Lost, Ep. 20: The Man Behind the Curtain
WHAT… was THAT?! Whoa… there was so much going on in this episode I don’t even know where to start…

Ben’s flashback revealed that he was NOT born on the island, contrary to what he’s told us; he was actually part of the Dharma Initiative; his father was Roger Workman/Skeletor; he was responsible for the massacre of the Initiative; he chose to be an Other.

We know that last week when Juliet and Jack were discussing whether or not to tell Kate it was that Jack knows what Juliet was doing, and apparently decided to keep it to himself. Good man, good man. He didn’t tell them because he “hadn’t decided what to do about it yet.” Ah, awesome. Again with Jack and his God Complex making the decisions for EVERYONE. And apparently Jack’s ass-ishness is rubbing off on Kate, who was totally annoying when talking to Sayid.

Children’s book references:
Alice in Wonderland: It’s a favourite book among the writers (and me!) and in this one, young Ben uses a white rabbit, allowing it to hop into “Wonderland” and he follows it down the rabbit hole to a completely bizarre world where the dead talk to him, and people don’t age.

The Wizard of Oz: As in the book and movie, there’s a suggestion that there is no wizard, and in fact Ben is the little man behind the curtain keeping up the ruse that there really is a wizard, when in fact he’s pulling all the strings. It’s interesting that he originally came to the Lostaways by claiming to have landed on the island in a balloon. During that whole scene in Jacob’s cabin, I could almost see Ben as the little man from the film version of the book, spinning his wheels and hitting the knobs, yelling into the microphone. Ben’s mother’s name is Emily. Interestingly, that was Dorothy’s aunt’s name in Wizard of Oz. Her uncle’s name was Henry Gale.

The Emperor’s New Clothes: In this children’s story (which is one of my daughter’s favourites) two conmen come to town and say they will make the emperor a suit of clothes so exquisite that it will only be seen by intelligent people who are good at their jobs, and any stupid person who doesn’t deserve their post won’t see the clothes. The emperor sends his people to go and see how the clothes are coming along, and the conmen hold up nothing and claim it’s a beautiful outfit, and the emperor’s politicians, thinking they’ll be labeled stupid, marvel at the beauty of the clothes, until the emperor, who similarly can’t see them and is similarly worried, parades through the streets naked. It takes a small child pointing at him and saying, “But he’s not wearing any clothes!” to show him how stupid he’s really been. In the scene where Ben is talking to what appears to be an empty chair, Locke must have felt like the emperor, but rather than fall for it, he’s immediately seen through what he believes is a ruse.

Interesting Casting:
-The actress who was playing Ben’s mother is Carrie Preston, who in real life is Michael Emerson’s wife. It doesn’t get much more Freudian than THAT. (While Emerson had rarely seen the show before getting the part of Henry Gale, Preston was a massive fan of the show… imagine how odd that would be to be a big fangirl about a show and then your husband ends up one of the main characters. Weirdness.)
-the guy who plays the man in the car who takes Ben’s dad to the island is Brian Hutchison, who I remember as the slimy little guard in “The Green Mile” who is pure evil. He was also on Party of Five with Matthew Fox.
-his wife Olivia is played by Samantha Mathis, who’s appeared in several movies. I remember her best in the early 90s as the girl who was dating River Phoenix right before he died, and the black-haired girlfriend of Christian Slater in Pump up the Volume (one of my all-time fave movies).

