21 March 2010

By the Gods! That Michael Emerson is a fantastic actor!


So there was no written post last week for "Dr. Linus." Instead you saw pictures of 6 moments from the story that stick out in my head as the most iconic. (When I say iconic, I mean those moments that encapsulate the entire story while only telling a part of it. When you see it, you just say, "Wow.") I had fun posting them and probably will do more, but you should notice about the first six: Only one directly references the grand mythology of the story, while only one more does so even tangentially. They are, for the most part, character moments, and "Dr. Linus" was a character story through and through.
If we thought Ben Linus had fallen from grace by the time he turned the frozen donkey wheel, he never hit bottom until he ran away from digging his own grave, driven by desperation, guilt, and longing to the dark side. When Ilana caught up to him, he was penitent; he confessed and laid his soul open to the quick. This was truly the first time we have seen Ben being honest, the wheels which constantly turn in his manipulative mind silenced. It was truly an awesome moment. Ben's captor and executioner, Ilana, heard his confession and gave him absolution. "I'll have you," she said, and in that instant she was his mother, she was his lover, she was the Island, she was the world, looking into Ben's heart and seeing light instead of darkness.

Character, man, character. Without 'em, all you have is a board game.

1 comment:

a bonsai said...

the desperate confession from Ben followed by Ilana was a powerful moment in the Lost series.

i love the way you said,
in that instant she was his mother, she was his lover, she was the Island, she was the world, looking into Ben's heart and seeing light instead of darkness.

Her ability to take pity on Ben swayed me. I've never been her fan, but this was a moment were her heart showed as much as Ben's.