5.11 “Whatever Happened, Happened”
The title certainly implies a rather blasé attitude toward the series of drastic (although not necessarily life-altering) events that Sayid literally shot into motion last week, but I’m sure Hurley would disagree. And he isn’t the only one suffering some slight befuddlement from having to live through the past, which has already happened before even though his present self is just now experiencing it for the first time. Everyone on board? Now for a tour of what I consider to be the highlights of everything that happened exactly the way it was supposed to, starting with little Ben’s big predicament:
“He needs a real surgeon.”
Once again, Jack faces the same conundrum that first presented itself when an adult Ben lay on the operating table with his spine exposed. And once again, Juliet refuses to just let the guy bleed out. Admittedly, this time around that would probably create more problems than solve them, but one still has to admire the tenacity with which everyone tries to keep little Ben alive despite knowing that his future self tossed them rather rudely into the ninth circle of hell. I guess they all understand on some Faradian level that Ben simply can’t die, but I find it interesting that they take this responsibility upon themselves while Jack would rather let the island resolve everything on its own, believing that Ben is going to live whether he helps him to or not. Perhaps he also feels some residual satisfaction at telling Kate he is not going to do this for her—again.
“You didn’t like the old me, Kate.”
Now, Kate quite frequently inspires my eyes to roll with a great deal of exasperation, but I’m glad she called Jack out on his newfound attitude (or lack thereof). I am not so glad about how their relationship has down-spiraled into the pits of angst and despair, because as flawed as the man is I still want him to be happy, even if for some unfathomable reason he is happiest—and, ironically, at his most miserable—when he is with her. *can’t resist another eye-roll* Anyhow, my personal issues with Kate aside, I am not sure I like the new Jack either. Sandwiches over surgeries? Not jumping at another chance to play the conquering hero? There is something else going on behind those dreamy eyes and charming snaggle-toothed grin, something almost sinister in the way that it seems to have brainwashed him into near-doltish passivity.
“I came back because I’m supposed to.”
Okay, let’s say that maybe, just maybe, Jack is onto something when he says he was only “getting in the way” of the island by trying to fix things himself, so now he’s going to remain steadfastly out of its way while also waiting for the island to clue him in on what sort of destiny he’s supposed to fulfill there. Sounds to me as though Locke has succeeded in death where he failed in life: converting Jack, the man of science, into a man of faith (which is not to say that they are mutually exclusive—only that a balance between the two, while healthier than either extreme, is also much harder to attain). The transformation is regrettably incomplete, however, as Jack is very much aware of the fact that he doesn’t know exactly where he’s supposed to put his faith, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of believing in something in the first place. Juliet tells him as much, impatiently demanding that he figure it out, and fast. >:| Why are all these women railing on Jack while swooning for Sawyer?
Speaking of Sawyer, let’s talk about Cassidy, the mother of his little darling Clementine, and her interesting definition of what it means to be a hero. Throwing yourself out of a flying helicopter, for instance, just doesn’t cut if you’re doing it for the wrong reasons:
“She thought you were worried about what would happen if you didn’t.”
I tend to take everything Cassidy had to say with a heap of salt, mainly to distract me from the overwhelming bitterness of her words, but also because they just don’t ring true with my own perception of the Kate/Sawyer dynamic (temporarily removing Jack and Juliet from the love quadrilateral). I’m not convinced that Sawyer “broke her heart” (so melodramatic), and I definitely don’t buy into the idea that Kate needed Aaron to mend it—what she needed was someone she could give it to, wholly and unconditionally. Jack wasn’t that person, and I don’t think Sawyer was either. But luckily for the latter, he at least seems to have moved on.
“I’m doing it for her.”
Jack once saved Ben for Kate, and now Sawyer’s doing it for Juliet. Ouch, LaFleur. Now that we know Kate didn’t just come back to the island to make sure you fell off the helicopter safely (let the search for Claire finally begin!), we’re slightly less concerned about her emotional wellbeing… but must you rub it into her precious freckly face that you have been doing just splendidly with Juliet for the last three years, thank you very much?
I just find the whole notion of them pining for each other rather ridiculous. How can their less-than-one-hundred-day fling even compare to the life he has built with Juliet? I know all ya’ll Skate fans or whatever are probably thrilled about Juliet’s possible probable impending demise, but I’m rooting for this one.
“Why would I expect him to be taken?”
“Because you took him, Kate.”
“I guess the boy just needs his mother.” [Cue pained look on Kate’s face]
The crux of this Kate-centric episode (although one can hardly tell given how much time I’ve spent obsessing over Jack) lies in her overwhelming desire to save little Ben, paralleling her selfless and motherly instinct to ultimately give Aaron up to his grandmother. (Which is rather ironic, considering that adult Ben hired a lawyer to take Aaron away from her only a handful of episodes earlier.) I do have to commend her for that; it seems as though three years with the tot really has done wonders on her heart, in the spirit of the Grinch at Christmastime, and this final act as a mother might just be the most self-sacrificing thing she has ever done.
(BTW, I am concerned that Roger Linus might be a tad sweet on Kate, especially when her sympathy for his predicament is kind of hinged on her own failure as both a mother and a daughter. Talk about serious daddy issues.)
“Then what am I going to say next?”
As Miles, sounding a lot like an angry Asian version of Faraday, attempts to explain how “our past and future experiences occurred before these experiences right now” because time “isn’t a straight line for us anymore,” Hurley finds a snag in his theory: why doesn’t the Ben who was tortured by Sayid remember getting shot by him many years earlier? (Similarly, why doesn’t the grown-up version of Rousseau remember finding Jin stranded on the beach when she was 16?) “Hunh. I hadn’t thought of that.” I suppose this is the writers’ way of shouting out to all the viewers who have probably been having the exact same conversation for weeks, “You’re on the right track… but we’re still four steps ahead of you.”
Okay, maybe five.
“He will always be one of us.”
Before Richard Alpert—looking dapper as always—takes little Ben down to the Temple, he warns Kate and Sawyer that the kid will never be the same again: he will have no memory of what happened, he will be stripped of his innocence, blah blah and so forth. For now we can only speculate on whether resolving all that time paradox stuff Miles and Hurley were grappling with can really be a simple matter of Ben’s memory getting wiped. In the meantime, let’s ponder who is ultimately more responsible for little Ben’s fate—Kate and Sawyer, by bringing him to the Others, or Jack, by refusing to operate on him? But can it really be a matter of blame, when by reliving the past through the present they are simply going through the motions that lead up to who they are now, unable to change the future with their actions because whatever happens… already happened before?
“Welcome back to the land of the living.”
The look on Ben’s battered face as Locke beams down at him = priceless.
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