Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: A+ | 8136 USERS: C YOU GRADE IT L'chaim!
By Cindy McLennan | Season 5 | Episode 12 | Aired on 2009.04.08
Ahem. A little bit more about Danielle, before I move on. I just want to nod in approval at whoever cast Melissa Farman as young Rousseau. She's as soft and sweet as Mira Furlan is hardened and lean. The two do not resemble one another much, and yet I can see how 16 to 18 years like the ones Danielle has lived have led to most of those changes. When I first saw Farman, I thought she'd never pull it off, but now she's as much Rousseau to me as Furlan is, and although Tania Raymonde more closely resembles Furlan, I can accept her character, Alex, as the daughter of either Danielle. Okay, let's get back to the story, shall we?
Hydra Island Office; 2007: Ben rifles through the desk until he finds a picture of himself and Alex (which looks like a bad Photoshop). He removes it from its frame and pockets it quickly when he's interrupted by Locke, who asks what he has there. Ben brushes it off as a sentimental something and they exposit about how this office was once Ben's. Locke is awesome, here. He subtly sneers at how "corporate" that seems, as he takes the seat behind the desk which once belonged to Ben. I love how laden this gesture is. He suggests they talk about the elephant in the room, and I assume that's going to be how Locke found time to visit ghost-hallucination Ana-Lucia's diabolic dentist while on the mainland, because just look at those choppers! But no, Locke wants to talk about Ben killing him. Oh Locke, like you're going to get a straight answer.
Ben clucks his tongue and says Locke's death was the only way to convince the Escape-aways to come back to the island. Locke points out that he was all set to kill himself, but Ben says, "You had critical information that would have died with you. And once you'd given it to me..." Ben closes his eyes halfway through rolling them. "Well, I just didn't have time to talk you back into hanging yourself." Hee, he's too tired to lie. I don't think it was the whole truth, mind you, but it was truthy. My pet theory right now is that Ben was hoping to bring back the corpse of Locke to Richard and the Others, just like Locke once upon a time brought them the corpse of Anthony Cooper (Locke's daddy a.k.a. "Tom Sawyer"), to show them he was worthy of... erm... something. Answers. Yeah, I think it was answers. Ben continues explaining -- he took a "shortcut." Heh. He then blabbers on about how he was right and it worked. "That's why I did it, because it was in the best interests of the island." Oh, I think he's gotten a second wind, there.