Lost 5.11

[selenak]

In which, at long last, we get a Kate episode that isn't about a) her relationship with Jack, or b) her relationship with Sawyer, or c) her love life at all. Also, Hurley and Miles discuss the intricacies of time travel. Not a stellar episode, but a pretty good one, and dare I say it makes me feel cautiously optimistic the writers might have figured out much of their audience is tired of the triangle/quadrangle?



Firstly, the Kate revelations - the fact the mysterious person she was visiting now and then was Kassie & daughter Clementine, on behalf of Sawyer, and that she gave Aaron to his grandmother - weren't that difficult to guess, except for one, which I highly approve of: the fact her reason for returning to the island was to find Claire. (While simultanously respecting what dream!Claire told her, i.e. "don't you dare bring him back!") Not to reunite with Sawyer, not because Jack asked her, but to find Claire, which everyone else seems to have given up on. And the way they paralleled this with her concern for child!Ben in the present worked as well. And there's the narrative irony of Roger Linus, for the first time since the very first flashback he appeared in in season 3 (i.e. the one of Ben's birth, at which point Roger was simply a worried husband and not yet an abusive father and jerk), behaving in a sympathetic way. I'm saying "irony" because only when he and Kate chatted did it occur to me that Roger, in his alcoholic abusive state, resembles Kate's bio-and-adoptive father whom she killed very much indeed - but she meets him at the one point where Roger behaves like a human being and NOT like her father. The fact Roger has paternal feelings at all and is concerned for his shot son I can buy; few abusers are relentlessly abusive, and it's easy to feel worry and concern for a dying child. (Unless you're Jack Shephard, about whom more in a minute.) I fully expect, however, that once Roger gets presented with recovered!Ben, he'll remember figuring out Ben stole his keys to free Sayid and return to that pattern of abuse which did its part in forming the Benjamin Linus we all know and love.

So, just for statistics: Kate, Sawyer, Juliet, all of whom started the show as morally ambiguous characters responsible for at least one death in their pasts do want to save child!Ben; Dr. Jack Shephard, the show's leading man in as much as it has one, joins Sayid in the ranks of "Ben deserves to be dead, and if that means letting him die as a child, then so be it". I'm not dissapproving of the storytelling choice, mind, because as opposed, say, some season 2 episodes, I'm sure this time around the writers do want me to see this as a rotten action on Jack's part, and it really does illustrate what wee_warrior has observed in past episodes - the Oceanic Six start out ostensibly saved and better off than they were on the island and gradually become worse, while the characters left on the island start out in worse circumstances but become better, not just in the physical sense (no more nosebleeds and death) but in the happiness and strength or character sense. As Juliet tells Jack, they didn't need saving; he's the one who does. And btw, loved that both Kate and Juliet were disgusted with Jack in this episode but didn't waste time on this but found other ways to get the rescue going.

The whole giving Ben to Richard for rescuing in the end, and Richard's warning that this will make Ben one of them forever, had strong fairy tale elements, which works with the overall mythology. I did expect ultimately the island to save Ben's life - it had to, for the Locke parallel - and also also guessed that Juliet would be involved in earlier efforts, which supports my theory that this is why Ben imprinted on her and that the "her" Juliet reminds him of was always herself. Speaking of the overall mythology, though, if Richard just took child!Ben to Jacob in that last but one scene Jacob apparantly used to live, err, exist in grander style than in the current day timeline; I wonder whether Dharma made a difference and caused the cabin set-up or whether it's something Widmore or Ben did later. Interestingly enough, one of the Hostiles says Richard should ask "Charles" first and Richard says he doesn't answer to him. Which would indicate that by this time, the late 70s, Charles Widmore (last seen as a young punk in the 50s) did make it to leadership position within the Hostiles/Others but it's not one approved by Richard and/or the island.

Then we get the final tag scene of adult!Ben waking up with Locke by his side. I can't help myself, Ben/Locke/Island are my angsty Lost OT3, so I squeed. Can it be next week now?

Comments

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Oh, while I wouldn't say I approve of Jack I approve of the show not trying to sell him to me as fearless-leader-who-always-does-the-right-thing. And yes, letting him make the choice to let Ben die passive-aggressively is way more interesting than if he had done the right thing at once and saved Ben? (Also, of course as with Sayid there's the irony that they both now contributed to making Ben the man he'll be.)