Wading in the Velvet Sea

Benjamin Spoke In Class Today

Over the past week, I’ve thought a lot about what Ben told Jack in Episode 2 this year: that he was “born on this island”. The two camps were divided into “he was like Aaron, conceived off the island but born on the island” and “he just doesn’t remember being born off the island, thus he’s lying but unknowingly so”. As the season progressed, and we learned more and more about the birthing problems on the island, more people leaned towards the second theory. But I started leaning towards another one: that Ben self-actualized on the island, and that’s what he’s referring to by his birth: the birth of the Ben Linus we see now.

Turns out, the answer was behind Door #3, which doesn’t feature an invisible man who hangs out surrounded by jars of undetermined yet fugly liquids, but Young Ben, Killer of Middle-Class Moms, another in the Island’s “Hall of Messed Up Chilluns”. Ben’s father was played by the same guy who played the psychologically messed up genius Lazlo in “Real Genius”, which threw me off to no small measure throughout the episode. I kept wondering if the Dharma Initiative won all those vans through a Frito-Lay sweepstakes. I mean, maybe he and Enzo Valenzetti figured out the odds of winning the sweepstakes using the Valenzetti Equation, which not only allows you to win 65.3% of all the prizes, but also indicates how weather and polar bears and psychic kids will one day end civilization as we know it. But I’m digressing way too much on a joke that maybe four of you get. (If you’ve seen “Real Genius” and know what I’m talking about, please hollah in the comments section, I feel old right now.)

Roger, better known as “Beer Run Guy” up until this point thanks to his corpse’s appearance in “Tricia Tanaka Is Dead”, took up residence on the island thanks to Horace Goodspeed, member of the Hanso Foundation via Mittelos Biosciences of Portland, Oregon. We learn that while the Dharma Initiative had progressive theories on the sciences, unfortunately none of them were social sciences, as they instantly formed strict social hierarchies within which rigid structures were maintained, even over generations. Note that Ben grew up to be at the same level as his father: a janitor. No upward mobility for the Dharma Initiative, apparently.

We learn that Ben’s dad blames Ben for the loss of his wife, and not in any passive aggressive way, but more in a “Kinda hard to celebrate the day you killed your mom” way, a line brutally tossed into the conversation as casually as if he were mentioning that they were out of Dharma cookies. After this lovely father-son moment, Ben sees his mother outside his window, which poses the very, very interesting question: What the heck was Smokey doing behind the sonic fence, and how did it get there?

After all, I’m assuming as many of you probably are that Ben’s Dead Mama=Smokey. But the sonic fence ostensibly keeps the smoke monster out, as evidenced a few episodes ago, and reinforced by One Marvin Candle, looking dashing in that lab coat and Hawaiian shirt in yet another orientation video. Looks like Hanso et al knew about Smokey a long time before coming to the island, which means that as bad as Roger had it, workwise, the Sonic Fence crew had it much, much worse. They, not you, Roger, deserved $30,000 in hazard pay, my friend. I can’t even imagine how that would have gone down.

Sonic Fence Builder: So, what’s this whole pylon thing do?
Sonic Fence Foreman: Oh, keeps the killer smoke monster from bitchslapping us from tree to tree until we’re bloody pulps.
Sonic Fence Builder: So WTF happens if it comes before we finish the fence?
Sonic Fence Foreman: Then it’s namaste, bitches. Keep building.

Ben breaks on through to the other side by stealing the code to the fence, although not before sending his pet bunny through. Which amused the hell out of me, I must say. All I could think was, "Boy, if the Lostaways don't kill him, someone from PETA will step up, I'm sure." Having crossed the fence, he meets not his mother, but Richard Freakin’ Alpert, who sure as hell looks as though he hasn’t aged a day in decades, although at this point he's sporting Peter Petrelli's haircut for some reason. ("Save the Smoke Monster, Save the World!") Looking over my notes, I see I wrote the following, Pulitzer-winning phrase: “Holy sh$t Richard!!!!! Age??? Wtf is going on???”

Poetry, man.

