Serial Watcher: Lost – Episode 3-13

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Last week I wrote that Lost’s strongest plot right now is the quest to save Jack. This week they focused on that story and it was an excellent episode. Not only that, we also found out the reason for Locke’s being in a wheelchair, which was one of the longest running and most intriguing questions on the show.

Locke is a very confusing character. On one hand, he’s brave, resourceful and quick thinking. On the other hand, he’s also very naïve and gullible if her was a wrestler, he’d be Sting. He also seems to ruin almost everything he touches, whether it’s intentional or not. Just like Hurley was a jinx off the island after winning the money, Locke is a jinx on the island. Here’s a partial list: Boone died when they were together, he caused the implosion of the hatch, blew up the Flame station, killed Mikhail and this week he killed two birds with one stone, as blowing up the submarine not only ruined Jack’s chance of getting off the island but also caused Locke, Sayid and Kate to remain as prisoners of The Others. However, this last action wasn’t just bad luck it was also an act of egotism and selfishness.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s review Locke’s flashback. Once again, he’s a victim of trusting other people, just like in the other flashbacks. And this time his father is back and tries to pull a con on a rich woman. That woman’s son tracks John to hear about his dad and when John confronts his dad, the kid ends up dead, presumably at the hands of John’s father. Locke, being the man that he is, confronts his father again and ends up being thrown from the 8th floor to the ground, breaking his back and winding up paralyzed. It’s a miracle that he’s survived that fall at all, and I don’t think it will be too wild a guess to assume that his survival of the fall will be linked to some of the supernatural things on the show later on. I think it was a satisfying explanation to his paralysis reasonable and connected to Locke’s history. I hope the other answers that await us will be like that.

Back to the island. After debating whether Jack’s now a danger (Seeing him all chummy with The Others) or brainwashed and needs saving, they decide to approach him when he’s alone. Kate and Sayid are caught within a minute but John decides to take on Ben. And he has a cunning plan by blowing up the submarine that allows people to get off the island, he’ll never be able to leave and therefore will never have to go back to the wheelchair. Basically, Locke’s a huge douche, as he’s sacrificing the chance of all the Lostaways to go back home just to keep the use of his legs. On any other show this would make him the biggest bad guy you can find, but on Lost He’s still one of the good guys, at least for now. Some might say that he had no idea of knowing that Ben was telling him the truth about the promise he gave Jack and that John was right to suspect that Ben is lying to him, like everyone else in his life but it doesn’t matter. Even if he didn’t know Jack was about to sale to freedom, the sub could have been helpful. Ben once again proved to be a brilliant mastermind, and as Alex said, he made John think he’s doing the best thing for when in reality Ben was just manipulating him (and Jack, by promising Jack to release the trio once he’s off the island, knowing full well it won’t happen).

We also learned a little bit more about The Others this week. Granted, it was more an expansion of stuff we already new, but it did clear things up a bit. While Ben was born on the island, most The Others were not. As Mikhail said, and as we saw in Juliet’s flashback, many were recruited to come to the island. Some of those were reluctant to come and are even more reluctant to stay, and Ben keeps them there with the false hope of letting them go someday using the submarine. I wonder how this will affect the relationship between Ben and The Others, now that they don’t even have that false hope.

Again on the Locke and Ben front they seem to have some sort of special bond. One is a sick man who got healthy on the island and the other a healthy man who got sick on the island. They both have a certain fascination with the island and they both care first and foremost about themselves (Ben kidnaps people who can help him, Locke sacrifices everyone else’s freedom just to be able to walk). I sincerely hope that the rest of the Lostaways will call Locke on his behaviour and make him realize what an ass he really is.

The ending of the episode was again very strong Ben showing John his father in captivity. And there are a few possibilities. The first one is that this was just an illusion, like Ben said (the box that lets people see what they want). The second possibility is that John’s father is one of The Others and they’re just pretending that he’s a prisoner. But I don’t think that the way they’ll go as The Other claim they only recruit good people and we know that guy is anything but good. The third possibility is that he really is a prisoner there, and that possibility is the most intriguing how did they capture him? Why did they do it and when? So many questions and they’re all interesting.

This was one of the strongest episodes of Lost this season. It reminded me of the days when this show was in its best, when I first became addicted to it. Perhaps there’s hope for this show after all, as long as they keep it up.

Sir Linksalot: Lost