507 - The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham - recap

An illuminating Episode in which Ben’s Goodness and Widmore’s Badness are somewhat further demonstrated.

Recap:
We’re in an office. A DI office. "Caesar" enters and finds a LIFE magazine, dated 4/19/54 featuring a cover picture labelled "Color picture of Hydrogen [bomb] test ... The Awesome Fireball". This magazine pre-dates the US Army Top Secret Jughead Mission (by about 6 months) as well as the 1970's arrival of the DI - so ... Somebody in the DI saved this magazine for about 20 years and then brought it to the Island? Hmmm
Caesar then breaks into an old-style wooden Filing Drawer and extracts a file containing some Island maps and what looks like one of Daniel’s Journal pages - featuring "Space-time", "Real Time" and "Imaginary Time". Actually, it may be that this is the DI original that Daniel may have copied into his journal.

Caesar then finds a loaded sawed-off shotgun attached to the underside of the desk, grabs it, stashes it in his bag and then lies about having found it. Ilana (a kinder, gentler version of Edward Mars/Ana Lucia) enters, asks him what he’s just put into his bag and he tosses her the flashlight. It’s 2 or 3 days since they crash-landed at Hydra and the A-Team are exploring. They haven’t yet found the Armoury. Note that Family Ben (with a bit of help from Kate and James) built the air-strip in anticipation of this crash-landing. This implies that they left this office stuff behind to be found.

Ilana announces: "We found someone - a man. Roxanne was scouting just south of here and he was just standing in the water. He's wearing a suit."

As the two of them return to the beach, they stroll past the crash-landed plane. Great flying, Frank!! According to Ilana, the newcomer isn’t "one of the ones who disappeared" and was in fact not "on the plane". As we approach the beach, we see someone huddled under an Ajira blanket. It’s John. John Locke.

So ... St John has not been reincarnated, but has been resurrected with his memories and personality intact. Unlike Montand and "Claire", he has not been "possessed" by The Island His casket corpse did not include a cast on his right leg, and John is not limping in his New Life. How "alive" is he, exactly? Is he now immortal? Is he one of the "Non-Living Persons" obliquely referred to by Ben when he warned Jack that calling the Freighter would result in the "death of every single living person" on the Island? Are all of Family Ben/Richard Non-Living (immortal) Persons? Have they all died like John?

The next morning, as John looks across the water to the Island, Ilana brings him the Best Mango He’s Ever Eaten and we find out that of the originally left-behind 3-boat outrigger fleet, that Frank and Sun took one in the middle of the night without telling anyone. Maybe Frank and Sun are smart enough (unlike St John the Stupid) not to trust Caesar. I’m guessing that their first destination would have been Lostie Beach, which they found abandoned (the date of the Flight 316 crash being early 2008).

I’m guessing that Frank and Sun would then have abandoned that canoe and started searching for their fellow Losties by foot, not knowing that they’ve been Flashed into the early 70's. Poor Sun - now isolated from both her husband and her daughter! Poor Jin when he finds out too.

I’m further guessing that Caesar and his Five Best set out to scout the island, found the abandoned outrigger, went searching for Sun and Frank, came back to find one canoe missing, then chased it, taking pot-shots at Team Ford - until they Flashed away - like Hugo, Kate and Sayid had.
Note that Caesar, the Leader of the Flight 316 survivors has a Very Appropriate Name. I wonder if he speaks Latin.

Note that Ilana tells John that "nobody remembers you being on the plane" - just like Nathan and Ethan.
St John the Stupid has still not figured out when to hold his tongue. Instead of saying the bare minimum until he can figure out who these people are and what their intentions might be, he starts blabbing about remembering his own death. Slow Learner. Given Walt’s Warning (see below) John’s speechifying is even dumber.

