Lost Rewatch On VHS: What They Died For

 

In her review of this episode for Finding Lost Nikki Stafford talks about the return of the old Ben as well as the fact that of the three major conflicts in the series – Jack vs. Locke, Ben vs. Widmore and Jacob vs. The Man In Black – Ben resolved all of them by killing one of the figures involved. That’s a brusque statement because as we all know Ben didn’t resolve the first one by killing Locke, the third is still playing out even though both the protagonists are dead and its hard to argue about the second. And as to the fact whether the old Ben is back, I have a hard time seeing it that way.

All three conflicts are still in play in this episode and I think the best way to explain them is through the Barracks. Since the third season they’ve played a critical role in every aspect of the action on Lost and in what will be their final appearance on the series it’s worth talking about them as how they relent to Ben, who has been using them the longest.

When Ben was just a boy he came to the island with his father as part of the Dharma Initiative. The island would become the most important thing in the world to him and the Barracks would be too but at the time they were a symbol of his drunken and abusive father. We remember how he fled them in The Man Behind The Curtain, chasing the white rabbit and running into Richard. At a moment of despair he told Richard he hated it there, and he told him he could leave “but he’d have to be very patient.”

The next time (chronologically) we saw the Barracks was when the Losties ended up in the Dharma Initiative. Sawyer and his group knew Ben was there but even knowing who he’d grow up to be they seemed fine living with him. He was ‘a sweet kid’ and he brought Sayid a sandwich thinking he was ‘one of them’ and wanted to break him out so that he could go back to his people. In a diversion he sent a burning bus into the Barracks an action that showed how little he cared for the people he lived with. He freed Sayid thinking he was his salvation – and Sayid shot him and left him for dead.

Jin brought him back to the Barracks and in desperation Kate and Sawyer took him out to go with the Others. After he was healed (it’s not clear whether that was after the Incident or not) he returned to the Barracks but was allied with the Others. It was there he first met Widmore who saw him as a threat to his power.

At some point Ben learned of Jacob’s existence but like everyone else never saw him. He lived in the jungle with the Others awhile but eventually led the Purge that wiped out the Dharma Initiative. When he walked into the Barracks among all the people he’d lived with but killed, we saw the Others walk in. At some point Ben repurposed for the Others (it seems to have been his idea) and he forced Widmore into exile. He thought he was home and safe.

But then problems set in. The biggest one came two days before the crash when Juliet confronted him in his home and told him he had a tumor on his spine. In addition to being terrified he would die, he was also afraid for other reasons: if this was a place where you came to get better, how could he get sick? Then two days later Oceanic 815 fell from the sky and Ben redirected his energy, sending people from the Barracks to spy on the survivors, beginning a campaign to make the next two months as miserable as possible.

Eventually Ben learned there was a spinal surgeon on the plane – and a man who had been in a wheelchair before the crash who could now walk. He ended up in Rousseau’s net, took on the persona of Henry Gale, and became part of the conflict between Jack and Locke. It was easier for him to manipulate Locke on the island then it was Jack, ironically because Jack’s personality was closer to his in key ways. Jack was the leader, and he was also a control freak, both of which you applied to Ben. Ben commanded loyalty better than Jack did but that was mainly because he claimed to be the mouthpiece of Jacob, which was a lie.

Eventually Ben manipulated events and arranged for Jack, Sawyer and Kate to be brought to Hydra Island to convince Jack to operate on him. It didn’t work out as he’d planned – Jack was willing to let him die in order for his friends to escape – but because of Juliet he managed to keep Jack in check. He went back to the Barracks to recover  - and wait for Locke to show up to blow up the sub. He was counting on his manipulations of Locke to handle his leadership problems. But it’s telling the moment Locke returned to the Barracks, Ben’s problems accelerated.

Ben tried to regain his leadership, trying to manipulate Locke. In order to force his hand he took him to Jacob’s cabin and put on a show – but Locke actually heard ‘Jacob’, even though it was the Man In Black. He tried to solve his problem by shooting Locke and leaving him for dead, but then he learned the freighter was coming and he knew Widmore was coming back. He still thought he could control thing but he ended up Jack’s prisoner – and the freighter was called.

