Let me start by confessing that as someone who has seen every episode of “Lost” since Flight 815 crashed onto the island in 2004 (or was it?), I have characters that are my favorites and others that bore me to tears. For example, I loathe Jack and the whiney, put-upon way that Matthew Fox plays him, and for contrast, I love Sawyer and how Josh Holloway can make you root for a character you’re not sure you should even like. So naturally, if I know that characters I generally dislike, say Jack or Kate, are going to be the focus of an entire episode, I tend to lower my expectations because more often than not, the episode, for me at least, will just be blah. On occasion, I’m surprised, as I was by last week’s enjoyable Kate-centric episode.
That being said, I believe I could watch an entire series devoted to Ben (the amazingly versatile Michael Emerson; seriously, does any other actor on this show transition between menacing and vulnerable as well?) and Locke (the extremely cool and ethereal Terry O’Quinn) making small talk over the paper while eating breakfast and sipping mimosas. So, as you may have already guessed by now, Wednesday’s episode “Dead Is Dead” was right up my alley.
To be fair, episodes focused on Ben (and thus the history of the island) are usually fantastic, and this one didn’t disappoint. I would venture to say it was one of the best of the season. We delved head-on into the presumable origin of the feud between Ben and Charles Widmore (poor Emerson and Alan Dale wearing hilariously awful wigs), and in the process, learned a bit more about what makes Mr. Linus tick.
Turns out Ben’s motives for ‘stealing’ Alex from Danielle were a bit grayer than we were originally lead to believe. Widmore wanted Danielle dead, along with her daughter Alex, but Ben refused. I’m going to have to stop here and ask, maybe I’m not remembering correctly, but back in season 2 when the 815ers captured Ben in the trap and Danielle got a peek at him, why didn’t Danielle recognize him? She was crazy, sure, but I would think she’d be able to grab on to enough sanity to recognize the man who stole her baby, but I digress.
So as revenge for Widmore having Alex killed, while off the island, Ben attempted to murder Penny, but spent so much time monologue-ing, Desmond had time to plan a sneak attack and beat the pulp out of him. Feeling particularly murderous in this episode, we learned Ben was planning on killing Locke again, but after flushing the island and a disturbing visit with Alex (Smokey?), Ben’s dead daughter (sort of) threatened him against disobeying Locke and told Ben to follow Locke in whatever he does. It seems as though Smokey and Jacob are Team Locke, so hopefully Ben gets the hint. Is it possible Locke is now Smokey, who took the form of Alex and ordered Ben to follow him? Notice how Locke was elsewhere when the smoke monster appeared.
All in all, a sensational episode that put some of the show’s greatest mythology into context, as well as two of its strongest characters in the forefront. But it also raised a few questions: Widmore can’t return to the island because he broke the rules? Did those rules include having a child with an ‘outsider’? And what exactly does lie in the shadows of the statue?
