Lost: The Man Behind the Curtain

“The Man Behind the Curtain” is the 20th episode of Season 3, and was broadcast on May 9, 2007. After bringing his father’s body to Ben, Locke demands to see Jacob, the leader of the Others. Meanwhile, Sawyer returns to camp with the tape recorder, causing everyone to finally confront Jack and Juliet.

Synopsis

Flashback

In the middle of a wooded area, a woman cries with pain. Her name is Emily, screaming in labor whilst her husband, Roger, tries to make her push. She does so, and her baby is born. However, it soon becomes apparent that Emily is still in a lot of pain, and is losing blood. Roger picks her up and carries Emily and the baby away from the wooded area and on to a road, where we see that they are 32 miles from Portland. They wave down a car, and a man and woman stop to help them. However, before they can do anything, Emily collapses, but not before telling Roger to name the baby Benjamin.

Young Ben follows the bunny past the sonic fence.

Years later, a young Ben arrives on the Island via the submarine with his father. They meet Horace, the man who stopped his car for them on the day Ben was born. Horace has helped Roger get work for the DHARMA Initiative. Ben says little as they head past greeting workers, a sign proclaiming “Namaste!”, and move inside to watch a brief video on the Initiative and the Barracks area. As Ben stands around and meets a young girl, he hears his father angrily contesting the fact that he has been given the occupation of “Work Man” (effectively, janitor).

Some time later, Ben is in class learning about volcanoes. As the teacher notes similarities to the Island, a siren sounds and all the children take cover. Annie explains that it is “the Hostiles”, as the teacher loads a gun. At night, Ben overhears Roger arguing with Horace. Roger says “while driving back from The Flame we drive into the middle of a gun fight!” Horace tries to explain that they are having a little trouble with the natives and that the Island is the best place for Ben’s education, but Roger doesn’t seem to care about that when he asked for $30,000 more in “hazard pay”. As Ben stands in his room, he is shocked to see his mother’s face at the window, though after a double-take she is gone. Sometime later, Ben is on a swing set and receives a birthday present from Annie. They are two wooden dolls representing her and Ben. She takes the doll of Ben and gives him the doll representing her saying, “they never have to be apart.” Later that night, Ben’s faith in his father is questioned after Roger explicitly says to him in a drunken state that he believes it’s Ben’s fault that Emily died.

Hearing this from his father prompts Ben to run out to the sonic fence, where his mother again appears to him. Standing on the other side of the fence, she says it isn’t time yet for him to be with her. Defiant, Ben appears to have prepared an escape, as he later returns to the fence, armed with the deactivation code. After testing it is safe by letting a white rabbit pass the boundary, he runs through and out into the jungle amidst whispers. There he meets Richard Alpert, whom he tells about the visions of his mother and that he wishes to join the Hostiles. Richard seems to agree, but says to do so Ben must be very “patient”.

Young Ben disables the sonic fence with the numbers 54439.

Richard talks to Young Ben in the jungle.

Ben helps his father, Roger, load supplies into the DHARMA Van.

Years have passed, and a much older Ben is at the barracks, on his birthday. He helps his father load a blue van with beer bound for the Pearl station, and then confronts his father about him not remembering his birthday (a recurring theme in his parenting style). Roger suggests they go for a drive together and have some father-son time, to which Ben agrees. On the hill, Ben asks Roger whether he truly does think its Ben’s fault that Emily died. Roger refuses to answer him, and Ben finally snaps after years of neglect and near-silence, telling his father that he’s been patient for so long, and now its time to go. He pulls out a gas mask and says goodbye before filling the van with a gas, which causes his father to violently bleed from the nose and mouth before dying.

“Purge Gas”

Ben returns to the barracks where all of the DHARMA workers are dead, including Horace. Alpert and his men emerge, and it’s revealed they were working with Ben. Richard asks if they should collect Roger’s body too as the rest of the DHARMA bodies are gathered up, but Ben says that he wishes for him to say in the van where he is.

Realtime Event

Ben is in his tent, looking at a wooden figure he once received as a birthday present. Richard enters, and in conversation Ben learns that the tape recorder was never taken back to the medical station, despite it being missing. He walks outside and asks Tom where it is, but Tom’s gaze is elsewhere. Ben looks to see John Locke enter the camp carrying a body on his back (exactly as Ben had asked). Locke now wishes to know everything about the Island, having held up his end of the deal.