When the divide in the camp came, Locke decided to go back to the Barracks. Ironically he’d said Ben’s using them was cheating but now he could see the benefits. Ben ‘asked’ to come with John – and Jack was glad to be rid of him. When they ended up in the Barracks Ben was held prisoner – in his own house. At the start of ‘Eggtown’ Ben said: “Here we are, just like old times.” And while he was using it to manipulate John, the irony must not have escaped him that he was back in the home he’d been a prisoner in and where he’d lost his power.

He continued to obfuscate and refuse to reveal all he knew about the threat, even though it might very well have saved more lives. Because he was in the Barracks Ben thought he was still in charge and could control things and he sent Alex – the one person he cared about more than anything  - out of the Barracks for their safety. And by doing so, he doomed her.

When Keamy and the mercenaries stormed the Barracks, they laid waste to it before demanding to talk to Ben. He refused – until he learned his daughter was being held at gunpoint. Even then, he still thought he could control things and did what he did best: lie. But the lie backfired as Alex was killed in front of his eyes – and died thinking he hated her. Ben’s reaction was to summon the Smoke Monster – the incarnation of the Man in Black – to seek out revenge on the mercenaries and lay waste to the place he called home.

When he left he knew he was no longer chosen Locke could see ‘Jacob’ in a way he couldn’t. He moved the island, thinking he was following Jacob’s directive, believing he was banished for life. His last words before he left – “I hope you’re happy, Jacob” – were a cry of despair of a man who’d served the island for thirty years and now was leaving, not knowing this was a manipulation of its own.

When he traveled through time and space, he sought out Sayid to take revenge on the man he held responsible: Charles Widmore. He used Sayid to kill Widmore’s people and threatened to kill Widmore’s daughter. Then when John Locke appeared and allied with Widmore, Ben found out. He tracked Locke down and stopped him from killing himself – only to murder him two minutes later when he learned information to obtain his one goal: to return to the island.

He then sought out Jack who was now an emotional wreck and much easier to manipulate. Jack and the rest of the Oceanics got on Ajira 316; a flight Ben made but was late for because he’d tried to carry out his goal of revenge. He’d called Widmore and said he was going back to the island and going to kill Penny. But he lowered his guard and Desmond beat him to a pulp, showing him how low he’d fallen. As an added insult – one he never learns about – Jacob, the man who never deigned to be in his presence, comes to Hurley and tells him about Ajira 316.

Ben ended up back on the island, sure his problems with over – until he woke up face to face with the man he killed. He said he was going back to the main island to be judged by the Monster – not knowing he was actually looking at it. He went back to the Barracks to find Sun and Frank there and tried to summon the monster. He did, but he didn’t know it. The new and improved Locke now knew where to find it and took him there. There he was judged by his real sin – killing Alex. ‘Alex’ confronted him and he apologized – and then she told him not to kill John Locke and do what he told him. He did exactly what Locke asked – to kill Jacob. The moment afterwards, he learned that Locke was still dead, he killed Jacob and he’d been the pawn of the Man In Black.

There’s a reason I’m bringing up all of Ben’s past actions: when he, Miles and Richard return to the Barracks on their mission to blow up the plane he is reminded directly and inadvertently (often by Miles, who doesn’t know the whole story behind him) of every single bad decision he’s ever made and that all of them keep coming back to the Barracks. The Barracks are the incarnation of everything he’s done wrong and all the people who’ve died as a result.

And then what happens when he and his group are leaving? Charles Widmore, the man who was his nemesis for more than thirteen years on the island and just as long off it,  the man he unseated as leader but who left telling him his exact fate, the man who sent a freighter whose men killed his daughter, the man who’s daughter he promised to kill and then couldn’t do that, the man who hadn’t been able to find the island and who he didn’t even know was back – strides into his house with the words: “Hello Benjamin. May I come in?”

