Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: A | 904 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Ben, You're Always Running Here and There
By Cindy McLennan | Season 6 | Episode 7 | Aired on 2010.03.09
Island Reality; Boone's Bluff: Ben continues to dig his own grave, which sounds like the most clichéd thing, ever, doesn't it? But that's what he's doing.
Island Reality; The Black Rock: Inside the ship, Richard scopes out the place, pausing to examine a particular pair of shackles as the music of Cindy, This Is Dreadfully Significant plays in the background. And I know, in "LA X Part II" I didn't think Richard's chains that Faucke referenced were actual chains on The Black rock, but it's looking now like I was wrong. All of this has all happened before, and all of it will happen again. /Galactica. Jack comes in, carrying a lantern and asks, "Been here before?" Richard says, "Yes, and in all the time that I've spent on this island, today's the first time I've ever come back." Just then, Hurley calls out to Jack, and finds the guys. Meanwhile, Richard finds the crate of dynamite.
Hurley warns Richard off the explosives, since they're "mega unstable." Richard knows but doesn't seem to care. Hurley says, "So did Dr. Arzt, and I was wiping him out of my shirt, two days later." He then whispers to Jack that it's time to go, but Jack says, "No, not yet." Hurley argues: "He's opening up a crate of dynamite and he says he wants to kill himself. Richard clarifies that he can't kill himself. "Even if I wanted to --and trust me, I do -- I can't kill myself, which is why I want you to do it for me." When Jacob touches you, it's considered a gift, but it's really a curse." When Richard throws down a corroded stick of dynamite for emphasis, Hurley cringes, ducks, and yells, "Dude. Seriously. Let's go. Now!"
Jack ignores Hugo and asks Richard why he wants to die. Richard explains that he devoted his life, "longer than you can possibly imagine, in service of a man who told me that everything was happening for a reason -- that he had a plan -- a plan that I was a part of. And when the time was right, he would share it with me, and now that man's gone. So -- why do I want to die? Because I just found out that my entire life had no purpose." Yeeeouch. Let's see Rick Warren fix that. Richard adds that although he can't kill himself, if Jack lights the wick on the dynamite stick, it ought to do the trick. Hurley, of course, argues against this. Jack, of course, is all in -- balls to the wall. "If he wants to die, there's nothing we're going to do to stop him." Have you not been listening, Doc? Dude can't kill himself. There is very much something you can do to stop him: don't help. Jack takes the long (enough so that he has time to escape) wick and lights it with the lantern. He then lays it on a whisky barrel and says, "Now, let's talk." Commercial!