Flashback to John pulling the FDW, followed by his "wake-up" on his back in the Tunisian Desert. Just like Ben, John’s first action is to vomit some Wormhole Gack. Unlike Ben’s 10/24/05 arrival, there is now a camera Observing the Exit site. Based on Bentham’s passport issue date (12/12/07), I’m guessing that John’s Tunisian arrival occurred in early December, 2007 - time enough for Charles Widmore to have discovered and upgraded the site with a surveillance camera. The Bedouins who come to pick John up have also had their transportation up-graded from horses to a truck.

Note that John would have died in the desert if not for Widmore’s help. He would also not have been able to track down The Six without Widmore’s help. Both Widmore and Ben (plus Richard and "Christian" and Ms H) want The Six to Go Back, but only Ben The Good wants St John to survive the Return.

If Widmore was 17 in 1954, he was 70 in December 2007. Unless there’s some serious Longevity Benefits involved in reclaiming the Island, one would think that CW ought to just retire in peace. However, I think that Longevity as in Eternal Life may in fact be at stake for CW. CW tells us that "his people" protected the Island peacefully for three decades [after the Not Peaceful slaughter of Team Jughead]. If CW was banished at the time of The Purge (early 90's), this suggests that he became the Leader in the early 1960's. Note that Young Ben arrived in the early 70's - about 10 years after CW became leader of the "Hostiles". CW is about 25 years older than Ben

We all know that there’s a War Coming. If there’s only two sides to this war, it should now be obvious who The Bad Guys are. But I’m inclined to think there’s three sides to this war and we haven’t really seen much of The Real Bad Guys.

Meanwhile, St John gets a new passport in the name of Jeremy Bentham - a name picked out by Widmore.
According to Lostpedia:
[Bentham] was best known for his advocacy of utilitarianism, a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome - the ends justify the means. Utilitarianism argued that the "right" action or policy was that which would cause "the greatest happiness of the greatest number". His critics objected saying that it would therefore "...be acceptable to torture one person if this would produce an amount of happiness in other people outweighing the unhappiness of the tortured individual."

Bentham was also known for his outspoken opposition to the French revolutionary discourse of "natural rights", an idea championed by philosopher John Locke (whose father, also named John Locke, worked for Jeremy Bentham). He also suggested a procedure for estimating the moral status of any action. His principle regards "good" as that which produces the greatest amount of physical or spiritual pleasure, and the minimum amount of pain; and "evil" as that which produces the most pain without the pleasure.
So ... CW "believes" that the End Justifies The Means (not unlike Ben’s philosophy). I’ll buy that, but as far as the concept of The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number, I don’t think this reflects CW’s personal philosophy at all.

In an effort to win John’s Trust, Widmore tells him that he’s never tried to kill him - implying that Ben did. This is a Half-Lie. Ben had just been demoted, was distraught and not thinking clearly. He pulled the trigger only once and admitted subsequently that he "should have realised at the time that [the murder attempt] was pointless". The fact that Widmore knew about Ben’s DHARMA Pit wounding of John tells us that he had spies on the island at that time. By the end of Season Three, Ben had succeeded in the (indirect, by-the-book) removal of the Widmore Loyalists from The Game.

Widmore’s next Big Lie is that he wanted Ben removed so that John could assume his rightful Island Leadership Role. Based on the Widmore comment in 409 ( "The shape of things to come" ):
"That island's mine, Benjamin. It always was. It will be again." , I think it’s safe to say that CW has/had no plans for John to become the Island Leader.

On the other hand, Ben The Good specifically took on the burden of Moving The Island so that John could rejoin Family Richard and become their Leader - at least for a little while. Ben may be a Liar, but Widmore is a Lying Liar.

Finally, regarding John’s willingness to "trust" CW, he should remember 17-year-old CW completely willing to cut off Juliet’s hand just for starters and that he nonchalantly murdered "Cunningham" for the "crime" of hinting where to find Camp Richard, followed by his own cowardly flight which helped lead Team John directly to the camp.

