Broken Frontier

Is detention over yet? In this week’s Lost episode “Dr. Linus”, everyone has been given a detention of sorts, as the pace slows considerably from last week’s raucous Temple destroying episode “Sundown”. The episode focuses on the new, mellower Ben (who else liked evil Ben more?) as he expresses his surprisingly selfless side.

In the flash parallel we witness a day in the life of history teacher Dr. Benjamin Linus. Doctor Ben is the kind of teacher who wants to inspire his students, but he ironically gets stuck running detention hours after school. Like most parallel characters, Ben has a much less strained relationship with his father iin this timeline. Interestingly, the island is referenced by Ben’s disease-ridden father, but this hardly distracts parallel-Ben from his organic TV dinner. History teacher Ben Linus almost completes a power grab that would make even the Machiavellian Island-Linus jealous, but in the end, unlike island-Ben of the past, he chooses another route. This new kinder and gentler Ben is somewhat refreshing, although the “get Alex into Yale” subplot was rather insipid. I was hoping for more wheelchair Locke and less Principle-Nurse hanky-panky in the workplace, even though the appearance of Arzt was inspired.

The island-timeline begins right after the attack on the temple, with Ben catching up with Ilana and the rest of “Team Jacob” as they head back to the beach. Ben is caught lying about not killing Jacob when Miles talks to Ilana’s bag of ashes, and discovers the real story. Needless to say Ilana and Ben’s already tense relationship explodes and burns like flight 815 did. Mad about Ben killing “the closest thing (she) ever had to a father” Ilana forces Ben to dig his own grave. Ben escapes with the help of Locke-in-Black, but Ilana forgives him after he spills his guts about the loss of his daughter, and Ben becomes a official member of “Team Jacob”.

Elsewhere on the island, Hugo and Jack kick back at the Black Rock with Richard for an exciting game of dynamite-roulette. The nature of Jacob is revealed a bit more, and Jack takes a leap of faith that shows some character development. Afterwards, both storylines converge as the Jack Hugo and Richard meet up with the others at the beach.

Overall, this wasn't the best episode Lost has had to offer this season: The parallel-storyline was a bit weak and seemed straight out of Secret Life of the American Teenager. On the island, only the last 15 seconds or so revealed anything shocking or unexpected. Still, this episode looks like it will be the lull before the storm. The consolidation of the island-timeline characters into two major groups by the end of this episode makes a much less scattered narrative possible and might inject a dash of hyperspeed into what has sometimes been a snail-paced season.