Inside his tent, Ben and Locke discuss about the Others in a little more detail, and Ben admits that Jacob is in charge of their group, but that only Ben is allowed to see him. Locke demands to meet “the man behind the curtain” but Ben says that he cannot accommodate him there. Outside, Mikhail runs into camp to find Ben. He explains how he survived the sonic fence (it was not at a lethal level), and about Naomi. Ben seems incredibly surprised by the revelations, but rather than immediately do something, suggests they see to it in a couple of nights time when they are heading to the camp to take the pregnant women anyway. Locke uses the opportunity to force Ben’s hand, saying that Ben was going to take him to see Jacob, in front of the entire group. Mikhail questions this, and Locke beats him to the ground as Ben orders Tom and Richard to intervene, which they don’t.

Reluctantly, Ben agrees to take Locke with him. As they collect water, Alex arrives to give Locke a gun so he will be safe, much to Ben’s surprise. She coldly adds “happy birthday Dad” as she leaves. The two men head off despite Ben’s warnings. On the way they come across a line of grey powder on the ground, but before Locke can investigate it further, Ben insists they keep moving.

They eventually reach a small house. Ben warns that after opening the door there is no turning back, but Locke remains determined. He also states that Locke should turn off his flash light, since Jacob hates technology. Inside, Ben introduces Locke to Jacob, who is apparently sitting on an empty chair. Ben proceeds to chat to Jacob and argue, whilst Locke stands in complete disbelief that Jacob seems to be nothing but an imaginary friend or voice in Ben’s head. As he angrily leaves, he hears a voice saying “Help….me”. He turns, and his flashlight lights up Ben’s terrified face. Suddenly, the room seems to take on a life of its own. Ropes dance on the wall, chairs rock and windows smash. Ben’s lantern also catches fire, and for a moment Locke sees a face on the chair. Ben also appears to shake someone in the chair telling him to stop and that he’s made his point, immediately after which he is thrown hard against a wall by an unseen force. Locke stumbles outside, asking what on earth was in there. Ben simply replies that it was Jacob.

The next morning, Ben leads John back a different route. On the way, he admits to never having been born on the Island like he said, as well as having lied to his group on occasion. They reach a mass grave full of skeletons, the DHARMA jumpsuits still visible on some. Ben explains that he used to be with the Initiative, they were his group. However, they could not even coexist with the original inhabitants of the Island. When it became clear that one side had to go, Ben did what he had to in order to ensure that he wasn’t also in that pit, like Locke. As John spins round, Ben shoots him in the chest, and he falls into the pit. His reasoning, he says, is because he heard Jacob. Ben demands to know what he said, and John says that it was “help me”, something that seems to deeply trouble Ben. He replies that Locke had better hope Jacob will help him then, before leaving him lying in the pit, bleeding.

At the beach

Juliet and Jack approaching the camp.

Sawyer, returning from helping Locke, hides in the trees and grabs Sayid’s attention. He explains about the tape, and later the two let Kate in on the revelation. They talk about where Jack and Juliet are, and Kate admits that she told them about Naomi.

At night, the whole camp is in uproar about Naomi, as well as her story about the plane having already been found. As Sawyer plays the tape, Jack and Juliet return. Everyone questions them, but Juliet tries to explain that she is actually helping them. They turn over the tape and hear that Ben plans to lead a team to kidnap all the fertile women. Juliet reveals that she has already told Jack about it, and that they were still thinking of a plan.

Trivia

The mysterious Jacob

Time to die.

• A face is shown in the hut when the objects start to move for a split moment in the chair where Jacob was supposed to be.
• When Ben is in the van with Roger and he looks at his watch, it displays the time 4:00:15-4:00:16.
• Ben is born just 32 miles outside of Portland.
• Annie gives young Ben an Apollo Bar soon after Ben’s arrival on the Island.
• Both Ben and Locke have mothers named Emily.
• This is only the second episode this season where all credited cast members appear
• Young Ben uses the numbers 54439 to disable the Sonic fence
• Ben kills his father on his own birthday, therefore both of his parents died on his birthday.
• The episode starts on the 91st day of being on the island, December 22nd, which is Ben’s birthday.
• Both Locke & Ben have killed their fathers to join the Others/Hostiles. They are also both looked on with some authority by them.
• The gas canister has the label “431CTP”
• Ben’s cover-alls did not have any DHARMA logo.
• LOST is a name given to Mustard Gas , consiting of an abbreviation of the names Lommel and Steinkopf, two Germans who mass produced the gas during World War I.
• Ben is wearing a Timex Indiglo watch. Timex received the patent for the Indiglo® nightlight in 1988, but according to the Timex website, “The company introduced the industry’s first electroluminescent watch face in 1992″. This means that the purge would have had to have occurred during, or after, 1992.