Time After Time

With Richard’s first interaction with The Man Who Would Be King, a lot about his recent interaction with Locke, and indeed The Others’ fascination with Locke, not makes sense. Richard, in full Season 1 + 2 Others garb (ratty, brown on brown clothing), is clearly moved by the fact that Smokey interacts with Ben. Ben essentially becomes, well, Neo, in Richard’s eyes. In “The Brig”, Richard seemed disillusioned with Ben’s preoccupation with fertility and wanted a leader who saw the island for the special place it was. Twenty or so years ago, in Ben Time, Richard saw Ben as that conduit to the Island’s wonder. We’re led to assume that the Dharma Initiative, from the perspective of the Hostiles/Natives, were sullying that wonder. Makes sense, as a perspective, and very much aligns with Locke’s attitudes towards Ben and the Others in “The Man From Tallahassee”. Anything that gets between a person and the island is for all intents and purposes “hostile”, to borrow a phrase from the Artists Formerly Known as The Dharma Initiative.

Now, were the Hostiles in fact natives? A “native” to me means someone indigenous to a certain location, and has some amount of historical root in the area. And Richard Alpert and others could certainly lay a claim to that, I’d wager. But what I will not wager is that Richard Alpert and the Hostiles are direct descendants of the people who built the statue with the four toes. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say those people did not speak English. They didn’t go around chiseling that sucker for Lord knows how many years saying, “This freakin’ sucks; I hope this sufficiently impresses the Dharma Initiative when they arrive in a few millennia!” They might have grunted something along those lines, in an “Elvish song in ‘Lord of the Rings’” kinda way, but probably didn’t say it in English.

Then again, who knows? After all, Richard Alpert hasn’t aged a damn day since the day he met Ben! Maybe Richard built the damn statue himself over a few millennia. I mean, it’s possible. Anything involving time is possible at this point. The biggest tidbit of information we learned about the Hostiles/Natives lies in the fact that time works differently on the island for them than for people off the island. Perhaps the Hanso Foundation knew this when they described the unique properties of the island. Maybe they thought, “If they never age, they can work forever! Plus, we’ll never have to pay them a pension, so, score there.” Maybe they thought they could harness the island’s power. Maybe they were very, very wrong.

Ben certainly thinks so by the time he betrays the Dharma Initiative, leading the death of EVERY SINGLE FREAKIN’ MEMBER OF THE DHARMA INITIATIVE. What a gorgeous shot: grotesque and hypnotizing, as the camera panned slowly over a field of dead bodies and Hostiles gliding silently through the woods. Well, of course they were silent: if you’re native to the country, and know damn well the smallest sound could awaken the monster, you learn to move silently through the jungle. A skill that will come in handy years later as you are ordered by your new leader, Ben, to kidnap the children and pregnant women among the survivors of a plane crash. And even if some of you might not agree with the plan, you go along with it, because Ben’s your savior, he will restore the island’s magic, even if all these recent years and months have been spent with that stupid Juliet, who’s never ever going to help those selfish women who are so afraid of their own mortality, because who else besides Ben can help you get what you want?

And then they must have heard about a certain John Locke.

Nobody's Fool

John Locke, bearer of bodies, beater of Mikhail. Good God, he beat the snot out of Mikhail in one helluva statement to the Others, who looked at him the way sexually confused teenagers look at Clay Aiken. I half-expected Chris Tucker to come in frame at the end of that beat down and scream, “You got knocked the F$CK out!”

John Locke, seeker of truth, soldier of Smokey. A man on a mission, a mission to reclaim the Island for the Island, one on no side but the Island’s side, a man so confident he’s finally beaten Ben that he fails to account for the gun hidden on Ben’s body.

John Locke went looking for the hollow lie at the center of Ben’s sway over the Others, seeking to puncture his power once and for all. What he got instead was a bullet to the stomach and front-row seat inside the Dharma Grave. But I wouldn’t worry about Locke too much, at least for the time being. I mean, sure, at this time, he’s bleeding to death in a ditch. In this space, this open-faced grave, he’s dying before our eyes.

But remember, only fools are enslaved by time and space.

And Jacob? Jacob’s no fool.

That’s right, kiddies: Jacob? Jacob is John Locke.

