Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: A+ | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT L'chaim!
By Cindy McLennan | Season 5 | Episode 12 | Aired on 04.08.2009
Anyhow, it's 1989. Ben has a 12-year-old Ethan "Rom" Goodspeed (Devon Gearhart) with him, and they're stalking poor, post-partum Danielle Rousseau. A spooky little rat bastard, even at age 12, Ethan says, "You want me to do it?" Ben shushes him or (perhaps our laughter at the absurdity of his appearance) but Ethan persists that he can do it if Ben wants him to. Ben tells him to shut up, stay put, and then goes in for the kill.
Gun drawn and cocked, he enters Danielle's shelter, ready to shoot her, when a baby cries and catches him almost as far off guard as his appearance catches us. Ben turns and knocks over Danielle's music box. She reaches for her gun, but Ben warns her against grabbing it. Danielle then accuses him of being the one who "infected" them. The baby continues to cry so Ben picks her up. Danielle yells (mostly in French) at Ben not to take her baby. But we know this story, and that he does. Babe in his arms, he starts to back out of the shelter, gun still pointed at Danielle. She's desperate, now. "Please don't take my Alex!" Ben asks if she wants her baby to live. When Danielle demands to know where and why he's taking her child, Ben fires his warning shot in the sand. "Be grateful you're still alive. Now you listen to me. If you try to follow me or if you ever come looking for me, I'll kill you. And if you want your child to live, every time you hear whispers, you run the other way." He leaves Danielle in tears.
I've got to stick up for Danielle for a moment, because there's been talk about how she didn't fight for her child. Danielle and her crew crashed on the island in what -- November of 1988? By January of 1989, this young woman has seen a smoke monster (who killed the only other woman with them and chowed on a crew member's arm). She's watched as her whole gang went crazy, including her beloved Robert who would have killed her if she hadn't disabled his gun. She's had to kill Robert. She's delivered their baby utterly and completely on her own and has had to forage for food for her post-partum, nursing self. She has been caring for that baby without the help of another soul, and without any of the conveniences the modern mother often thinks of as necessities. LIKE OH SAY DIAPERS.