'Lost': The Man From Tallahassee

The two Locke/Ben-centric episodes of Season 3 (this and "The Man Behind the Curtain") are my two favorite episodes of the year not named "Through the Looking Glass." The show simply struck gold with this combination of characters and actors, and when it's just the two of them onscreen, every scene just sizzles. Sure, we'd see plenty of scenes involving the two of them inside the Swan, but starting with this episode, the tension between these two characters went to the next level. As did Lost itself.

(What did I make of this ep when it originally aired? Glad you asked!)

The Man from Tallahassee

4) In Short

"Blow, blow, blow your sub/Into smithereens!"

8) On the Island

We start off where we last ended, with Sayid, Kate, and Locke watching Jack play football with Mr. Friendly.  They watch Juliet come over, take Jack's arm, and then lead him over to Ben. Ben's now in a wheelchair, and converses calmly with his doctor. The two then shake hands, much to the shock of Jack's would-be rescuers.

Kate is freaking out, wanting to go in all guns blazing. Sayid theorizes that perhaps the new and possibly "improved" Jack might not want rescue. Locke calmly explains that Jack must have a reason for what he's doing, and suggests they wait for nightfall to find out what it is. Interesting, seeing Locke so confident in Jack's decision-making ability. Then again, Locke's got other motives here.

Nightfall in the Barracks. The trio watches Jack and Juliet depart into their respective bungalows. Locke draws up a plan: Sayid guards the front, himself to the rear, with Kate entering through the side door. When Kate enters, she's shocked to find Jack playing the piano. When he sees her, he freaks out, telling her they're being watched. Before she can leave, the door bursts open and two Others capture Kate. Two more soon bring Sayid in. At gunpoint, they ask Kate who else is with them. She covers for Locke, saying they are the only two.

In Ben's bedroom, he hears noises. Thinking it's Alex, he flips on the light and finds two things: John Locke and a gun in his face. He tells Locke he knows where Jack is; Locke informs him he's not after Jack, but the submarine. Ben plays dumb about the submarine at first; just then, Alex comes into the room. Locke holds her at gunpoint when he hears Tom enter the house. The two enter Ben's closet while Tom and Richard Alpert inform Ben of Kate and Sayid's presence. Ben orders them separated, and has one more instruction for Richard: to bring him "the man from Tallahassee."

Upon coming out of the closet, Locke orders Ben to have Alex grab the bag from Sayid. She leaves, allowing the two men some alone time together. Oh, this should be fun. Locke reluctantly agrees to help Ben into his wheelchair. Before he lifts Ben into the chair, Locke learns that Ben knows just about everything that's ever happened to him, including how he himself ended up in a wheelchair years ago. Sweet, Ben knows, but we don't. Can this episode fix that please? Oh, it does? Sweet!

Kate's in what looks like a rec room, handcuffed to a pool table. Tom brings Jack into the room, warning him about the audio and visual bugs planted throughout. Jack pulls up a chair and sits maybe ten feet away, eerily calm. Kate worries that he's "with" them; Jack states that he's not "with" anymore. His calm fades when Kate  presses the issue, angrily shouting that he told her not to come back for him. She slowly approaches him, asking him one last time what they did to him. He tells her he made a deal to leave, and he'll be gone first thing the following morning. He promises to bring back help once home, stating its their best chance for all to leave the Island.. Before exiting, his whispers in her ear, "I will come back for you."

In Ben's bedroom, Mr. Linus is awfully curious about how the Island instantly healed Locke. John realizes that Ben hasn't healed as quickly; in fact, didn't Ben need surgery because of a tumor? This knowledge makes for a mighty smug Locke, which then leads to rabid hunger. Locke demands leftovers!

Outside, Sayid is handcuffed to a swingset. Alex approaches him, leading to an interesting moment of recognition on his behalf. After obtaining Sayid's pack from an Other named Ryan (hey, that's my name!), Sayid surprises her by calling out her name. Sayid tells her she looks like her mother, a statement that shocks Alex. Looks like Ben and the Others have led her to believe her mother was dead all this time. Ryan responds to Sayid's direct deposit of information with a direct deposit of his gun into Sayid's ribs.

While going to Ben's kitchen, Locke asks Ben how they have electricity. Ben makes an amusing comment about two giant hamster wheels, and it's worth noting this is the first episode in which Ben is not only extremely ruthless but completely hysterical. HIs dry wit functions not only as a tonic for the dour plotlines but also makes him oddly likeable. (Until you realize this is an evil, evil man, and you start to hate yourself for laughing. Damn you, Ben Freakin' Linus!)

