The Brig was pretty straightforward. A little wacky, with Locke calling on Sawyer to whack his old man (without getting into the subject of how he actually got to the island). But fairly straightforward, other than that one little detail. Now we’re going off-course. Way off-course. It’s a good trip, because we get to find out where little Ben came from. Sort of.
Alongside a road – some road, apparently off in the wilds, where peace-loving people hang out – a woman is giving birth. Her name is Emily. In the process, she dies. But Ben is born. His father, distraught over this turn of events, takes a break from reality, and on the advice of a friend, heads to an island where he can get away from it all. Really away from it all. He takes his son, Ben, because he doesn’t know what else to do, other than blame Ben – repeatedly – for the death of Emily. Not a good father-figure, which helps explain just why little Ben is so messed up once he gets older. It also makes you wonder why Ben says that he was born on the island, when obviously he wasn’t – he was of an age where he should have remember coming. Anyway. That’s for another time.
Once young Ben grows up, he meets Richard, and it seems that Richard doesn’t belong to the fine folks at Dharma. He wants to take them out. So he asks Ben to help. Ben agrees, so long as he gets to be the one to deliver the news to his dad. He does so. With a vengeance. Did I mention that Ben’s dad is named Roger, and drives a van filled with beer? Sorry, must have left that out.
Apparently while Ben was a part of the (supposedly) peace-loving Dharma clan, he helped wipe them out. Richard and the others, who claim to be the natives of the island, took their place, and are not the actual Dharma employees. Which is certainly an interesting development. We’ll have to see what happens there.
In the meantime, Ben takes Locke to meet someone named Jacob – a mysterious, perhaps imaginary, person who apparently gives the orders on the island. Locke doesn’t buy it, and after they leave the cabin, Ben shoots Locke, leaving him for dead in the same pit where all the former Dharma employees are left. But I suspect that Locke isn’t dead. We’ll see him again.
Back on the beach, everyone has decided that Juliet is bad. Really bad. Sawyer and Sayid are just about ready to take her out behind the shed and shoot her. That’s when Jack and Juliet show up, and agree with what they’ve determined is the case, and that’s also when they find out that they are coming for the pregnant women. So rather than stringing up Juliet right then, they are going to wait to do it. They’ll set up an ambush for the invaders right now, and take care of Juliet later.
