Lost - The Lie

*** / ****

Ben is like a ninja. He just surprised Hugo when he was about to eat a Hot Pocket after a considerably bad experience the night before where Sayid is hit with some kind of poison dart that put him in a deep coma-like sleep with a barely-registering heart beat. Prior to this, Hurley, to his credit, finally unloads the lie and truth to his mother who has a hard time understanding the whole mess on the island but believes him. Hurley tells her everything about his experiences on the island and I just laughed at how preposterous it all sounds. He tells her four seasons worth of Lost back story, and hearing it aloud from the mouth of someone who lived it how absurd it all sounds left me more than a bit entertained. 

When Ben offers help to Hugo, passage back to the island and all of that, Hurley prefers the police! Ben hasn’t exactly been the most trustworthy guy, now has he? And when Ben shows up like some silent assassin in Hugo’s home, the ability to just take him at his word isn’t all that easy. He has that sort of suspicious presence about him, as if a demon mimicking St. Peter, offering heaven when hell is expected instead…Ben has the deceptive face, eyes intent on persuasion, a voice of calm assurance. Sayid told Hurley he should never listen or go anywhere with Ben, that he’s not to be trusted. So Hurley chooses arrest, sending Ben retreating to “the universe” begging for more time. The “universe” (last seen talking with Desmond about his purpose) tells him 70 hours is what he or else…God help them all. That’s quite the ultimatum! 

So while Jack is told by Ben to gather up what he wants to take with him for good (since “he’s never coming back”), he soon is called on by Hurley’s father to help Sayid. So you have Sayid being “resurrected” by Jack at the hospital, as Ben confronts (and loses) Hurley. 

In LA Kate soon meets up with Sun while Aaron sleeps. Sun doesn’t blame Kate for not being able to recover Jin on the freighter, but she does encourage her to do whatever it takes to maintain and survive. The lie Jack convinced them to cultivate and continue has been an albatross, a weight quite difficult to carry. The mystery involving Kate’s run with Aaron involves a particular unmentioned party sending two attorneys with a court order to secure her blood as to prove biologically she’s not the mother, so Sun implies that perhaps they should be “taken care of”. This whole conversation is about what is not said as opposed to what is. How Ben will get these two back to the island is of special interest to me.

Jack is clearly struggling with withdrawals and battles with the addiction. On his face, his countenance is waning. He’s got the sweats and it is as if it is taking everything in him to just walk upright without collapsing in a tired heap to the floor. Jack is in a bad way…his leaving the island, the burden of the lie, and falling into addiction has taken quite a toll on the surgeon. Kate also seems tired of running. Kate didn’t return from the island just to isolate herself on a figurative island back *home*.

Time doesn’t “hiccup” during this episode on the island, but that doesn’t mean life is easy for Sawyer and his company on the beach. With no goods or man-made tools, food or water, Bernard and Rose spend hours trying to raise a fire while “Fogurt” (Sean Whalen) bitches constantly. When arrows of fire bombard their barren camp, I figure many watching applauded Fogurt going up in flames. Who is firing upon Sawyer and the camp? Soon everybody splinters accidentally when fleeing into the jungle, as Sawyer and Juliet find themselves apart from the others, encountering two threatening, trigger-happy creeps in (I believe) Dharma suits. Without letting Sawyer try and explain who he and Juliet are, they are content with immediately lopping off Juliet, only for Locke (of all people) to come to the rescue. I must admit, despite knowing Locke is around, too, I was still startled to see him. Despite Locke coming up in conversation off-island in 2007, in regards to Ben “protecting his corpse”, I had given him no thought during the on-island drama involving Sawyer and his bunch of grouchy, angst-ridden left-behinds. Sawyer is quite fed up with this certain timeline, and there is a ton of bickering amongst them all. How many perished is up in the air as the arrows of fire emerge from the sky upon the beach in a fury that could not be contained. There is no safety on the beach in this timeline!

So Ben has a bag in the vent in the hotel room, concealing its contents from Jack. Throughout the episode Ben is suspect in his behavior. As if deliberately and calculatingly hiding certain details from Jack and taking great interest in locating Sayid; Ben continues to be a character with secrets, questionable in regards to his endgame. Yes, he wants to get those who escaped the island returned in order for balance to be restored but there’s more to his actions that meets the eye, it seems. Ben has too many times proven to be deserved of trust. He has distanced so many (if not all) people through his antics that few can just follow him wherever he insists they must go.

Hurley experiencing visions of those who died on the island produces a cool cameo for Michelle Rodriguez, returning as Ana in cop uniform, having pulled him over for reckless driving. Ana trying to prepare Hurley for what awaits him, her vision phantom gets stern with him about snapping out of it and setting forth on his task at hand. Oh, and she tells him Libby said hi.

At the opening of the episode when onboard the Searcher, Hurley objects to lying once they return to civilization. He can find no one to back him up, not even Sayid. They all agree that the lie is for the best. It turns out that Hurley was right. It eats at their soul and no real joy can come of living this lie. But Penny tells them that her father will stop at nothing to find the island. So the lie seemed necessary.

Charlotte’s condition is briefly conveyed in the episode as it was in the previous one. A nose bleed and this go-around headaches; perhaps the time shifts are taking an effect on her health. Daniel, after telling Desmond in the previous episode to find him in Oxford, returns to the beach with plans to determine what time they currently reside. This is obviously interrupted by the arrows of fire coming down upon them!