Dead is Dead

Like a knight on his trusty steed, Charles Widmore comes riding into camp. At first, I thought we were going waaaaaaaay back in time to the 16th Century from the way the Others were dressed. Chuckie's hair almost confirmed it, until the dude in the Dharma issue coveralls strolled by (I watched that clip three times just to be sure). I'm not the only one who thinks Chuckie's hair is really, really bad. Sort of like Mandy Potamkin's delicious do in The Princess Bride.

We see Charles confront Richard about bringing Ben into the temple and allowing the island to heal him. I love that Richard shut Charles up by telling him that "Jacob" wanted it done this way. Jacob seems to be the proverbial "Not Me" or the "He Did It" scapegoat. "The island chooses who the island chooses." Richard told Charles. Much to the later's chagrin. We see him grudgingly accept the island's will. But something tells me that Charles, despite claiming that he is trying to protect the island, is only wanting to use the island for much of his own gain and he is willing to kill anyone who gets in his way.

We then see Charles introduce himself to young Ben and explain that despite living with the Dharma people, it doesn't make him Dharma. Sort of like being a doctor and living among nurses, I guess. When Ben tells him that he's rather stay with the Others, Charles tells him not yet....sort of.

When next we see Ben he is waking up to find John Locke sitting at his bedside and shows genuine surprise at finding Locke alive, then claimed to know this would happen. "It's one thing to believe it, John. It's another thing to see it." I loved the intrigued expression on John's face when Ben said he had come back to the island to be judged for all he had done. And thus Ben's journey to judgement and redemption begins.

Until now we have only seen some of the horrible circumstances that helped to create the monster that Ben has become. We're aware that he has had to grow up with a father who expressed nothing short of hatred toward him for the loss of his wife during childbirth. But now, we learn how, while healing Ben, the island exacted a price that perhaps, if given the choice, he may not have been willing to pay.

When Charles sends Ben and a very young bloodthirsty Ethan (where the hell did he come from?) to knock off the outsider, Ben learns there's a child. I have no doubt in my mind that he would have killed Danielle without a second thought if he hadn't found baby Alex as well. I used to think that Ben took the baby because he desperately wanted one and couldn't have one (misguided by the whole no baby's or mothers survive into second trimester thingee), but now I realize that Ben took Alex for other reasons.

Humour me on this one, okay? We all see that Ben has a soft spot for mothers and, deep inside his fabric of being, his conscience can not allow him to force an innocent baby to grow up without it's mother. This is confirmed twice in Dead is Dead. We know, also, that Ben took baby Alex back to the camp and challenged Widmore's authority. By the look of the Others' faces when he challenged Widmore to murder an innocent babe, I think they do not believe the island would have wanted the child to be killed either. Innocence is something to be preserved and relished. By showing the Other's that he was willing to defy Charles' orders, he has begun to slowly assert his own claim on the island. It isn't long after that scene that Charles is forcibly removed from the island, though I was disappointed that he went without much of a fight.

"You had a daughter with an outsider!" Ben berated Charles. Since we've not seen Ellie Hawkin, could she, too, have had Daniel with an outsider? Is that why she is no longer on the island and must hang in the deepest reaches of the Lamp Post station?

Back to John and Ben over on Hydra, and in the present of 2007.

Ben stops by to see what Illana and her peeps are up to and happily accepts her lame explanation and refusal of help. Have a nice day, he says. Am I the only one who giggled at how totally gay he sounded when he said that. I half expected him to skip away happily to play dolls. I like him and Michael Emmerson deserves multiple Emmy's for portraying such amazing talent. We next see Ben have a chat with Ceasar. I almost choked when he inferred that John was already on the island when the plane crashed and that he was possibly crazy. Master manipulator Ben at his best.

My heart hurt a little when Ben found the photo of himself and Alex, but that quickly passed. Like John, I never imagined Ben running things from behind a desk and almost fell to the floor laughing while John sat and propped his feet up. This is a very different John Locke from the man who left the island and we see that when he lets Ben ramble on about why he had to kill him. However, I didn't really clue in to this different Locke until he assured Ben.

"If everything you have done is in the best interest of the the island, then I'm sure the monster will understand."

John knows more about the island than he ever did before! I thought.

Then Ben shoots Ceasar and off they paddle to the main island where Ben must face his fate. Was I the only one who thought John sitting on the dock to put on his socks and shoes was kind of funny? Dharmaville was just as spooky as when Sun and Frank entered. John questions why the Others moved into the houses when Jacob shuns technology, but the answer is not forthcoming when a light goes on in Ben's old house. Specifically Alex's bedroom.

This is when I had my second he's different thought.

Ben: "You don't have the first idea of what this island wants?"

John: "Are you sure about that?"

