What they died for SE6 EP16

Care to join me outside to wait for the inevitable?

After last week’s mythology episode, it was great to get back to business. I thought this was an excellent episode, tying together all of the mythology elements from last week and setting us up perfectly for the final conflict of Jack vs. Locke. Especially delicious was the return of Ben the master manipulator. Even defanged, Benjamin Linus is simply one of the best characters ever written for television, but last night Michael Emerson positively shined.

Mistaking coincidence for fate
In Alt LA Jack wakes up to find a cut on his neck that he does not recall getting. Over cereal, his son, David is there and wants to know if he’s coming to his concert that evening. “Is mom coming too?” Jack wants to know. Cue patented teenage eye roll. “Don’t get weird, Dad.” Claire joins the family for breakfast when the phone rings. It’s a man claiming to be from Oceanic Airlines. They found Jack’s father’s coffin and it will be arriving at LAX tomorrow. “We at Oceanic are very sorry for your trouble,” says Desmond.

We next see Des stalking the recovering Locke at the school where Locke is subbing. Ben spots him and delivers the line, “I’m making a citizen’s arrest!” with absolute fussy perfection. Unfortunately for Ben, Desmond has other ideas about how he is going to be arrested. “I won’t let you hurt Mr. Locke again!” Ben says. “I’m not trying to hurt him, I trying to get him to let go.” “Who are you?” Ben asks, which is the wrong question, because it prompts Des to start beating the crap out of Ben while yelling, “You want to know who I am?” During the beating, Ben flashes on Desmond beating him up in the other life.

Which prompted a side discussion between my daughter and I in which we wondered exactly when Ben was beat up by Desmond. I mean, it goes without saying that Ben gets a beating in just about every episode and has been beat up by just about every cast member on the show, with the exception of Hurley, but neither one of us could remember the beating at Desmond’s hands.

So following the unsuccessful citizen’s arrest, the school nurse patches up Ben. “This may sting a bit, Mr. Linus,” she warns. “It’s Doctor Linus, actually,” Ben corrects. Enter Locke who is concerned to see his new friend somewhat worse for wear. “Are you all right?” he asks. “I got into a fight. I saw the man who ran you down, Mr. Locke. While he was beating me I saw…something. He wasn’t trying to hurt you. He was trying to get you to let go. Does that mean something to you?” Locke ponders this.

Desmond reports the hit and run and the assault at Washington Tustin High School and then turns himself in as the suspect for both crimes to LAPD detectives Strom and Ford. He is thrown into a holding cell with Sayid and Kate. Detectives Strom and Ford continue their discussion about the evening’s plans, which involve Miles attending a concert for his father’s museum. “Do you want to go?” Miles asks Sawyer. “Is that redhead going to be there?” Sawyer asks. “Charlotte? Yeah, she’ll be here.” Sawyer’s “Pass.” Is classic.

Meanwhile, back at Washington Tustin School, Alex runs across the injured Ben and insists her come for dinner at her house with her and her mother. Ben begs off, but Alex convinces him and a radiant Danielle emerges from the car and makes him promise to join them. At dinner, Danieele tells Ben how much he means to Alex, how her father died when she was two and how Ben is the closest thing she has to a father. Ben is touched, and sparks begin to fly between Danielle and Ben.

Locke, perhaps somehow convinced by Ben’s conversation coupled with the ever mounting incidences of weird coincidences, arrives at Jack’s office. “I still don’t want to be fixed.” Locke tells Jack. “The man who ran me down beat up a teacher in the parking lot. He said he was there to help me let go. Which is the exact same thing you said to me the last time I spoke to you.” Jack thinks maybe Locke thinks that Jack had something to do with this turn of events. Locke puts him at ease. “Maybe this is happening for a reason.”

“You’re mistaking coincidence for fate,” says Jack channeling Mr. Eko.

Locke smiles, “I think I’m ready to get out of this chair.”

Meanwhile, back at the police station, Des speaks to Kate and Sayid about bustin’ out of the joint. Sawyer comes in and announces that they are getting transferred to county. Kate tries to flirt with Sawyer into letting her go, and while he thinks about it, he decides against it. “I think it’s time to leave,” Desmond tells them. “Are you ready to get out of here? I’m gonna ask each of you to do something, and you’re going to have to promise to do it.” Kate and Sayid agree readily. Too readily, I think. The driver of the police van stops at a wharf. The cop that Desmond is bribing to let them go is Ana Lucia. She uncuffs them and asks where her money is. “On it’s way,” answers Des. We then see Hurley drive up in his Hummer. “Dude, you didn’t tell me that Ana Lucia was going to be here.” Ana Lucia is all WTF? “Do I know you?” she asks in that way she has that makes you feel like whatever answer you give her is going to be wrong. Then she pockets the cash and takes off. Hurley asks Des why she didn’t know him. “She’s not ready yet, brutha.” Des directs Sayid to go with Hurley and tells Kate she’s with him. He opens Hurley’s Camaro and pulls out a dress. “Ready to go to a concert?”