We are now formally reintroduced to Matthew Abaddon, whose job is to "help people get to where they need to get to" - including Charlotte’s journey to her death and Locke’s journey to his. Widmore’s last word to Locke was: "Godspeed" - the same word spoken to him by "Horace" . Were Horace and Widmore on the same side before CW’s exile?

Based on the detailed, 3-year surveillance info contained in the O6 File, John’s first stop is Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic - where Sayid’s been helping build homes and schools. Note that Sayid is still alive. Widmore is not The Economist.

Sayid’s comments are the first step toward John’s suicide: ""Why do you really need to go back? Is it because you have nowhere else to go?" Note that it was the news of John’s death that brought Sayid to Hugo.

Next up: Walt
"I've been having dreams about you. You were on an island, wearing a suit, and there were people all around you. They wanted to hurt you, John."
John shakes his head. "Good thing they're just dreams." John = Idiot
"Is my dad ... is he back on the island? I haven't talked to him in three years. Figured he must have gone back."
"Last I heard, your dad was on a freighter near the island." John didn’t want to be the Bearer of Bad News
"So why'd you come to see me?"
After a few seconds, Locke says, "I just wanted to make sure you were okay." John changes his mind about trying to recruit Walt, who’s been through enough.

MA’s comment: "That's 0 for 2, Mr. Locke. Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought you were supposed to bring everyone back." The Angel of The Abyss is pushing John into despair.

Next: Hugo
By the time Locke rolls his wheelchair over to where Hugo is working on his Not-Island watercolour, Hugo’s used to visits from Dead Friends and naturally assumes that Locke’s the latest in a series. When he confirms that the Staff can see John (who is therefore Not Dead), he’s shocked. When Locke explains that The Six are needed on the Island, Hugo’s sceptical that Jack, Kate or Sun could be persuaded. Then Hugo sees MA. Hugo, LOST’s Moral Compass tells John that MA is evil and untrustworthy. If CW or MA had wanted Locke to succeed in recruiting Hugo, they would have made a point of keeping him out of sight. But that’s not the agenda here. The agenda is to lead John into Choosing Death.

Kate: "The answer is no,"
"Kate, I don't think you understand."
"No, you made yourself perfectly clear. Everyone on the island is going to die if I don't go back. And the answer is no."
"Why? Don't you care about them?"
"Have you ever been in love, John?" she asks. "I think about you sometimes. I think about how desperate you were to stay on that island. And then I realized, it was all because you didn't love anybody." Another nail in the coffin. Note that in 413, Kate told Jack that Locke’s conversation with her convinced her that he was crazy - a conclusion not really supported by the above, but whatever.

MA now takes John to visit Helen’s grave, where he tells John that Helen died of a (Minkowski-style?) brain aneurysm and that despite the possibility that she and John might have been able to share a few good years, that her Path led her to an early death in 2006 and that John’s Path, no matter what he did or what he does leads back to the Island. All this talk about John’s Path places MA onto Team Hawking (which is looking less benign by the minute. Maybe her FBYE comment to Desmond that his failure to turn the failsafe key would lead to the death "of every single one of us" meant only the deaths of everybody on Team Hawking - despite what D&C have to say).

Helen’s last name - Norwood - may be a reference to the late Warren Carl Norwood, the sci-fi author of "TIME POLICE".

MA now delivers his final words to John - intended to lead him into Choosing Death: "Mr. Widmore told me that Richard Alpert said that you were going to die. So tell me, John, is that inevitable or is it a choice?"
Helen’s death erases any possibility that she and John might yet rekindle their lost love and severs any connection to The Real World for St John

