Dead is Dead

Greetings Losties. I’m a bit behind, so let’s just right in, shall we?

We were all giddy over a Ben-centric episode when these previews popped up. The episode, in my opinion, didn’t disappoint. In 1977 a younger (but not quite as young as The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham) Charles Widmore comes and greets the injured Benjamin Linus. He seems to not recall how he was injured or how he got there (which I’m still a little confused about, what Others magic wooj did they use to wipe his memory?) Doc Jensen reader David Teicher  has a pretty interesting theory: ”The Adam & Eve story about the fall from grace and loss of innocence vis à vis the eating of forbidden fruit and the consequent advance in knowledge and understanding, is only one variation of this myth. Many cultures have a similar story, most of which include one additional detail: Death. If you read the Sumerian/Babylonian Story of Queen Inanna and the Enuma Elish, you will see that Inanna, in her journey to become queen, must first attain a full understanding of life – and to do that, she must first understand death. She proceeds on a journey to the underworld where she encounters her counterpart and loses her innocence, i.e., she dies, at which point she reemerges in the world of the living as ”enlightened” and ready to take her throne…. I would posit that Richard must kill Ben and resurrect him – forever altered, enlightened, but tainted. Much like Persephone [from Greek mythology] after eating from the pomegranate or Izanaki [from Japanese mythology] after eating the fruit of the underworld.” Widmore then makes it clear that Ben is now one of the Others, but he must go back to Dharma as a sort of sleeper cell spy type.

In 1989, Ben (with a really awful almost Paul Rubens in Mystery Men hairpiece) and a young Ethan (how’d he get there?!?) are sneaking upon Danielle Rousseau’s camp. Ben seems to be on a mission to kill Danielle, but when he sees the infant Alex, he changes his mind. I’ve got two questions regarding this scene: 1) What made Ben suddenly change his mind about killing Danielle if he was going to take Alex away anyway? It’s not like he felt bad for the child and thus left her alive to care for it. No, it is more of Ben’s inability to leave a child motherless. We’ll see more of this later. But 2) Back at the camp, Ben is visibly angry that Widmore didn’t tell him there’d be a child. This kind of contradicts the story Danielle told way back in season 1, where a few days after the birth, she saw the smoke, and then they came for the baby. This then also happened to Claire. I’m wondering why the Others were so confused about the presence of a baby if they allegedly set out to kidnap it anyway. Or so Danielle claimed. Note also, that Ben said to Danielle, “If you hear whispers, run the other way.”

The little scuffle over the baby Alex was a preview for Ben and Widmore’s growing feud. Sometime post 1992 and The Purge, Ben is sending Widmore away on their absconded Dharma submarine. The declared reason for his exile is “breaking the rules” by repeatedly leaving the island and having a child with an outside (Penny). I’m pretty unconvinced that these are the only reasons that Widmore was booted off island. Seems to be pretty lame charges, there’s got to be something else up.

In modern times, we finally get to see the reason why Ben boarded the plane looking like a piece of beaten mutton. Attempting to follow through on his promise to kill Penny, Ben once again hesitates at the site of a child. Has Ben gone all softy on us? Or does little Charlie simply remind him of his dead Alex?  It’s the mother thing again. Having lost his mother as such a young age and thus raised by a terrible father, Ben is unable to take away anyone’s mother. Leaving a mother without a child, however, seems entirely ok. Either way, his actions warrant a severe beat down from Desmond.

On island is where the episode really got intriguing. Ben is surprised yet not so much surprised and relieved at the sight of John Locke greeting him as he wakes up. He tells John that killing him was the only way of getting him back to the island, and that now HE has “broken the rules” and has returned to be judged by Smokey himself. Ben has a little fun of his own playing mind games with Caesar, claiming he doesn’t know what Locke is talking about with the whole killing thing (ah, sneaky Ben returns!) and just to be safe (or for sentimental purposes) takes a photo of him and Alex out of the Hydra station. Their passage to the main island is stalled a bit when Caesar declares himself the leader of the 316′ers and forbids Locke from taking a boat. Unlucky for Caesar, Ben has taken his shotty gun and gives Caesar a nice hole in the chest. BYE CEASAR! Nice knowing you. You were slightly creepy, I felt that there was more to your character, but now you are gone. Alas. Also, I’d like the point out that I really like the character swap here yet again. Like Jack and Sawyer a few episodes ago, Locke and Ben have had their own role reversal. Locke has been reborn by the island. He has new knowledge, and a new purpose. Even though “Dead is dead” and he may very well still be so, Locke may simply just be on the road to gaining membership into the Christian and Claire Reincarnation Club. They have both died and been reborn on the island. They are both content in their knowledge and place on the island. Locke seems to be embracing this, as well as embracing his leadership role. When He asks Ben if he is frustrated that he knows all the answers and Ben does not, he respond with a snarky, “Now you know what it was like to be me.”