It is as if no time has passed. Widmore may not know that his team is dead or that his only way off the island has been destroyed but the moment he sees Ben he becomes the same bully he was for all the time they knew each other. He mocks Ben for his ideas, tells him he’s smarter than him, and that his plans are useless. And worst of all, when asks how he got here Widmore says that Jacob sent him. Ben is broken all over again. When we see him walk outside saying he’s tired of hiding you feel he almost wishes the monster would kill him, if only to spare him the memory of being reminded of all his failures.

Much has been said about how after spending so much time building Charles Widmore up as a character his death comes as an extreme anticlimax. Paradoxically I think that’s because the writers were too good at building Widmore up and up until the final season, each layer seemed natural to the character but added dimension to him.

When we first met him at the end of Season 2, he seems merely an obstacle to the love story of Des and Penny. However when in the final scene is was clear that Penny knew about the island, the question was how did she know? When we first learned about the freighter in Season 3 and believed it was Penny until she told us, it was theorized that the freighter was from her father which made sense: the early theories were that he’d maneuvered Desmond into crashing there because it was the one place his daughter couldn’t find him. In Season 4, we got confirmation the freighter was Widmore’s and that he’d staged the Oceanic 815 crash site in order to make sure people would stop looking for the island.

Then we learned that Ben knew of his existence and that the freighter was sent for the sole purpose of getting Ben off the island. This set up the idea of how these two men knew each other and when Ben left the island, it was clear that they had a dark backstory. The last line of Widmore in their memorable encounter was: “I guess the hunt’s on for the both of us.” That gave the strong implication that everything involving Lost had to do with the battle between Ben and Widmore, which led us to wonder: how did Widmore know about the island in the first place?

In Season 5 everything about Widmore’s character was fully realized. We learned he’d grown up on the island, that he’d lived there more than twenty years and that he’d been the leader of the Others until Ben forced his exile. Widmore fudged some of the details (Eloise Hawking had been the leader for much of the period) but everything we saw when the island blooped verified what he told us. Much of Season 5 felt like it was about the battle between Ben and Widmore, and considering that Ben did send him into exile, it made sense why all of this was happening. And when we learned he had one family on the island as well as one off it – and that his son Dan had been killed before he even met him  - the context seemed far greater.

The problem came when we learned about not only Jacob but the Man in Black in The Incident. Compared to that, the battle between Jack & Locke and Ben & Widmore understandably seemed like small potatoes. It didn’t help matters that Season 5 ended with Ben on the island and Widmore off it. When we last saw him he didn’t even seem interested in going to the island and there was no major change in his behavior.

So when he tells Ben that Jacob came to see him and that he’s seen the error of his ways (something that we have nothing more than a musical cue to believe is true) it immediately strikes the viewer as tonally off. There’s been nothing in Alan Dale’s performance in Season 6 to suggest that Widmore has had the scales fall from his eyes. When Sawyer meets him on the submarine he refuses to acknowledge any part in sending the freighter that nearly killed all of them and gives no really sign that he knows more about the Man in Black then he’s telling. His scenes with Ben before UnLocke arrives shows him with the arrogance and coldness we’ve come to expect of him since we met him. We believe in Ben’s transition not only because we’ve seen everything he’s lost but because we can tell it in the performance that Michael Emerson has given in the second half of the series. Everything we know about Widmore before gave us no real reason to sympathize with him and we know him just well enough that it is nearly impossible to take his 180 seriously. Widmore never lied the way Ben did but he never took responsibility for his actions. It may be disappointing how he dies but the way the series handled him throughout the final season didn’t make his last days any more redemptive.

That’s also why I don’t think the ‘old Ben’ is back. There’s a sign of him going back to the Barracks but the moment Richard tells him that he came back to after Ben left to bury Alex that light is dimmed. All he can focus on is the mission ahead, trying to blow up the plane. The moment Widmore shows up he deflates again. He may be trying to plan when he asks Widmore for his walkie-talkies but when he goes outside saying: “Then I guess this is goodbye,” I really think he means it. Even more so when Richard whose clearly offering to sacrifice himself is for all intents and purposes thrown aside. Ben goes back to the chair on his porch and meekly sits down.

