Episode 7 - The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham

Hi All!

So sorry this blog post comes a day late but I'm a busy girl these days :) So I'll waste no time and get straight to it!

SUMMARY

ISLAND

The episode begins with Cesar looking through a Dharma station and he finds a shotgun with a Dharma notebook. Ilana comes in to tell him they found a man in a suit standing in the water who no one remembers being on the plane. Cesar conceals the weapon he found and they go out to question the man who turns out to be John Locke. He doesn't keep his knowledge of the island a secret and that he was being transported to his funeral on the plane.

LOCKE

After turning the wheel, Locke is transported to Tunisia, the apparent exit from the island. He's suffered a broken leg and it is repaired by a local doctor. When he wakes, Whidmore is sitting there waiting for him. He tells John that Ben has duped him by convincing him to leave the island as he did to Whidmore years ago and points out that a war is coming and John needs to choose a side. Whidmore gives Locke a new identity and informs him that he will help John gather up the Oceanic Six to return to the island. With Whidmore's lackey Abbadon, John travels the world to convince the Oceanic Six to return. He fails on all attempts, even visiting Walt in New York. It isn't until he goes to visit Helen's grave that Abbadon is shot and Locke ends up in the hospital. He wakes to find Jack and he tries to convince Jack to come back by telling him his father said hello. Jack freaks out and cries a little too saying Locke is crazy. John then realizes he has failed and goes to hang himself as Richard Alpert said he would have to die, when Ben enters at the last minute. He convinces Locke that he has succeeded by placing doubt in Jack's mind and Locke tells Ben about Jin who is still alive on the island and that he knows about Eloise Hawkins. Ben then strangles Locke and sets it up to look like a suicide.

So I'm doing better at keeping my summary's short! On to the Top Ten!

1. So as the series seems to be winding down we seem too be getting less mystery and more confirmations. I can't complain because I am so awesome at guessing the plot but the episodes seem to be getting more and more predictable. I meant don't get me wrong, I love being right when I make some theories and it is nice to get the confirmation but I'm sorta missing the surprises. Nonetheless, this episode pretty much told us the journey Locke aka Jeremy Bentham had post island. He came back, tried to get the Oceanic Six back, failed (but succeeded), and died.

2. The return of Abbadon! Maybe since I also love Fringe and he plays and awesome character on that, but I loved Abbadon. I have this weird thing for loving the freaky, scary characters on LOST (i.e. Patchy, Ben, Richard Alpert) and I was sad to see him go. When he got shot I didn't expect it. I will say this about him though, his whole speech on everyone has a path and destiny doesn't truly make sense. Because if Locke's destiny was to end up on the island, why did he have to visit Locke at the ward and convince him to go on the walkabout? If it was his destiny wouldn't he have gone anyways even without Abbadon's convincing?

3. The age old question of who to believe ... Whidmore or Ben? I think its becoming clearer just how evil Ben is. He killed John once he got his information on Jin and Eloise and then got rid of his problem - Locke. Poor Ben, he keeps trying to kill John but for some reason he just won't die. And I'm with Jack on why the heck John is so damn special? I will give him that he is a great actor because you do feel for him but why the whole specialness? Was he truly immaculately conceived like his crazy mother said? haha doubt it.

4. Cesar and Ilan? Clearly they are important since they got names. LOST doesn't give out names arbitrarily. And apparently the plane crashed on the island but it still looks intact. Lupidus must be a great pilot. Ilan and Cesar seemed pretty calm for just being in an PLANE CRASH! And not at all freaked out about John coming back from the dead. Cesar has to be someone important with his reaction to the gun and Dharma notebook. Possibly a Whidmore worker?

5. The time jump. So some of the Oceanic Six made the jump and some didn't. Locke, Ben, Lupidus and the unknown woman in his boat didn't make it. I think the other woman was Sun and I think she didn't make the jump since she didn't have her daughter with her. So why can't this group return to the time of the other losties who are stuck in the Dharma 70's?

6. Sayid. So Locke went to visit him and he was helping the world. This was post Nadia's death and he seemed pretty okay with it. So what changed his mind to make him want to join Ben's side of the war? I thought the catalyst in changing Sayid's mind was that Nadia was killed. He seemed pretty content to have had nine months with Nadia.

7. Well Jack was hardly in the episode and of course he was crying. As much as I love him he really needs to man up and deal with his daddy issues.

8. The most interesting and powerful scene was obviously Locke's death scene. He realized his utter failure, much like that of when he couldn't open the hatch, and as a man of faith he tried to do the only thing he knew was supposed to happen, die. But Ben with excellent timing as always shows up to talk him out of it. Poor Locke, he doesn't know who to trust, Whidmore or Ben. If I were him I would trust Whidmore since Ben is always trying to kill him, and then he finally succeeds. This was a powerful scene, I would say worthy of that Emmy he won last year when Ben lost :(

9. One other surprise the episode had in store for us was the return of the elusive Walt. This was a bit of a letdown as it was just kind of a scene where Locke was like "Oh hey Walt, what's up. Yeah you're Dad is back near the island. Cool, have a nice life." Umm how about "Yeah your dad sucks and he killed innocent people for you and now you have to come back to the island because you can talk to animals or whatever freaky thing Walt does." And as Maureen pointed out to me, perhaps the only reason they do the time travel is to explain Walt's growth spurt? haha.

10. Future predictions - the Oceanic Six are returning to the island in the 70's. This would explain why Ilan and Cesar know they have disappeared, they made the time jump and will return to see the old losties. But will Sawyer and Juliet be shacked up together? Did Sun make the time jump and will be reunited with Jin? Will the losties becomes Dharma and fight Ben when he is a little kid before he can annihilate them all? Looks like we'll have to keep watching :)

Alright feel free to post because I did the best I could with theorizing!!

xoxo

B