Having Done His Work, MA is killed by Ben or his shooter, after which Locke drives off out of control (thanks to the cast on his right foot), gets smashed up in a car accident and wakes up with Doctor Jack beside him:
"What are you doing here?" Jack asks. He has broken up with Kate again, has caught some glimpses of "Christian" and is on the road to self-destructive Substance Abuse.
"Jack, how did you find me?"
"You were in a car accident and you were brought into my hospital. What are you doing here?"
Locke props himself up. "We have to go back."
Jack chuckles. "Of course. Of course we do."
"Jack, the people I left behind need our help. We have to go back."
"Because it's our Destiny. How many times are you going to say that to me, John?"
"How can you not see it? Of all the hospitals they could have brought me to, they brought me here. You don't think that's Fate?"
"Your car accident was on the west side of Los Angeles. You being brought to this hospital wasn't Fate, John, it's Probability!"
"You don't understand. It wasn't an accident. Somebody is trying to kill me." [Not Yet]
"Why would someone try to kill you?"
"Because they don't want me to succeed. They want to stop me."
Jack hangs his head.
"They don't want me to get back, because I'm important."
"Have you ever stopped to think that these delusions that you're special aren't real? That maybe there is nothing special about you at all? That maybe you're just a lonely old man that crashed on an island?" [No wonder that Jack takes the news of Locke’s death so hard. He thought it was his fault]
"Your father says hello," Locke says.
"What?"
"A man, the man who told me to move the island, the man who told me how to bring you all back, he said to tell his son hello. He couldn't have been Sayid's father and he wasn't Hurley's. That leaves you. He said his name was Christian."
"My father is dead."
"Well, he didn't look dead to me."
"He died in Australia three years ago. I put him in the coffin! He's dead."
"Jack, please, you have to come back. You're the only one who can convince the rest of them. You have to help me. You're supposed to help me."
"John, it's over! It's done. We left and we were never important, so you leave me alone and you leave the rest of them alone." Exit Jack, about to try Going Back without involving anyone else except innocent fellow passengers.
Note that the above conversation conflicts with Jack’s 413 and 501 comments, including: " He said that [Going Back] was the only way that I could keep you safe – you and Aaron ... He told me... that after I left the island, some very bad things happened ... and he told me that it was my fault for leaving ... and he said that I had to come back ...
Sawyer, Juliet, everyone from the boat... and everyone we left behind – John said that they'd die, too, if I didn't come back.
Note also that it was Locke’s death, especially death by suicide that helped push Jack into becoming a Believer.

The Westerfield Hotel may be crummy, but it’s the address that John gave Sayid. It’s also the only hotel I’ve ever seen that features a T-bar ceiling and radiators.
After breaking some ceiling tiles and stringing his Suicide cable over something strong enough near the poured concrete above and anchoring the cable to the radiator, John’s ready to die. He has chosen death - which is what CW and MA wanted him to choose.

Ben bursts in:
"What do you want from me?"
"I'm trying to protect you!"
"Protect me? You shot him. You killed Abaddon."
"Yes, yes I did. But it was only a matter of time before he would have killed you. [which he almost did - indirectly]
"No! Widmore came to me. He saved me."
"No, John, he used you! He waited until you showed up so that you could help him get to the island. Charles Widmore is the reason I moved the island. So that he could never find it again. To keep him away so that you could lead." [which are exactly the circumstances under which Ben voluntarily left the island]
Ben says, "You can't do this. If anything happens to you, John, you have no idea how important you are. Let me help you."
"There is no helping me. I'm, I'm a failure."
"No, John, you're not." [John has to hear Ben’s encouraging words]
"I am! I couldn't get any of them. I couldn't get a single one of them to come back with me. I can't lead anyone."
"Jack booked a ticket." [John had to hear that Jack had taken the first step]
"What?"
"A plane ticket from Los Angeles to Sydney tonight. Return trip first thing in the morning. Whatever you said to him, John, it worked. And if you got Jack, you can get the rest of them." Ben kneels. "John, you can't die. You've got too much work to do. We've got to get you back to the island so that you can do it." He reaches over and unties the wire. "Please, John." He stands and helps Locke down.
"I know we can do this, John. You haven't even been to Sun yet, let's start with her."
"No. I promised Jin that I wouldn't bring her back."
"Jin is alive?"
"Yeah, but he didn't want her to know. He wanted me to tell her that his body washed up on the beach. He gave me his wedding ring to give to her."
"Alright. A promise is a promise." [valuing a Commitment as on several previous occasions]
Locke removes the noose from his neck. "Thank you." [he has chosen Life. Now it’s OK to kill him]
Ben helps him to the bed. "I know we can do this. Once we can get them all in the same place, I don't know where we'll go from there, but we'll figure something out."
"I know where we go. There's a woman here in Los Angeles."
Ben gathers the wire. "A woman?"
"Yeah. I don't know exactly where, but she shouldn't be that hard to find. Her name is Eloise Hawking."
Ben stops, suddenly Grim. "Eloise Hawking? You sure?"
"Yeah. Why? Do you know her?"
"Yes, John, I know her." He walks behind Locke and strangles him with the wire.

