Again, this week I don't have a ton of time to write this, so let me get right into it.
The jury has reached the verdict and Benjamin Linus is found GUILTY....guilty of being the best friggin' character on TV. Anytime Ben is given an opportunity to stretch his legs, he shows us why he is The Man.
Let's start with his mission to kill Danielle Rousseau. Ben and Ethan (note that he is already an Other at a young age....I think I need to re-visit my initial instincts that his mom Amy is an Other spy) are sent to eliminate the French madwoman. However, when Ben enters her camp, he notices baby Alex and can't close the deal.....but decides on a little baby-napping instead. Gotta love Ben cradling the baby and firing a round into the sand to silence the French infection rantings. Here as in many other moments we see the dichotomy sundae of Ben....a scoop of ruthless bastard with compassion sprinkles.
So then Ben carries little Alex back to the Others camp, where Charles Widmore lets him know how displeased he is that Ben didn't kill both mother and child. So Ben calls CW's bluff and says, if Jacob wants it done, you do it. Charles retreats out of check, but its clear the chess match goes on between the two. Eventually, Ben has Charles exiled. There's got to be a lot more to the Ben and Chuck saga, but at the very least we at least know that Ben is responsible for Widmore's banishment from the island and he didn't leave via the frozen donkey wheel (as that has been a popular internet theory).
OK, so now let's skip ahead to the present. I could spend all night blogging about the Ben/Locke dialogue...it is always great when those to share the screen...but let me focus on what I think is important and that is that clearly their roles have been reversed. Locke is now the self-assured master of the island and Ben is the one who seems confused and surprised. However, some things about Ben don't change....like being a two-faced liar. So which of these statements is true?
- Ben believed Locke would be resurrected if he was returned to the island.
- He had no idea Locke would be resurrected and it scares the hell out of him (dead is dead).
He is lying to someone. And speaking of lies, how about Ben lying to Caesar that maybe Locke was already on the island. Not that the lie matters now, as Ben shockingly filled Caesar with a shotgun blast (raise your hand if you saw that coming....put your hand down you little Ben wanna be)...."consider that my apology."
So off Ben and Locke go the main island (home sweet home) in search of the monster. But first a little spookiness in Ben's old house that turns out to be just Sun and Lapidus (nice job Frank leaving Sun with a murderer and a zombie). I was totally psyched that we got to see the inside of the secret room where Ben summons the smoke monster. I always imagined the summoning device to be computer based, but I think it is so much cooler that it was a primitive system of draining some muddy water. But alas smokey doesn't show. So after Locke emerges from the jungle (what the hell was he doing out there? Maybe chatting with his old buddy Christian?), he leads them off to find the monster at the Temple.
Calling the Monster
OK, let's talk Temple for a few minutes. Number one, I am really amped up that what we have seen so far only turned out to be the wall surrounding the Temple (as Ben says the actual Temple is a half mile inside the wall). This means that the Temple remains a locale that we are likely to see at some point (I am guessing next season). Number two, it is really cool that Locke takes Ben down the same hole in which Montand got his arm ripped off (how is the island telling Locke where to go?). Number three, is the hieroglyph depicting Anubis and the smoke monster.
Cerberus and Anubis
Now, if you recall a few weeks back when we got a glimpse of the statue I guessed that it was Anubis....Egyptian god that protects souls on their journey to the Underworld. I am not 100% convinced that the statue is Anubis, but Anubis is clearly significant. In that same posting, I talked about Radzinski referring to the smoke monster as Cerberus, the watchdog of Hades in Greek mythology. Now we have a hieroglyph that links these two. So, I believe my theory that the island is a gateway to the Underworld is looking a lot stronger.
(By the way, it has been speculated a lot on the internet that Richard Alpert is the Egyptian sun god, Ra (Richard Alpert...RA). I think this is a strong possibility, but I'm not sure how that ties in to the Underworld piece)
So, anyway, back to the main story....Ben falls down, gets up and meets Smokey. And, as he mentioned earlier by Ben, the monster does indeed judge Ben for being responsible for Alex's death. I'm not sure exactly what to make of this, but here are a couple of ideas: 1) maybe Ben's sin was saving Alex in the first place and he was supposed to kill her; 2) maybe when you stand before God to be judged, you are actually the one to decide your fate. Then things get even crazier when Alex shows up. She accuses Ben of planning to kill Locke again and demands that he promise to follow Locke's every command....to which he agrees. So, here is my question: Does the smoke monster conjure the dead or just take the form of the dead? I like the idea that these are indeed the dead we are seeing acting of their own volition for the good of the island...but we shall see.
Ben's Judgement
When Ben emerges from his encounter with the Smokey and Alex he looks completely defeated and seems almost disappointed that the monster didn't kill him. I think this is because he has been given a worse fate....subservience to John Locke.
That covers the man story, but here are a few other observations that I found interesting.
1) There is MUCH MORE to Ilana than was originally revealed. First of all, she is moving a crate with "necessary supplies". That is a hell of a big crate for water bottles and airline peanuts. Second, she later asks Frank, "What lies in the shadow of the statue?" There can be no doubt, she is talking about THE statue....so how does she know about it? My guess is she was sent by Widmore. If so, was this a secret code to identify Others? Or maybe there is indeed something literally in the shadow of the statue. Can't wait to find out.
More than meets the eye
2) As I guessed previously, Ben went to the docks to kill Penny and was stopped by Desmond. Ben would have succeeded, but again his soft spot for a mother/child caused him to hesitate. My guess is that Ben's longing for his own mother is at the heart of these lapses in ruthlessness. Here is an interesting note though....Desmond could not have been in too much of a hurry to find Eloise Hawking. He took a SAILBOAT from London to Los Angeles. "Everyone on the island is counting on us, I'd better hop in my boat and I'll be in LA in 2 months tops."
3) Locke has "some ideas" how to get to 1977. So where did these ideas come from? Is he thinking Frozen Donkey Wheel? Is the island communicating with him? Were these thoughts implanted in him when he was dead?
4) Ben's Dharma house is built on top of the smoke monster summoning hole. So, who built the house (it was there before Ben)? Someone in the DHARMA Initiative must have known about the chamber. I'm thinking maybe Pierre Chang (aka Dr. Marvin Candle). Would be nice to find this out before the end of the season.
That's all I've got for now. Until next week....
No comments:
Post a Comment