Lost - May 9 - The Man Behind The Curtain

I thought it would be fun to write about my thoughts before the episode airs, so the following bit are the pre-thoughts:

Ben gets his flashback treatment. Hopefully he explains a bit about the Initiative. Why that island, how they can know so much about everyone. (I can understand an American federal agency knowing about the Americans, but knowing about Sun and Jin and Claire? Something big is going on for anyone to get that much info on that diverse bunch.

Kate is pregnant, but she doesn't know it. (Hell, it's only been, what, a week since she and Sawyer first had sex, but that doesn't mean anything.)

Is Jack working for Juliet/Ben, or is Juliet working with Jack? I'm pretty sure it's the latter, but you never know.

Who is Jacob? Is it Penny's rich dad, like we all think it is?

This end my pre-thoughts. Sometime after the episode airs tonight I'll write up my afterthoughts.

AFTERTHOUGHTS:

Wow.

I'm not sure if I should mark Locke as dead on my Death Watch List. This is the island, after all, and death isn't permanent. But dammit, Ben shot Locke! That Bastard!

So we got Ben's story. Born in Oregon two months early and his mother died shortly after giving birth to him. His dad blamed Ben for that and never forgave him. Never even remembered his child's birthday, which the episode was based around. Ben and his dad moved to the island when he was about twelve. And on the island, into his young adult years, was nothing more than a workman. Like his dad, Roger. Roger, the Workman, that Hurley found. He fell in love with a girl named Anna and continued his existence on the island. But even at a young age, he saw his dead mom. She even talked to him.

Frustrated at his dad, the young Ben ran off into the jungle. There he ran into Richard, a hostile. The same Richard, I'm assuming, that we see each week in the camp with Ben and Tom and Company.

Years pass and one day, on Ben's birthday, Roger takes Ben on a beer run - well, they're out delivering Beer to the Pearl Station. It was the day that Ben and the Hostiles take over the camp. They kill everyone. Even Roger. (Ben leaves Roger in the VW bus to be found by Hurley years later.

So through manipulation, the workman named Ben becomes the leader of the group on the island. The Hostiles have taken over. Because the Dharma Initiative, who wanted to live in harmony, couldn't coexist with the original inhabitants, and one of the two groups would have to go. And Ben made sure it wasn't Dharma.

However, Ben isn't the real leader of the group. That belongs to a man named Jacob. That only Ben can see. Present Day. Locke brings his dad's body to Ben and asks for the answers to the questions he has about the island. Which leads then through the jungle to see Jacob. But Jacob isn't really there.

Is he a disembodied spirit? Is he in another dimension? Another reality? Parallel universe? (You knew the questions would come up!) But even though Locke couldn't see Jacob, he hears him say, "Help me."

And because someone else heard Jacob, and because he wants to keep his power, Ben shoots Locke at the mass grave that keeps the bodies of the people he killed when he took over the island.

Once again, we're promised answers and don't get any.

But I'm not going to complain. Much.

As for Jack and Juliet, I'm not sure what's going on. Jack knows about the plan to retrieve Sun, but no one is sure if he's really going to stop them. From the previews, it seems that the showdown between the survivors and the Others will happen at season's end.

And Charlie's going to die. Next week is his flashback. (Does he kiss Claire next week?)

Next week's episode is called "Greatest Hits" and the description reads: "Jack devises a plan to get rid of the Others for good; Sayid finds a flaw in the Others' system that could lead to rescue."