“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.

Related posts:

1. 5.07 “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” – ABC Promo #2
2. The LOST Initiative – “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”
3. LOST: On Location – The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham

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?

[Via TV Guide]

Related posts:

1. LOST Gets 5 Emmy Nominations
2. Season 5 Revealed [Sky One]
3. Michael Emerson Calls Mum After Emmy Nomination

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!

Related posts:

1. Episode 5.05 “This Place Is Death” – Open Thread
2. “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” – Open Thread
3. Episode 5.05 “This Place Is Death” Promo #1

Source: Sky.com/Lost

Related posts:

1. The LOST Initiative – “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”
2. The LOST Initiative – “This Place Is Death” – Midweek Edition
3. 5.07 “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” – Sky1 Promo

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?

What’s your opinion? Sound off in comments!

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1. New Virtual LOST Island Coming Soon!
2. The LOST Initiative – “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”
3. Gitsie Girl’s Thoughts on “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”

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?

Related posts:

1. Season 5 Premiere Ratings
2. Nielsen Ratings for “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”
3. Nielsen Ratings for “316″

Source: Sky.com/Lost

Related posts:

1. Al Trautwig’s Thoughts on “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”
2. 5.07 “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” – Sky1 Promo
3. LOST: On Location – The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham

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.

3.Frank is pretty amazing that he could land the plane on the island without crashing.  It’s not like the put lights on the runway or anything.

4.  I wonder if Locke noticed that he wasn’t wearing his own shoes?

5.It’s odd to me that Locke doesn’t have any marks on his neck.  One would think he’d have bruising after being strangled with an extension cord.

6.  Under the category of “don’t ask unless your prepared for the answer” is Ilana asking Locke to guess why he was dressed so nice.  And gotta love him for being honest.

7.   Not that it matters to the story line, but keeping with the theme is the shot of Locke’s eyes when he wakes up after turning the donkey wheel.

8. I still think the scene of the Tunisian’s taking Locke from the desert, to the hospital and treating him resembles birth.  I can imagine that a baby must feel a similar fear.

9.  Here is a shot of the Tunisian license plate:

10.  So Widmore says he was the leader of the Others until Ben has him exiled.  At what point would Ben have done this?  If it was before the purge then it would have been during the Dharma days and Widmore would have been very young.  Or it would have been after the purge which means that Widmore was not part of DI.  Or, he was part of DI and helped to orchestrate the purge and after that time is when Ben had him exiled.  I’m sure that there is a woman involved here too.  We have seen how possessive Ben is over women.

11.  Someone on the island must be reporting back to Widmore.  How else would he know that Ben tried to kill Locke?

12.  I also want to know why the island needs Locke to be the leader.  Widmore says that it has needed him for awhile.  So does this mean that Widmore doesn’t even want to go there?  If he was the leader before Ben had him exiled, then he’s saying he no longer wants to lead but to have Locke go back and do the job?  This isn’t adding up yet for me.

13.  I was expecting so much more from the Locke and Walt reunion.  Agreed, Walt isn’t surprised to see Locke.  They seemed to have such a bond on the island.  Now he just chats for 30 seconds and then takes off.  I have my fingers crossed that this relationship will transpire to much more back on the island.  Walt is special just like Locke so I would hope that the writers will give some sort of ending to Walt’s story.  I’d love to see Walt and Locke living like father and son.  They are both orphans.  And Walt didn’t even ask what ever happened to Vincent!  I would ask.  This was just a very fulfilling scene.

14.  If Mr. Creepy Eyes helps people get to where they need to go, then where was he trying to help Hurley get to when he wanted to send him to his own private room?  Would they have sent him back to the island at that point?  I don’t think he approached the rest of the six so what makes Hurley special?

15.  If Helen died of a brain aneurysm, could it be the same kind of “aneurysm” that killed Charlotte or is it just a coincidence?  Out of all the ways she could have died, it had to be something suspiciously close to the after affects of time travel.  I would like to hope that Helen is actually alive, but somehow I suspect she is dead because it moves Locke even more back to the island, that he has absolutely nothing left back at home.

16.  So maybe I can see why Jack was so upset if he really thinks that Locke killed himself.  Jack seems to transfer his own feelings of inferiority and loneliness onto Locke when he sees him in the hospital.  Jack tells Locke that he’s nothing special, that he’s nothing more than a lonely old man.  Jack probably thinks that he somehow lead Locke to kill himself.  Then he starts to wonder if Locke is right, that maybe he should go back to the island.  Jack was special in his own way on the island, too.  And, Jack promised not to leave anyone behind so I can see how the guilt starts to really sink in with Jack.

17.  Now I wonder if Ben had something to do with Christian’s death also.  Christian did hire Ana Lucia to be his body guard when he went to Australia.  Perhaps he had been told that he would have to die in order to go back to the island.

18.   I was trying to get a screen shot of the white board in Locke’s hospital room but in reading it, I happened to notice in the bottom of the screen that Locke’s foot looks like it only has four toes!  I know that the smallest piggy is hiding there, but what a funny coincidence to the mysterious four toed statue on the island.

