Review: Lost 4.9: The Shape of Things to Come

Ben confronts Keamy over the phone.

After last week's exposition hoedown, we return to the action with a Ben-centric episode. Ben is one of the show's greatest anti-heroes/villians, his marvellously scheming ways hidden behind a somewhat pathetic exterior. This episode takes a look at his role in the island's power-struggle, while reducing him down to his bare, human core. It also returns to the flash-forward device, here used to forshadow the finale.

     The mercenaries take their hostage, Ben's daughter Alex, to the Sonic Fence around the Barracks where Locke's group is staying. In dearming the fence she sends a signal to Ben, who immediately barricades his house with everyone except Sawyer and Clare inside, telling them that they're coming. The mercenaries start by showing the barracks with bullets and bombs; Sawyer only just manages to save Clare and get her back into the house. They send in Miles with a phone connected to mercenary leader Martin Keamy, who gives Ben an ultimatum. After Ben uses the knowledge he aquired from Michael on the boat, Keamy threatens to kill Alex if he doesn't come out. Trying to bluff him out of it, Ben claims that she is nothing to him before Keamy shoots her in the back of head. Shocked at what he considers an act of war from his enemy, Charles Widmore (the owner of the Freighter), Ben summons The Monster to destroy most of the mercenaries, before going off with Locke and Hurley to find the Cabin, where the Island's mysterious leader Jacob is said to live.

The group watch The Monster at work.

     Our flashforward starts with Ben waking up in the Tunisian desert, wearing heavy Arctic gear. After an encounter with two angry natives, he steals a camel and checks into a nearby hotel. Seeing the death of Sayid's wife Nadia, he goes off to Iraq during her funeral to track down her murderer, an agent of Charles Widmore. Sayid confronts him, at first believing him to be paparazzi. Ben tells him about Widmore's agent, and later on Sayid kills him. In a neat lead back into The Economist, Sayid swears to kill the rest of the Widmore agents involved in Nadia's death and in the faked ruins of 815. Later Ben travels to London and confronts Widmore in his penthouse apartment, saying that he has broken the rules of their conflict and that his daughter, Penny, is going to die.

    In Jack's camp, the body of the Freighter's doctor washes ashore and Faraday sends a telegraph asking what's going on. They reply that the Doctor is fine, and when an ill Jack questions Faraday he admits that it was never his intention to help them leave the island. Ok; boring. We did this a few weeks ago. It was just as fun.

    I've said for a while that the scene, from this episode, leading up to Alex's death is a great example of a man breaking down. This was the first time that things really went against Ben's plan, and it's immediately visible in simply his facial expression; for the first time he is feeling a deep-seated grief, and an unexpected one at that. In past weeks I've said how much I admire Michael Emerson's acting, but here he really goes above and beyond to present a very three-dimensional human being. Everyone else just seems exemplary; other notable turns come from Jake Holloway as Sawyer, who takes the action of the episode well, and Tania Raymonde does a nice breakdown. The Jack storyline, meanwhile is getting a little tired and trite at this point. Nothing of real interest is happening, and the exciting time-travel aspects of that plotline are almost punctuative. 

Ben awakens in Tunisia

     While I love Emerson's acting and the episode's examination of his character, the episode needs that something extra to keep it on top. Ben was forced to play both adventurer and exposition, with other characters reduced to question-asking blanks. I think it's yet another testament to Emerson that he can hold up an episode like this and I'm still draw back to watch it again and again.

Thanks.