Strap in for brilliance, folks. Ben once again tries to dissuade Locke from blowing up the sub, telling him that vehicle goes a long way towards keeping his people happy. While his people defend the Island, they also need to know they can leave if they want. And if Locke doesn't blow it up, Ben promises to show Locke something he wants to see. He asks Locke to imagine a box, a very large box, somewhere on the Island. Anything Locke wants to be in the box, boom, there is it. Locke sarcastically replies Ben better hope it's big enough to encase a new sub. When Ben asks Locke why he's so angry, Locke calls him a cheat, a Pharisee, and someone unable to truly appreciate the Island. Why does John understand the Island better after 80 days than Ben has after decades on the Island? "Because you're in a wheelchair, and I'm not." OH NO HE DIDN'T.

(That is one amazing freakin' scene. I mean, hot damn. I need a cigarette. And I don't even smoke.)

Alex returns to the bungalow with Sayid's pack. Locke's plan? Take Alex with him to the sub for protection. Not only does she make a great hostage, but she's lethal with a slingshot, man. Ben makes his final play: he tells Locke that in an hour, Jack will leave on that sub, and the anomaly created by Desmond turning the failsafe key effectively rendered the Island untraceable. Locke need not fear anyone finding the Island, Ben says. Locke's not buying a word of it, and really, after all that time in the Swan, why would he?

On the way to the sub, Alex helpfully reminds Locke that he's getting played by her father. Why? Cuz that's how Ben rolls, yo. As Locke leaves Alex at the dock, we see Danielle tearfully watching her daughter from the nearby jungle. Also? Blu-Ray catches an enormous trail of snot coming down from her nose. Damn you, 1080p. Damn you to hell for showing me that. Locke enters the submarine, and walks past a series of cots into the main engine room.

Ben puts away the leftover food into the fridge, and when he turns around he finds Jack and Juliet in his kitchen. Jack wants one last favor: that Ben let Kate and Sayid go once Jack is off the Island. Ben eventually relents, stating yes, once he's off the Island, they will be released. Juliet says thank you to Ben with tears in her eyes, and boy their looks at one another are extremely loaded given what we know about these two now, isn't it?

Down by the dock, Locke walks away from the sub, absolutely drenched. Boy, that's...weird. He runs into the Others bringing Jack and Juliet to the sub. Locke makes little effort to resist. When Jack asks Locke why here's there, Locke simply tells the good doctor he's sorry. And then boom goes the dynamite. Jack murders Locke with his eyes, where Locke has this great, "So, can we still be friends?" look in his.

Now incarcerated in a dingy room, Locke tells Ben he realizes now that he did exactly what Ben wanted. Well, yes, John, that's usually what happens when you talk to Ben for more than six seconds.  Ben tells Locke that he solved all of his Jack-related problems in one fell swoop, making his "dream" come true. The three walk down a long hallway as they discuss Locke's father: Ben theorizes that Locke destroyed the sub so he never had to see him again. He tells John he has a special "communion" with the Island, which makes him important. And John apparently made something appear in the aforementioned "magic box." That something? A beaten, gagged, terrified Anthony Cooper.

15) Off the Island

John is applying for disability insurance. The woman processing his application is skeptical, wondering why he's stopped going to his therapy sessions. She denies his application for further benefits, at which point Locke stands up and leaves. So, not in a wheelchair yet. Just wait for it, people. Patience is a virtue.

Locke glumly eats a TV dinner while watching an episode of "Exposé" in his motel room. He's interrupted by a man at the door, Peter Talbot. Pete's mighty curious about the number of kidneys Locke has. Turns out Anthony Cooper is about to wed his mother, although Peter knows him as Adam Seward. The search for Seward's background led him to Locke via Cooper's medical records. Locke insists the donation of his kidney was anonymous, leaving Peter with no insight into Cooper's real nature.

Locke tracks Cooper down in a florist shop. He tells Cooper about his meeting with Peter, and tells Daddy Dearest to call off the wedding. If he doesn't do so, Locke promises to tell the bride-to-be everything about her would-be hubby's past. Cooper agrees to walk away from the marriage, and since this is Cooper, we can totally believe what he says without questioning it at all.

