Season
3, Episodes 19 and 20- “The Brig” and “The Man Behind the Curtain”
Summary:
We
follow what Locke was up to after finding his father: the Others take them to
some ruins and Ben urges Locke to kill Cooper, to no avail. Richard tells him
he needs to finish the deed in order to achieve his destiny, and suggests
Sawyer do it. The Others move onward without him. Locke comes to get Sawyer, claiming he has
Ben tied up and that he can kill him. Desmond’s group returns and keeps Naomi
hidden, except for Sayid. Naomi tells them her story of being hired by Penny to
find Desmond, and Sayid tries her SAT phone but finds the signal being jammed.
Locke takes Sawyer to the Black Rock where he locks Sawyer in the Brig with
Cooper. Danielle appears and gets some dynamite. Cooper begins talking and
reveals he is a con man who once went by Tom Sawyer. Sawyer gives him the
letter to read but Cooper is antagonistic and an enraged Sawyer strangles him
to death. Locke tells him Juliet is a mole and that a raid is being planned,
giving him the tape recorder as proof.
We
see young Ben’s arrival on the island for DHARMA. He is seeing visions of his
deceased mother, and follows her beyond the perimeter to encounter Richard
Alpert. Citing his abusive father and poor conditions, he asks to go with the
Others. Years later, Ben kills his father in the DHARMA van while the Others
purge everyone at the Barracks. Locke finds the Others and presents his
father’s body. Ben tells him that he takes orders from Jacob. Mikhail arrives
and tells them about Naomi. The survivors’ camp learns about Naomi, and Juliet
shows them the other side of the tape recording, which reveals Ben’s kidnapping
plan. Locke and Ben enter Jacob’s cabin but Ben is communicating with an
invisible entity. As Locke prepares to leave, he hears a voice and the cabin
begins to shake. Ben takes Locke to the old mass grave of DHARMA employees and
shoots him, toppling him into the pile.
Review:
In a subtle power play, Ben wants Locke
to kill Cooper because he is jealous that Locke was going to be seen as the new
leader of the Others, and he wanted to embarrass him in a way that is not seen
as violent. What took me longer to realize was that this comes one episode
before Ben is shown killing his own father at the moment he becomes the Others’
leader. Killing your father, then, becomes an unintentional symbol of strength
and leadership, so Locke failing to kill his own father effectively excludes
him from any kind of higher position.
And although he ends up walking into
camp with Cooper’s body flung over his shoulder, he did not do the deed himself
– thus his “destiny” of leading the Others was another false reading into what
is ultimately a man who could not deliver on his own. I mean…that’s some pretty
good thematic shading, intentional or not. “The Brig” is a gritty gut-punch of
an episode, focusing less on island mysteries and more on the raw character
emotions and motivations. This is encapsulated with Ben’s quick retort: “The
magic box is a metaphor, John”. No hippy-dippy pseudoscience here, just a
straight dose of reality. (And yet people still thought the box was an actual
thing for years afterward…)
Cooper brings up the plane wreckage
being found, providing further confirmation of Naomi’s story which at that
point could still have been viewed as a lie by the audience. His comment that
they are in hell is another groaner though. But everything else to do with the
brig is excellent. This is not a Sawyer-centric but it may as well be, as his
arc crescendos in the grimy hull of this old ship, and Josh Holloway and Kevin
Tighe are fantastic with each other, despite never having interacted before.
Tighe’s portrayal of Cooper is so slimy as he reads that letter, and Holloway
was robbed of an Emmy nomination for his exasperated strangulation of his
mortal enemy. One minor gripe is that the next couple episodes don’t show
enough fallout from Sawyer accomplishing what he spent his entire life trying
to do. But that’s not the fault of “The Brig”. I wonder what it would have been
like if it featured a Sawyer flashback.
The long-awaited Ben story also gives us
DHARMA for the first time in the flesh. There’s a lot of ground covered with
Young Ben, and succeeds in making him a little bit sympathetic between his
crush on Annie, his crappy father, his deceased mother, and overall nebbish
demeanor. They give us a taste of the Initiative before we explore it more in
season 5, although the buildup for Annie is ultimately wasted since she never
shows up again. The climax with the Purge was grand and they sewed the seeds of
Richard’s age mystery without banging you on the head with it. As I’ve said
before, the best stories intertwine island mythology with emotional character
beats, and we got that here.
I’m glad they got Juliet’s true plan out
in the open without dragging it too far (like to the finale), and there wasn’t
too much “should we trust her?” filler. The cabin scene is maybe the creepiest
thing to happen in the whole show, especially if you don’t know what it is.
Nice directorial work by Bobby Roth. It’s not immediately clear if Ben is lying
when he says he doesn’t hear anything, and maybe a little extra bit of proof
that he is truly confused would have solidified that whole part – but man, I
remember the fun we had trying to dissect that brief figure shown in the chair.
The mythology of the cabin, and who occupied it during which period, gets
muddied after a few visits so there’s still an air of mystery about it all
these years later.
The shooting of John Locke is truly
surprising, although it shouldn’t be since it comes immediately after the
Purge, but I thought there was chance he
might actually be dead. It’s not just an act of self-defense though. Ben is
truly angry that Locke is a threat to his status as the leader, after bringing
back the body of his father and now hearing the voice of “Jacob”. An all-time
ending to an all-time episode.