The return of Benjamin Linus
Richard, Miles and Ben are on their way to New Otherton to pick up Ben’s supply of C4. Upon arriving back at the compound, Miles starts getting that old wonky dead body feeling. Before Miles can say anything else, Richard tells Ben, “It’s Alex. It’s your daughter. After you left I buried her.” “Thank you, Richard,” says Ben. They arrive at Ben’s house and Ben goes into his secret closet, then into what Miles calls, “a secret-er room.”

Ben tells them, “This is where I was told I could summon the monster…that’s before I realized that it was the one summoning me.” Hmmm…..that sounds like a significant line.

“Well Richard, are we looking to cripple the plane or blow it to hell?”

“Blow it to hell.”

“Then we better take it all, then.”

Wait a moment! Who’s that hiding in Ben’s house? Tina Fey? What the WHAT? Guns on her, but Widmore is behind them. “Hello Ben. May I come in?”

After the commercial, Ben has his gun trained on Widmore, who orders Tina Fey to go out to the jungle and scout for Locke. Widmore knows Ben will not shoot her, or him either: “If you shoot me, then your last chance of survival will be gone,” Widmore eyes Ben’s C4 and figures out his plan pretty quickly. “I’ve had that plane rigged with explosives for days,” he scoffs. “As usual, you are a step behind me.” “How did you get back here?” Ben asks. “Jacob invited me. He convinced me of the error of my ways. If you don’t want to die we need to hide.” Tina Fey walkie’s in from the beach and reports that Locke has landed with the second outrigger. Widmore orders her to run back to the house. Widmore, Tina Fey and Miles decide to hide. Ben decides not to. “He’s going to find me sooner or later. Care to join me, Richard?”

Smokey arrives and takes out Richard immediately. Ben, meanwhile, has a seat n the porch. Having transformed from smoke, Locke walks up and greets Ben, “Just the man I was looking for.”

“Well you found me. Can I get you a glass of lemonade?”

“I need you to kill some people for me Ben. Because once I leave this island, you can have it all to yourself. Who’s outrigger is that?” Ben dimes out Widmore. “Where can I find Charles Widmore?”

“He’s hiding in my closet.”

So Locke goes into the closet but tells Ben, “Wait out here, you don’t need to see this.”

“I want to see this.” They walk into the secret-er room and see Tina Fey and Widmore. “Sorry Charles,” says Ben, but he’s not really sorry. Locke wants to know why Widmore brought Desmond to the island and he starts questioning Tina Fey, who starts to answer, and then Widmore stops her, “Don’t talk to him,” Widmore says, and Locke slashes her throat. “You told her not to talk to me, and that made her pointless. Soon this will all be over. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, the first thing I’m going to do when I get off this island is kill your daughter,” Locke threatens. “If you want to save your daughter, you’d better talk.”

Widmore relents, “I brought Desmond back because his unique resistance to electromagneticism. I’m not saying any more in front of him,” Widmore says, indicating Ben, so he whispers into Locke’s ear and Ben shoots him.

“He doesn’t get to save his daughter,” Ben says.

“Fortunately he already told me what I needed to know,” Locke says.

Ben asks one of those questions that has been bothering us all season. “If you can turn into smoke, why do you walk?” “I like to feel my feet in the ground. It reminds me that I was human.” They come upon a well, which is now empty. “This is the well I put Desmond in,” Locke says. “Desmond was a failsafe for Widmore. I’m going to find Desmond and I’m going to use him to destroy the island.”

Stories around the campfire
Jack sews Kate up which is a nice parallel to the first episode where Kate stitches up Jack. A weeping Kate tells Jack about Ji Yeon and how Jin had not even met her yet. “Locke did this to her,” Kate says. “We need to kill him.” Jack agrees.

Jack tells Kate Sawyer and Hurley that they need to find Desmond because Locke wants him dead. As they are walking through the jungle, Sawyer mentions that Jack said Locke couldn’t kill them. “I’ve been wrong before,” Jack admits.

But Sawyer isn’t looking to place blame on Jack. “I killed ‘em, didn’t I?” Sawyer is hearsick.

“No. He killed them,” Jack says.

Suddenly, Hurley sees Little Jacob. “Gimme the ashes that you took from Ilanah’s things,” Little Jacob says.

“Why?”

“Because they’re mine,” Little Jacob says, snatching the satchel. Hurley chases him through the jungle and comes across Jacob sitting at a campfire. “Dude! Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for you to show up. You see a little kid running through here with your ashes?”