When UnLocke sits next to Ben he makes the same offer he did back in Dr. Linus and there’s no real sign that Ben believes him any more then he did before. Just as when he sat down outside ‘Jacob’s’ cabin he knows his time is over. He saw what happened to Ilana, then Richard so he thinks the island is done with him. The only think he wants to see before he goes is Widmore cowering before UnLocke the way he did. And when Widmore refuses to talk to in front of Ben but caves to save his daughter, it reminds Ben of his own failure. After he kills Widmore and says: “He doesn’t get to save his daughter”, there’s no real menace to it. Ben kills Widmore not merely out of revenge but because he’s not going to give Widmore the chance to redeem himself.

In the flash-sideways the writers lighten the mood by having Ben get beat up. I know that seems a little harsh but isn’t it fun to see everybody say, “Why would anyone want to hurt you?” in incredulity when they see that Ben got beat up. Of course there’s a deeper sadness to this which is clear by what Ben sees when Desmond beats him up. Unlike everyone else who saw the flash of the real world and got to see a sign of their true love, Ben is reminded of when Desmond beat him to a pulp after he shot him and tried to kill Penny. We are reminded that before Ben went in to be judged he asked Sun to say to find Desmond Hume ‘and tell him I’m sorry.” It seems strange that of all the horrible things Ben did in his life, this is the one he feels the most pain for but considering Desmond did it, well, it probably cuts both ways.

One of the more moving parts of the episode comes when ‘Dr. Linus’ tries to go home and Alex tracks him down. (Ben is using a cane the way we saw him do so when he was recovering from his surgery.) Ben is clearly reeling from everything he remembers about who he was and it has to cut deeper because Alex is talking to him with the love we never saw her show when he was ‘really’ her father.

And its doubly moving to see that, yes, Rousseau is raising Alex the way she never got a chance to in real life and that she thanks Ben for everything he did for her as a teacher. Ben isn’t the only one who was concerned about onions, that seen moves me every time I see it.

And we need this lightness because things are grim on the surface. Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sawyer are still reeling from the loss of their friends. Kate tells Jack about Jin and Sun’s daughter, and that must cut deep because there’s an excellent chance Jack never even knew the gender of the child Sun was pregnant with when they left the island. Sawyer had forward momentum as long as he was trying to leave the island, and now because of the fact he didn’t trust Jack the people he tried to save are dead. He clearly forgives Jack for his role in Juliet’s death because he knows what it feels like now.

And while everyone goes to find Desmond Jacob makes a reappearance at last and calls on Hurley to bring them to the fire. Now that his time is all but over he finally makes himself visible to the candidates and is willing to explain himself.

Except…he doesn’t. Not really. It’s very telling that death really has done nothing to fundamentally change Jacob. He has only made himself visible to Hurley given instruction without really telling him why he was doing so and disappearing when he was most needed. The only reason he made himself visible to Hurley was no doubt so he could get his ashes and destroy them. Its pretty clear they were the only thing keeping him attached to the island and it’s also clear he wanted them destroyed so that he could finally rest. Given what we saw in the last episode we can’t exactly blame him for wanting that but given what we saw in the last episode we probably should.

In Jacob’s ‘explanation’ to the candidates he is finally honest about why they are all here but just as with all his other explanations he says only what he needs too. He calls killing his brother and creating the smoke monster ‘a mistake’ and even without knowing the context I can tell that both Kate and Sawyer really want to punch Jacob as hard as they can. And he deserves it, no question. Jacob has spent thousands of year creating his own game and making everybody play by his rules, and he never bothered to explain to anybody what they were. He has been as terrible a leader as almost everyone else on the island, except he’s never felt he had to justify it.

When he tells those who are left “I didn’t take any of you out of a happy existence…you were all flawed,” that’s true…but it leaves out a lot. Setting aside all of the people who died just so that the candidates could get on the plane there’s a question that’s never answered: did Jacob pick them because they were flawed or were they flawed because he picked them? UnLocke told Sawyer and Jack as much and based on his interactions with so many of the candidates, there’s an argument to that effect. The fact that he says he wants all of them to have the one thing he didn’t have – a choice – is negating by the fact that the reason they came to the island was because he took many of their choices from them. And he immediately negates that by telling Kate if none of them do this, it all ends very badly which means that one of them really doesn’t have a choice.