Connecting the Dots:
Take a deep breath….you ready?
“The Brig” has a hint at what’s to come
for Locke. Unable to kill Anthony Cooper, he manipulates Sawyer to do the dirty
work for him. Just like the Man in Black (guising as Locke) is physically
unable to kill the candidates so he manipulates them to do it to each other –
and specifically it’s Sawyer who causes the bomb to blow up the submarine.
This is one of the only times we see the
ruins, and it’s not much to go on, but it’s probably the leftovers from an
ancient Egyptian or Sumerian civilization that we already know once occupied
the space. I believe this was once theorized to be the temple, but that was
later proven false.
Richard knew Locke’s ultimate destiny,
which explains why he pushed him to kill Cooper and become their new leader.
Richard also says, “Ben has been wasting our time with novelties like fertility
problems. We’re looking for someone to remind us that we’re here for more
important reasons.” This proves that Ben’s tenure as leader does not
necessarily represent the Others’ big-picture plan.
Danielle’s brief appearance in “The
Brig” was to get dynamite for blowing up the Others. So she’s clearly been
roped in by Jack and Juliet at this point.
Mikhail tells the Others that the sonic
fence was set to non-lethal. That seems a little convenient but at least it
removes one more discussion point for why he seemed to be invulnerable.
Olivia was once thought to be Horace’s
wife but he is shown married to Amy in season 5, and Olivia is then after
referred to as a “friend”. She factors into the “Mysteries of the Universe” DVD
extra, which confirms she left the island sometime around The Incident and was
living the U.S.
DHARMA is shown giving injections to new
recruits. This is pre-Purge so it can’t be for that. It’s pre-Incident so it
can’t be for that either. The only other sickness that we know of is whatever
it is that the monster does to people (i.e. Danielle’s team). That would imply
they had a run-in with Smokey at some point, which is not unlikely, but it also
implies that they somehow found a cure for whatever that sickness is – which is
incredibly unlikely, considering they would have no way of studying it and
developing an antidote. Unless they worked with the Others at the Temple and
were provided with some concoction involving the healing spring. Ultimately,
perhaps, the injections were just a means of psychological control from DHARMA,
which is not a far stretch for them.
Annie appears only in one episode and is
never seen again. It’s possible she got off the island during the Incident, but
it would seem strange that she did not appear in season 5. My theory was that
she got pregnant with Ben and died, which would explain his obsession with
curing pregnant women while leading the Others. That would make so much sense.
The volcano brought up in Olivia’s
lecture is never explicitly mentioned again but it may very well be the
“source” in the series finale, and the crumbling island could be an oncoming
volcanic eruption. The stone cork would have to be some sort of magic in order
to keep it locked in. And hey, maybe it is. This is the show with Jacob and the
smoke monster after all.
In the whispers section while Young Ben
is outside at night, you can hear what appears to be his mother talking to him,
further confirming the whispers as dead people.
We have our first recognition that
Richard does not age, which was a result of Jacob’s power. He is wearing his
dirty clothes and long hair, meaning the Others are probably living in the
Temple or jungle at this point.
When Young Ben mentions seeing his dead
mother, I wonder if Richard is having flashbacks to seeing Isabella on the
wrecked Black Rock. He might be suspecting Man in Black activity.
The gas used in the Purge was made by
The Tempest station, which is not formally introduced until “The Other Woman”.
The cabin is one of the most baffling
things ever. Here it is implied that Jacob is the entity living there, but in
“The Incident” they make it pretty clear that he had been gone for some time
and that “someone else” was using it. With Christian later confirmed to be MIB
(and for lack of any other possibilities), we should probably conclude that the
“Help me” figure is the Man in Black. He certainly needs help, and Locke will
be the one to unwittingly help him by dying, and Ben will end up killing Jacob.
Jacob has shown no ability to make objects randomly shake, nor could he
spontaneously appear and disappear, and Smokey could theoretically be capable
of both. The ash circle SHOULD keep him out but it’s later noted by Bram that
the circle was broken. We don’t know when that happened, but it had to have
been before “The Man Behind the Curtain” because, obviously, Smokey was out
roaming around. I’ll have more to say on the cabin in its next few appearances.
Ranking:
1.
The Man Behind
the Curtain (10/10) (Ben’s backstory lives up to the hype, the cabin is
creeptastic, and Ben appears to finally regain the upper hand over Locke.)
2.
The Brig (9/10)
(The climax to the Mr. Sawyer plotline is one of Lost’s best moments. O’Quinn,
Holloway, and especially Tighe, are in perfect form.)
3.
Tricia Tanaka is
Dead (9/10)
4.
The Cost of
Living (8.5/10)
5.
Flashes Before
Your Eyes (8.5/10)
6.
Exposé (8.5/10)
7.
Catch-22 (8.5/10)
8.
Enter 77 (8/10)
9.
D.O.C. (8/10)
10. One of Us (8/10)
11. The Man from Tallahassee (8/10)
12. Par Avion (7.5/10)
13. Not in Portland (7/10)
14. Left Behind (7/10)
15. Further Instructions (7/10)
16. The Glass Ballerina (7/10)
17. Every Man for Himself (6.5/10)
18. A Tale of Two Cities (6.5/10)
19. Stranger in a Strange Land (4.5/10)
20. I Do (4/10)
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