Did You Notice?:
-when Roger runs out of the woods carrying Emily, you see a sign that they’re just outside Portland, which is the place Richard claimed to Juliet that she’d be going in “Not in Portland”
-Ben says he’s the only one Jacob talks to. It makes him sound like a prophet.
-Ben seems to get really angry when Locke suggests Richard could take him to Jacob.
-when Ben offers Locke a scotch, Locke just stares at it. I wonder if the last time he was offered a scotch was just before his dad threw him out a window?
-the way they introduce new Dharma people is very Fantasy Island.
-the little girl’s name is Annie. This is the same name Kate used when she was living with Ray in Australia (the man who turned her in).
-Mikhail tells Ben that the pilot’s boat is 160km off the shore
-uh… add Ben to the ever-expanding list of people on the island with serious Daddy Issues.
-how awesome is Michael Emerson for having a scene of dialogue with someone who isn’t there? I love this actor.
-Everything begins moving in the room, and then Ben grabs the chair and tells Jacob to stop, he’s thrown across the room, and the camera pans back to the chair, and there’s Jacob!! I actually didn’t see him until the second time I watched it, and I seriously screamed, paused the scene, and he’s sitting in the chair (it was like I’d seen a ghost, which is why I screamed), but it’s like a split-second where Locke spots him. He’s CREEPY, and kinda looks like Pickett, whom Juliet shot. Go back and look if you missed it.
-there seems to be a caste system in Dharma; if your father was a work man, then so will you be.
-when Ben takes his father out in the VW van, he’s playing Shambala, the song that was playing when Hurley got the thing going again.
-in “The Man from Tallahassee,” Ben asks Locke what it was like knowing his father was trying to kill him. Now we know he was asking because he was interested in what must have been running through his dad’s head when he killed him.
-Ben knew the Others were going to wipe out Dharma, but instead of stalling Daddy and keeping him there, he needed to do it himself. Clearly he has some sort of code where he needed to do his own thing… hence why it was so important to him that Locke kill his father, too. He believes that a father who is that emotionally abusive to his child deserves to be killed at the hands of his own son.

Questions:
-it’s Ben’s birthday. It’s approximately a month since Ben told Jack it was November 29th. Could it be December 25? Is it possible Ben was born on Christmas?
-Why does everyone look at Ben like he’s a traitor when Locke says he’s taking him to Jacob? Has everyone else wanted to go and he’s refused? Or are they pissed that Ben is taking one of THEM to see him?
-why does Alex give Ben a gun to see Jacob? Has she been to see the wizard, too?
-how do the Hostiles infiltrate the Dharma camp all the time if there’s a sonic fence? Why does Ben think that Dharma is the threat when he’s seen the way the “hostiles” keep invading their territory?
-what was that path of weird grey sand-like substance that Ben and Locke crossed? Was it a line that Ben’s been told NOT to cross?
-Ben clearly has a thing for bunnies that he carries around in his shoulder bag. Is this the great-grandbunny of the one he painted the 8 on?
-uh… how is it that when Ben was like 12 or something, he runs into RICHARD in the jungle, looking exactly as he does now. If Richard is in his 30s there, and Ben’s in his 40s now, that makes Richard in his 60s now, which ain’t possible. Is this just a very ill-conceived suspension of disbelief (like, are the writers suggesting Richard is 18 or something?) or is there something about the Others that slows down their aging?
-How did Richard know Ben’s name?
-just before Ben and Locke walk into Jacob’s cabin, you hear a man scream far away. Who was that? (Please let them be torturing Jack on the beach…)
-what were the liquids in jars on the ledge in the cabin?
-what kind of Psycho/Firestarter/Carrie voodoo craziness was going on in Jacob’s cabin?? Yikes.
-did Jacob really say Help Me to Ben, or was Ben somehow throwing his voice? If it was Jacob, what did he mean?
-Is Ben like the kid in Sixth Sense, and can see dead people? Who the heck was in that chair?
-what happened to Annie? Was she one of the casualties in the gassing or was she already dead? If she was killed ahead of time it would help explain Ben’s hostility to Dharma.
-what sort of chemical warfare did the Others launch against Dharma?
-why were the Dharma casualties left in an open grave like that? They clearly didn’t come back to life...
-OMG, are they going to kill Locke???????? When I ran a poll a couple of weeks ago, no one chose Locke as the one they thought would go next. How many people out there GASPED out loud when it happened?? WOW.

Nitpicks: It’s a LONG trek from the beach to Otherville, as we saw when Kate, Sayid, et al did it. Hurley finds the VW bus close to the beach, yet Ben somehow left it there and did a full-day trek in less than an hour back to Otherville? Maybe he moved the bus later.

Next week: Um… it’s called Greatest Hits, so I’ll hazard a guess that it’s Charlie. (CTV no longer shows the previews for next week.) Will Charlie find Locke?