The one person who says nothing during all of this is Jack. He just listens. In a way Jacob doesn’t have to make much of a pitch you can tell given the expression on Jack’s face that he’s going to do this. It may seem a bit obvious given how Jack has been the center of the story since the Pilot, and the fact the episode opens on his eye in the flash sideways reminds of that.

But it makes perfect sense when you consider that the major story in the flash-sideways involves Locke making his way back to Jack’s office. When Locke tells the story about how he got here and even ends it with a variation on his old phrase: “What if all of this were happening for a reason?” we are reminded of all the arguments Jack and Locke had when they were on the island about this very subject. That Jack listens to this without objection and doesn’t judge is a reflection of how he’s changed over the course of the series. In the flash-sideway it shows that Jack is willing to do this because he wants to fix Locke, something that has seemed what the entire flash-sideways has been leading up to for those two since they met in the lost and found claim.

And since Jack came back to the island he has more or less embraced Locke’s way of thinking. In Season 5, this caused him to be the subject of derision by Kate and Sawyer beat him to a pulp. He thought they had come back to stop all of this happening but when it didn’t work, Jack was confronted of all his failures. Jack has been following during all of Season 6 because he has been confronted with all his failures but he still believes that they have a destiny.

In the last few episode UnLocke has berated Locke’s way of thinking to Jack’s face and Sawyer practically threw him off the boat when he said he wanted to stay. But Jack was right that UnLocke wanted them to stay on the island and he was right when he said UnLocke couldn’t kill the candidates. And while he might very well be doing this out of a motivation for vengeance – UnLocke has killed his friends and now he’s been told the only way to protect the island is find a way to kill UnLocke – he has every reason to believe he’s supposed to do this. The fact that he has been given a choice may be enough to confirm much of his way of thinking: he’s found a way to balance fate and science in a way Locke never could.

It’s telling that even as he passes the torch – literally – Jacob still doesn’t tell him anything. He tells him where the light is and that he can find it, but he doesn’t tell him how to stop the Man In Black. We learned in Across the Sea that Jacob didn’t know how to lie as a child and while he’s gotten better at over the millennia, it’s clear that the way he lies is by not telling the whole truth. When Jack asks how long do I have to do this job, Jacob gives a non-answer: “As long as you can.” Jacob was clearly self-aware about how things would play out when he was alive as well as when he was dead, so he may very well know how they’re going to play out in the final act.

But maybe he just doesn’t care. Moments after he makes Jack the guardian of the island Jacob disappears from the story. He may finally be at peace having done his job but I really hope that whatever ending we see in the finale doesn’t happen for him. Because nothing I saw of him in life or death makes me believes he deserves it.

And it’s not clear that he’s done his job. Because as UnLocke and Ben go to the well and find Desmond gone UnLocke doesn’t seem the least bit bothered. None of the candidates know what they have to do, Jack may not. But UnLocke does have a course of action. And the way he’s smiling when he says he’s finally going to be able to do the one thing he couldn’t – destroy the island – makes you hope some kind of wisdom got passed on to Jack when he took the job.

 

IF YOU BELIEVE THE ENDING: There’s just something kind of cruel about how Ana Lucia seems to be there to facilitate everyone escaping but the way Desmond tells Hurley dismissively that she’s not ready to come with us. Ana Lucia doesn’t seem any different than when we saw her in real life, which actually makes this doubly worse: with the exception of Sayid, everybody in the flash-sideways had a better life or at least perception of themselves. Ana Lucia is the same contentious cop we saw when she was alive, or for that matter when she was a ghost helping Hurley. Like with quite a few other characters, this seems like an Easter Egg for the sake of being an Easter Egg. And given that Rodriguez’s personal history with Lost involved the same kind of problematic backstory we saw with Harold Perrineau, who also apparently has a fate just as bad,  it really seems like the writers only keep bringing these characters as a kind of revenge on the actors for being outspoken. I’ll be raising these issues when we get to the finale but in these two cases in particular there does seem to be something vindictive.