19.  Haha, I’m watching the next scene and here are the four toes again.  I think it’s just funny more than meaningful.

20.  So I think that Ben was the doubting Thomas, not Jack.  Ben started to doubt that Locke had to die to save the island until he starts talking about Eloise then he knows that it’s true and that is why he changes his mind about Locke’s death and kills him.

21.  Is it possible that the moment when Locke turned the donkey wheel, that was the exact moment that the plane was directly over the island?  That could be the flash that brought them back to the island.  That would also explain how Kate and the others end up back in time with the Losties on the island (except for Sun – but we have to have a big set up for when she reunites with Jin so her story can’t be easy).  Maybe this is also how it’s possible for Locke to still be alive.  His dead body didn’t come back to life in as much as his spirit or whatever from the donkey wheel body transfers to the corpse on the plane.  I know it’s a weak theory but I’m sure it could be *fleshed* out and work since it all happened at that exact moment.

gitsiegirl.com

Related posts:

1. Al Trautwig’s Thoughts on “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”
2. “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” Recap & Analysis by Chris Kirkman
3. Reviews for “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”

Just like we did last week with the episode “316″, we’ve collected some reviews and recaps of “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” from around the web.

Click on the authors’ names to read the full articles.

1. Jeff Jensen for EW.com:

”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.)

2. Alan Sepinwall:

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.

[More reviews after the jump.]

3. Patrick Kevin Day (LA Times):

The scenes between Abaddon and Locke, as Abaddon drove Locke to visit the Oceanic Six, were a treat. They felt like a mini-play, almost a self-contained little drama in the greater framework of “Lost.” Also great was the scene in a dingy hotel room between Locke and Ben as Locke, racked with despair, attempted to kill himself while Ben begged him not to do it. O’Quinn has stated in interviews that Michael Emerson is the actor he loves sharing scenes with most, and this hotel room confrontation was further evidence of that. Two great actors not afraid to go full out with emotion and many layers of meaning and intent.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Walt’s return felt awkward and tacked-on somehow. There’s definitely more to Walt’s story, but I wonder if the producers will ever find a way to satisfactorily wedge it into the rest of the series.

4. Jace for Televisionaryblog.com:

How fantastic was the scene between Charles Widmore and Locke when Widmore gives him the Canadian passport for Jeremy Bentham and says that since Locke’s parents clearly had a sense of humor about his name, he’ll have one as well and give him the name of another British philosopher? It’s the first time that Darlton are so precisely tongue-in-cheek about the fanciful names on the series and state outright that the choice of pseudonym was intentional rather than accidental. Brilliant.

5. James Poniewozik (TIME.com):

John Locke is Lost’s man of faith. But he’s not, really, not entirely. He certainly has faith, in the Island, in the unexplained, but he also has doubt; his faith is constantly shaken and never as absolute as he wants it to be. When he goes to persuade Jack that he needs to go back to the Island, you can see in his searching popeyes that some part of him also wants to persuade himself–that he is special, that his “destiny” is not a mistake, that he’s not being swindled again. (Think about it: if one character on Lost has reason to have no faith, in anything or anyone, it’s John Locke.)

Take a look at the scene where he gets ready to hang himself. He’s not going into this calmly, as some sort of stoic sacrifice. He’s been told by Richard Alpert that he must die to save the Island, but he doesn’t entirely believe it, doesn’t entirely want to. You can see the despair in his eyes, the fear. He wants to die; he doesn’t want to die. The man of faith is a man of doubt.

6. Thomas Anderson (screenjunkies.com):

Exactly as expected, this Lost one ups last week’s season-topper in virtually every possible way, taking a story that we pretty much thought we knew everything about (after all, we know the end result), and infusing it with a whole bunch of goodies, enough to make Lost fans salivate all over their keyboards and couches.  Obviously, we have the huge reveal – that Ben killed Locke, and now we know that he wasn’t necessarily meant to come back to the island (in fact, didn’t he say that he could never come back?), because he didn’t disappear in the flash of light.  Locke being picked up by Widmore right away was a neat surprise too, and it answers a long-standing question, fully and finally: Ben and Widmore have some kind of dispute over the island, and Widmore has been trying to get back all these years after Ben kicked him off.  Does that mean Ben is the overall bad guy?  It’s fully possible, but not in any way knowable, considering how devious Widmore himself can get sometimes.  So that means Locke has righted the time that the island is in, and no more time jumps, right?  Good, at least it wasn’t a gimmick that they kept up too long or pushed too far.  What will be fun next week is seeing what the islanders have been up to, as they’ve been absent for the past two episodes, and sparks will definitely fly when Sawyer and Kate meet for the first time, although haven’t only a few days passed for the islanders while the off-landers have aged three years?  We’ll get to see if they mention that too.  This show keeps getting better and better.

7. Nikki Stafford:

I loved the scene with Widmore sitting by John’s hospital bed. Why did John Locke make such a huge impact on Widmore when he was 17? He was hostile to Locke, and John talked only to Alpert. Presumably the flash happened, Locke disappeared, and Widmore was as gobsmacked as the rest of them. If he was really on the island for 30 years as he says he was, then Alpert, who would have been tracking Locke’s life, might have been passing on information to him and he’d been following John’s life as closely as Alpert had been.