“My ashes are in that fire,” Jacob says. “When it burns out, you will never see me again. You better get your friends, Hugo. We’re very close to the end.”

Kate, Sawyer, Jack and Hurley arrive at the campfire. “You wrote our names on the wall,” Kate says. Jacobs says yes. “Sun and Jin Kwon. Sayid. I want to know why they died,” Kate yells.

“Come and sit down and I’ll tell you what they died for,” Jacob says. “I’ll tell you everything you need to know about protecting the island. Because by the time that fire burns out, one of you will have to do it.”

“I brought all of you here because I made a mistake, and now there’s a very good chance that every single one of you, and every person you care about is going to die. I made the monster. Ever since then he’s been trying to kill me. And when he did, someone would have to replace me. “

“Why do I have to replace you?” Sawyer wants to know. “I was doing just fine before you messed with my life.”

“No you weren’t. None of you were. You were all flawed. I did not pluck any of you out of a happy existence. You were all like me. All alone. Looking for something you couldn’t find.”

“Why was my name crossed off?” Kate asks.

“You became a mother,” Jacob explains. “It’s just a line of chalk in a cave. The job’s yours if you want it.”

“What is the job?” Jack asks.

“Make sure the you must do what I couldn’t. What I wasn’t able to do.” Kill Smokey. “I’m not going to pick one of you. I want you to have the one thing I was never given.”

“If none of us chooses it?” Kate challenges.

Then this ends very badly,” Jacob warns. Then Hurley is about to ask, “Dude, what’s the significance of the numbers?” and Jack jumps in and says, “I’ll do it. This is why I’m here. This is what I’m supposed to do.”

“Is that a question, Jack?”

“No.”

“Good. Then it’s time.”

Hurley breathes a big sigh of relief, having never really found out about the numbers, Hurley says, “I’m just glad it’s not me.”

Meanwhile, Jacob tells Jack where to find the cave of wonders. “The bamboo field you woke up in on the day you crashed? Beyond that is the heart of the island.”

“There’s nothing there,” Jack says.

Jacob pours some water into Jacks cup and chants over it. Jack drinks. A change happens. “Now you’re like me,” Jacob tells him.

Thoughts on this episode:
Every line uttered by Michael Emerson is sheer perfection.

Every.

Single.

Line.

Again, kudos to the writers that this late in the game, we still don’t know what side he’s working for. I’m not ready to assume Ben has thrown in with Smokey just because he killed Widmore. And the alternate timeline for Ben is absolutely heartbreaking, watching him interact with Alex and Danielle.

In fact, the alternate timeline is really quite intriguing and well done. As that storyline comes together, it's becoming obvious that what happens in Alt LA matters to the characters in Real Island time.  But more on that below.  Seeing Ana Lucia last night was am awesome surprise, even though it was just a short scene. I am still waiting for Shannon.

The scene between Jack and Sawyer, when Sawyer blames himself for the deaths of the others and Jack reassures him, is my favorite scene of the night. Who do I love more at this point, Jack or Sawyer?  Tough call.

Where are Miles and Claire?  And when are they going to show up?  Also, I wanted to mention last week that Hurley seems to have a talent in common with MIB in that they can both see dead people and talk to them, as in MIB's back story last week, he saw his dead mother.  Hurley's reaction that everyone could see Jacob at the campfire was priceless.

Widmore’s death seems a little anti-climactic. I don’t think we’ve answered everything we need to know about him. Richard’s death by Smoke Monster also seemed a little too quick. Though the mystery and romance surroundig Richard was answered a few episodes ago with that Richard-centric episode, I still think he's earned a more meaningful death than just being slammed against a tree by Smokey.  Of course, it's always possible Richard is really not dead, anyway. Tina Fey’s death was rather quick too, but I don’t really care about her and was glad to see her go. She was clearly miscast and does not have that inner toughness that every other woman in Lost seemed to have; even though she tried really hard to pull off the Betty Bad Bitch character, I wasn't buying it.  At all.  Watch her be the only one who is actually still alive next week.  That will piss me off.

Which concert are Kate and Des going to? Jack’s kid’s concert or the concert at Miles’ Dad’s museum? Or are they one in the same, thus getting everyone in the same place at the same time? And will Juliet show up and ask James for coffee sometime?  And where are Sayid and Hurley heading off to?

It looks like the result of Jack’s operation on Locke’s back in Alt LA is going to be directly tied to what happens on the island.

Finally, does it occur to anyone else that the one question that was promised to be answered tonight—that is, "what they died for"--the TITLE of the Episode for Pete's sake!---was not really answered at all?
Next Week:
Ok, just to reiterate: The finale is over at 11:30. No way in HELL that the write up will be done Monday morning. And I want to do it justice anyway. So be patient. And get psyched.