This week Lost showed us the parallel between Ben’s island life and his alternate reality life as a teacher.

On the island, Ben is forced to face his previous actions when Ilana takes him prisoner and orders him to dig his own grave at gunpoint, which he does. Ilana states that Jacob was like a father to her, and that Ben will pay for murdering him. Miles comes by to offer him some food which Ben declines, and then tries to bribe Miles to free him with the same amount of money Miles earlier tried to extort out of Ben. This time Miles declines, and he points out the graves of Nicki and Paulo and the $8M worth of diamonds buried with them. HA!

Evil notLocke eventually saunters by and offers Ben a chance to join him and tells him about a rifle he’s hidden in the jungle that Ben would be able to reach in time to escape. He tells Ben where to meet him later, at the Hydra station, and then he leaves. Ben runs to get the rifle and indeed makes it in time to take control of the situation, but instead of shooting Ilana and getting away, he tells her about how he sacrificed Alex for Jacob; about how he allowed himself to be talked into killing Jacob because he thought Locke would be the only one to have him. Ilana is impressed with his honesty and his struggle, and tells Ben he is welcome to stay with them on the beach.

In the alternate (or concurrent) reality, Ben is Dr. Linus, an unappreciated high school history teacher. He’s a meek and quiet person who cares for his sick father at home, a father who regrets joining the Dharma Initiative so long ago, because he thinks Ben would have fared much better in life if they hadn’t gone.

Alex Rousseau is in Ben’s life as one of his students, and she has serious hopes about going to Yale for college. Ben offers to write her a recommendation, but she needs one from someone who has gone to Yale, and decides to ask the school principal. During this same conversation, Ben learns that the principal has been having sex on school property with the school nurse and is completely disgusted, especially since he butts heads with the principal on a regular basis.

Previously, Dr. Linus was having lunch with Arzt and talked about how the principal doesn’t care about the school, and Locke, who happened to be a substitute teacher there, suggested he become the principal instead.

Once Ben has some ammunition against the Principal, he gets Arzt to crack the school nurse’s email account and gathers damning evidence. At this point, we see that Ben is not such a meek man after all, that somewhere in there he has the same drive to succeed, and the same willingness to destroy others in order to do so. He threatens the principal with the emails, demanding he quit and recommend his job to Ben. The principal counters by saying that if Ben executes his plan, he’s going to write such a damaging letter for Alex Rousseau that she wouldn’t be able to get into college. At this point I was convinced that no matter what was happening on the island, he was going to sacrifice Alex again.

But he DOESN’T. And in island reality, he chooses to stay with Ilana, Lapidus, Miles and Sun. Is it possible for Ben to find redemption?

Jack and Hurley are having their own adventure on their way back from the lighthouse. Hurley is trying to stall Jack and keep him away from the Temple as per Jacob’s request, and they run into Richard. Richard tells Jack he will lead him to the Temple. Instead, he leads them to the Black Pearl. He’s very angry; he wants to die but because he was “touched” by Jacob, he cannot die by his own hand. He asks Jack to light the fuse of a stick of dynamite while Hurley leaves for safety. Jack lights the fuse and then sits down to have a talk with Richard. Richard keeps asking Jack to leave because he doesn’t want Jack to be killed along with him. Jack insists that he won’t be, because of his experience in the lighthouse, because he knows that Jacob has been watching him his whole life and therefore believes that he can’t be killed because he’s there for a reason. The fuse nearly runs out but extinguishes itself before it reaches the dynamite.

Earlier in the episode Sun has a conversation with Ilana where she learns that she is a Candidate to take Jacob’s place. There are only six Candidates left, Ilana says.

Soon after their experience at the Black Pearl, Jack, Hurley AND Richard arrive at the beach. Sun is thrilled to see her friends, and wonders about Jin. Ben tries to become part of the group and helps out on the beach.

That was too much that happened. Sayid decided to be evil and killed Dogon and now the Smoke Monster is killing hand over fist! And then our local channel pre-empted something and we missed the end. What happened to Kate and Claire?