I said way back in “The Shape of Things to Come” that if you watch that end scene between Widmore and Ben as if Widmore is the good guy, it’s a very different scene than the one we think we’re watching initially (my season 4 Finding Lost book has a very long section on that one scene; I think it’s one of the most essential scenes in the series so far). What if Widmore really is the good guy? He appears to be helping Locke, while Ben is the guy strangling Locke with a cord. Not exactly helping Ben’s case. Or is this all a set-up to make us think Widmore could be the good guy, and it really is Ben?

By the end of the episode, I couldn’t help but worry that poor Locke is just a pawn – no, maybe a knight – in the game of chess that Ben and Widmore are playing. Widmore says he sent his freighter to the island to wipe out Ben so that Locke could lead. Ben says he moved the island so that Widmore couldn’t find the island so that Locke could lead. They’re both saying the very things that Locke wants to hear. They both give him just enough hints to get him on-side, and confuse the hell out of him. Locke has no idea who to be loyal to… who would?

8. Ryan McGee (zap2it.com):

Here’s my hope: that in a day, a week, or after a few episodes, tonight’s outing looks better than it does right now. While I had admittedly high hopes going into it, I don’t think they were unreasonable ones. But as we near the midpoint of Season 5, now is not the time to add more complexity to an already overstuffed narrative. Perhaps we were supposed to sympathize with Locke’s confusion over whom to believe, but we as viewers should not be helplessly left in the dark with the end goal ever nearer. As I stated earlier: there’s a good kind of confusion this show can instill, where its mysteries are shrouded but tantalizingly accessible. But tonight provided the type of confusion no one can hope to illuminate. Maybe later, but not right now.

It’s not like I enjoy disliking an episode. Far from it. I’ve labored to provide as objective a recap as I can, pushing past my misgivings to see what I might have missed. But right now, I’m not seeing it. If you did, that’s awesome: tell me what you saw, what you liked, what you got out of it. Tell me why I’m wrong. There’s nothing wrong with the show trying not to tip its hand in regards to the true “light” and “dark” side fighting the impending War of the Island. But at this point, the show should strive to cast more light, not shroud even more in the dark.

9. Drew McWeeny (HitFix.com):

Although the episode focused on John Locke in his time off the island, what the episode actually accomplished was a further clarification of just how much the Oceanic Six and John and the Skippers are all just pieces on a chessboard, and on one side, we’ve got Widmore, and on the other side, we’ve got Ben.  And no one is going to stop either one of those people from getting what they want.  What’s fascinating is thinking back to the very first episode, and the very first time we see John Locke.  He talks about the game of backgammon to Walt.  Makes me wonder… just how long have the producers of this show been building to the reveals we’re getting now.  I know people who love to claim that the show never had any idea where it was going until they set the end date, but there’s just too much evidence now in the way it’s playing out to contradict that.  I think they did know, and more than that, I think that aside from some padding when they thought they were going to have to stretch things out more, they’ve remained a pretty remarkable sense of focus as they’ve built the story.

10. Maureen Ryan (Chicago Tribune):

More than ever, I feel like I have zero ability to predict what other people will think of an episode of television. You may have loved “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham.” And that’s cool. I had high hopes for it — I knew the episode was going to run extra long and hoped that promised an extra ration of “Lost” goodness.

It’s not that I thought it was bad. It was just more of a “phfffft” episode than a “wow” episode. I think the problem is that my expectations were high, and the episode was just sort of … there. So the answer is for me to give up on having expectations about “Lost” — I do heart the show, but I have no ability to predict what episodes will float my boat and which ones will (ideally) serve as bridges to future awesomeness.

So, we finally got a bunch of answers about John Locke. However the answers we got felt like they revisited territory the show had already covered. They revealed Locke, again, to be a pawn in the games of others. And we still don’t know why, exactly, Locke is special. (“Because you are,” Widmore told him. OK then.)

If you’re a Locke fan, then this may have been Christmas. Not that I don’t dig Terry O’Quinn’s performance, but Locke hasn’t been one of my favorite characters for a while now, given that he’s so frequently manipulated by others. And this was nothing if not the Locke Manipulation Hour (Now With Added Widmore!).

11. Jonathan Toomey (TV Squad):

I was really excited for this episode. However, and it wasn’t bad, but it turns out that the whole mystery surrounding John’s alter ego Jeremy Bentham wasn’t much of a mystery after all. The entire hour played out as a laundry list of confirmations – things that we either kind-of-sort-of knew based on past episodes or things that most avid fans of Lost assumed to be true anyway. If anything, it was a nice pat of the back because it’s always a good feeling to think every now and then, “Hey, I do get this show!”

