This week's episode was all about the redemption of Benjamin Linus.. Off the Island in the Side Flash, Ben is a teacher in the public school system, schlepping along, covering detention and dealing with listening to Leslie Arzt bitchin about lab aprons...life is but a dream...
While there were a lot of cool, inside nods to his Island life( Gassing his dad, Uncle Rico, except this time with oxygen; keeping an eye for Alex and helping her get to the next phase of her life; trying to usurp power using some form of usurpering; when Arzt said he was a "real killer"..the look Ben gave after that almost seemed knowing) I thought the most interesting part was that he and his dad were still part of the DHARMA initiative.
This is the second reference to the Island that we've seen in this Side Flash world...remember the beginning of the year we saw the Island under the sea... and now the Linus boys used to live there... but they left at some point..
My theory on this: We never saw Ben after he was healed by Richard but I really think that he was returned to Dharmaville and he and his dad left the Island right before Jack and Co. blew the Island up....I have no proof of that but when has that ever stopped me?
Either way, the Island was sent to the bottom of the ocean sometime after Ben was there and before 2004, when Oceanic Flight 815 landed.. I think the fact that it was mentioned again indicates that we aren't done with the Island in this Side Flash world...
The other telling line in this is what on Island Ben says to pilot Frank Lapidus: "The Island got you in the end, didn't it?".... This line was SPECIFICALLY planted to let us know that what we are seeing in this Side Flash could eventually lead us back to the Island.. I think that the underwater Island we saw was temporarily "displaced" and will appear again.
I could have done without the whole Ilana and Ben come to Jacob meeting in the woods but I have to give props to Michael Emerson...his portrayal of Ben is what's been getting us coming back each week... yeah, yeah, I know Matthew Fox and Josh Holloway are the eye candy but Emerson and O'Quinn are the substantial meal...It's that acting that really keeps us riveted... it's ok if you've been fooled into thinking otherwise...
The last thing I want to touch on was the whole Jack and Richard playing with dyno-MITE!... I LOVE the new crazy faith driven Jack... he played this so much cooler than he did last year...it was very reminiscent of the scene on the bridge when he tried to kill himself...he just put his arms out and closed his eyes...except then he was all drug addled...which if I'm not mistaken, in LOST TIME was about a week ago...yeah, with this story and time travelling and all that, it's hard to remember that only about a week or so has passed... Jack was bearded, then converted by Ben, 2 days later they are on the Ajira flight(where's that plane and the rest of the passengers, btw??) and then about a week in Dharma-ville, then Ka-Boom goes the nuke and now it's a day later... weird, huh?
Anyway, poor Richard was like a lost disciple... Jacob was gone and he's left a lot of unsheparded sheep... I can't help but think about what it must have been like for Jesus' actual disciples after he died... Those 3 days before he was resurrected and ascended to heaven(please forgive my Bible School misses) must have been a time of serious doubt and question of what exactly they had been doing with their time... I think this was what the creators of LOST were trying to emulate...and then here comes Jack, all full of purpose and faith... I mean, the way that scene played out gave me goosebumps... I mean, I knew how it was going to go...It was like the writers were giving us, the viewers, a message: "We know you've been watching all this time...we aren't going to blow Jack up in the damn Black Rock boat with some dyno-MITE!...stay faithful... the answers are coming.."
I'm in it to win it! I am patiently enjoying each of these episodes twice over... this has been a great year so far....by the way, not to play "spoiler" but don't think these off Island Side Flash stories are little wrap ups of redemption...they MEAN something to the overall story and we haven't seen the last of Side Kate, Side Jack et al.....and this week we get .....wait for it.... Side Sawyer!!! Aw shucks!!!
That's my time! Peace and namaste!!
