The Man Behind the Curtain

Before I talk about this week's episode of Lost, let me "flashback" for a quick moment or two and talk about last week's episode, that aired the night I left on my trip.

The Brig was a great episode of Lost. Not surprising, as the Locke-centric episodes are usually pretty good. Although the clues dropped in previous episodes (going all the way back to season two) had pretty well informed us that Locke's dad was the "real Sawyer," the episode wasn't really about the surprise of that information, but about Sawyer's reaction when he finally found the man he was looking for. It carried all the dramatic weight we'd been expecting since we first learned of Sawyer's backstory, and so the episode was a winner.

Of course, the death of Locke's father basically tied up the emotional baggage both Locke and Sawyer were carrying. And that's a dangerous thing on The Island -- just ask Shannon, or Ana Lucia, or Eko, etc. etc. Which takes us to this week.

I'd long been anticipating the day we finally saw a Ben flashback. Of course, it took so long to get there that I was only likely to be disappointed. And I think I was. I think. The truth is, I'm left completely confused about just what I think about the episode.

Lost has often been a show that gives an answer without giving an answer, but I think at no time has that been more the case than tonight. We now seem to know what happened to the Dharma Initiative -- and yet we learned this without ever really having learned quite what the Dharma Initiative really was. An answer without an answer. An answer to a question we weren't really asking, actually, since we all pretty well believed that the Others were the Dharma Initiative.

Now enter the newest piece of the Lost chess game: Jacob. His name has been dropped before, as the "maker of the lists" of who was to be taken from the plane crash survivors. And now we have a little more to go with that name -- though, humorously enough, not a face. I'm not even sure I want to begin speculating about what Jacob is or might be, because the possibilities are practically endless. Is Jacob actually The Island itself? Is Ben some kind of schizophrenic telekinetic who actually is making Jacob up? Something else?

Is it just me, or did the "Other" that Ben first met in his flashback look just as young back then (some... I'll say 30 years earlier?) as he does on The Island today? What's that all about? Do the regenerative healing properties of The Island do even more for people who were actually born there? Or was that man conjured from the same place as Ben's mother? And if so, would that be from "the box" we've been hearing about lately? Again, so many possibilities, I can't even begin to set my brain in order.

I'm not even sure what to make of the final scene. Ben shot Locke. Once main characters started dying off around the end of season one, I convinced myself that there were four characters on the show so central to the dramatic underpinnings of this story that they could never be killed off: Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Locke. So my first thought is: show me a body, and then maybe I'll believe it.

I started casting around in my mind for scenarios where Locke will be okay. We know he's favored by The Island, so maybe he can be healed. We saw last week that Rousseau might be following him around The Island; maybe she'll come along to help?

But then, Locke's backstory certainly seems wrapped up at this point. Could this really be the end of him? The double shooting of Ana Lucia and Libby last season certainly showed us that death can come swiftly and unceremoniously for main characters.

Two more episodes to go before season three is at an end.