12. Rachel Dovey (PasteMagazine.com):

While the story was interesting, and obviously needed to be told, the episode was a little slow. It rewound to the characters’ former lives—Sayid, Kate and Jack with their respective struggles and Hurley with his flannel bathrobe and padded walls. After watching them plop from the sky and back onto the island, it was almost yawn-inducing to see Jack and Kate struggling with their faith in Locke’s message again. Kate brought up an interesting point in saying, “I think about how desperate you were to stay on that island, and then I realized, it was all because you didn’t love anybody.” However, bringing Helen back into the mix felt like old news, and I was unconvinced that her memory would have driven John to suicide, especially when he has the island’s best interest to look after. Of course, he felt like a failure at bringing people back as well.

But “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” did introduce Mr. Widmore in a completely new light. Up until this episode, we knew Ben and Widmore hated each other, and we knew Ben probably was not the “good guy,” but we did not know that Mr. Widmore might be barely trustworthy. Each constantly paints the other in the vilest of terms, so it’s difficult to know who is the least of two evils, or if there is one. What seems more likely is that they’re each deeply wound up in this power-grab and manipulate the characters into thinking the other is worse than himself, so that they’ll fear that other side. The repercussions of this control play are exploded with Mr. Widmore’s loaded statement that there will be a war. And if Jack and crew aren’t back on the island, he says, “The wrong side will win.” Of course, the wrong side for Widmore might just be the right side for everyone else.

13. Tim Goodman:

In a moment of lucidity, much of this episode made sense to me. In fact, I followed the time lines pretty easily (not a single nosebleed). Locke’s trip to get everyone was perfectly done. What did confuse me is Ben stopping Locke from hanging himself (to fulfill Richard’s prophecy) and then killing Locke. My guess is that it coincides with either the revelation that Jin is alive or that Richard said Mrs. Hawking will help Locke find the way back. What it sets in motion is that Locke won’t forget, as the last scene proves, that Ben “is the man who killed me.” This is a minor game changer, allegiance-wise.

14 Jay Glatfelter (huffingtonpost.com):

Anyone that knows me knows that I love John Locke. I am a John Locke fan and his character is what drew me into the show. I think the wheelchair scene in “Walkabout” was most people’s “I love this show” moment. Not only was that the moment that got me hooked, it was the moment that made Locke the character I felt for most. It made me want to root for him the most. Even Locke’s musical themes are my favorites in the show. He is my lost-away soulmate. That being said, Locke needs to seriously wise up. I swear he better kick some serious Ben butt next week and in the weeks to come. I mean how many times do you need to be killed by someone? Fool you once shame on you (being shot in the gut in “Man Behind the Curtain”) but fool you twice shame on you, Mr. Locke. Enact some bald man vengeance on Ben please. I won’t hold it against you, I promise.

15. Chris Carabott (IGN.com):

What’s great about “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” is that at the conclusion of this episode I have no idea of what will come next. After the conclusion of season three I had certain expectations that I knew would be met in the next couple of seasons. I knew the story of how the Oceanic Six got off the island would have to be told and I eventually knew that we’d learn how they got back. Now that this story is complete, besides a few lingering questions (Who attacked Ben, what happened to Aaron and how did Sayid and Hurley know about the flight in “316″), I really have no inkling of what could happen next.

16. Jon Lachonis (UGO.com):

“The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” may have made the overall mystery a little deeper in some ways, but it did succeed in answering one question – had the creators been forced to extend the story without certainty of an end date, they would have had no problem keeping our heads spinning. The good news for those who are begging to be let off the roller coaster is that the end is pressing in, faster than any of us expect or perhaps even want. Savor the last few game changers while you can, because before you know it the remaining episodes of LOST will be in the single digits – and the mysteries of the island will be coming to a resolute end.

Related posts:

1. “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” Recap by Jeremiah
2. Al Trautwig’s Thoughts on “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”
3. “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” Recap & Analysis by Chris Kirkman

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.

On the island, the survivors of 316 have landed on Hydra Isle. It seems like all that rock breaking paid off. The plane is intact, it just skidded off a runway. The Ajirans have found a Dharma station with standard issue maps – Ben’s from season 3 – and weapons. There was a Life magazine with a full color picture of a “hydrogen test”. Inside was a quick glimpse of Julie Adams being carried by Gill-man in Creature from the Black Lagoon. She also played Amelia, the old lady at Juliet’s book club meeting.

We were formally introduced to Caesar and Ilana, the leaders of the Ajirans. I get a very Jack/Sayid vibe from Caesar and a Kate/Anna Lucia one from Ilana. They lie to each other about guns, seem confused, and find a “survivor” they can’t account for. Par for the course, island-style. Their Ethan Rom is John Locke, dressed like Jack Shephard and enrobed like Brother Campbell. Ilana asks him where he came from and what he remembered. He told her he remembered dying.

He spoke to Caesar, too. Something’s fishy with him. He looks far too comfortable behind that desk to have just crashed landed a day or so earlier. John told him that he’d been to the island before. Caesar told John that a big guy with curly hair disappeared in a flash of light right before the crash. John told him that he thinks he just figured out how he got to the island. Then Caesar took him to see the wounded. John found Ben among the injured. Looks like no Jacobian super healing for him this time around. John told Caesar he thinks he’s the man who killed him.

There was no triage the first time, save Edward. It’s like Widmore is trying to replicate the original flight or that like the Others are. Are we even sure that Widmore and Richard aren’t on the same side? If they were once his people, maybe they still are.

