SPOILER ALERT – Lost Season 6 “Dr. Linus”

Best episode EVER!

But I knew it would be, based on the title of the Lost episode ("Dr. Linus”) coupled with the things Michael Emerson (the man who plays Ben Linus) said on Jimmy Kimmel Live a few weeks ago. He had said what happens with Ben is very satisfying, and it sure was. I love Ben. I also love Michael Emerson; he is an amazing actor. He should win some more Emmys.

Michael Emerson also said in that Kimmel interview that he was a comic actor prior to Lost. That seems about right; there’s something comedic about Ben in a strange sort of way. I don’t mean that he’s funny, exactly – I’m not really sure what I mean. Ben shares something with the creepy or otherwise dramatic characters that Robin Williams has portrayed. It’s a certain level and depth of character that perhaps only a brilliant actor with comedic talents and comedic instincts can capture. I don’t know if any of this makes sense, but that’s ok – after all, these are the quasi-incoherent thoughts of a Yels (get it, that’s my blog description; look up).

Anyhoo, getting back to this magnificent episode, it was quite the rollercoaster of emotions, between the Richard-Jack-Hurley saga worrying about Kate, Sayid, Sawyer, Jin, and anyone else I’m forgetting, wondering whether Widmore’s presence at the end of the episode will be for good or evil, and of course the Ben saga. I was literally on the edge of my seat, hoping and even praying that Dr. Ben in the new reality (flash-sideways) wouldn’t sell out Alex for his own power as he did in the reality we are familiar with. When he faked us out and it looked like he had fallen into his evil ways, I thought to myself (I didn’t yell out this time), “Noooooooooooo!” Needless to say, I was filled with joyous relief when he hadn’t sold her out at all. In fact, he managed to maintain the good in his heart and actions, while still gaining just enough power from the immoral principal to gain respect and his history club, allowing him to help the children. He even went further to sacrifice his parking space just for the sake of keeping his word and helping a friend, which was so very Hurley of him. It’s clear that Ben’s life in the new reality is vastly better than it was in the reality we are familiar with, despite Ben and his father’s sadness and regret for the “better” life he could have had if they had stayed on the island.

As I watched Ben with his father, I couldn’t help but wonder if his father in the new reality was the abusive man he was in the reality we are familiar with. They confirmed somewhat (though not entirely) surprisingly that Ben’s father did work for the Dharma Initiative and they did live on the island in the new reality. It would seem that everything that happened before Juliet detonated the hydrogen bomb would have still happened the same way. However, it is possible, and I believe there’s been evidence for this (such as Jack’s childhood appendectomy that he didn’t remember in the new reality), that everything changed, even before the bomb. This seems plausible since our special characters were traveling through time in the reality we are familiar with; they would not have traveled through time in the new reality, so the things they affected wouldn’t have happened in the past, before their plane didn’t crash. Alternatively, if nothing did change before the bomb, it would suggest that Ben’s father must have been reunited with Young Ben after Young Ben was taken to the Others; if I’m remembering correctly, Sayid shot Young Ben and Kate took him to the Others before the bomb. As I write that, it seems like it just doesn’t make sense, because the new reality could not have gone on from there, because the time travel would not have happened…but if the time travel didn’t happen, then Juliet wouldn’t have detonated the bomb...This is all very confusing. The question is, did the bomb reset all of history, or was its effects restricted to the things that happened in linear time after the bomb was detonated?

“Dr. Linus” encapsulates the warm fluffiness I alluded to in a previous blog posting. Portions of it were painful to watch and feel, but there was tremendous satisfaction in the results and the progress. Ben took full responsibility for his actions and felt real remorse for the things he’s done. We had seen this begin to happen when they buried Real John Locke, but it was completed in this episode. He recognized that Alex was killed because of his desire for power, and he recognized that he killed Jacob because he felt that Jacob had forsaken him. It broke my heart when he said he wanted to go with Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster because he’s the only one who would have him, and not because of the power that Fake John Locke promised. I’m glad Ilana gave Ben the acceptance he needed.