Onto the other island, through the barracks and a meeting with a very confused Sun and Frank, Ben attempts to summon Smokey, though to no avail. Frank abandons the rabble and heads back to the small island, and finds himself in a strange situation. He walks into camp, where he is suddenly held at gunpoint by Ilana and Bram. Ilana asks Frank, “What lies in the shadow of the statue?” When Frank is unable to answer, she knocks him out with the butt of her gun, and tells Bram to get everyone else, tell them “it’s time,” and to tie Frank up, as he’s coming with them. What lies in the what? Since when did Ilana and the 316ers become some kind of secret society? I’m curious about where they’re going to take Frank. Are they another group of Freighters, after the island? I think it’s safe to say that they are the ones who shot at Juliet and Sawyer on the outriggers during the times flashes.

Meanwhile, Locke leads the way to the Temple. Now, we’ve been told that Richard and the Others have gone here, and we’re still missing Rose and Bernard and any other 815ers. Any chance we’ll see any of them again?  The Temple itself is said to be a mile within the walls, but the gate offers quick access to Smokey down below. After a couple of falls, Ben then journeys on, looking at columns covered in hieroglyphs, pausing to observe a stone panel covered in Egyptian-style carvings, which depicts the Monster and a jackal-headed figure (possibly the Egyptian deity Anubis) facing each other. Below the carving is a stone grate angled upwards. Ben hears the trademark noises of the Monster, and witnesses it rise out of the grate in front of him. The Monster surrounds Ben, swirling about him. He is faced with memories of Alex and Widmore, including Alex’s death at the hands of Martin Keamy. After showing these visions to Ben, the Monster abates, reappearing moments later in the form of Alex. Ben apologizes to Alex, admitting fault in everything, which she acknowledges. She then pins him up against a nearby column, informing Ben that she is aware of his plan to kill Locke again, and demanding his firm dedication to follow Locke’s leadership, or she will “destroy” him. I don’t know about you guys, but I was totally down with Smokey living in what appears to be a giant Egyptian cheese grater.

DarkUFO says, “As awesome as it was to finally get this answer, some of the magic and mysticism was stripped away by the overwhelming amount of Egyptian mythology. I’ll admit that it doesn’t have to necessarily be Egyptian – maybe the people who inhabited the island so many centuries ago found the monster and just incorporated it into their religion. Whatever the smoke monster is, Anubis appears to be kneeling before it. This makes their representation of it both ancient and powerful.”  In case you’re not up to par on your Egyptian mythology, Anubis seems to be what the four toed statue was and “was the god to protect the dead and bring them to the afterlife. He was usually portrayed as a half human, half jackal, or in full jackal form wearing a ribbon and holding a flail in the crook of its arm. The jackal was strongly associated with cemeteries in ancient Egypt, since it was a scavenger which threatened to uncover human bodies and eat their flesh. The distinctive black color of Anubis “did not have to do with the jackal [per se] but with the color of rotting flesh and with the black soil of the Nile valley, symbolizing rebirth.”

A theorist on Lospedia thinks that, “The picture of Anubis and Cerberus is a reference to Ancient Astronaut Theory. The depiction of Cerberus is similar to the way someone might depict electricity. Cerberus is not a “spiritual” entity but a feat of technology so in advance of anything that we understand as to be almost god like to our eyes. This is what is hinted at by the mechanical nature of the noises it makes. The original natives were those chosen by the gods (small g) to protect the island and keep it hidden from the humans that rebelled against them. That is why they have strict rules about leaving the island. Cerberus is what enforces those rules.”

To close, I am a huge Ben fan and have been since we first met. Doc Jensen has some finale notes on the character and wonderful actor, who really fucking needs an Emmy for this role. “It boggles my mind to consider how this character was originally intended to be a short-term season 2 proposition. Thanks in large part to Michael Emerson’s performance – and how it captured the imaginations of both the audience and writers – Ben became an inextricable part of the show. Might it be argued that the whole of Lost is really Ben’s story? The season’s time-travel saga, in which we’ve seen how the castaways have shaped his life, has been further evidence for such an interpretation. Regardless, I like the idea that Ben himself is exactly like Emerson: He is a survivor. He is a man who has essentially outlived his intended purpose to the Island – leading the Others until Locke came to town – but who has prolonged his power, his significance, and perhaps even his life through guile and ingenuity. Ben is living an improvised existence – and success has promoted his status from special guest star to series regular in the Island’s grand narrative.”

~ by iamtheisland on April 15, 2009.