Off island, John landed in Tunisia, as expected. There were cameras set up around the drop zone. After night fell, he was picked up by Bedouins and taken to a field hospital. His leg was reset and he woke up hours later by Widmore. Charles said that he had been exiled by Ben and told John that he wanted him to be the new leader of the Others. John protested, saying that he had sent mercs to take out everybody on the island. Widmore told him that he was only after Ben. He asked John how long ago it was for him that he met Widmore on the island. John said four days. Charles was amazed. He said that John hasn’t aged a bit since 1954. He said that it has been three years since the O6 left and that he can get him in contact with each of them. This was really all John needed to hear and he set off with Abaddon, his chauffeur.

I know you’ll argue with me but this scene seemed to say that the past can be changed. Locke obviously didn’t speak to Widmore in the “first” 1954. He wasn’t born yet. They didn’t meet on the island for another 50 years. It also heavily implied that Richard is from the future rather than immortal.

He met up with Sayid in Santo Domingo where he was building housing. He said no to going back and suggested that John join him if he wanted to do some “real good”. He didn’t fare any better with Hurley who thought he was dead for the first minute they spoke. He seemed to be a little more receptive to what John had to say after a nurse confirmed that he was talking to a guy in a wheelchair. When he learned that he was with Abaddon, though, his mind changed. He told John that he shouldn’t be trusting that guy, stuck his fingers in his ears, and ran off.

John checked in on Walt while he was back in the world. The kid seemed a little standoffish. I’m pretty certain that he knew Locke was lying about his dad. Kate told him that he only wanted to go back because he never loved someone. John said that wasn’t true. He loved Helen. He has asked Abaddon to find her, but Matthew said that he couldn’t. John pressed him about it after speaking to Kate. Abaddon took him to her grave. He said that she died of a brain anyeurism. Very temporal displacement-y. John wondered if maybe it didn’t have to be that way. Matthew assured him it did.

As they were leaving, Abaddon was shot. A very freaked out John climbed into the front seat and sped away. A far cry from the island Locke who would run toward the sound of gunfire. He crashed a short distance away and woke up in, wouldn’t you know it, Jack’s hospital. John said it was fate and Jack said he just wrecked his car nearby. When John couldn’t convince him to come back he told Jack that his father sent him. This sent Jack into a rage and he stormed out.

That night John decided to hang himself, after having only spoken to the O6 once. Ben interrupted him and talked him out of it. He told him that Jack had booked a ticket for Sydney. Ben said that if he had Jack then he had all of them.  Coincidently, Ben overheard John say the same thing when he was spying on him and Walt. John told him that he was supposed to find Ms. Hawking. Ben flipped and choked him to death. It seemed sort of fitting, considering how John had his daddy taken out. Ben cleaned up the place and hung John’s body from the rafters.

This scene was slathered with Christian imagery. John’s arms outstretched, Ben at his feet reaching up to him, the giant cross on the ceiling. It feels like the show is taking the side of faith in this, its’ most scientific, season. It may be asking the fans who are turned off by the whole time-travel business to do the same. It’s too bad the producers’ didn’t have the same confidence with the classic present/flashback construct. This was not a bad episode but it could have been pretty good if it had had a better flow.

Three out of five.

- Jeremiah

wearelost.wordpress.com

Related posts:

1. “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” Recap & Analysis by Chris Kirkman
2. Al Trautwig’s Thoughts on “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”
3. LOST: On Location – The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham

Here is the Episode 5.07 “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”  recap & analysis by Chris Kirkman from hobotrashcan.com.

Previously, on Lost: Richard and John have a little talk. “The only way to save the island, John, is to get your people back here.” But you’re gonna have to die, though, says Methusaleh. No biggie. Later, John’s does some well-diving and is swallowed up by a white light. He ends up with a broken leg down in the Great Wheel chamber with Papa Shephard. Christian tells him to get all his friends together and find Mrs. Hawking. Oh, and you’re gonna die. No biggie.

Meanwhile, this week, at HoboTrashcan.com: Mr. Murphy informs me that Ol’ Benjamin Linus, Mr. Michael Emerson himself, did an interview with Comic News Insider in which he told the hosts that my little analysis column on time travel was “one of the smartest articles I’ve ever read about what goes on on our show.” Yeah, seriously! It’s all true, I swear. Here, listen for yourself …

[audio:http://www.hobotrashcan.com/podcast/Michael%20Emerson%20shout%20out%20-%20CNI%20One%20Shot.mp3]

I’m going to keep my fingers crossed that Mr. Emerson tells Jorge, who looks for himself, finds all my love letters to Elizabeth Mitchell (particularly that one from “The Other Woman” recap), and she has no choice but to swoon. Well, if not swoon, just a note to say hello would be perfectly acceptable. A guy can dream, right?

Sigh. What’s not to love?

