Lost – “Dr. Linus” – review

This week, in my Lost Recap/Review: Sympathy for a poor devil!  Re-evaluation of everything that has come before! Rampant and irresponsible speculation about the Sideways timeline AND the true nature of Jacob! And some good old unbridled lust!

It’s pretty clear that Benjamin Linus has been more characters than any other character on Lost. He started out pretending to be Henry Gale, balloon enthusiast from Kansas (if you can remember back that far), and has gone on to assume many different and contradictory roles: abused, sensitive child; angry, betrayed teenager; turncoat and mass murderer; lovesick fool; kidnapper turned doting father; unquestioning acolyte of Jacob; island time/space technician; man of his word; filthy damned liar; skeptic; enthusiast; voice of sanity; voice of madness…and we’ve barely scratched the surface.

But now they have to throw in mild-mannered history teacher Dr. Benjamin Linus? And he’s a pretty good guy (albeit easily tempted to the dark side to get what he wants) taking care of his still-living father? This version of Ben is a lot nicer, probably as the result of being moved off the island by his pops as a kid–heck, he even tutors the hottest girl in the history of high school so she can get into Yale. (NB: The girl is Alex Rousseau! Y’know, the girl he stole on the island and raised as his own.) Selfless, yet silently suffering, like so many of us poor slobs. He’s also warped by jealousy and frustration, and he jumps on his chance to blackmail and depose the school’s principal. His ostensible reason is that the principal doesn’t care very much about the students. But we know what’s really going on.

What’s really going on on the island, meanwhile, is that Ben is JACKED UP. Thanks to freaky Miles necrommunication, Ilana learns that Ben was the one who killed Jacob. We also learn that Jacob was a manipulative son of a bitch right up to the end believed that Ben wouldn’t do it, that he was a different kind of person. (In the words of L.L. Cool J, “Joke’s on you, jack!”) Learning that Ben was the dispatcher of her father figure sends Ilana over whatever edge on which she was teetering, and she sets him a grim task: he is to dig his own grave before she shoots him into it.

So what are we learning about Benjamin Linus, doctor or no doctor? Well, the big set-up is for him to end up doing the same thing in Sidewaysland as he does on Islandland: lie, cheat, manipulate, bully, anything he can in order to win, right? At first, this looks like another object lesson that People Cannot Change Their Essential Nature, but we’ve seen that disproven in virtually all the Sideways glances. Then it looks like Destiny Will Drag Us All Down, with Ben becoming the jerk that he originally wasn’t. There he goes, marching into the principal’s room, just like he’s facing down Jacob; there he goes, using his knowledge as leverage to bring down the leader and get himself installed instead. Parallelism all the way.

Except…no. Principal Reynolds has an ace up his sleeve, in the form of Alex needing a good recommendation letter to Yale from him. (Figures the old perv would be a Yale grad.) (I kid, I kid.) He’s gonna burn her if Ben doesn’t retract the blackmail threat. I was never in any doubt that Nice But Angry-Nerd Ben would ruin his daughter’s life again, and it holds true here–Ben steps back down, Alex gets the ZOMG Best Letter Ever, a boring and powerless yet decent man returns to classroom teaching and feels good about it. Nice one.

This means something. In most of the alternate stories we have seen, people have had their moments of doubt and pain, but have changed in order to help or at least not hurt anyone else: Kate gets free but swings back to support Claire, Jack strives to be a better father, Locke has a better life and doesn’t succumb to hopelessness. But is this parallel time supposed to be a proving ground for our characters? Theoretically, it’s in a universe where their island misdeeds NEVER HAPPENED in the first place, meaning that they have nothing to apologize for or change about themselves. The only catharsis/redemption drama here is the one WE create by having watched the other five seasons.

Now, there have been other reviewers/commentators who have supposed that the Sideways Stories take place AFTER the bad stuff goes down on the island. These people are misremembering what has happened here–Sideways folks are doing their thing in 2004, in a world where the plane never crashed, and where no one set off a bomb in 2007. Either that, or they are being way too cynical about Lost storytelling methods, which are amusingly misleading but rarely unfair.

But I have my own ideas, three in number. THEORY #1: The Sideways stories are actually happening in 2004, with everyone tied together via fate, and will end up leading to a mass return to the Island spearheaded by Jack. THEORY #2: The entire Sideways world was CREATED by the bomb blast, a parallel timeline both in and out of our own dimension, and will vanish without a trace if the survivors do something remarkably drastic. THEORY #3: The events and interactions of the Sideways Losties are still some kind of test to see whether people are hard-wired for behavior or whether they can change outside the cozy confines of the Island.

Wow, all this and no mention of the Jack/Richard Alpert tension? FOR SHAME. Basically, we get a couple of things here. First, that Jacob gave Alpert some kind of immortality deal, but that Alpert hates his captivity and wants to kill himself when he lears that Jacob is dead. This scene is pretty damned tense–Jack playing chicken with a dynamite fuse–but worth it when he comes out of it on the other side feeling invincible and epic. Love Epic and Honest Jack!

We also got something else here when Alpert confirmed that Jacob is looking for someone to replace him. And, considering the number/name/Lighthouse thing, that his manipulations have been going on for a REALLY LONG TIME. Not sure what it means yet, but hey.

Other short observations:

1.  Miles’ line “Uh-oh!” to Ben–instant deflation of scene’s tension. Loved it.

2. Realization that Danielle Rousseau, who apparently holds two jobs in the Sideways reality, would still be Alex’s mother. So she got off the island, too, and its secret mysteries.

3. Hurley being a huge pain on the jungle trek.

4. Michael Emerson’s AMAZING monologue to Ilana in the jungle. Dude will never find a better role.

5. Except that Ben’s line “Because he’s the only one that’ll have me” was done in a Paul Lynde voice. NICE.

6. It needs saying again: Tania Raymonde (Alex) is too beautiful for my words. Okay, didn’t “need” saying. I’m just saying.

7.  The reunion of Jack & Hurley with the other Others.

8. That stunning ending. Audible gasps from all over the living room. Brilliant!

See promo images to next week’s episode, “Recon”, here, here and here.