Dead is Dead SE5 EP12

“I assume you’re referring to the fact that I killed you.”

There was a lot to digest in this episode tonight, what with Smokey’s lair, the lore of Alex and standing in the shadow of the statue. Not to mention the whole “orderly regime change” theme throughout, from Charles to Ben and Ben to Locke. Plus, we still don’t know what happened to Penny or why Ben needs Sun to apologize to Desmond, unless it’s just for shooting him through his groceries. By the way, I love Locke. Especially now with his new found confidence and power.

Daddy’s girl
Charles rides up into a rather primitive looking Otherton and confronts Richard as to why he took the boy to the Temple. “Jacob wanted it done,” Richard explains. “The island chooses who the island chooses. You know that.” Widmore does know that and goes in to the tent. Ben tells Charles he wants to stay with the Others and not go back to his dad. Charles explains that just because he doesn’t live with them, doesn’t mean he’s not one of them.

And that is how Benjamin Linus and Charles Widmore first meet.

Flash forward a few years to young Ben and Ethan on a mission in the jungle. They come across young Rousseau’s tent. Ben pulls his gun on her because he is there to kill her. But when he hears the baby cry, he cannot do it. So he takes the liberty of changing the mission. “Do you want your baby to live? If you want your baby to live, every time you hear whispers you run the other way.” Ben shoots into the ground, takes Alex and walks away, leaving and insane Rousseau behind.

“Well, did you do it?” Charles asks, upon Ben’s return to camp. “We had a complication.” Benn announces, and holds up Alex. Charles is disappointed and he and Ben have an argument over the best interests of the island and who has them in mind. “Is killing this baby what Jacob wants?” Ben challenges Charles. “Then here she is; you do it.” Obviously Charles doesn’t do it because we see Ben pushing a young Alex on the swingset in the next scene.

Ben walks out on the dock, where Charles is boarding the sub. “I came to say goodbye.” “No, you came to gloat” Charles counters. “You brought this on yourself, “Ben explains. “You left the island again and again. You had a daughter with an outsider.” (oops, Jeni, scrap that “Penny and Daniel are twins” theory. It was good while it lasted.) “I’ll sacrifice whatever it takes for the island,” Ben says smugly. “You won’t sacrifice Alex. If the island wants her dead, she’ll be dead,” Charles warns. “One day you’ll be standing in my place as here as an exile.”

Ben is back on the mainland at the marina. He phones Charles. “I’m going back to the island today. But first I’m going to do one thing. I’m going to kill your daughter. In fact, I’m looking at ‘Our Mutual Friend’ right now. That’s the name of the boat, right?” Charles pleads in vain for Ben to stop. Ben shoots Des then raises his gun on Penny. Ben tells Penny who he is and why he is there. Penny begins trying to negotiate with Ben in much the same manner that Ben tried to negotiate with Keamy before he killed Alex. Little Charlie hears the commotion and comes out, which causes Ben to pause—just like he did when he was sent to kill Rousseau and just long enough for Des to revive, tackle him from behind and pound the living crap out of him then dump him in the drink.

Smoke gets in your eyes
“Hello Ben. Welcome back to the land of the living.” Locke is sitting over Ben’s bed on the mini island. Ben seems genuinely shocked that Locke is alive, then he says he knew it would happen. Locke asks the same question—if you always knew it would happen then why are you so surprised? “I’ve always believed, but it’s a whole other thing to see it.” Locke asks him why he was going to the main island. “I was going back to be judged.” “Judged by whom?” Locke wants to know. The Others apparently don’t have a word for it but we all know it and love it as the Smoke Monster.

Cesar and Ben have a little interaction wherein Ben plants just enough suspicion in the already paranoid Caesar’s head to make him dangerous with his sawed off shotgun. “I couldn’t have killed him! He must be crazy! What if he was already here?” Ben, recognizing an easy mark, works his charm on Cesar against Locke

Ben rummages through his old desk and finds a ….photograph? old report card…..? drawing…? Whatever it is, it’s sentimental. Locke seems bemused that Ben sat behind a desk and ran things from an office on the island. “I never pictured you in an office. It just seems so corporate.”

Locke then requests that they talk about the elephant in the room. “I assume you’re referring to the fact that I killed you?” Ben asks.

It was then that Ben launched into one of his patented lengthy monologues, babbling on about WHY he killed Lock, about it being “the only way to get you back to the island” and “in the best interests of the island.” And how Locke had valuable information that Ben needed”….blah blah blah. Then Locke interrupts him. “I was just hoping for an apology.” He smiles. “I’ve decided to help you do what you said you were going to do: be judged. If everything you said was true that it was in the best interest of the island, I’m sure the monster will understand.”

They head out to the beach to take a boat, but Cesar mistakenly thinks he’s in charge here and, suspicious of Locke because of Ben’s prior manipulation, attempts to stop them. He goes to draw his gun but –surprise!—Ben has it. “Looking for this?” BOOM! Bye bye Cesar and thank you writers. He was already 10 spoken lines past annoying.

Ben and Locke make small talk about Ben’s various injuries and who inflicted them (Ben never seems to be 100% healthy in this show; he’s always recovering from an ass beating.) Ben cryptically offers, “I’ve found sometimes that friends can be significantly more dangerous than enemies.”

