LOST Revisited- Season 5, Episodes 11 and 12

 

Season 5, Episodes 11 and 12- “Whatever Happened, Happened” and “Dead is Dead”

 

Summary:

 

In flashback, Kate visits Cassidy to help Clementine and tell her Sawyer is still alive. Kate briefly loses Aaron at the store, and realizes that she is not the one who is supposed to raise him. She drops Aaron off with Carole Littleton and vows to bring Claire back. Jin brings the injured Ben back to the Barracks where Juliet tries to fix him. Jack refuses to help, citing an unalterable future, against Kate’s insistence. Roger Linus realizes Ben broke Sayid out. Juliet says the Others may be able to help him, and Kate and Sawyer take him to Richard. Richard says if he helps Ben, his memory of this will be gone, and he takes him to the temple. In 2007, Ben wakes up to find Locke sitting next to him.

In flashbacks, Young Ben recovers from his injury and meets Charles Widmore. Years later, he is ordered by Widmore to kill Danielle but he instead kidnaps baby Alex. Widmore is banished from the island for regularly leaving and fathering a child. In LA, Ben moves to kill Penny but Desmond stops him. In the present, Ben tells Locke he came back to be judged by the monster. As the two of them get into an outrigger, Caesar tries to stop them but Ben kills him. At the Barracks, they run into Sun and Frank. Frank leaves but Sun stays in the hopes of finding Jin. Locke leads them to the temple wall and takes Ben down into the tunnel to find the monster. Frank returns to Ajira and is taken prisoner by Ilana’s group. Ben is approached by the smoke monster and is replayed events in his life with Alex. The smoke turns into Alex, who threatens Ben and orders him to follow Locke.

Review:

Cassidy reasons that Aaron was used as a stand-in for Sawyer, something that doesn’t make much sense to me. Sure, he is a symbol of her time on the island, but he has no connection to Sawyer otherwise. If Sawyer is truly the object of her desire, perhaps it would have made more sense for her to want to be around Clementine instead, who actually shares his DNA, but that is not the route they take. Instead, they focus on Claire as the reason for Kate wanting to go back, with Sawyer almost as an afterthought. The grocery store scare could have been punched-up a bit, and really hit home that Aaron is not as much of a priority for her as she thought. Maybe the most memorable moment of this episode is of Hurley and Miles debating time travel (acting as surrogates for a potentially confused audience) and pointing out the inconsistency of Older Ben not remembering Sayid.

That inconsistency is swept under the rug by Richard claiming the Temple will erase Ben’s most recent memories. Oh, how convenient! There’s no real way around that, I suppose. Interestingly, Jack is now openly talking about what “the island” wants to do, implying that Ben is going to make it through okay without his assistance. Jack is now able to let go and not feel compelled to fix things in front of him, which is what he has been struggling with for the whole show. Meanwhile, Juliet is trying to make up for years of failed pregnancy work by saving a child, and Kate’s time as a mother has probably triggered the motherly protection in her. It does get a little trippy when you realize Juliet is working on her future boss, and the man who once said, “You’re mine.” Ending on present-day Ben is a good bridge to the next episode and Locke’s cryptic welcome is played as if it could be either hostile or an invitation for repentance.

“Dead is Dead” fills in a potpourri of events from Ben’s history, namely how his rivalry with Widmore became toxic. They still jump over some of the juicy segments but the basic point is clear: Ben undermined Widmore’s authority and eventually got him exiled. In fact, if you include the knowledge that Keamy killed Alex, the flashbacks tell a complete story with Ben nearly killing Penny at the end there. On a side note, why would Danielle ask Ben if he was the one who infected her team? She knows the monster was involved, but I don’t believe she knows the monster can take forms. The truth here is that the writers had to answer for her comment in “Solitary” that the Others were “the carriers.” I wish they could have extended this scene to make it make sense

Caesar’s sudden death is a disappointment, as I feel he could have been an interesting character, especially if it’s true that he was going to be a Widmore lackey. That would have been a fun way to connect the flashback story to the present. It’s funny that Ben is unknowingly talking ABOUT the monster TO the monster, and this episode is probably the best showcase of how MIB used his Locke form to manipulate. And in fact, the audience gets a big hint when Ben tells Sun that whatever is about to come out of those trees “I can’t control,” only for it to be…Locke. But Locke IS the smoke monster. And once you find out why he keeps appearing and disappearing, you feel stupid for not putting two and two together earlier. Down in the tunnels, Smokey smacks Ben in the face with his past actions that got Alex killed and actually gets some redemption for it. While not the direct murderer, we still blame him for what happened, and needed this moment to rehabilitate him for the final phase of the show. It comes part and parcel with his near-murder of Penny but he is unsuccessful and severely injured as a result, reprieving him of incurring the wrath of the audience any more than he already has.

I should also point out that during seasons five and six, the “Lost” internet community started making jokes and memes about Frank being awesome and a sex symbol or something along those lines. I seem to recall this was the episode where it really started, as people were joking about what Frank and Sun were doing in the Barracks all alone. Frank’s return to Hydra Island also finally jolts the Ilana story into action with the mysterious crate; and now suddenly this brand new minor character is wrapped up in the island mythology. She and her crew have a mission, which instantly makes them something to watch as opposed to a bystander who nobody cared about up ‘til now.

Connecting the Dots:

We learn in season six that the Temple has a spring that can heal people, and this is apparently what they used on Young Ben. The only other character we see healed in the spring is Sayid, who also did not apparently remember the immediate events before.

Ilana’s crate contains John Locke’s actual dead body.

Man in Black manipulates Ben into being judged and to repent, just as he did with Eko in season three. Unlike Eko, Ben actually expresses remorse, allowing him to live. But it also serves to set him on the path to kill Jacob.

“Every time you hear whispers, you run the other way.” Right, soooo, why did Ben say this to Danielle? The Others would not have any control over the dead people. Do they even know that it’s dead people? Or does Ben just know that whispers occur when someone veers too close to an island danger and he wants Danielle to heed the warning?

Widmore is exiled for having gone off the island and started a family. That at least explains how he could be the leader of a massive corporation without drawing too much suspicion. It’s because he already had an established identity before being exiled.

Ranking:

1.      Jughead (10/10)

2.      This Place is Death (9.5/10)

3.      Because You Left (9/10)

4.      Dead is Dead (9/10) (The Danielle scene is awkward, but it’s otherwise a strong redemption story for Ben, and a great exhibition of the Man in Black’s manipulations.)

5.      The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham (9/10)

6.      LaFleur (8.5/10)

7.      The Lie (8/10)

8.      The Little Prince (7.5/10)

9.      Whatever Happened, Happened (7.5/10) (This is a talky episode that doesn’t offer many series highlights, but it has some nice character moments and jokey timeline banter.)

10.  He’s Our You (7/10)

11.  Namaste (7/10)

12.  316 (6.5/10)

Next time: Miles likes it Hoth, and Faraday goes nuclear.