What Lies in the Shadow of the Statue: Lost Recapped

To paraphrase Mike Lowrey: from now on, that's how you write an episode.

If "Dead is Dead" was supposed to atone for the sins made during the past season of Lost--I hate to burst the bubble of the chattering class, but season five has, thus far, been a disappointment--consider everything forgiven. This is what the show is all about: a fantastic character study wrapped in ludicrous mythology; a boatload of answers surrounding another shipment of questions; and Michael Emerson.

As much as there have been some bizarre decisions made with Ben that are open to discussion--having him become a post-Island combination of Harry Lime and Ernst Stavro Blofeld was not necessarily the path I would have taken for the character--the best thing to ever happen to the show is Mr. Emerson's emergence. His performance has elevated Lost from "that awesome show about crazy stuff" to "that awesome show about crazy stuff with the best actor on television."

Seriously.

Look, I know that is massive hyperbole, but I don't really care. Every time he is on screen, Mr. Emerson commands attention. You would think that by this point, he wouldn't have anything left to show the audience--no further trick to pull out of his bag of mannerisms--and then you see the work he did in the final moments of this episode and marvel at them. Sure, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (and episode writers Brian K. Vaughn and Elizabeth Sarnoff) could have had the smoke monster kill Ben for his past transgressions, but that would have been letting him off easy. The look on his face when he told Locke that he was spared--the realization that death would probably be a better fate than having to blindly follow Locke around his Island--well, that was enough to win Mr. Emerson another Emmy nomination.

(I normally get my kicks out of watching Mr. Emerson and Matthew Fox try to out asshole each other, but tonight I gained a new found appreciation for what Terry O'Quinn brings to the table. The new Locke suits him and makes the relationship between Ben and Locke all the more interesting.)

Outside of Messrs. Emerson and O'Quinn, the strength of "Dead is Dead" was that it tied together a ton of loose ends that have been gathering together throughout the season: We saw what happened with Young Ben after he was healed (memo to the writers: having a "I'm Charles Widmore" reveal twice in the same season is lazy); we found out what Sun and Frank have been doing in the Dharma Barracks (playing board games and waiting for John Locke); we finally caught up on how Ben hurt his arm and cut his face (memo to Ben: don't shoot Desmond and expect to get away without a beating); we found out how Charles was exiled (on the submarine and with a bad wig); how Ben acquired Alex (by stealing her, while wearing a bad wig); and where the smoke monster comes from (from out of a subway grate inside the Temple). For once, Lost was chock-a-block full of answers.

This felt like a true transitional episode--an opportunity to spring forward into the remaining five episodes of the season, while solving a lot of the mysteries that got us to this point. That an episode like this was based around Ben should come as no surprise. He's the most important character on the show, so naturally he's tasked to do the heavy lifting. I, for one, could not be happier.

Onto the lightning round. Spoilers!

1.) Obviously Ben flat-out murdering Ceasar and then quipping to Locke, "consider that my apology", was the Hilarious Ben Moment of the Week (tm). (That Lost hired the moderately recognizable Said Taghmaoui to play Ceasar, only to give him a few menacing lines before taking a shotgun blast to the chest, is one of their more clever casting twists.) But for my money, I think I might have preferred Ben's confrontation with Penny: "Your father is a really terrible human being." HA!!!!!!!! Good chance that's my favorite single line of dialogue in the history of the series.

1a.) Also great? After Ben fell into the smoke monster room: Locke: "Ben are you alright?" Ben: "Never better."

2.) About Ben declining to shoot Penny: I found the way the episode built to that decision excessively well-handled. Almost too well-handled. It seemed so opposite to some of the motivations we've seen in other cases this season--Kate's instant need to go back and save Claire comes to mind. I also like how it humanizes Ben ever-so-slightly. He clearly isn't all bad, is he? Maybe there is something to the fact that he's doing everything "for the Island".

2a.) Speaking of the Island: it looks like Alex was totally supposed to get killed. Otherwise I assume Ben would have been in more trouble than he was with the smoke monster.

2c.) And how about that smoke monster! We kinda already knew that it showed you pictures of your previous mistakes from Eko's encounters. I only wish that Lost didn't ruin the surprise of the monster taking the form of Alex by having Tania Raymonde's name in the opening credits. Note to shows: don't do that anymore.

3.) So it turns out Charles Widmore got banished in a very civilized way, bad wig and all. I kinda liked how simple that whole reveal turned out. Not everything has to be completely crazy. That being said: does anyone else think he might be inside the massive silver box that Psycho Illana is guarding with a rifle?

4.) Can I talk about Psycho Illana for a minute? Because that was bananas. Even though it wasn't very hard to figure out that she was working for Charles Widmore--I'm assuming. (And the dude from Choke being a somewhat more significant character than he first seemed wasn't shocking either.) But, what the hell was she talking about? What does "lie in the shadow of the statue?" And where are they going with Frank? I hope it's the foot of the statue...

4a.) Speaking of the statue--based on the hieroglyphics in the monster room, it looks like Anubis, the Egyptian god of the afterlife and mummification. Maybe Illana is actually from ancient Egypt? Maybe she's connected to Richard?

5.) I also have to mention the new Locke. I love this dude! I love that he's become Christian but only cooler. Why he's alive and what the hell it all means, of course, is yet to be determined.

6.) Here what I realized halfway through the episode: smoke monsters, statues, ghost daughters, I'm fine with; time travel, I'm not. For example: Ben emptying a puddle of water down a drain to conjure the smoke monster, great; Ben not remembering that Jack, Kate and Hurley were part of the Dharma Initiative, not great. This is the part where you tell me, "Ben was lying!" But this is also the part where I counteract, "it's usually easy to tell when Ben is lying, and he clearly wasn't in that particular scene!" Regardless, if this season was more about mystical crap and doing things "for the Island", I would have liked it a lot more. Give me fantasy, don't give me paradoxes.

6a.) I realize "Dead is Dead" only concentrated on Ben and Locke with a bit of Sun and Desmond, and that normally I would be pissed about the lack of Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Rose, Bernard, Daniel, et al, but when episodes are this well done, I can forgive the lack of balance. Let's just say it doesn't stand out as much when the writing is so good.

Next week: A Miles episode! You know what that means? Here's a hint: he's totally going to d*e.