Later on, Locke returns to his motel to find a few detectives in front of his offer. They want to know if has ever met Peter Talbot. Locke tells them he was merely a solicitor, but then learns that his name was found in Peter's pockets. And why were they looking through his pockets? Because 1) Peter's extremely rich family asked them to, and 2) Peter's extremely dead now.

Locke knocks on Cooper's door, angrily asking him if he killed Peter. Cooper pours some familiar whisky and tells John that Peter's death ruined his chances at financial riches. In the wake of Peter's death, his mother called off the wedding. Locke wants to call her to prove this new story of Anthony's. When he goes for the phone, Anthony bum rushes him and throws him out of his eighth-story condo. Well, allllllrighty then!

The detectives from earlier in the episode tell John, now bruised and battered and paralyzed, that Cooper fled to Mexico. Dear ol' Dad could be anywhere right now. Locke can't even bear to make eye contact with anyone, and treats his new wheelchair as tantamount to a death sentence. Alone in his hospital room, he starts to cry.

16) The Mythology

I mean, sweet Jacob, that's a lot of stuff to download, eh? We're talking "chapter of a book" stuff here, not "part of a recap" stuff. So I'll try to highlight the important parts here and let you all discuss them further in the comments.

The Magic Box. Obviously a metaphor, but the essential description of what I continually refer to as the "mind into matter" aspect of the Island. But what caught my ear the second time around is the sense that there's a localized place on the Island in which this happens. Remember, the Dharma Initiative picked hatches based on specific geological/electromagnetic/gosh darn purty places on the Island. My best guess for this location? The Dark Territory. Just a hunch.

Mittelos and Alpert. Now, I think we can all agree that the Others, not Ben, put Cooper on this Island. My instinct is that Richard literally went and snatched Cooper from the real world upon Ben's request, which means there's a way on and off the Island known to Ben and Richard alone that's irrespective of the submarine. (It's also potentially how Tom visits Michael come Season 4, a question asked to me by a few of you via email recently.) As curious to me as the "how" is the "when." By which I mean this: we've seen Richard look the same age, from visiting Locke as a child through meeting Juliet as an adult. I can't help but wonder if present-day Richard visited Locke through the years at specific moments after learning about him on the Island. More on this later in the week.

The Submarine. OK, so this has always bugged me: why is Locke so damn wet? He wasn't wet inside the submarine, so he didn't have to swim out to it to enter its hull. I want to think this will eventually be HUGELY important, but I also fear its as important as the purpose of the Arrow station. Which is to say, not really at all. But I want to know what you think. (Props to Jeff Jensen for putting this thought in my head after the ep initially aired.)

Locke's Fall. Now, is he remarkable because he fell eight stories and lived, or did he live because he was already remarkable? In the first case, that's when the Island might have noticed him. In the second, the Island saved him because it had always been looking out for him. Thoughts?

Barracks Living. All those cameras and surveillance devices were installed by the Dharma Initiative. So, can we rightly treat the Barracks as a type of experimental station, with the experiment being on communal living? It's that, or the DI is much more sinister than we've been led to believe. Between the Big Brother aspect of the the Barracks, Room 23, and The Tempest station, you can make a strong argument against the seemingly benevolent drive behind the DI.

23) The Moment

I love the entirety of the "magic box" scene, with two actors just nailing the mind-altering possibilities offered by the dialogue.

42) In Retrospect

Always find it fascinating to hear Ben claim he was born on the Island. It's obviously not true, but does his claim stem from a need to be seen as a native, or stem from the inability of any other member of the Others to have children? More to the point: do you think that Ben has told this story so many times that he believes it to be true?

108) In Summary

This is a Top Ten All-Time Episode, no diggity, no doubt. Between the final reveal of Locke's pre-Island injury to Ben's magic box to Danielle finally seeing her long-lost daughter, this really had something for everyone. Even if major answers were in short supply, one got the sense at this point in the show's run that they truly had a direction, even if we couldn't tell what that direction necessarily was. At the beginning of the season, it certainly felt as if the show were spinning its wheels, but episodes such as this showed they had shifted into overdrive.

Leave your thoughts about this episode below!

Ryan also posts every 108 minutes over at Boob Tube Dude, then peruses Zap2It's Guide to Lost Facebook group. He also encourages you to join the all-new Zap2It's Guide to Lost Twitter feed. Pretty soon he'll have as many platforms as Ben has pieces of leftover chicken.