Anywho, this week, on Lost: We open up on Caesar, rummaging around what I can only assume is the Hydra Dharma station. I say assume because, as of this point in the episode, we’re not supposed to know exactly where he is. At the end of the episode, we find out it’s the Hydra station because 1) he’s holding a file folder with the Hydra logo on it, and 2) it’s the only station on the island (well, secondary Island, really) that’s big enough for the Ajira survivors to find right off the bat and to accommodate the wounded. At any rate, Caesar comes across a flashlight, an old LIFE magazine, a folder full of some of Danielle’s papers, a copy of Ben’s Temple map and a copy of one of the pages from Daniel Faraday’s journal.

Caesar, the LIFE magazine from April 19, 1954 and a copy of Ben’s Temple map with a clear view of the hieroglyphics in lower left corner.

Caesar also finds a nasty little sawed-off shotgun, which he crams in his man purse before he’s interrupted by Ilana, the woman who was escorting Sayid to Guam. She’s suspicious of Caesar, but he lets it go because she has a little concern. They found a man standing out in the water in a suit. Hey, that sounds familiar! The two head out onto the beach to find a man wrapped in a blanket. The camera pans around to reveal … Locke! He’s looking rather chipper for a dead guy.

Later the next day, Ilana and Locke share a mango and a moment on the beach. Locke asks about the outrigger canoes, to which Ilana informs him that they were there when they crashed, that there were three, and that the pilot – Frank Lapidus – and a woman took the third one out to scout. She asks why Locke was dressed so nice, to which Locke replies that it’s his Sunday-go-to-casket clothes. The only thing Locke really can remember is dying. Good to have you back, John.

It’s time for a good, old-fashioned flashback, the red-blooded kind from Lost prior where we know that what we’re seeing happened in the past. Well, whatever past John jumped from and the kinda past that happened about a year ago, rather than three and … well, you know what I mean. In this flashback, Ben wakes up in the Tunisian desert …

Wait, that’s not right …

Oh yeah, LOCKE wakes up in the Tunisian desert …

… and he’s kinda hurtin’, what with all them bones sticking out of his leg and getting all sandy and such. Locke rolls over, tosses his Dharma cookies and writhes around in pain a bit before noticing a security camera on a stick not too far from him. He calls out to help, but it’s no use. Night falls. Lights form in the distance. An old truck comes rattling down the packed sand, straight at Locke. Luckily, they brake in time, or else it’d be one boring episode with him dying in the first 10 minutes. The truck occupants rush him to a field hospital where a doctor shoves some pills and a stick in his mouth and gets to being all medieval on Locke’s compound fracture. I couldn’t watch, it has horrible. Locke passes out from pain.

He wakes up to find ol’ Chuck Widmore by his bedside. They have a little chat and Widmore asks John how long it’s been since he saw Chuck last. John says four days. Widmore says it’s been 53 years for him, and ain’t that something? Widmore does a little song and dance about how he was the leader of the Others before being exiled by Ben, and Locke needs to work with Widmore because he needs to save the island and yadda yadda yadda. Chuck tells John that Locke is special and that the island needs him. Locke hesitates, but soon gives over to Widmore’s sly charm and they decide to work together. Charles gives John some documents saying Locke’s new name is “Jeremy Bentham” and that he’ll need to work hard to get all his friends together to go back to the island. An SUV pulls up to pick up John and inside is none other than Agent Phillip Broyles … I MEAN Matthew Abaddon. Excuse me, wrong show. Matthew brings out a wheelchair for John and they’re off on a globetrotting adventure!

Fine, then I’m just going to end it all.

No, no … allow me. Again.

I think Locke and Ben might have to break up if Ben keeps on killing John over and over. It just puts a strain on a relationship.

Flash-present, now. Sort of. Back on the island, at any rate, newly-resurrected Locke goes to see Caesar in the Hydra and goes over the whole Dharma spiel for initiation. Personally, I think he should have to watch the Orientation videos. Anyway, Locke confesses to being on the island before and Caesar just jumps past that little quandary to go straight to the more pressing one: how come the man he was sitting across from – Hurley – just up and disappeared in a flash of white light? Locke’s a bit befuddled by that one, too, but at least he knows now how he must have come to the island.

Locke asks about the other passengers and Caesar leads him into another portion of the Hydra. They walk around makeshift cots and unconscious people until they come to a bed in the back. There, sleeping peacefully amidst his murderous bruises and bashes, lies Ben, like a little, cantankerous island baby.

Have I mentioned the part where Michael Emerson talked about the column and called it smart?

Cue the thonk!

Again, this week’s episode was a bit of a gap-filler, but it was a good one. Any backstory about Locke is bound to be good. Terry O’ Quinn could stand there and act like he was painting a bus and it would still be riveting. It’s good to have Locke back on the island, alive and well, but the coming war between light and dark is worrisome. Is Ben, despite his murderous ways, really the good guy? Or is Charles Widmore? Or perhaps there is no good guy between the two – only shades of grey, believing in their own ways that they know what’s best for the island. In some ways, I think that’s why Locke’s destiny was set forth by the island long, long ago – the Island needs Locke and Locke needs the Island. He has taken on a very messiah-like storyline in the past couple of seasons, so perhaps he’s going to be the real leader that the Others and the Island needs to keep everything safe. That’s if he can sift through the lies and deceit that constantly surround him and find his true destiny.

