Episode Report Card LTG: B | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Is That A Baton In Your Pocket?
By LTG | Season 4 | Episode 9 | Aired on 04.24.2008
Back at Casa Locke, the phone rings. Locke picks it up and hears a recorded voice saying "code 14-J." Damn telemarketers.
And now we're in Ben's house, or the house they're letting Ben use, or something -- I can't figure it out. He's playing the piano (pretty well, in fact) when Locke and Sawyer walk in. Locke asks what code 14-J is, and Ben freaks out. He opens the piano bench and pulls out a shotgun. Locke really didn't take a single precaution when he gave Ben a little freedom, did he? But he's not going to shoot them -- he hands the shotgun to Sawyer, and tells them they have to get to the other house, from which it will be easier to defend themselves. Locke doesn't understand what's happening (natch), so Ben tells him the Boaties are on their way. Credits.
Flashback! Or forward, I can never tell. Oh, but this one's about Ben -- maybe he'll commit genocide again. We start with a close-up of his face, shaking like he's having a seizure. And then he wakes up, wearing a Dharma parka, lying on the ground in the desert. He throws up, and then sees that there's a bloody bullet hole (maybe?) in the arm of the parka. There's a name embroidered on the parka, but it's a name that's only been mentioned in a DVD and website extra, so I'll be damned if I'm going to try to figure out the possible connection. (And really, ABC, if something is going to be important in the show, it had better appear in the show.) Ben hears some horses approaching, and looks kind of scared. Which is probably a good response, as a couple of rifle-toting dudes gallop up. I mean, the horses are galloping. It's not like some Monty Python sketch. We're just going to call the guys "generic Middle Eastern and/or North African" and be done with it. There's lots of pointing of guns and inability to communicate due to language barriers. One of the guys comes down and checks Ben out for weapons. He feels a mysterious cylinder in Ben's pants and gestures for him to take it out. (I'd make a sex joke here, but it's Ben, and I don't think my stomach could handle it.) Ben timidly pulls the cylinder out of his pocket. It doesn't look very threatening, until Ben gives it a shake and it turns into a baton. He spins around and hits one guy in the face, and then grabs the guy's rifle from behind him and shoots his friend. And then he knocks out the other guy. Damn, he's kind of a badass. I hope he doesn't know about all the mean things I've said about him. The scene ends with Ben taking a gun and one of the horse and riding off into the desert.