This week on LOST, Jack is a whiny smashy baby and Claire is crazy badass. Stay tuned for Maggie’s more insightful recap.

. . . . .

Thanks to Freakgirl for filling in for me…Yes, it’s me! Hello! But whether I’ll be insightful remains to be seen.
Maggie

So, what have we got here? I found that this week the differences between alternate universes to be less apparent and more cohesive in mood. It appears that Claire is indeed alive and, so far, seems kinda crazy. She is looking for her baby, and will hurt anyone to find him. Claire is now Rousseau 2.0., missing Baby A and pumping a shotgun with one arm like Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2. And she’s improved her chopping skills, which she demonstrates while murdering one of the Other others. Jin tries to stop what is happening by telling Claire that Aaron is safe, with Kate, off the island. He changes his mind upon watching the Other get an axe to the gut, and says Aaron is safe at the temple. Claire is quite relieved, when GUESS WHOOOO! pops into the tent? Jin says, “John?” Claire informs him that “it’s not John, you silly billy bear! No no no, ha ha ha…THIS is my FRIEND.” (That may have been paraphrased. Also, until I saw John, I thought her “friend” was going to be Christian Shepherd…her dad – because of that brief scene we saw of her sitting in the cabin with Christian in a previous season.)

In the Alternate Universe, Jack is a sad, divorced man with a son who hates the legal visits bestowed upon him. Jack knows nothing about his son, except due to some serendipity. That, combined with his resolve to connect to his son, he breaks into his ex-wife’s house and finds information in David’s room to indicate he’d be performing that night. Jack looks at his watch and practically runs to there. After his impeccable performance, another proud father tells Jack how talented David is…and it’s Dogen, the Temple Dude! Outside, Jack expresses his pride to David, and how he didn’t know the kid was keeping up with his piano playing.The boy explains that he promised his mom not to tell, because he’s always felt like his dad is overly critical. Since Jack recently has been thinking about similar experiences with his own father, he completely empathizes with his son and it looks like they’re beginning to form a new relationship.

Hurley, who can see dead people (which really never gets old for me – his lack of fear and his tendency to get into arguments with them), can see Jacob, and Jacob instructs Hurley to bring Jack along and go find a certain landmark. I believe the goal of this task is to help someone arrive at the island. Hurley decided to go it on his own but Jacob insists it’s a job for two and Jack must be there. He gives Hurley some verbal incentive, which he passes on, about “having what it takes.” Jack bites, just as Jacob predicted.

The two (three?) of them journey to a large lighthouse and climb atop of it and start to turn the mirrors to a given degree/co-ordinant. The magic numbers are also there, and next to each number is a name. Some have been scratched out but very clearly Jack spots his his own name. He forces Hurley to start turning the equipment to line it up with Shepherd. In the mirrors, Jack sees an image of his childhood home which sends him bonkers bananas, so he just destroys all the mirrors. Jack and Hurley sit outside the lighthouse when Jacob makes another appearance. He assures Hurley that all is fine, the new islander will find a way to arrive anyway. Hurley realizes that the whole point was for Jack to see that lighthouse/mirror setup.

The spot at 108 degrees said, Wallace. Do we know any Wallaces? Walt could be short for Wallace, but it’s a stretch.

Discuss last night’s LOST, The Substitute, in the comments. Professor Ben, WTF?

The Temple People are disturbed by Sawyer’s leaving. They seem to need everyone to stay there. Kate promises to track Sawyer and bring him back. Jin and two Temple People go along with her.

Inside, The Temple Dude and the Hippie Dude secure Sayid to a table, electrocute him, sear him with a red-hot poker and then tell him he passed the test. But as soon as Sayid went back out to the courtyard, Temple Dude and Hippie Dude were like, He so did NOT pass the test. Sayid tells Jack they tortured him.

