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“The Life & Death of Jeremy Bentham”
Synopsis: John Locke, now alive again and back on the island after the second plane crash, flashes back to his return to civilization, where he is brought in by Charles Widmore and asked to convince the Oceanic 6 to return to the island. Written by: Carlton Cuse & Damon Lindelof. Directed by: Jack Bender. Original Airdate: February 25, 2009.
Thanks to Rachel Sheehan from TV Guide for the heads up:
How do the producers of ABC’s Lost plan to make their grab for Emmys gold? TVGuide.com has the exclusive reveal of which six episodes they submitted for consideration in the Outstanding Drama series category.
As expected, both parts of the Season 5 finale, “The Incident,” made the cut. But which other four hours hope to be deemed Emmy-worthy?
Well, “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” made the short list, as did the similarly Locke-centric “Follow the Leader.”
Rounding out Lost‘s Emmy reel are “La Fleur” (in which Sawyer went from con man to big man on the Dharma campus) and “The Variable” (which revealed Faraday’s dangerous plan to “save” the future).
With Lost‘s list now revealed, one big mystery remains: Can the 2005 winner for Outstanding Drama Series beat the six other contenders in this year’s race — Big Love, Breaking Bad, Damages, Dexter, House and Mad Men?
As you can see on the table above, we’ve compared your votes left on the Episode Threads‘ polls to IMDB and TV.com users’ ratings. Do you personally agree with the results? Sound off in comments!
We are happy to announce the introduction of a new feature here at SL-LOST.com: the “Mondays’ LOST Debate!”. Starting this week, we will post a specific topic every Monday from the latest episode of LOST, so you can share and discuss your theories and ideas with thousands of other readers of this blog. If you’ve never commented before, stop lurking, and join the conversation!
“A War Is Coming”
On last week’s episode, “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”, Locke asked Widmore why did he want John and the Oceanic 6 back on the Island, to which Charles answered that there is a war coming and if Locke is not back, the “wrong side” is going to win.
Obviously, this scene left us with many questions: what kind of “war” is about to begin? Who is in each side? Are Widmore and Ben going to fight each other to control the Island, or will they join their forces against a common enemy (Dharma, anyone?). Also, why are John and the rest of the Losties so important? Why do they need to be on the Island when this conflict begins?
Last night’s final episode of Being Human performed well for BBC Three, pulling in 822k viewers. However, it remained behind LOST’s most recent episode, “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”, which drew 948k for Sky1 at 9pm.
This is yet another example of how successful LOST is worldwide, don’t you think?
Click here to read my initial thoughts on this episode.
Watching the episode back, I wonder how much of the “life” we saw of Jeremy Bentham. There has to be more we haven’t seen yet. Maybe Locke in whatever form he’s in now, travels back to the mainland because I can’t believe that the chinsy little visits he paid the O6 (well, four at least) were enough to get them back to the island. Especially seeing how distraught Jack was with the obituary. And wanting to jump off of the bridge after seeing Locke just for that brief moment in the hospital?
1. My money is on Widmore, that he sent Cesar to the island on the plane. The guys works his way around that office very purposeful and finds the maps of the island. He also seems to find the gun easily so I don’t think it’s a far stretch to assume he has specific orders of his purpose there.
2. Here are some screenshots of the Life Magazine Cesar leafs through, but I’m not convinced it’s not just a red herring.
”The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” was largely a flashback saga, bracketed by the Hydra Island stuff. Locke’s globetrotting, let’s-put-the-band-back-together journey began with a scene of massive mythological importance, and ended with an all-time awesome scene. The whole episode evoked and synthesized a number of literary, religious and pop culture references, and if you will allow me to just let me list some of the titles here, I promise not to bore you with the details as we move along: Homer’s The Odyssey, James Joyce’s Ulysses, Alan Moore’s Watchmen, Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, Esau and Jacob, the passion of Christ, Acts of Thomas (specifically, ”The Hymn of the Pearl”), and…Ocean’s 11, 12 and 13, plus the platforming narrative structure of Rock Band: World Tour! (Just kidding.)
Cuse and Lindelof like to talk about how they believe the characters are more important to the show than the island mythology, and an episode like this bears that out. We got a few clues about the island — the Tunisian desert is always where the frozen donkey wheel spits out its movers, Ben tricked Widmore into moving the wheel years before, the island isn’t just animating corpses but bringing people (Locke, at least) back to life — but really, this was just the story of John Locke, lonely zealot, and it was more compelling than the last few episodes leading up to it, even though those featured more action and/or more more mythology.
The first time I watched this episode I was sort of underwhelmed. There didn’t seem to be a whole lot of new information. I mean, we knew John went to the Oceanic 6, asked them to come back, and they said, “Go to hell, Jeremy Bentham.” Did we really need to see it? When I watched it a second time, though, I realized at least half of it was the third act. The entirety of Jeremy Bentham’s life and death could have taken place in that hotel room. And, as it was largely the extended scene between John and Ben, it was well done. Still, I’m not sure why the Suicide Showdown wasn’t the “present” in the episode. I think it might have felt a little less disjointed if John had spoken to the O6 in flashbacks.
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