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Thursday, April 9, 2009

Lost 5.12: Ben vs. Charles, and Locke's Slave

Just saw Lost 5.12 on DVR - after the Passover seder. The two stories have a lot in common, actually - release from bondage, quest to regain a promised land, intervention of forces greater than humanity - but, as far as I know, no time travel in the Jewish tradition....

Tonight's Lost was not that much about time travel, either, though we saw glimpses of Charles and Ben throughout time. We learned last week that Charles and El have some kind of authority over the island and Richard's people - though Richard, who in effect is the high priest in contrast to Charles and El's political authority, made it clear that he takes orders from no one.

Young Ben's recovery, due to Richard and the island's healing properties, puts him on a slow-moving collision course with Charles, which leads to Ben forcing Charles off the island, a few years after Charles tried to prevent Ben from "adopting" Alex.

We already knew part of the later piece of the story, in which Ben holds Charles responsible for Keamy's killing of Alex, as he holds himself even more responsible, too.

It plays out tonight. Ben comes to kill Penny - Charles' daughter - but Desmond stops him and beats Ben to a pulp (a common condition for Ben). Penny & Desmond may be my favorite couple on Lost, so I was glad to see Penny live. I have a feeling Penny may be out of danger now - at least, from Ben.

And later, back on the island, resurrected Locke leads Ben to confront the smoke monster, who lets Ben live, but summons Alex to tell Ben he must become Locke's slave.

So now it will be Locke with Ben in service versus the still dangerous Charles.

But I'd still like know why Richard - unlike even Moses - never ages, and if he's the only one.






6-min podcast review of Lost 5.12: Passover edition




More Lost - see
: The Richard-Locke Compass Time Travel Loop ...

and Lost Returns in 5 Dimensions and 5.3: The Loops, The Bomb ... 5.4: A Saving Skip Back in Time ... 5.5 Two Time Loops and Mind Benders ... 5.6 A Lot of Questions ... 5.7 Bentham and Ben ... 5.8 True Love Ways ... 5.9 Two Times and a Baby ... 5.10 The Impossible Cannot Happen ... 5.11 Clockwork Perfect Time Travel






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7 comments:

Ricardo Cárdenas said...

Great episode. Great character interaction. Now, why did Charles want Ben to kill Danielle? Maybe because of the S.O.S. Danielle is sending? But in that case, wouldn´t it just be necessary to put the signal off?

stephencoley said...

If only Lost was aired for us poor Brits the same time as you guys... We have to wait until Sunday, which means I always have to skip these posts really quickly for fear of spoilers :-(

Or are we Brits just stuck 4 days into your past???

Anonymous said...

Just fantastic this one, opening up the entire Lost mythos by fusing it with Egyptian mythology, namely the picture of Anubis with the smoke monster in the reveal. Opens up tons of questions about the four toed statue, the loss of fertility on the island (Isis?), John Locke's resurrection (Osiris?), Richard Alpert (Ra?), Horace (Horus?). And with names like Jacob, El and Aaron floating around, they appear to be really giving the whole thing some weight by connecting it all to these ancient stories. It just keeps getting more and more interesting....

SFGAL said...

Not to nitpick, oh heck.

If you notice Ben hesitated in killing Penny because of seeing Charlie. Ben also didn't kill Danielle Rousseau because of Alex. I find it interesting that twice he couldn't kill the mother of the children.

Ricardo Cárdenas said...

Yeah, that´s right! I guess he´s always felt somehow guilty for his mom´s death

Ricardo Cárdenas said...

so, he projects the image of his mother in Penny or Danielle, and spares them

Paul Levinson said...

SFGAL - yes, you're right - Ben does and always did have a little decency half buried in his soul...

kid ent - and I think your analysis of the source of Ben's decency is right...

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