Again, I believe this will all come down, just as Damon and Carlton once said, to be a love story. There are a lot of loving loose ends to be tied up by the end of next season, but I know we’ll see some resolution to heartbreaks, and many lifelong destinies and loves come to fruition. That’s the beauty of where the show is heading.

Now, enough with that mushy stuff. Let’s talk about …

THIS WAY TO THE GREAT EGRESS
So you know how when you turn the Great Wheel and everything gets all white and hazy and the Island does a little dance and whoever turns the wheel ends up in the middle of Tunisia? Well, I’m here to (hopefully) explain how that might work and how we can use that explanation to extrapolate the Island’s general vicinity at any one time. This will also lend more credence to the locations I explored last time in my analysis for “316″ when I went over ley lines once again. Away we go.

Last week, I repurposed the ley line map to show the possible locations of the island.

On the map, I postulated that the Island, when it shifted back into a temporal space nearest the time when the Oceanic Six could reach, was probably around ley vertex #16. Remember that the farthest point to the right on the red line represents Los Angeles, and the red line follows one of the main ley lines on a possible trajectory toward Guam, if you were flying.

Now, as Lindsay and I watched the show, we got to talking about how everyone keeps coming out of “the Exit,” as Widmore called it, and how that could be possible. We talked a bit about my theoretical position of the island and how that could relate to Tunisia, a whole half world away. That’s when the idea hit and I remembered the basketball theory and how it could apply with both Locke and Ben. Before I go over the full explanation, let’s recount part of my explanation of the spinning basketball from the analysis to “The Little Prince”:

What makes even more sense is that the island is very unlikely to pop back into a timeline in the same place because the Earth is moving. I’m not going to delve too deeply into this one, as it’s a whole post in itself, but basically it would be like if you plucked a sticker off a ball that was both spinning and rolling around the room on a specified track. You’d wait until the ball came back around toward you and then plop the sticker on there, but it would probably be in a very different location than before. There were two variables – the rotation and the elliptical movement – that affected where the sticker would land. More than likely, it wouldn’t be far off the same axis of rotation of the ball, but there could be slight variations if the ball was rotating on, say, a tilted axis. Like the Earth.

To look a little closer at that, we have to get into latitude and longitude, specifically that for the center of Tunisia, just for starters. Tunisia is at 34°N lat. and the center lies along 10°E long.

Thanks, Google Earth.

Now, the Earth has an axial tilt of 23.44° and rotates counter-clockwise as you’d view it from the northern poles. It may be easier to imagine it as if you’re holding a ball in your hand. You would tilt it about 24° to the right and you could spin it in such a way that the the left side of the ball is appearing and moving toward the right. That’s how the Earth rotates, and it’s the reason why the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Thinking back on the globe, now, we can know the exact geographic coordinates, and therefore, opposites because of the latitude and longitude lines (remember, latitude run around the spin axis of the Earth and longitude run through the poles). However, if we want to figure out how The Exit is occurring and exactly where the Island could be, we have to compensate for the spin of the Earth and its axial tilt.

Just to make it easy, I’m going to guess that our spot is exactly 180° around the Earth. In assuming that, postulate that an object hovering just above the surface of the Earth would have a degradation of around 11.72° when it reached 180° on the spin axis. That’s just 23.44° divided in half. Now, if we take that degradation and apply it to the latitude lines, we can postulate that the exact opposite spot on the globe, accounting for spin, would be around 22° N latitude and 170°W longitude. Some might say, “but what about gravity? It holds us to the Earth, wouldn’t that account for spin?” Ahh, yes, normally it would for something that spun with the Earth, but imagine something or someone that went from one time to another instantaneously, and was not affected by gravity or spin. They would pop out of “real” space-time and back instantaneously in the exact spot I described above. That’s assuming, of course, that you pop back into Earth’s space-time at a moment that coincides with it’s spot in the rotation around the Sun – and in an interval somewhere along an hourly track that matches a perfect 180° rotation. Perhaps that’s just how it would work out mathematically in order to ensure that you didn’t pop back into another time when the Earth wasn’t there and you’d end up floating in the ether. That wouldn’t be any fun. I’m not going to sit down and figure out how axial rotation AND solar orbits might play into all this – I am but a humble temporal theorist. Is there an astrophysicist in the house?

I proclaim now the location of the Island. Am I right? Probably not. But it’s fun to think about!

At any rate, the spot on the map above is a good location for the Island. It’s near the Midway Islands and Hawaii, so it would be a likely location for the US military to have happened upon it, leaving Jughead behind to be dealt with by the Others. It’s also near the Johnson Atoll – one of many that saw action during the years that the US had a love affair with atomic testing.

Now, I will note that my assumed exact geographic location in accordance with longitude does put the location of the Island just slightly off my #16 ley vertex, but who’s to say that’s the longitudinal spot? It could just as easily be around 145°W longitude, which would take up up a couple of degrees in latitude, as well, which would put it right on the money. As for now, I’ll stick with an opposite geographical projective, just for simplicity sake. After all, we wouldn’t want to get complicated. Yeah, I winked.

