“We’re all convinced sooner or later, Jack.”
-Benjamin Linus
Prior to this past two weeks’ one-two punch of “316” and “The Life And Death Of Jeremy Bentham,” Lost has aired Jack episodes and Locke episodes back-to-back three times. It happened twice in Season One: With “Walkabout” (in which Locke hunts boar and we learn about his handicap) and “White Rabbit” (in which Jack picks up his father’s body in Australia, and on the island takes responsibility for leading the castaways), then with “Deus Ex Machina” (in which Locke meets his biological mother and father, and makes a series of decisions that lead to Boone’s death) and “Do No Harm” (in which Jack gets married to a woman whose life he saved, and on the island fails to save Boone’s life). And last season we had the one-two of “Something Nice Back Home” (about Jack’s appendicitis and his deteriorating life off the island) and “Cabin Fever” (about Locke’s boyhood and his arrival at Jacob’s cabin).
Throughout the run of Lost, the writers have set up the conflict between skeptical, persistently miserable “man of science” Jack and soulful, resourceful, infinitely trusting “man of faith” Locke. But what I liked so much about “316”—and what I understand some of you didn’t like—is that Jack had something of a conversion. The doubting Thomas stopped doubting; throughout the hour, he had an expression of quiet amazement on his face, as though oddly delighted that everything was coming together at last, just because he had decided to let go and give in to fate.
Locke, on the other hand, just spent a whole episode avoiding his fate—which is something very un-Locke-like. Of course it wasn’t entirely his fault. Apparently after Locke took his turn at the Frozen Donkey Wheel, he landed in a spot in the desert monitored by Charles Widmore, who with his assistant Matthew Abaddon helps Locke get to a doctor (to heal his broken leg), and pledges to aid him in locating all the members of the Oceanic 6. But in the early part of the mission, Locke’s heart doesn’t really seem into it. He has cursory meetings with Sayid in Santo Domingo (where Sayid’s given up the killin’-for-Ben game in order to build hovels for the poor), and Walt in New York (in what amounts to a “Hey, what’s up? Not much.” kind of conversation), and Hugo in Santa Rosa (where the big guy assumes Locke is a ghost, then shoos him away when he spots Abaddon lurking about), and Kate in her tidy suburban L.A. home (where she basically calls Locke out for being naturally obsessive about things). At no point does Locke convey any sense of urgency to his task to corral all his old buddies and bring them back to the island. And perhaps that's because he knows—despite Widmore’s insistence otherwise—that there’s an unpleasant endpoint to his time back in the “real world.” Locke’s going to have to die. And until he faces up to that, the rest is meaningless.
I have to say, I ran a little hot-and-cold on “The Life And Death Of Jeremy Bentham,” though by the end I felt pretty warmly towards it. After an unnerving opening—which I’ll get back to in a moment—and a few harrowing scenes of Locke writhing around in the desert, I was primed for an hour of mind-bending freakiness, in the classic Lost tradition. But then the episode settled into the plodding series of meetings I just described, none of which were all that revelatory or exciting—or even well-written. (Sorry, but I still have problem with the “island needs us” kinds of dialogue, even though I’ve grown to accept it as the cost of being a Lost fan.) I was prepared just to shrug and sigh and hope for better next week, and then an odd thing started to happen: I started to get into the rhythm of the episode, and to understand what it was trying to do.
From the moment Locke has to get back into that damned wheelchair—not moments after being told by Widmore that he’s “special”—“The Life And Death Of Jeremy Bentham” becomes about breaking Locke’s spirit, one mundane encounter at a time. All those early scenes are dull and redundant in large part because that’s how Locke’s feeling at the time: powerless and uncertain. And then he asks Abaddon to take him to see his one true love, Helen—the woman he tells Kate he might've been willing to leave the island for—and he discovers that she died of a brain aneurysm. (Or at least Abaddon shows him a tombstone; one never knows what Widmore might've faked.) The two men have a brief conversation about whether Locke really has to die or not. (“Is that inevitable, or is that a choice?” Abaddon asks.) Then, out of nowhere, Abaddon gets shot, splattering the back of his car and forcing Locke to leap into the driver’s seat and roar out straight into a crash. And of course—of course—Locke ends up in Jack’s hospital, where the two men can renew their old conversation about fate versus coincidence, and Jack can stick the knife in one last time, hissing, “Maybe you’re just a lonely old man who crashed on an island.”
Here’s what I ultimately found fascinating about “The Life And Death Of Jeremy Bentham:” I can’t decide if Locke’s final decision to kill himself is his way of fulfilling Richard Alpert’s prophecy, or just the last pathetic act of a man nobody loves. And I can’t decide if what finally happens to Locke—with Ben breaking in to stop the hanging, then strangling Locke himself when he finds out that Locke is making plans to visit Eloise Hawking—means that Locke really met his destiny head on, as intended. Locke was supposed to turn the wheel; Ben did it. Locke was supposed to sacrifice himself; Ben caught him unaware and killed him. What does this say about Locke? What does it mean to our ongoing debate over Ben Linus’ motives? I’m not sure… but it sure perked me up.
I also no longer know what to make of the eternal struggle between Ben and Charles—sort of the Locke and Jack of another era. Early in the episode, Widmore looks like an honestly good guy, marveling at how he remembered meeting Locke when he was 17, and warning him of the coming "war." He even says that his ultimate goal is to get Locke back to the island “so you can lead.” But you know what? Ben says the same thing to Locke. And both men lie—presumably—about whether Locke actually has to die to make everything right. Who are the good guys here, ultimately? (Or have we moved past those kind of considerations?)