"How Much Different Would Our Lives Be?" - 6x07: Dr. Linus

**Hey everyone - just a quick note before the actual post - some of you saw me mention this on Facebook last night, but my internet is down at home, so I had to type everything up in Notepad (that program is a lifesaver!), save it on my flash drive, and wait until I got to school this morning to post on last night's episode. Since I don't think any of you stay up until 1am to read the blog anyway, I figured it wasn't a big deal, but thought it was worth mentioning in case you checked earlier and didn't see a new post. My students are jumping off the desks at the moment (they're actually reading and relaxing before the CMTs begin), but at least the blog is now updated!
I also wanted to note that I replied to the comments left for the last two posts, so Jim, Melissa disguised as Ian, and Toniann, check them out! (And Ivan, I need to get to your Facebook posts as well!)
Without further adieu...enjoy!**

~~~

The loss of power was devastating.

 This is the line that Ben uses to describe Napoleon's exile to the island of Elba in his history class, but it says everything about the state of his own affairs in tonight's episode, "Dr. Linus" - and in both timelines to boot. We saw Ben at his lowest, not as a human being, but as an individual; as a human being, I'd argue that we saw him at his greatest. We saw a Ben who had one thing we've never seen him have before: dignity.

I know I say this every week, and then I proceed to write for the next two hours, but I really am keeping this short tonight. (That's what she sa....oops, wrong show.) For one, there was so much depth to this one, in terms of story, metaphors, and the crossing of stories, just in the first sequence alone, and I need more time to process it. Which brings me to my second reason - I am ill-equipped to process anything tonight. I need a good night's sleep coupled with a re-watch of "Dr. Linus" to give you the quality blogging that you expect from this teacher. So I would like to simply touch on a few points from the episode:

• Will there ever be another character on television as entertaining, thought-provoking, and just plain awesome as Benjamin Linus? Not unless Michael Emerson is playing that character. He is unreal. Tonight, as he is so often, he was hilarious and heartbreaking, sometimes in the same scene. The scene with his father (Jon Gries didn't do too bad for himself tonight, either) was one of them. But when Ben explains himself to Ilana towards the end of the episode...well, I'm getting chills right now just thinking about it. The way his face changed. How he slowly lowered the rifle. How they both left the conversation with tears in their eyes; you actually felt the hurt that they were both feeling in the aftermath of Jacob's death. This was Ben's redemption. He literally was at a crossroads - he could either continue the path to the Hydra Station with the Monster, or he could stay with Ilana and Jacob's followers. And finally, the man-boy who lived his life without anyone's love was accepted by the last person on Earth who could ever be expected to feel anything for him; because he was finally, for once in his life, honest with her, and she understood exactly where he was coming from, she assured him, "I'll have you." It was like the weight of his entire life was lifted from his shoulders. We have yet to see how this will play out - does Ilana mean it, or is she using him somehow? Has he taken his game to a new level and he is lying about this, too? - but I think it's safe to say that he is on Jacob's side now. Just as Ilana would be the last person you'd expect to have Ben on her side, it's surprising that Ben is joining his side of things because of the betrayal he feels.
• It occured to me that this episode was surely about Ben's loss of power in both timelines. On the Island, it dealt with a Ben that had already lost power and it was just hitting home for him. How many times did a character like Miles walk by him and say something disparaging? Ilana had him at gunpoint for most of the episode, literally digging his own grave - how much worse can it get for this once-great leader? In the alternate 2004, he was the same plotting and manipulative guy we've loved to be lied to by, but it put him in a similar situation to his Island self: he had to choose between power and Alex, his daughter-figure in Alt. 2004. We know what he chose on the Island when he was presented with those two choices before, but this time, just as we saw in 2007 tonight, he chooses (for him at least) the road less traveled. He chooses Jacob's side on the Island, and chooses to protect Alex from the complications of his own underhanded, dastardly plot in his off-Island life. There is so much more to this part of the story, and I'm looking forward to getting into all of it.
• Alex - of course Ben is her father figure! You know, with her mom working two jobs just to get by... Her name is Alexandra Rousseau, so there must be a Danielle waiting for her at home! I wonder what her jobs are? I wonder if we'll see her again? (Apparently Mira Furlan, the actress who play Danielle, tired of doing the show and missed her family in Eastern Europe - I think they lived in a rough part of the world and were finally able to escape it, and she wanted to return there to be with them, so who knows if she'll return to LOST.)
