Lost Recap: Is Widmore Actually The Good Guy?

On last night's episode, we got to see how Locke became Jeremy Bentham, how his meetings with the Oceanic 6 went down, and how he joined forces with Charles Widmore.

John Locke was happy to not only be back on his beloved Island, but to also be alive.

This, of course, was after his Obi-Won Kenobi moment.

So it looks like this new group of plane crash survivors are on the smaller island that houses the Hydra Station (the one where Jack met Juliette for the first time, when he was being held captive by the Others).

Caesar was rooting around for stuff and found some possibly interesting maps and notes.

Out on the beach, Locke learned from Illana that these boats were already there when the plane landed, but that there used to be three.

She said that the pilot (Frank) and a woman (perhaps Sun?) took off with one of them. "They didn't tell anyone. They just left in the night."

The rest of the episode is a flashback of how Locke came to return to the Island. After he first left, he landed in Tunisia, which we learned is the "exit."

Widmore had been anticipating his return, and set up surveillance cameras at the area. After Locke's broken leg was snapped back into place at a make-shift hospital, Widmore sat down to talk to him, and gave us a lot of new, juicy information that actually might all just be a bunch of lies.

He tells Locke he remembers meeting him in 1954, back on the Island. It's been over 50 years since Widmore has seen him, but it's only been 4 days for Locke.

Widmore says that he was the leader of the Others, whom he simply refers to as "his people," but then he was exiled by Ben. Widmore said they were there, "protecting the island."

Lost is often influenced by other texts, one of which is repeatedly the bible. The story of Jacob is particularly applied because of, duh, that Jacob, the one who lives in the creepy cabin. The story of Jacob and his twin brother Esau seems to really apply to this episode, with Widmore being Esau and Ben being Jacob.

It goes like this:
When she was pregnant with Jacob and Esau, God told Rebekah that "the older will serve the younger," essentially saying that the younger son will get the birth rights, instead of the first born, which was the typical way that things worked back then.

Esau came out first and Jacob second, so knowing what God told her about the birth right sitch, Rebekah chose Jacob as her favorite. As they were growing up, Esau was said to be the more adventurous one, into nature and hunting and stuff, while Jacob was quieter and a homebody (read: mama's boy). When they were adults, Jacob's mother helped him trick his dying father into giving him the blessing as heir to what he owned, leaving Esau out in the cold.

Fearing that Esau would kill Jacob, she had him sent away. Meanwhile, Esau became super rich and successful. Jacob never got to reunite with his mother before she died.

The whole moral of the story of Jacob and Esau is that Jacob and his Mother worked to manipulate situations to try to carry out "God's plan" instead of just trusting in God that the plan would work out no matter what.

Kinda sounds like how Ben — and quite possibly his mother — have been manipulating situations and bouncing around in time in order to make things work out for themselves, instead of just trusting in the fact that things usually have a way of working out on their own.

Anyway, Widmore knows that John is on a mission to bring the rest of the gang back to the Island. He tells John that he wants to help him because "there's a war coming," and that if John is not back on the Island, "the wrong side will win." Widmore also said that he wants Ben removed so it could be "John's time" to be the leader.

So who is Locke to trust? Widmore or Ben?

Ultimately, he decides to go with Widmore, since he never tried to kill him, and Ben has. I don't know if Widmore is to be trusted. Sure, he was a dick to Desmond, but that could just be some protective father shit that has nothing to do with his intentions re: the Island.

However, I tend to think that Ben should not be trusted, because Sayid doesn't trust him, and Sayid, as far as I know, hasn't exhibited any faulty intuition. (But Widmore could be conning Locke, and Locke has fallen for cons before. He was conned out of his friggin' kidney.)

But Widmore is the one who said that he needed to go to see Eloise Hawking, and it was her idea to use John as a proxy for Christian. And Widmore gave Locke the alias "Jeremy Bentham," a philosopher who was a really good guy (and a feminist!):

Bentham's position included arguments in favour of individual and economic freedom, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the end of slavery, the abolition of physical punishment (including that of children), the right to divorce, free trade, usury, and the decriminalization of homosexual acts. He also made two distinct attempts during his life to critique the death penalty.

He was also similar to Locke in death: Jeremy Bentham wanted his body placed at his university and wheeled out on special occasions to be put on display. Here he is:

Much like his life before flight 815 ever crashed on the Island, when Locke is back on the mainland, he's kind of a sad sack. His life sucks, he feels unaccomplished, no one takes him seriously, and he's once again, in a wheelchair.

Widmore assigns him a helper, Matthew (Daniels from The Wire).

Locke recognized him as being an orderly in the hospital when he first was in the wheelchair.

Locke goes to visit Walt, who has finished pubing.

He's been having psychic dreams about Locke. According to Widmore's people, Walt needs to come back, as well. But Ben never made any mention of that. Locke couldn't bring himself to ask Walt to return and fuck up his life.

Then he visits Hurley, who thinks he's talking to a ghost, which is probably something he's been doing a lot. Hurley was doing some art therapy. What could this sphynx mean?

Locke's ex-gf Helen died of a brain aneurism. Matthew didn't want to tell Locke about it. Probably for good reason-when they got to the grave site, he was murdered by Ben.

We learn that Christian's shout out to Jack (the first step in Locke serving as a proxy for Christian) is what convinced him to return to the island, and started him on his many plane rides to and from Australia hoping for a crash.

Having no luck with the Oceanic 6, and knowing that his GF is dead, Locke thinks he has nothing to live for, and tries to hang himself. Ben bursts in and tries to stop him. He tells him he can't die because he has too much work to do.

Locke tells Ben that Jin is alive and that he doesn't want to go speak to Sun, because Jin made him promise that he wouldn't. He shows Ben Jin's ring. He tells Ben that Widmore told him to seek out Eloise Hawking, which Ben seems taken aback by. Then Ben murders John, probably because he sees John as a roadblock in getting Sun to return to the Island, and now that he has Jin's ring, he can convince her himself.

As he leaves the scene of his crime, Ben looks genuinely pensive and says, "I'll miss you, John. I really will." Why will he miss him? Does he not really think that Locke will come back to life when they return with his body back to the Island?

Back on the Island, Ceasar tells Locke that "really big guy with curly hair" sitting next to him on the plane vanished into thin air as the plane was going down and a bright light flashed.

Caesar brings Locke to where they are keeping the people on the plane who got hurt. He sees Ben, looking even more beat up than he did when he got on the plane.

He tells Caesar, "He's the man who killed me." BOOM: Lost title card.

Interesting to note: In the promo for next week's episode, Ben's shirt isn't as bloody as in the photo above, and he's walking with Sun.

And for extra fun, try this "Sawyer Nickname Generator" to see what he would call you.

Question: If Sun is the woman who disappeared on a boat with the pilot, then why didn't she disappear into thin air?

Question: Where the hell is Sayid?

Question: Did Hurley, Kate, and Jack get sucked into the time warp while the rest of the plane didn't? Are they in the same time line as the rest of the plane?

Question: Are the flashes going to start for this round of plane survivors as well?

Question: Have the flashes stopped now that the gang has returned?

Send an email to Tracie, the author of this post, at tracie@jezebel.com.

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