Lost "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham"

[coldcs]

Namaste! Wednesday's episode of Lost fills in the time gap between when Locke leaves the island with Christian Shephard's help via the frozen donkey wheel to the time when "Jeremy Bentham" dies. We see Locke's unsuccessful attempts to convince Sayid, Kate, Hurley and Jack to return to the island. Plus, we have new Others! Like Ben and Juliet before them, the sinister, clearheaded Caesar and Ilana have a mission, it seems, but they're unlikely to be forthcoming about it any time soon, what with all the pointed questioning and firearms. I also have a few theories! So let's get to "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham," shall we?

SHARP-DRESSED MAN

We open on Caesar rifling through a Dharma office. He doesn't seem satisfied with the old copies of Life magazine and the random papers bearing notations about time and space, but when he finds a gun strapped to the underside of the desk, that puts a smile on his face. Ilana is there too, and though there's a suspicious vibe between them, they appear to be working toward the same goal. He tosses her a flashlight (or is it?). They exposit that Roxanne was scouting just south of here, that there's a very large group, and that they found a man in a suit.

On the beach, Suit Man is revealed to be a very-much-alive John Locke, and he's surrounded by a very large group indeed. What, did they stock the plane with New Others? I could have sworn they were the only ones on the plane last week, but you are all smarter than me, and saw other Others. The group on the beach found some boats, but one is missing because "the pilot" and "some woman" (I'll explain the need for quotes below) took off in one. The next morning, John reveals to Ilana that he remembers dying.

HORSE WITH NO NAME

Whoosh! We're back to the scene when John left the island, and like Ben before him, he is spit out into the Tunisian desert, gruesome leg injury intact. (So yeah, it's not a spike sticking out of his leg, it's a — heave! — bone.) Locke sees that there are surveillance cameras, and in short order, a convenient band of Bedouins arrives to ferry lame Locke off to a hospital. (For what it's worth, their truck's license plate reads "342, something in Arabic, 6346." Loosely translated, I believe it says "Carlton and Damon own your asses until 2010, suckers!")

Meanwhile, back at Tunisia General, the mysterious Matthew Abaddon is there! A painful-looking procedure — which includes sedation, biting down on a stick and the nausea-inducing realignment of the stray bone — renders Locke unconscious. When he comes to, Charles Widmore is there, just like that. "Nice to see you again, John," he says, which sends my mind reeling about how the Lostaways actually are changing history, no matter what Daniel Faraday says. Widmore remembers meeting Locke when he was just 17 (an event that Locke remembers happening four days ago), but it's unclear if Rousseau remembered Jin, since she was nuttier than a fruitcake.

It's at this point that I wonder, if Widmore had all his secret-squirrel cams in place, why didn't he immediately apprehend Ben when he took his similar trip through the "exit"? It's possible that he set up the cameras after Ben snuck out, whenever that was, since we've now discovered that time passes in radically different ways on and off the island. A matter of days after the island moved, three years have elapsed in the outside world. So who knows when Ben actually arrived, right?

It's also at this point that I pick up a figurative stick and draw a figurative line in the figurative sand — figuratively speaking. On one side is Charles Widmore; on the other is Benjamin Linus. Choose a side, people, because it appears that it's these opposing nemeses who will define the remainder of the series. As difficult as Darlton has made this choice, I'm thinking you'll agree with me when I say that it's making me nuttier than Rousseau to not know who to believe.

Widmore exposits that Ben had him exiled, and tricked him into leaving the island. "I was their leader," Widmore reveals. Locke, in turn, reveals that Ben had no influence on his decision to leave the island, that he chose to leave, which makes me laugh heartily.

After all, Locke's mystical frame of mind is such that his gullibility knows no bounds. Think for a second about all the dubious people that John has chosen to believe: his father; those drug dealers and that grifter; Matthew Abaddon; a spectral Walt; Ben; Mr. Eko; Richard; Daniel Faraday; and Christian, to name several. He hasn't made a single decision without someone telling him that it's his destiny or whatever. It's at this point that I have to re-emphasize that Darlton is messing with us, presenting us with one unreliable source after another.

Widmore tells Locke that the Oceanic 6 lied about what happened. He, as Ben did to Jack a few weeks ago, tells Locke that he has to convince them all to go back, which Locke already knows, but wonders why Widmore would be working toward the same goal as, say, Ben. "Because there's a war coming, John, and if you're not back on the island when that happens, the wrong side is going to win," he drops like Jughead. Feel free to speculate who the imminent warring factions might be. For now, I'm going to make like Switzerland and sit back and listen.

It's Widmore that sets Locke up with his alias, and jokes that he named him Jeremy Bentham after the British philosopher since his parents obviously had a similar sense of humor. He gives him an international phone, a dossier containing the Oceanic 6's whereabouts and the services of a chauffeur, Abaddon. "What makes you think I'm so special?" Locke asks Widmore. "Because you are," he replies, which isn't a very inspiring send-off.

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