• Arzt as Ben's all-too-willing lackey? Classic. I don't know why it didn't occur to me that Arzt would show up at Ben's school. After all, he was a high school teacher on the Island, so it was an obvious connection for the writer's to make. And as Toniann pointed out to me earlier tonight, he appeared in an episode that featured the Black Rock, where he met his explosive demise on the Island, prompting one of the most famous quotes in LOST history: Hurley's "Dude? You got some Arzt on you."
• Do teachers really talk about their students that way sometimes? ............No comment.
• The line "How different would our lives be?" came up at least twice that I noticed. Once when Ben's father said it, and I think Ben said it either to his class or to Alex during their study session in the library.
• When I saw the principal, my literal first thought was Bill Murray saying, "Yes, it's true. This man has no dick." (Be the first to name the movie in the comments section!) But apparently on this show he does (zing!), and he has a thing for school nurses.
• Roger Linus talks about the Dharma Initiative! We knew it existed, since we saw the remnants of New Otherton on the bottom of the ocean, but now we have confirmation that at least the Linus's were there. But Ben didn't kill his father in the Purge, and chances are there never was a Purge in this timeline. So how did they get off the Island? And why? And when? This could also mean that Ethan lived on the Island, too.
• Hurley asks Richard if he is a cyborg. And then if he is a vampire. Richard says no to both, so you can now officially cross them off the list in your "What Is Richard Alpert's Deal?" pool.
• Richard is trying to kill himself because his whole life was a waste? As Ben tells Alex about potentially failing a history test, "That seems a little dramatic." I felt like that was out of left field. I understand his logic, but still, something doesn't compute for me. But that scene with Jack's dynamite fuse was fantastic. He reveals that he can't kill himself due to being not blessed, but cursed, by Jacob's touch. I knew Jack wasn't going to be killed off, and I guessed that Richard would snuff out the fuse just before it reached the dynamite stick to save Jack, but I love that they went with the "the Island has its reasons" result of the fuse going out by itself. This scene seemed to get lost (heh heh) in the shuffle of everything else in the episode, but I thought it was potentially a major one: Jack has faith. He's buying what Jacob is selling, even if it's something unbelieveable. He finally has faith, but he is still disguising it as reason: he says things like 'there must be a reason that Jacob showed him the lighthouse reflection. It stands to reason that if Jacob wanted me on the Island, there's no way I'm going to die.' And he's right. His faith was rewarded. He tells Richard that what they need to do is go back to the beginning, and that's just what they do - back to the beach.
• Seeing the beach camp again, like Ben says, really was nostalgic. Things feel so far removed from those days of the beach camp, where the worst thing you had to worry about was being called a mean name by Sawyer. After he steals your nudie magazines.
• It's interesting when the Monster visits Ben in the Losties cemetary (fans call it Boone Hill) as he is shoulder-deep in his own grave. It was a complete role-reversal from the scene in Season 4 (I think) when Ben shoots Locke who is the one standing in the Dharma mass grave. The Monster tells Ben that he could be in control of the Island when he and his recruits leave, (Is anyone besides Ben falling for this?) and naturally, Ben is very much enticed. But then he talks with Ilana in the jungle, and the rest is history. Again, it's the same situation that Ben faces in Alt. 2004: having the opportunity to take power, but at what cost?
• The Monster is taking the recruits to Hydra Island.
• We ended with two classic LOST motifs. The first, which I don't think we've seen in a very long time, is the slo-mo, beautiful Michael Giacchino score, montage scene, when our Jacobite Losties are united on the beach, and which ended with a character that has sinned amongst the other Losties and now knows that they have to make amends. The second motif is the cliffhanger ending. Who's coming to the Island? On the count of three: one, two....Widmore! He is the someone who Jacob told Hurley was coming to the Island. See? Who needs an ancient lighthouse when you have a periscope? What are your thoughts on what he's up to?

That's all from me tonight this morning. What do you think of all this? Was there anything that you noticed that I didn't? (Yes, no doubt.) Please share your ideas in the comments section below.

Until next time,

Good Luck & Namaste!

~ Matt