Benjamin Linus: manipulative, Other, Black Smoke lover. There isn’t much the pupil-bulging puppet master won’t do for a slice of Island power; whether it be a spot of baby pinching, murdering omnipresent entities or just plain old blackmail. That Ben, eh? He’s a crazy coconut!
While Lost continues to drip feed us to the point of malnutrition, we have juxtaposed from last weeks stab-a-thon to reflect with Dr. Linus in the alt-verse and Ben’s Island undoing in the present. Indeed, handy ghost-whisperer Miles got his lines out of the way early this week, informing everyone that Ben took a note out of Sayid’s book and went stab-happy on Jacob. Naughty Ben.
Meanwhile, Hurley and Jack come across walking guyliner advert Richard, who leads them on a trip to the Black Rock. The old ship returns for the first time since season three, and Richard hints that he may have wandered off of the old slave vessel when it first arrived.
Jack and Richard then have a contest of ‘where did Jacob touch you’, before playing with some dynamite, proving them both to be invincible. Jacob will give you anything for a little squeeze, the filthy pervert.
Back with Ben off-Island, that daughter he once stole, Alex, turns up as one of his school pupils – one that he has taken a particular liking to. It’s not long, though, before Linus (Doctor, as he so frequently insists) is up to his levels of mass scheming again – but this looks to be a changed man. With his golf-sweater and a general look that suggests he organises his pornography collection chronologically, he is a tamer beast. He hasn’t even gassed his father – who is now alive off the Island, helped by Ben and kept alive by gas (see what they did there?). They even spoke about leaving the Island together, revealing that all was not imminently destroyed post-nuclear detonation.
So Ben, bored and striving for supreme power over his school, plots to blackmail Head Walter Peck from Ghostbusters, with the help of season one’s dynamite victim Arzt. It’s a point of contention for Ben as he is again given a choice between Alex’s future and his own selfish plans. The alt-verse is looking more and more like a mirror; so we should expect Jack to run in and smash the shit out of it any time now.
When Ben finally realises the error of his ways back on Island – while digging his own grave – he has a choice of being a good guy or going off with Cocke and becoming Island keeper. He decides the former and then becomes part of – in classic lost fashion – a slow-motion hugtastic reunion. It’s the primetime American TV equivalent of Saved by the Bell’s freeze-frame high-five ending, and is equally as likely to have you fall into a diabetic fit.
The episode concludes as a periscope peeks out of the ocean by the Beach Camp, revealing Jim Robinson from Neighbours is coming to the Island. We’re not sure why, maybe he’s looking for Harold Bishop or just another American TV show to appear in. But what we do know is that if you need a vaguely threatening pensioner with a hybrid English-American-Australian accent, then he’s your man… and Lost’s most pants mystery.
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