Until that powerful breakthrough, Ben was driven by his insatiable hunger for power. Shortly before his emotional breakthrough, he remembered his life prior to the Oceanic 815 crash with yearning and nostalgia; it was a time when he ruled the island – when he had almost unquestioned power. In the new reality, Dr. Linus told his history students about Napoleon’s loss of power, explaining that for Napoleon, power loss was tantamount to death – without his power, he was nothing. In the reality we’re familiar with, Ben was almost Napoleonic (“almost” because he clearly did not want to die) in that sense. However, his need for power vanished as the emotions poured forth from him, and in the new reality, he did not succumb to powerful temptations. Ben was not destined to be consumed by his desire for power. Miles said that Jacob hoped Ben had changed until the moment Ben killed him; Jacob’s hope became reality.

It’s interesting to note the differences between Ben’s and Sayid’s battles between good and evil within themselves. In the reality we’re familiar with, Sayid spent much of his adult life trying to prove to himself that he is good, but in the end, evil overtook him; Ben spent his adult life behaving in evil and self-serving, power-hungry ways for what he believed was a greater good (it probably still is a greater good), but was overtaken by good in the end, despite Fake John Locke’s offer of power. In the new reality, Sayid cannot accept that he is good, as evidenced by his belief that he doesn’t deserve Nadia; in the new reality, Ben is good, and he proves that even when Real, New-Reality John Locke gives him a nudge to be self-serving and power-hungry. In so many ways, the new reality parallels the old one, as if by fate.

Speaking of fate, Jack seems to be accepting his fate (as well as embracing his faith), as Jacob said he would. He realized his presence on the island has a special purpose, and, in his usual shepherdly/Shephardly way, seems to be taking the leadership role, as he begins to lead Richard. Jack and Richard now share a bond; each believed their lives no longer had purpose, and each wanted their life to end because of that sense of lost purpose. For each, that sense of purpose along with the desire to live was restored, perhaps by the island, and perhaps by Jacob.

Richard explained what all Jacob’s touching means – Jacob’s touch is a gift of specialness. That sounds inappropriate hahahaha. For Richard, that specialness means not aging and what appears to be immortality and indestructibility, but we don’t know if it means exactly the same thing for each person, though that is possible. We still don’t know if Jacob touched our special characters in the new reality, and we therefore still don’t know if it matters. Thus far, it seems everyone’s lives are slightly or significantly better in the new reality than they are in the reality we are familiar with, but several things remain consistent – and therefore potentially fate-driven – between the two realities.

While it continues to be very likely that Jacob is or represents G-d or some other divine force or being, there is evidence that Jacob might be evil. Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster is more blatant about offering evil temptations and making devilish deals involving souls, but Jacob does it too. We learned in “Sundown” that Dogen sold his soul to Jacob; he agreed to spend his (eternal?) life protecting the Temple on the island so his son could live.

If Jacob is G-d or otherwise divine, perhaps the evil that happens under his rule is similar to that which happens outside Lost. Perhaps the island is a representation of our real-life world, where people act in service to G-d in ways they believe to be good and right, but with consequences that at times are not. Ben, like Abraham, was willing to sacrifice his child in the name of a divine being – for Abraham it was G-d, for Ben it was Jacob and the island. Abraham didn’t do it in the end, but Ben did. What if Abraham had sacrificed Isaac in the name of G-d? Perhaps he would have followed the path of Ben – perhaps he would have felt forsaken by a G-d who would let him murder his own child. Perhaps he would have killed – or denounced – G-d, and perhaps the Jewish (and therefore Christian and Muslim) religion would not have been, for G-d would have been viewed as evil. Except G-d and Jacob didn’t kill anyone in this scenario and on Lost; Abraham would have, and Ben did – they would have and did (respectively) attribute the murder to divine purpose, but their purpose would have been Abraham’s and was Ben’s. People wage wars in the name of G-d; people do evil things in the name of G-d. As Jacob makes very clear, people have free will, and bad things happen under G-d’s and Jacob’s watch. However, that doesn’t mean that G-d and Jacob aren’t good. People simply take things too far, and, at times, perhaps cross that thin line between good and evil.