ABC started a new feature a few weeks ago, “Ask LOST,” where the actors answer viewer questions.
Michael Emerson was the first one up. He comes across here as articulate, smart, very nice — and not at all scary. I like the sound of his voice here; he has the diction of a stage actor, which of course is what he was for many years.
Posted in Ask Lost, Ben (Michael Emerson), Interviews
Kate demanding answers from Miles
We just saw, in Some Like it Hoth, that Naomi offered Miles $1.6 million to join Widmore’s expedition to kill Ben. Then Miles told Bram he wouldn’t go to the Island if Bram paid him $3.2 million, which Bram declined to do.
We’ve heard the number $3.2 million before. Remember? Back in Season 4? Miles told Ben that for $3.2 million, he would lie to Widmore and tell him that Ben was already dead.
The scene contains this classic exchange:
— Ben, in a shocked tone: “You’ve arranged this meeting so you could blackmail me?
— Miles: “It’s extortion, if you want to get technical.”
Ben goes on to ask, “3.2? Why not 3.3 or 3.4?”
Which is exactly the question that I have. What is the significance of 3.2?
We know that $3.2 million is double what Widmore was paying Miles, and we know that $1.6 million contains the number “16,” which is one of the numbers. But there has to be more to it than that.
Miles never answers Ben’s question about why it’s 3.2. Miles just looks at him. His not answering gives the question even more significance. So does the echo of the number, over a year later, in Some Like it Hoth. 3.2 means something — but what?
The scene where Miles confronts Ben starts at 4:12 in the video below. I’ll think you’ll enjoy seeing it again. I found it interesting to go back to the time when the Losties still thought of Miles as their enemy. And he does seem a bit menacing here, not yet the cuddly wise-cracker that we’ve come to know and love (even though he does get off a couple of very funny lines):
Editing to add 4/27/09: This mystery has now been solved!
Smokie shows Ben faces from the past
Ben, still wracked with guilt over Alex’s death, has come back to the Island to be judged by Smokie, who he calls “The Monster.”
That name could just as easily be applied to Ben himself. Ben is a cold-blooded killer, as we see in both the present storytime and the past via flashback. In the present, Ben shoots Caesar point blank, after manipulating him into attacking John. In the past, Ben tries to kill Penny, who he has never even met, just to get back at her father. He shoots Desmond because he is in the way. Surely Ben is the real monster of this story.
And yet, it’s a testament to Michael Emerson’s skill as an actor that we don’t simply hate Ben. When he tells Charles that baby Alex is not an “it,” Ben seems human, even endearing. When he sees the vision of Alex in Smokie’s lair, and he says her name, the love, and longing, and sorrow, and regret in his voice is heartbreaking.
The episode is almost as much about Locke as it is about Ben. Being dead for a while seems to have done Locke a world of good. It must have been like a little vacation, if we can judge by how refreshed he looks! He’s got his Season One macho swagger back, his confidence, his smile, his twinkling eyes, and his ability to do a magic mind-meld with the will of the Island.
There’s a lot of talk about the Island’s will. Not only John, but also Ben, Widmore, and Alpert all have lines referring to “what the Island wants.” At times, they seem to equate “what Jacob wants” with “what the Island wants.” Does that mean that Jacob is the Island, in some sense?
We see Ben in several stages of his life, and along the way, a few mysteries are cleared up. Charles, with a lot of hair, visits Little Ben and tells him the Island saved his life. Young-man Ben, with a teenaged Ethan, takes baby Alex. Several years later, Alex is in a swing, and Charles is banished from the Island.
In the present, Ben appears freaked out that John is alive, and says that knowing it would happen is different from actually seeing it. Ben and Locke then take the Island version of a buddy road trip. They run into Sun and Lapidus. The latter has had it with dead men walking, and wants to leave Crazy Island. But Sun wants to stay and find Jin. Locke tells her he has some ideas for how she can do that.
Ben lies to Sun, and tells her that “dead is dead” and that he had no idea that Locke would come back to life. Or is it Locke he had lied to, earlier, when Ben told him he knew he would come back — and Sun to whom he is now telling the truth?
In any case, it’s off to the temple, an encounter with Smokie, and the appearance of undead Alex. Strangely, when undead Alex suddenly grabs Ben by the throat, out of all the many topics she could have chosen to discuss with her father during this rare opportunity for communication, she chooses to speak about John Locke.
She says she knew Ben was planning to kill him again, and that if Ben so much as touched John, she would hunt him down and destroy him. She orders Ben to listen to every word that John Locke says and to follow his every order.
That’s quite a good deal for Locke!
Earlier, when Ben was on the porch of his old home with Sun, he heard a rustling in the jungle. He said to Sun, “You may want to go inside. What’s about to come out of that jungle is something I can’t control.” He meant Smokie, of course, but then when it was Locke who walked out of the jungle, Ben’s statement still applied – John Locke is someone Ben can no longer control.
Mysteries solved:
Ben killed John to bring everyone together so they would come back to the Island (or, at least, that’s what Ben said).
Ben took baby Alex to save her.
Ben’s injuries when he boarded Flight 315 were from Desmond beating him up after Ben tried to kill both Desmond and Penny.
Unsolved mysteries:
What’s in the crate on the beach?
How did Ethan come to be with the Others?
Who is Ilana, really? And why did she ask Lapidus “What lies in the shadow of the statue?” and why did she knock him out when he couldn’t answer?
And who was Caesar? Was he just the innocent victim of Ben’s manipulations that he appeared to be? Or did he have a secret role on the Island as well?
Ben and the Smoke Monster (lightened) from screencap by Lost-Media.com (c) ABC
Here’s Michael Emerson (who plays Ben) in an interview last month with the Washington Post:
Liz: Will we find out what the deal is with the four-toed statue?
Michael: You are going to learn more about the world from which that statue came. I don’t think we’re going to see the statue again in context, but maybe. You’ll certainly know from whence it is a relic.
He also repeats the claim I’ve seen before (most notably in a Wikipedia article), that Richard Alpert is not wearing eyeliner:
Liz: Is Nestor Carbonell — who plays Richard Alpert — wearing eyeliner?
Michael: No. But he has a kind of genetic beauty that is a rare thing in men or women. No, that’s what he looks like when he wakes up in the morning. It’s hard not to study his face and admire it.
Ha! But Alpert has a dark line that goes straight across the bottom of his lower lid! Was he really born with that, or is everyone who makes that claim just pulling our leg?
Also from the interview:
Liz: Well you’ve probably just put to rest several theories about Alpert being a transplant from ancient Egypt.
Michael: Ah. Well, hold that thought about Egypt. That’s all I’ll say.
So whether or not Alpert is from ancient Egypt, the statue may very well be.
Emerson also says that he has “some crackerjack scenes — epic, vintage Ben and John Locke coming up — in ways you would never expect.” That’s great! The Ben-Locke pairing is one of my favorites.
There is lots more in the interview, including Emerson’s thoughts on whether Ben is purely evil, or if he’s a good person doing whatever it takes to reach his goal, and what kind of roles Emerson would like to play in the future.
Also available for men.
