Holy crap, did that just really happen? I’m completely speechless, since it seemed Locke would be one of the few survivors who’d actually make it to the final season. Of course, it’s only a gut wound, so it is possible that he’ll still live, but the sheer fact that Ben shot him point blank in cold blood definitely made for one hell of a cliffhanger. We certainly know that he’s capable of it (especially after learning all about his childhood on the island), and when you think about it, he was only protecting his place among the Others.
It’s funny to think that with only ten minutes left in the episode, I had already written the first line of the blog. It read: “Is it just me or has Locke officially regained his status as the island’s baddest badass after tonight’s episode.” It was in reference to Locke just beating poor Mikhail (who we learned didn’t die because the pylons weren’t set to lethal levels) to a pulp; and right in front of all the Others, no less. I don’t know what it is, but the Others seem to really respect Locke, and Ben is obviously threatened by that notion.
And so when Ben takes Locke to see Jacob (at the latter’s request, despite Ben’s assurance that “This is not a man you go to see. This is a man who summons you.”), it seemed like something (anything!) was going to go down. I just didn’t know what. When they arrive at Jacob’s place, Ben begins talking to an empty rocking chair with no visible person in sight. Locke thinks he’s simply being jerked around by Ben, but then things get all crazy ghostlike and Jacob speaks a few words… that Locke can actually hear. This doesn’t please Ben at all – since he led himself to believe that he was the only one who could communicate with him – and so, after shooting him in the stomach, Ben forces Locke to tell him what he said. It was two simple words: help me, which, coming from Locke, only made it all that more appropriate. Here’s hoping someone does, or I’d expect some serious backlash from the fans.
The rest of the episode was dedicated to Ben (in flashback form, of course – thank you kind sirs), and we learned quite a bit that helps to understand the man we all thought we knew. First off, he’s the son of an asshole. After his mother died while giving birth to him in the middle of the woods, his father (Jon Gries) takes him to the island where he’s been given a job as a janitor. Yep, that’s right – Ben’s father is Roger the Work Man, the dead guy that the A-Team happened upon in the blue VW van earlier in the season. Anyways, in between working a shitty job and drinking a lot of alcohol, Roger doesn’t find much time for his son. He constantly forgets his birthday because, as he puts it, “it’s kinda hard to celebrate the day you killed your mom.” Ouch, that hurts.
Flash-forward many, many years, and after dropping off some rations at the Pearl station, Roger attempts to rekindle a relationship by spending some long-awaited father-son time. It’s Ben’s birthday, again, but instead of nagging his father like previous years, he goes a different route, snapping on a gas mask and pulling the pin out of a gas grenade while the two are sitting in the VW van. Roger dies a very, very painful death, while Ben returns to discover most of the Others dead by the same means. It appears he was part of a coup to wipe out all of the weaker Others (joining Richard, the new Other we met last week), and this is how he rose to power within the camp.
Meanwhile, as Ben protects his leadership position by offing the one guy who the Others respect more, Sawyer returns to camp with evidence of Juliet’s treachery. It turns out Jack already knew about the raid (as Juliet told him a day before), but that didn’t exactly make the rest of the camp trust him any more. Not much happened past that, but it’s definitely an excellent catalyst for what looks to be yet another jaw-dropping finale.
