3x20 The Man Behind the Curtain

[tohdom]

Lost Rewatch discussion for "The Man Behind the Curtain"

http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/The_...nd_the_Curtain

[MM0602]

Awesome episode. Especially after season 5... cool to remember how we were introduced to Roger and Horace. And to see their deaths again after spending so much more time with them last season. The only thing that still gets me is how Richard is all primitive looking for no reason... buuut I guess I can let that slide. I do hope they get more into the reason why Ben seeing his dead mother on the island was so shocking to Richard though.

Anyway, I totally thought Locke was screwed the first time around! I guess in a way I was right since he "dies" in the finale

Edit: Oh and, I definitely don't buy that Ben was pretending in the cabin. Not for a second.

[chip19]

"Edit: Oh and, I definitely don't buy that Ben was pretending in the cabin. Not for a second."

Why couldn't Ben be pretending? He seemed awfully surprised when John seemed to have heard something. And in Season 5 Finale, he admits to have never seeing Jacob.

[Ricardus Alpert]

While rewatching that scene after the finale, I noticed that when Ben tries to reach for "Jacob"'s shoulders, he actually seems to reach for the chair. It seems to be a too sloppy mistake for someone like Michael Emerson to make. Ben was pretending.

[Dr. Chameleon]

Argh! I just lost my extremely long response. Attempting to recreate it now. Brain...struggling...

Is there any meaning to that look Horace and Olivia give each other when Emily dies? It doesn't exactly seem like a normal reaction to someone dying right in front of you.

Does Cooper's body get buried?

Ben drinks Dharma whisky.

When Locke catches Ben lying to him, the lie is that Ben is the only one who talks to Jacob, not that Jacob isn't real. It's quick thinking on Ben's part, even if he's in panic mode, because he's screwed if Locke talks to Alpert about it.

SIDETRACK INTO CRAZYTOWN: what if Jacob exists because someone imagined him and the magic box made him? What if???

Has Ben taken other people "off to see Jacob" and they never returned? Is that why Alex brings Locke the gun?

...let's see, at this point I wandered off into questions about Ben's appearance/age and the timeline. Not going to bother since that's continuity nitpicking which is a vortex of pain...

Is it important that Locke's mom and Ben's mom share the same first name? Emily Linus appears on the island and seems to save Ben from getting killed by the fence. She is accompanied by whispers and does not pass through the fence. Safe to assume this is the smoke monster?

NEXT STOP, CRAZYTOWN: Richard tells young Ben "if that's what you want, if that's what you really want I want you to think about that." Does Ben make things happen just by thinking about them (see also: the magic box)? Did Ben unwittingly cause the fertility problem on the island because of the way his mother died giving birth to him?

Note that a major event missing from this version of the story is that Sayid shot Ben and he was taken to Richard, who revived him in the temple with the caveat "he'll forget this ever happened, and...his innocence will be gone. He will always be one of us." Do you have to be wounded for this to happen? My assumption is that people like Cindy went through a similar transformation. What's so important about innocence, anyway? That's not really something we've heard mentioned on the show before.

Why does the cabin go nuts when Locke turns his flashlight on? Does Mr. X "feel the same way about technology" as John? Was that, in fact, Mr. X in there? Did Ben know anything about the cabin ahead of time, and how did he locate it if it moves? While it does seem that he doesn't hear the voice, he certainly does get shoved and must wonder about that.

Roger's body is left to rot -- why doesn't it disappear like Yemi's and Christian's?

Overall this is a jam-packed episode, and I still remember how totally let-down I felt after the cabin scene, but then how excited I got when I heard about the hidden images (http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/File...b_portrait.jpg and http://www.flickr.com/photos/10306190@N00/493882289/) and started thinking about it some more. Especially interesting to watch this episode after all we saw in S5.

[alexandra13]

Forgive me for asking something that was probably discussed to death before but I didnt really find you guys till around season four. Finding this place has definitely hightened the experience big time.

Ben's right to lead is that he tells his people that he was born on the island and that makes him special. But Richard goes all over the place and visits special kids such as Locke. Why is Ben allowed to play LEADER?

[Dr. Chameleon]

Originally Posted by alexandra13

Ben's right to lead is that he tells his people that he was born on the island and that makes him special. But Richard goes all over the place and visits special kids such as Locke. Why is Ben allowed to play LEADER?

I think that's a good question. Has this been discussed to death? I assume that Richard wasn't necessarily on a constant search for a leader, only at the appropriate times, and obviously he was given a reason to investigate Locke. I assume Ben was chosen because of his ability to see and speak to his mother who did not die on the island -- at least that's all we really have to go on at this point. I'm hoping we'll find out more in terms of why/when Eloise stopped being the leader (at which point I assume Charles took over) and especially about the transition from Charles to Ben.

[alexandra13]

thanks. great points... specially seeing his mom part.

[Anthony Cooper]

just watched this episode again. I just want answers to where Annie went.

[Jacob'sWiseOldMother]

"The Man Behind the Curtain" says it all. Ben is a liar and he is a con man. He uses the ability to pretend to be someone he isn't. I think he does this because he wanted to be part of this "family of Others" so bad. This episode shows us what a terrible life he had with Roger and how desperate he was to leave it behind.

We know that his life was saved sometime after his first encounter with long haired Richard in the jungle. Then they brought him into the camp of the Others and we saw that he slowly worked his way through the years to the leadership role. I think that Richard had been grooming him all along to replace Charles & Eloise after we saw that scene when Ben brings baby Alex back to the camp. It seems that Richard has a habit of trying to over rule those leaders that he begins to despise. Now Ben has become the next leader that Richard is trying to replace but Ben shows us he is not even ready to give up leadership yet.

There are still lots of unanswered questions from this episode that we will hopefully get in season 6. Richard is ageless, what is Richards true role with the leader of the Others, did Richard make sure that John got the tape recorder, what happened to Annie, was Ben really suppose to be the leader, the cabin and the ring of ash and who or what was really in the cabin, and was Ben the person behind the Purge???

Ben has the unique ability to always land on his feet when someone pushes him off the ladder of lies. I do believe that Ben always has a plan but that sometimes it backfires. The look on his face when John comes into the camp with Cooper was great! John knows that Ben is lying and he makes Ben take him to Jacob for the proof that John wants. John also makes a point to prove he is the new leader by beating Mikhail and no one steps in to help...Richard or Tom. They are unsure of Ben and this bothers him. He needs to follow through whether or not he wants to take John to the cabin. So he takes John there and fills him full of scary comments about this "Jacob" and meeting him. "Once I open this door, there's no turning back." Then the show begins and something happens in the cabin that was either caused by what is held there or possibly it was all a mirage. John was scared and Ben seems to be shaken.

During the walk back, John tells Ben he is a fraud. He wants to tell the Others the truth and Ben even remarks that John is not wrong. Ben hasn't told the truth completely. How much is truth is what is hard to know from Ben who only gives us a little bit in that he wasn't really born on the island.

In the end, Ben knows what he has to do. He knows that John heard something in the cabin that Ben has never heard, ever. This is a huge threat to Ben's leadership and he has to finally eliminate John for good.