Review: Lost 5.7: The Life And Death Of Jeremy Bentham

Locke faces his task ahead.

Aside from Ben and Desmond, John Locke is perhaps the series' most interesting character by far. He's a man who, due to time-travel, has been marked over his entire life to commit one action - stopping the very thing that did so. Ignoring the Faith aspect of the series, this makes Locke incredibly interesting from a sci-fi point of view - a man who unintentionally causes all of his own inner turmoil, a living ontological paradox. Technically Locke died in Series Three, but here we see the full story behind Jeremy Bentham and Locke's early demise.
     Locke pushes the Donkey Wheel, afixing The Island on a straight course in time. He wakes up in Tunisia as Ben did, although this time he has a compound fracture to go with it. At a Tunisian field hospital, Locke is taken care of by Charles Widmore, who Locke met as a young Other back in The Lie. Widmore, aware of Locke's task because of the Time-Travel thing, employs agent-of-Jacob Mr. Abbadon to chauffeur Locke around to the members of the Oceanic Six. He visits Sayid, Hurley, Kate and Walt, with no success. When he gets around to visiting Jack, he finds the drug-addled man from after the events of Something Nice Back Home, who tells John that he is in no way special and that his plan will fail.
      In quite a powerful scene, John prepares to committ suicide - his fiancé died of a brain tumour, and Abbadon has been assassinated. Ben interrupts him, helping him down from his noose and claiming to want to help him. However, when Locke speaks of Eloise Hawking, Ben takes the cord Locke was preparing to hang himself with and strangles him to death. This action by Ben is not totally out of character, but it really has little-to-no motivation and it still isn't explained by the end of Season 6.

Jack rejects Locke entirely. Bit of a douche.

      Back on the Island, two surviors of the second crash, called Ilana and Ceasar, question a strange man on why he isn't on the crew list. The man reveals himself to be John Locke. Now, spoilers, he isn't. He's in fact an entity called The Man In Black, a demonic man turned into The Smoke Monster by his brother, the Island's God, Jacob. This isn't revealed until the finale, but in true Lost style the MiB's trickery is evident from the off - amongst his mannerisms, his behaviour. Eventually the MiB (hereafter Flocke) identifies Ben as "his" murderer.
     There's nothing much else to say, really. Terry O'Quinn's Locke is consistantly good as Locke and his characterisation shines off the screen even when he's playing a demon. Even during his final moments, Quinn gives Locke an air of desperation and hope that makes his death all the more tragic and unsettling. This episode is a tragedy that is bolstered by brilliant acting from two of the best actors on television today, and that's what makes it so effective.

Thanks.

NEXT TIME: We see how the Leftovers get on in LaFleur.