Climbing Jacob's Ladder

Let’s try to break this down. That’s a pretty bold claim, I know. Not as bold as when I declared myself the pre-emptive favorite to win “Miss Massachusetts 1998”, but bold nonetheless. But I will try to give as many concrete examples as I can as I fanwank this theory into being, much like, say, the Island can create something from the merest thought of it.

From the very beginning, we’ve known Locke to have a special relationship with the Island. That much was clear from the get-go in the pilot. Amidst all the characters on the beach that day, he was the one that made you go, “Whoa,” all Joey Lawrence like. His knowledge of the innate wonder of the island was also immediate, and, in the beginning, he and the island worked together in harmony.

When did things go wrong? Well, when the Hatch came into play. Remember, his legs started to fail as he got closer to breaking through the hatch. The Island did not want to get him in, and essentially killed Boone as a warning. Still, he did not listen, and became a slave to the Numbers for a chunk of time. His character regressed from a wild adventurer, at one with the Island, at home on the island, to being another cubicle worker, walled away from the world.

With the Hatch removed, he once again found his path towards his commonality with the Island. There’s a sense of pre-destination to what he’s doing, an innate understand exemplified by following Eko’s stick back to the Others’ village. With each step, he destroys any and all chance of escape from the island: the communications building, the submarine, and if he’s found anything that could have been turned into a ham radio or flotation device, he woulda done blowed dat up to. His father’s presence, meant to be a distraction by Ben provides the final severing from the Locke he was before the island and the new, actualized, whole Locke. But before that can be completed, that journey, one final thing remains: to meet Jacob. A man who hates technology as much as Locke does. Only Jacob turns out to be a phantom, an incorporeal being, a possible parlor trick played by Ben as a last grasp on his power over the Others/Hostiles/Natives. Locke hears nothing, sees nothing, and only as he’s leaving does he hear two words from Jacob: “Help me.”

Two words, not coincidentally, that Locke says the following day while clutching his bloody stomach, words that Ben mistakes for LOCKE’S OWN WORDS. Why? Because Locke was asking himself for help. He knew what was to come.

Now, here’s the ultimate test, if you don’t believe any of this: go find a hi-def TV that recorded the show. Go to the part where all hell breaks loose in the cabin. Go to the one frame were Jacob is actually shown. And tell me that profile is not EXACTLY Locke’s. Same nose, same chin, only difference is mountain man hair that would make Willie Nelson jealous as all hell. Below is the best shot I can find this soon after the episode aired.

The story of “Lost”, it turns out, might just be the story of Locke turning into Jacob.

Now, how is that possible? Good question. One I don’t have an answer to. If Richard Alpert could not age in over two decades, if Desmond’s unstuck in time, if Ms. Hawking can slip in and out of time, well, it’s certainly possible that Locke turns into Jacob at some unspecified time. Time either forward or backwards from a “normal” perspective.

I will say this: the question, “Are you him?” posed by both Kelvin and Desmond certainly takes on a whole new meaning now, doesn’t it? While Ben has some relationship with Jacob, it’s clearly a lop-sided one, full of “on a need to know basis” answers. It’s a nice little parallel to, oh, I don’t know, the producers of “Lost” and its fans for the first 2.5 seasons of the show. We were the timid ones lighting the candle, and the producers were throwing jars of possibly urine at our heads and lighting things on fire. Good times, those. I much prefer this new phase of the relationship, though, thankee kindly.

As to how this progression of Locke into Jacob progresses, well, it makes Locke our ultimate baddy, right? Just as we thought he would in the pilot, talking about the game of backgammon, with two sides: one light, one dark. Imagery that matched Jack’s black Armani suit with white shirt in the pilot.

Two sides. About to do battle. The pieces are almost in place. And before season’s end, I think we’ll see Terry O’Quinn again. I have no doubt of that.

It’s just a matter if he’ll show up as Locke, or as Jacob.

***

Leave your thoughts, quips, and “Real Genius” quotations below. Do you think Jacob=Locke? Do you think I’m full of it? Speak your mind! And, as always, make sure to visit my "Lost" page for all my reviews, podcasts, and links to other "Lost" resources on the 'net.