oceanic 6 so that he could come back to the island and lead again. If he really was going to be judged, it’s clearly because he thought if he survived he’d be worthy.

And then he wakes up and sees John Locke, the man he killed, standing over him. Because Ben is such a good liar when he tells John that he knew this would happen – and because the viewer has expected it – we believe him. But it’s clear watching Ben in this episode that’s he unsettled in a way he never has been ever since we met him three years ago.

Both Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emerson take their acting game to new levels in their scenes together. It’s always wonderful whenever these two are onscreen together, but the viewer can sense the difference now in both men. Ben knows that the dynamics between him and Locke have shifted forever and he’s clearly unsettled by John’s presence in a way he never was before. For all that Locke may tell Sun that’s he the same man he always was, we know this isn’t the truth because the old Locke isn’t afraid or even nervous around Ben anymore. Indeed, he spends much of the episode cheerfully smiling, cracking jokes about how all the awful things Ben does and using a sarcasm bordering on snideness around Ben we’ve never seen. (My all time favorite line in Season Five comes when Ben, after stumbling around explaining why he killed Locke and that it all worked out, Locke looks at him and says serenely: “I was just hoping for an apology.” Hysterical.) The power that we see of Emerson in the flashbacks is mirrored by how completely off-kilter Ben is every time Locke says just about anything.

That’s why when he tells Sun that he had no idea John Locke was going to come back from the dead I take him at his word. I realize he may be using the same tone he used around Caesar about Locke where we knew he was lying but I think the only reason he could get away with it was because Caesar was a complete stranger. In the scene in his old house, he’s clearly unnerved to see the photo with the Oceanics in 1977, and he’s equally unsettled to know that Christian told Sun and Frank to wait for John Locke to show up. Ben thought he knew what he was coming back to when he returned to the island, and now it seems he’s deliberately being left behind. And when Locke tells him that he knows how to find the monster, he’s truly rattled. That’s more then clear when he tries to sarcastically ask Locke how he knows all these things about the island and Locke makes it all too clear how the dynamic between them has changed.

So when Locke and Ben go to the Temple we see fear in Ben for the first time in a very long time. It’s not clear even as he summoned the monster in his house whether he truly expected the judgment to come but now he knows it’s coming and he doesn’t expect to survive.

Before we get there we get to the final flashback. It’s the day of Ajira 316 and Ben calls Widmore to tell him that he will get back to the island – and before he does he will keep his word. We see Widmore unsettled for the first time.

The final flashback is a highlight of the season because it demonstrates Ben’s Achilles Heel on the show – he never took Desmond seriously. Not in regard to the Swan, not when it came to dealing with the Looking Glass, not in regard to the freighter when the Oceanics were rescued. When Desmond notices him, he casually turns around and shoots him, not even bothering to see if he’s finished the job. His attention is always on a different agenda. The scene parallels how Ben dealt with Rousseau nearly twenty years ago: he has a gun on an innocent woman and is about to kill her when her child shows up., This time, however, he pays for his inattention as Desmond leaps on Ben, beats him to a pulp and throws him in the water. Perhaps when he tells Sun about wanting to apologize to Desmond, it’s not for what he actually did but for what he might have done: permanently separated a child from its parents.

Now Ben realizes what he has to be judged for, and it is his guilt in the death of Alex. He has spent the last three years trying to blame it on everyone else, first Keamy, then Widmore. Now he realizes that he chose the island over his daughter and as a result he lost both. Locke told him that he wants to be judged for killing his daughter and whether the island can actually do that, it’s clear Ben thinks that he has to be. I also think given how Ben acts in the final minutes that he doesn’t think this is something he can be forgiven for. And as we shall see later on, it is because of that guilt that Ben has become susceptible to the manipulations of the island.

Michael Emerson won his only Emmy for Lost in 2009. I have no idea whether he submitted this episode for consideration; his work is of such high caliber that any of the episodes he appeared it could have gotten it. What I do know is that his work in the final minutes of Dead is Dead is among the best he’s ever done on Lost because it’s a different kind of brilliance. Most of Ben’s power comes from his dialogue but in this scene he says remarkably little and he expresses so much in his face. The wonder when he comes across the pillar in the declination that shows hieroglyphics and as his torch blows out. The resignation as the smoke billows out of the grate and begins to surround him. The emotion as he sees his past – but through the eyes of others and Alex, including the moment he let her die. The shock as the smoke pulls back suddenly and the torch reignites. The amazement as he hears Alex’s voice again and turns around. Then he apologizes and we see tears in his eyes. And the horror as Alex grabs him by the lapels, throws him against the wall and orders him to do every Locke says or she will kill him.

And then he opens his eyes and Alex is gone. He hears Locke coming back with a rope. Then Ben walks out of the darkness. The last lines of the episode are: “It let me live.” And the tone in Ben’s voice and the tears in his eyes make you wonder if he’s now considering if that’s a good thing.

By this point in Lost we know that every character who came to the island was broken in some way. In Dead is Dead we saw that Ben was healed by the island and that he has given his allegiance to it but it found other ways to break him. He clearly returned to the island hoping to be made whole and now he has fractured in a way we haven’t seen before – and in a sense, he’ll never truly be the same. The difference is eventually this destruction will make him whole – though there’s going to be a lot more death before he gets there.