Turns out Sun was planning on spending the night. Her shock and surprise at learning that John is alive is nothing compared to Ben's shock at learning that the rest of the O6 are stuck in Dharmaville thirty years ago. He has no idea how they got there or how to get to them. Locke, though, has some ideas how to help Sun find Jin. Frank cuts out and heads back to the other island to see if he can fix the radio. Sun, Ben and Locke are going to figure out how to get to Jin. But first, Ben must seek judgement from the monster and calls him by pulling a plug from a dirty ancient basin.

While John wanders off into the jungle and Sun sits patiently waiting on the porch. Ben paces nervously. As well, he should, too. He has a lot to answer for. But ole smokey doesn't come at Ben's bidding (pets have a mind of their own sometimes) and John decides they must go to the mountain. When Ben protests that he doesn't know where it lives, John, providing my third "he knows" moment, responds that he does.

So far the flashbacks have provided us with snippets of Ben's compassion toward mothers and babies and I was beginning to truly doubt my assertion of Ben's uber evilness. I was almost convinced. Then we flashed to the marine in LA. Ben is phoning Charles and telling him that his daughter is soon to be dead. He shot Desmond, and I thought our favorite button pushing brutha really was a gonner, and stomped down the pier toward Penny.

Am I the only one who thinks naming their boat after Desmond's favorite book was cool?

But I digress. I believed it when Ben apologized to Penny for what he was about to do. Like Alex, she didn't have anything to do with the war that rages between Linus and Widmore, but in Ben's mind it had to be an-eye-for-an-eye. Enter the cutest curly haired kid named Charlie and immediately Ben's resolve wavers. Seriously wavers. I'm positive I wasn't the only person who yelled out in triumph when Desmond opened a can of whupa** on Ben. Now we know how he came to be bruised and cut and wearing a sling when he boarded Ajira 316. More importantly, we know that he failed to carry out his threat. Widmore may have gotten the eye, but Ben would get something much better.

John Locke leads Ben and Sun to the temple, or rather the temple wall and the place where Montand lost his arm. The fact that this is the wall and not the temple is important, but I'll go into that later. Ben and Locke scramble down the hole and into the bowels of where the Monster calls home. They go so far and, knowing that this was his judgement and his alone, thanks John for his guidance and goes on alone. And promptly falls through the floor. Despite possibly being swallowed whole by the Monster, Ben's humour is still there.

I'm not going to go into great detail with the smoke monster judgement scene. I am, however, going to stick my neck out and state that I firmly believe the statue we saw the back of in LaFleur is that of Anubis. Check out the hieroglyphs! There's also an excellent argument for what, or who the statue and the black smoke monster could represent over at Lostpedia Blog. Suffice it to say, the Ole Smokey clicked, flashed and swirled around Ben, showing him scenes of his past which displayed compassion and the occasional bad decision (ie. allowing Alex to be murdered by Keamy), and deemed that Ben is still of use to the island.

But before he was permitted to leave the bowels of the temple, Ben had a face to face with Alex. The agony in his voice was heart wrenching and the shock in his eyes as she pinned him against the pillar and issued the island's warning that John Locke is the `chosen one.`

`I know that you are already planning to kill John again. If you so much as touch him, I will hunt you down and destroy you!` Notice Ghost Alex did not say kill. I`m wondering is Ben can be killed or if, when the island healed him, he achieved a form of immortality. Perhaps he has to kill himself before his dead is dead and maybe that is why he killed John. Of course, that idea can be blown to smithereens next week and I could be totally wrong. It`s happened before.

I think the island is not done with Ben and his purpose is not finished. He is needed.

Back to the Hydra and Frank, where Illana asks a very interesting question of a bemused Frank: "What lies in the shadow of the statue? Poor Frank is clueless and gets clobbered for not knowing. "Get everyone else. Tell them it's time...." Time for what, exactly? Who are the others? First of all, I haven't the foggiest who she's working for, but I'm pretty sure she was well prepared for island life when she boarded that plane in L.A.

But the question, "What lies in the shadow of the statue" has intrigued me. The only thing I can think that is near the statue, or what's left of the statue, is the temple. We haven't seen it yet and I'm wondering what special qualities the temple may have that the Others felt necessary to build a wall to protect it. I'm hoping we find out soon enough.

Some other quotes:

• Every time you hear whispers, you run the other way!
• I was just hoping for an apology.
• I just didn't have time to back into hanging yourself, John.
• You just make friends everywhere you go, don't you?
• As long as the dead guy say's there's a reason, then I guess things are just peachy.
• Now the only ones here to help us are a murderer and a guy who can't remember how he got out of the coffin.
• Ben - This is where the island healed me.
• John - Let`s hope it`s as generous this time around.

Okay, so there you have it. My take on Dead is Dead. I have a few theories floating around my head, but until I can get them into some sort of coherent sense, I'm keeping them to myself.

Until next week, Namaste and Good Luck

Arcticroses