Did Ben "decide" to murder JL when he mentioned Ms H? Did Ben not want John to meet her? When Desmond suggested that Ms H was Faraday’s Mother, Ben had a similar Grim reaction.

The above exchange permitted Ben to learn that Jin was alive and that he had wanted Sun not to Go Back.

Suicide is a sin in the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist Religions and as I wrote a week or two ago, I was convinced that suicide would not permit John’s entry into Club Messiah.

Therefore, I believe that Ben’s intervention in John’s Suicide proves him to be a Good Guy, willing to do horrifying work in order to further his (or The island’s, or Jacob’s) agenda. I believe that Ben’s "murder" of John was what permitted John to be resurrected, the opposite of what CW wanted. Note that Somebody also wanted Hugo to commit Suicide in "Dave".

Knowing that John would retain his post-Resurrection memories, it was also important for John to hear, prior to his death, that he had, in fact succeeded in nudging Jack toward becoming a Believer. It was also important - for Future Motivational reasons - that John know that it was Ben who "killed" him. We’ll have to wait to find out why this should be the case.

The fact that Ben told "Locke" that he (Ben) would "really miss" John suggests that Ben didn’t expect to return to The Island - or at least not in the same Time Period as St John. The upcoming confrontation between Ben and John ought to be lively.
Locke’s death triggered the gathering of the O6 in LA. Team Ben’s help got them (and Locke’s body) onto Flight 316.

The fact that Ben left Locke in Hanged Mode suggests that he wanted CW to believe that John had, in fact chosen Death - hence the Suicide Scene and the Suicide Note put into Ms H’s hands. I expect that CW will be unpleasantly surprised to find his erstwhile "protege" alive and well on The Island at some point.

Cut to Hydra Island. Caesar is in the Office, behind the desk - which features a Baby Polar Bear skull (I think) - and is reading the contents of a Hydra-stamped folder. St John The Stupid marches in and starts Showing Off:
"That symbol, it belongs to an organization called The Dharma Initiative. They were conducting some experiments here awhile back."
Caesar puts the file down. "How do you know that?"
"I spent more than a hundred days on this island. I know a lot." [Actually, John, you spent zero days on this Island, but whatever]

Is JL being played by Caesar?

It seems that Caesar is willing to share too: "On the plane, I was sitting across from that really big guy with curly hair. When the plane started shaking, really shaking, there was a noise and a bright light. And this really big guy with curly hair, he was gone. I mean, literally gone. And it wasn't only him. Some of us saw it happen to other people too. [presumably including Sayid]
So, Mr. John Locke, do you have an idea about what happened?"
"I think I might know how I came to be here. But that would involve me finding my friends. Do you have a passenger list?"
"No, the pilot took it when he ran off."
"And everyone's accounted for? All the people, other than the ones who disappeared?"
"Yeah, except for the ones that got hurt."
Caesar takes him to another room where people are lying on cots. They are bandaged. Locke looks at each one until he comes across Ben.
"You know him?" Caesar says.
"Yeah. He's the man who killed me."