Locke confronts Ben about what he is atoning for: it’s not for breaking the rules, or coming back to the island, or killing Locke. “I think you are lying. You need to atone for killing your daughter.” You can pretty much see that Locke has nailed that one just by the look on Ben’s face.

As it becomes apparent that they are making their way back to New Otherton, Locke wants to know “Whose idea was it to move into these houses? Because it just doesn’t seem like something the island would want.” “You don’t have the first clue as to what the island wants.” Ben replies prissily. “You sure about that?” Locke smirks.

A light goes on in Alex’s room and there is movement by the window. It’s Sun and Frank. She shows Ben the picture of the Lostaways in 1977. Ben is/acts shocked. “Your friends were in the Dharma initiative?” He asks incredulously. “I knew nothing about this.” Sun, bored with trying to figure out whether Ben is lying or telling the truth, sighs and changes the subject. She tells him about Christian telling them to wait there for John Locke so that they can see their friends again. “But since Locke is dead, we’re not holding our breath,” Frank grumbles. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Ben replies, indicating that they should look out the window. And there’s John Locke, offering them a friendly wave.

Frank delivers two lines here that clearly belonged to Hurley, because they totally bomb as humor without Jorge Garcia’s delivery. “As long as the dead guy says everything is ok, Your friends are somewhere in the past and we’re going to follow the dead guy.” Frank, voice of sanity and the mainland is clearly confused about the rules of the island. Frank is leaving to go back to the other island and try to fix the radio. He implores Sun to go with him. “If you leave with him, you’ll never find your husband again,” Locke tells her. That’s enough for Sun. Frank’s on his own. “We’ll start looking for Jin,” Locke promises.” But Ben has something to do first, isn’t that right?” “That’s right John.” Delivered with perfect creepy inflection “Better get to it,” Locke urges.

Ben goes down into the Smoke monster cave and pulls the plug on a muddy tub of water. He comes back up to the porch and asks Sun, “Where did John go?” “He had something to do,” Sun replies. Then she concludes that, “Jack must have lied. Locke was not dead in that coffin.” Ben assures Sun that Locke was indeed dead and he KNOWS this. “I’ve seen this island perform miracles and heal the sick. But dead is dead. You don’t get to come back from that, not even here. So the fact that John Locke is walking around this island scares the living crap out of me. Now, you may want to go inside, because whatever is coming out of that jungle, I can’t control.” This is truer than Ben thinks: It’s Locke.

Locke is impatient with Ben’s penance. “It isn’t here yet?” “It’s not a train, John; it doesn’t run on a schedule.” Locke thinks if it doesn’t come to them, they should go look for it. “I only know how to summon it, not where it’s going to be.” Ben whines. “I know where it is.” Locke answers.

“How is it that you know where we are going? Did you just wake up one morning with the secrets of the universe?” Ben complains. “You don’t like this, do you?” Locke replies. “Blindly following someone, asking questions you don’t know the answers to.” Ben does not. Welcome to my world, says Locke.

They come to the temple, or rather, the wall around the temple and Locke tells them they are not going in to the temple, they are going under it, as they come upon the hole where the Frenchy was sucked down. Ben turns to Sun and tells her, if you ever get back to the mainland, find Desmond Hume and tell him I’m sorry.” “Why?” Sun wants to know. “He’ll know.” Ben replies.
Meanwhile Lapidus makes it back to the beach but Alanah and some of the other survivors of 316 have found themselves a cache of guns and it’s all Lord of the Flies back there. Alanah summons Frank and begins asking him over and over, “What lies in the shadow of the statue?” Frank doesn’t have the first freaking clue, of course, so for his trouble he gets a rifle butt to the head. “Tie him up. He’s coming with us.”

Ben admits to Locke that Locke was right about the Alex atonement mission. “The island gave me a choice. I could leave the island or let my daughter die. All I had to do is go with them. John, you were right, I did kill Alex. And now I have to answer for that. I appreciate you showing me the way, but I think I can take it from here.” Ben walks on and falls through the floor into the old set of Raiders of the Lost Ark. There are pillars with primitive hieroglyphics all around and in front of him, a grate on the floor with a graphic of Smokey confronting what looks like Anubis, the Egyptian dog-headed god of the underworld.

Smokey comes out and much like it did with Eko, shows flashes of Ben’s life—specifically about Alex. Then Smokey retreats and Ben is left alone---with Alex. Or rather, Ben is left alone with the island in the image of Alex, like Yemmi with Eko. Ben begs Alex’s forgiveness, tells her that her death was all his fault.

Alex knows this.

Alex then gets a little ticked off and jacks Ben up against the wall. She also knows that Ben is planning to kill Locke again and she warns him not to touch him and to listen to every word he says. She makes him promise his allegiance to Locke out loud or she will hunt him down. Ben complies, falls to the floor and rises to find Alex gone.

Meanwhile Sallah has found some Nazi flags to tie together to hoist Indy out of the crypt.

“Are you ok?” Locke asks from topside. “What happened?”

Ben, with more despair in his voice than I‘ve ever heard him use, replies,

“It let me live.”

Next week
We’re back in 1977.