Jack goes inside and demands to know what they did to Sayid. Oh, nothing. Just, uh, diagnosing. You know. Because he’s, uh, infected. You know. In the mystical way. Temple Dude gives Jack a capsule containing some green medicine and asks Jack to give it to Sayid. Jack says he won’t do it unless he knows what’s in the pill. He won’t tell, but says it will only work if Sayid takes it willingly. Temple Dude indicates that if Jack convinces Sayid to take the medicine, he could be redeemed from his demons. Jack goes outside and shows the pill to Sayid, who says he trusts Jack and if Jack says so, he will take it.

Jack himself isn’t convinced, so he goes back in to speak with the Temple Dude. He gives Jack no answers, so Jack takes the pill! Dude heimlichs the pill out of Jack and tells him it is poison.

In the new alternate universe, Kate escapes from the Marshall and hijacks a taxi that happens to contain Claire on her way to meet the couple that will adopt her baby. The cab driver escapes at a traffic light, Kate takes control of the car and then forces Claire to get out. Kate goes to a mechanic to get her cuffs off. She approaches him with her gun, but he makes it clear that he’d be happy to help her, and removes her handcuffs. She pays him and then goes to the back and looks through Claire’s luggage. She sees it’s full of baby stuff and she feels bad.

Kate goes back and finds Claire. She offers to drive Claire to her destination, and parents, tell your kids not to get into cars with gun-wielding women. Is taking the bus THAT bad?

By the time they arrive, Kate and Claire form a sort of friendship, and Kate accompanies her to the door. They learn that the adoptive parents have just split up so they don’t want the baby, you know how it is. Claire is outraged and then she is in labour. Kate takes her to the hospital, where in this timeline Ethan is happy, warm Dr. Goodspeed. The doctor stops her labour, the cops come and Claire lies about Kate’s whereabouts, and they talk about Claire naming the kid Aaron.

Back on the island, Kate runs away from Jin and the Temple Others and catches up to Sawyer. He’s in his house, taking something from a box. Kate regrets interrupting him but he sees her and it’s too late. They go out to the dock and talk. Kate apologizes for her role in Juliet’s death and says she came back to find Claire, for Aaron. Sawyer says he was going to ask Juliet to marry him and throws a ring in the ocean.

Back at the Temple, the two men are still trying to convince Jack to give Sayid the poison. They say that when the darkness reaches his heart, the Sayid they know will be gone. They tell Jack that they know because that’s what happened to his sister. Dun dun dun!

Jin is trying to make his way back to the Temple but encounters his former captor, who is about to kill him when he is killed. Jin turns around to see who shot his enemy, and it’s Claire! Dun dun dun!

On the one hand we have our cast in the present day, realizing that blowing up the bomb didn’t work and Juliet was going to die and Sawyer was all “I WILL KILL YOU!” while Hurley was told by a recently murdered Jacob to get Sayid to the temple and that Jin would help him.

On the other hand we have Flight 815 experiencing a mostly uneventful journey. Hi Desmond! And then he was gone. There were a few other differences as well, such as Boone travelling alone, Hurley stating that nothing bad ever happens to him. Charlie, instead of getting high in the toilet, ended up choking on his bag o’ drugs which got him saved by Jack and arrested by the Po-Po.

Island reality: Sawyer makes it to the bottom of the hatch, Juliet is almost dead, and she told him that she did indeed set off the bomb. Then she died before she could give him some extremely important information. Sawyer and Miles bury her, Miles reads her at Sawyer’s insistence and says simply, “It worked. It worked.”

So…that brings us to Happy Flight 815 reality: Things are not as expected. Sun refuses to help Jin out at customs. Jack’s dad’s body goes totally missing, Kate escapes from the marshall by getting into a cab with Claire (I know!) and getting away.

I’m still digesting and trying to find the cohesiveness. What did ya’lls think? Oh! And don’t forget the temple people drowned Sayid in the temple spring and then he got alive again after. And John Locke’s animated body, AKA the smoke monster, wants to go HOME.

Sorry.