MAN, THIS IS GETTING HEAVY
So, when Caesar went scrounging around the Hydra, he found a file folder filled with old copies of documents – some of Rousseau’s maps, the map to the Temple and, most importantly, a bit of Daniel’s journal. Let’s talk about that for a minute, shall we?

Does everyone remember in Back to the Future II when Doc was in the DeLorean and they were about to go back to 1985 and the lightning struck the car and the Doc was sent back to 1885? Marty was standing there in the rain, wondering what to do, when a Western Union representative showed up to give him a telegram.

“Doc … he’s alive! He’s in 1885 and he’s alive!”

Imagine, if you will, that these documents were gathered and left in the Hydra for a reason. Part of that reason could be research by Dharma, or Widmore, any other meddlesome force on the Island. They could, however, have been left by Daniel as a guide for someone – someone sent by his dear old mum. Someone like … Caeser, perhaps? It’s awfully convenient that Caesar just happened to be on that plane and sitting in first class, and now he’s snooping around a Dharma station, paying close attention to documents left behind. Then again, it could be innocent happenstance.

There is another, much more mind-blowing scenario regarding Daniel’s journal. Back in the analysis for “Jughead,” I talked a bit about Locke’s compass, and how he came to be in possession of it, and how later he gave it to Richard, who in turn later gave it to Locke, who went back in time and gave it to Richard, and so on, ad infinitum. My question in regards to the journal is, how did Daniel come into possession of the journal and how does it contain so many references to the Island and temporal phenomenon, etc? Theoretically, Daniel hasn’t really spent much time on the Island if our new “nosebleed monitors” are any indication. I still think that Daniel could be immune because he has a constant, but if we go by the nosebleed factor, Daniel has spent the least amount of time on the Island and yet he seems to know the most about what’s going on, at least temporally-speaking. Now, one simple explanation could be that the journal is his mother’s, full of careful notes she kept over the years as she lived on the Island. She does seem to be the temporal Queen in the Lost universe, so that would make a certain amount of sense.

The really mind-blowing alternate theory, however, is that the journal truly is Daniel’s and he created it during his adventures in time on the Island. Think, if you will, that at some point in time, Daniel began to jump with the survivors. During that time, he noted everything that was going on, including his notes on temporal theory and places and things on the island. Truly finding himself stuck in the past somehow, he wrapped up the journal and had it delivered to himself by someone getting off the Island. Or, perhaps, he got off the island and managed to send it to himself. Whichever the case may be, Daniel has now caused a self-sustaining temporal loop, where an object exists solely because of the predestined time travel which occurred – much like Locke’s compass. Again, this is a loophole in the Novikov self-consistency principle, but it makes a warped amount of sense if you let your brain turn sideways for a moment.

Baked yet?

I’ll wrap it up there for this week, and let all of you chew on this temporal mayhem. I could go on and talk about whether Ben was predestined to kill Locke for the greater good and Richard knew it because Locke was talking to future Richard when he told Locke he was going to die. Or, I could theorize further on why some of the survivors – Kate, Hurley, Jack, Sawyer, etc. are jumping around together while others – Locke in particular – are not. I think I’ll let that particular sticky wicket percolate a bit more and revisit it in another week or so when there’s a lull. IF there’s a lull. We’ll probably also come back to talk about Locke’s resurrection and his apparent messiah leanings, so look for that in the following weeks.

Until then, keep thinking those good thoughts and if you have an epiphany, let me know. Oh, and did I tell all of you what Michael Emerson said this week …

Namaste.

- Chris Kirkman

Visit hobotrashcan.com to see Chris’ weekly LOST drink recipe!

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2. “316″ Recap & Analysis By Chris Kirkman
3. “This Place Is Death” – Recap & Theories By Chris Kirkman

Source: Clayton@bensfrozendonkeywheel.blogspot.com

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Source: The Monitor

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EPs Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse prehash next week’s episode “LaFleur” and take fan questions on this week’s Official LOST Audio Podcast.

[audio:http://ll.media.abc.com/podcast/audio/itunes/LOST_508_audio_podcast_adc5a4ab-0680-416e-a5cb-ca5a9ce77783_2007759.mp3]

Source: ABC.com

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From TVbythenumbers.com:

[...] American Idol dominated the 9pm hour too, though it was a more competitive hour against new episodes of Lost and Criminal Minds (and Life).  Lost which had risen nicely in the demos last week (to a 5.1 among 18-49s) dropped back down to the two weeks ago level when it drew a 4.4.  Lost was remarkable consistent numerically for both half hours.

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What did you think of the episode? Leave your opinion and theories in comments!

Episode 5.07 “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”

Locke’s fateful mission off the island as Jeremy Bentham is revealed.

Written by Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse.
Directed by Jack Bender.
[polldaddy poll="1401044"]

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If you are planning on DVR’ing tonights episode, “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”,  you should know that the show will be extended by 4 minutes and will end at 10:06 PM EST rather than 10:02 PM.

Once the episode has finished, don’t forget to visit SL-LOST.com to leave your thoughts and theories on the episode!

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Source: EW.com

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So, how excited are you about tomorrow’s episode? Sound off in comments!

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