Lost- The Man Behind the Curtain

Lost, Episode 20 of the Third Season

**** / ****

This has to be considered one of the most important episodes of the series I'd think. Or at the very least, up until this point in the series, I think of few episodes as pivotal. Ben being responsible for the Dharma genocide (called the purge), having partnered with never-aging Richard Alpert, and the haunting image of gassed bodies spread across the area where the Others would later live certainly left a bad distaste that lingered long past.

Ben shooting Locke in the same episode, watching him fall in the Dharma Death Pit where the skeletal remains of the Initiative's community now lie in a pile, discarded like trash, just piles on how detestable the diminutive sociopath really is.

While Jack and Juliet try to calm the rising tide building in intensity on the beach among the Oceanic survivors, Locke delivers the payload of his father's dead body to Ben and the Others. I think it is clear Ben is disgusted, not anticipating Locke would return. That Ben would introduce Locke to Jacob, the entity they hold in great esteem, the results of his words of "Help me" encourage retaliation...Ben isn't about to let Locke tell anyone he heard Jacob speak. The disheveled shack, ramshackle and deteriorating, isn't quite the setting you'd expect for a supposed deity. But Jacob sure has a tantrum!

Ben's face as he learns Jacob spoke to Locke reads like a very detailed open book...Locke is such a threat.

The back story for Ben is long coming. I was looking forward to seeing what formative experiences in his youth developed the sociopath Ben would become. Ben's father blaming him for the death of his mother, her not living after premature childbirth, and having to endure his birthday received as a dark day; this carries with it an albatross that Ben plans to unload when the time presents itself.

Sawyer boozed it up with the skeletal remains of Roger, the Dharma "work man" when Hurley found a dilapidated VW van containing a cargo of beer. Later this is revealed to be the van of Roger, left to decay by his son. Seeing Ben slap on the gas mask and pop a can of toxic fumes, declaring Roger a victim, like the others of the Dharma Initiative, watching him die; it is tough to watch. Was he a good father? No. Did he deserve to die like that? Of course not.

The scene above is textbook Lost, with Creative always finding ways to introduce something off-the-wall only to have significance later. That van isn't just a fun additive to give Hurley a temporary purpose. It had the father of Ben killed in cold blood inside it. Ben watches his father die, coughing up blood as his face also bleeds. It is an excruciating death. If Ben will do that to his own father, just imagine what he would do to an enemy!

Juliet and Jack having to explain themselves when Sawyer passes around the audio recording gives the episode a bit of time away from Ben but he's still in the conversation. Ben learning about losing the recording as Mikhail gets pummeled senseless by Locke undermines the best laid plans.

Locke has sure undergone a character shift during the third season. He was so involved in his fellow Oceanic passengers and The Swan and now it is all about the island. Well, Ben sure has incapacitated him!

Just finally getting an introduction to the Dharma folks and Ben's birth makes this episode special. And Ben as a child, as closed off and insulated, is a fascinating early preview of the man he was to come. The mother turning up like a phantom hearkens to Yemi visiting Eko. Getting the code and turning off the sonic shielded fence foreshadows the genocide (the "purge") later in the episode. Speaking of the genocide, I couldn't help but think of Jonestown. The dead scattered about the grounds. Damned eerie.