In the season premiere, Vows, Ballard appears to be using Echo to clean up some unfinished FBI business. She has been married off to a notorious gun runner (Jamie Bamber from BSG, in full-Brit mode) in what must have been the longest Doll engagement in history (no pun intended). When he gets suspicious, she masterfully talks her way out of it, only to give herself away when, after a blow to the head, she gets confused about which personality they “made” her this time. Long story short, Ballard swoops in and saves the day essentially by beating her up until he triggers an aggressive former imprint and she blows a bunch of stuff up.

The main storyline was good enough but the real impact for me was in the interaction between Topher and Dr. Saunders. She used to be Whiskey, Top Doll until Alpha fixed that by cutting up her face, making way for Echo. The original Dr. Saunders was killed by Alpha and as a solution Topher imprinted a female version of Saunders onto Whiskey. What fun. But now she knows and is having a bit of an identity crisis, for which she aggressively blames Topher. After some deep discussion with Langton, Whiskey flies the coop, in search of herself. I am really looking forward to seeing where this journey takes her. My only quibble is this: you have to wonder why, when the truth came out, Topher didn’t just treat this all away and avoid some trouble.

At the end of the show, Ballard becomes Echo’s handler and, since she remembers everything, the two collude to bring the Dollhouse down and free all the dolls.

The next episode, Instinct, was quite an engaging piece of suspense thriller. Echo has taken on the role of a man’s dead wife in order to allow the baby to bond to “his mother” before he puts the baby up for adoption. He blamed little Jack for his wife’s death during child-birth, and has been unable to so much as touch the poor little guy. In an effort to keep this short, suffice to say things get a bit wiggy when echo’s maternal instinct kicks in and she gets VERY protective of little Jack. This all helps the father to bond with his son and he ends up keeping him after all.

Two things of note: Topher seems to have tweaked Echo’s imprint to the point of making her brain affect her body. Specifically, he made her able to lactate so she could breast feed. This concept didn’t sit well with me. It just seems like a little too much power being given to Topher’s manipulations. Luckily, that was kind of the point of the episode and I got the impression that at least for the time being, Topher has abandoned this track. The other thing we learned is that Echo is one F-ed up girl. She remembers everything. Every thought, memory and emotion that has come along with every imprint. All bouncing around her head. Yikes.

Which brings us to Belle Chose, last Friday’s episode. I loved this episode immensely. We are introduced to a twisted psychopath who kidnaps women and sets up family gatherings by arranging his prisoners as mannequins in some weird Old Navy ad from hell. When one tries to escape, he kills her and while out searching for his next Aunt Gladys, he gets hit by a car. Well, it turns out that he is the nephew of some rich dude who gives a bunch of money to the Rossum Corporation, the medical research company that parents the Dollhouse. So, the uncle calls in a favour and asks Adelle to try to save the kid’s brain with their advanced medical prowess, meaning Topher and his magical mind-machines.

To summarize, Victor gets imprinted with the nephew’s personality so Ballard can interrogate him. Because, you know, if you work for the FBI you are automatically a serial killer profiler. Anyway, Victor escapes and in order to stop him, Topher attempts a remote wipe in a new and exciting way. Needless to say, it all goes wrong, with the end result that Echo winds up imprinted as the killer and Victor as the 19-year-old college student that Echo had been imprinted as for Arye Gross. Gross is right. And that’s all I am saying about that. Except that Victor is awesome and his scenes in the club were some of the funniest stuff I have seen.

Echo fights her new personality and ends up freeing the killer’s remaining captives, rather than killing them. Ballard uses Echo’s GPS to track them down and clean up the mess. In the end, we are left with the somewhat disturbing knowledge that a little piece of the killer will be left in her brain to wreak who knows what kind of future havoc.

I really like this show.

Oh, and through it all, we have been introduced to Senator Daniel Perrin (played by Whedon staple Alexis Denisof), who has it in for The Rossum Corp and who has just received a mysterious package about the Dollhouse.