Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: A | 985 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT You Spin Me Right Round Baby
By Cindy McLennan | Season 5 | Episode 1 | Aired on 2009.01.21
On the mainland -- present: Jack waits with Locke's corpse in the Hoffs/Drawlar (i.e. an anagram for "Flash Forward) Funeral Parlor. Ben enters, and encourages Jack to close the casket. They've got to move Locke's body and pick up Hugo. Through his drug-induced haze, Jack tells Ben that Hurley is locked up in a mental institution. Ben, being the evil incarnate, is happy because this will make it easier to get Hurley than the rest of Jack's friends. Wallowing in negativity as only an addict can, Jack slurs that they're not his friends, then ignores Ben's chiding. Jack asks, "How did we get here? How did all of this happen?" Ben stays on message -- it happened because they left the island. Just as intent on staying on task, Ben announces they should get started as he slams closed Locke's casket and we flash...
...Forward -- a few hours maybe -- to a hotel bathroom. Jack is shaving off his beard which is even fuglier than fake. HOORAY! I wanted that more than I wanted to know about the four-toed statue and the Black Rock. Maybe Ben's not the evil incarnate so much as one of its minions. Jack's not only clean, but sober (enough). He wants to know what happens once they get Hurley. Ben says they'll get Sun, and Kate. Jack doesn't see that last one happening -- and that's not just the negativity of addiction talking. Jack asks Ben when he last saw Locke (alive). Ben says it was on the island and we flash...
...Back to the Orchid. Ben narrates over a video montage of their last encounter, right before Ben moved the island. "On the island, in the orchid station below the greenhouse. I told him I was sorry for making his life so miserable, and then he left." LIES LIES ALL LIES. Well, not all, but we see (and remember) that it was Ben who left. Jack, please don't believe him. Back in the present day, in their hotel room, with his memory and LIE concluded, Ben says, "So obviously John's visit to you made an impression. What did he say to make you such a believer?"
Jack says, "Sawyer, Juliet, everyone from the boat and everyone we left behind -- John said that they'd die too if I didn't come back." Sawyer? Really Jack? C'mon. You can't kid a kidder. Ben wants to know if John told Jack what happened to the strand-aways after the island moved. When Jack says no, Ben says, "Then I guess we'll never know." Oh, I'm upgrading him again -- if not to the evil incarnate then at least to Assistant To The... And just like Ben's heart, the screen goes black.