So Lost: Dead is Dead

A little late on this episode but meh.

The title is another of those wry Lost jokes. Dead is certainly not dead when it comes to the Island. Dead people pop out of the foliage every two feet. Its just silly to believe Ben of all people when he says "Dead is Dead". Doh.

I was of course wrong about Kate being the one to have pounded Ben on the docks in L.A. I don't know why I didn't think of Desmond. I knew Penny wasn't up to that sort of stuff, even if she were defending her child. Who knows who her mom is, but somehow Charles hooked up with a sweetie pie lady at some point in his carousing career.

I don't believe Ben at all that he returned to the Island to be "judged". That's just not in his makeup. It was...a SMOKESCREEN! hahahaha! For whatever he was really up to. When he pulled the plug on Smokey's drain and said "I'll be outside" he was not meek but speaking to a companion/cohort/maybe even tool. Nothing humble in him there at all. What a silly show he put on for Sun "I don't know what will come out of the jungle". Yeah right. He did not expect John to come out, he was let down by the fact that he did not control "the monster" after all. I think that shook him up a little bit.

Added to that confusion, John Locke claimed to know just where to go. Clearly this was not in the Ben Plan. Ben was a bit excited to see he was going to the Temple, obviously something there made him think he would be in control, but nope, down into the dark pit beneath.

There, separated from John by a small cave-in he meets "Smokey". Smokey rises from a grill beneath a group of hieroglyphs featuring the ever popular Egyptian God Anubis, guide and friend to the dead. Although we were promised we would know more about Smokey this episode, I think that all we know now is he is a messenger or servant of Anubis, perhaps, and that he can take on the appearance of someone close to the "victim". (Or in Christian's case, an actor they just like having around). Ben wasn't "judged" at all by Alex's manifestation, he was told to shape up and do what Locke told him to do.

I think Ben was so shocked by this. I think he expected a different message and mission from the smoke monster. When he said "it let me live" to Locke in such an awed tone, I think it was because he was still so surprised that he was not welcomed back, but that he was just ordered around, and by Alex's specter no less. I give him a small bit of humanity here and say Alex was as important to him as a person could be to an oily dude.

This whole interlude makes me think again of Charlotte saying, just before she died "this Island is Death". There must be more to that.

The episode ends with Ilana popping Lapidos, our heroic pilot, over the head when he doesn't know the answer to the musical question "what lies in the shadow of the statue?" Obviously Ilana is more than a run of the mill bounty hunter. It appears she managed to come to the island with a nice arsenal of guns in her shiny silver box.

Speaking of guns, a Ben observation. Look at how easily he popped Caesar off with the shotgun. Just a firm no nonsense BOOM! However, when he goes on his mission to kill Danielle, and when he is going to kill Penny, look at the sideways, silly way he holds his gun, like a child or a Don Knotts look alike. Certainly no cold killer confidence there. Ben aka Mr. Conumdrum, eh?