Recurring themes

Recurring themes in LOST
Black and white • Car accidents • Character connections • Deceptions and cons • Dreams • Eyes • Fate versus free will • Good and bad people • Isolation • The Numbers • Parent issues • Life and death • Rain • Redemption • Rivalries • Sacrifice • Secrets • Time

• Emily dies after giving birth to Ben. (Life and Death)
• Roger blames Ben for Emily’s death. (Parent issues)
• An eye shot appears during Locke’s encounter with Jacob. (Eyes)
• Young Ben uses a bunny to test wheter or not he successfuly disarmed the sonic fence. (Animals)
• There is a picture of a dog in Jacob’s cabin. (Animals)
• When Ben is in the van with Roger and he looks at his watch, it displays the time 4:00:15-4:00:16. (Numbers)
• Ben is born just 32 miles outside of Portland. (Numbers)

Cultural references

Cultural references in LOST (direct references only)
Art • Books • Cars • Games • Movies and TV • Music • Philosophy • Religion and ideologies

• Ben talking to the empty chair is very similar to the movie Psycho, where Norman Bates talks to his dead mother in a wooden chair.
• The episode title is a reference to the story of the Wizard of Oz, where the ruler of the Emerald City hides behind a curtain:

Wizard of Oz: Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

• Ben’s mother Emily appears on the Island in a blue dress. Both Dorothy in Wizard of Oz and Alice in Alice in Wonderland (Disney Cartoon) wear blue dresses.
• Ben following a white rabbit through the fence, effectively leaving the realm he knows, could be a reference to Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass.
• There are numerous allusions to Ben-as-magician/wizard: The Wizard of Oz references, pulling a white rabbit out, the young Harry Potter look.
• Ben’s story is very similar to Voldemort’s story in Harry Potter: his mother died just after she gave birth to him, she only had time to give him a name. He hated his father and later killed him, then became an “evil leader”.
• Three Dog Night’s song “Shambala” plays again as Ben and Roger drive out to the overlook, tying back to the song’s (and van’s) appearance in “Tricia Tanaka Is Dead“.” The song is about a mythical kingdom (Shambala) and can be considered a metaphor for a spiritual path one might follow, as per Wikipedia.
• Richard’s lack of aging is a reference to The Lost Boys from Peter Pan, as suggested earlier in “The Other 48 Days” with the teddy bear
• Ben’s position is very similar to that of Samson from the HBO series Carnivàle: he is the leader of a group who answers to a mysterious higher power (in Carnivàle this person was a man behind a curtain — literally — called Management).

• At first, only Samson was able to communicate with Management; the rest of the group often didn’t believe he was real. When one would pull back the curtain to look for him, there would be nobody there. He would choose who was allowed to see him.
• Management (real name Lucius Belyakov) had a similar voice to Jacob’s, labored and gravelly. He was a Russian soldier who had been mauled by a bear.
• Management eventually passed his power onto young Ben Hawkins, who had tremendous healing ability (he could heal any ailment and raise the dead, but had to draw the energy from another source), to prepare Ben for a battle with Brother Justin Crowe, Management’s biological son. (Coincidentally, Brother Justin was played by Clancy Brown, the actor who played Kelvin Joe Inman.)
• Carnivàle focused on the battle between good and evil, reminiscent of the Others’ talk of “good people” and “bad people.”

• There seems to be an increasing number of connections with the TV show The Prisoner.

• The revealing of ‘number one’/Jacob is very similar to the revealing of Number 1 in the final episode of The Prisoner, especially in regards to the way the house shakes and the light flashes. Furthermore, in The Prisoner, Number 1 is revealed to be a mirror image of Number 6, which is similar to the ongoing Locke/Jacob theory.
• The security systems are very similar and equally vague.
• Both shows take place on a beach of unknown location.
• Locke, like the Prisoner, is forced to go through several trials. The purpose of these trials is as much about debriefing the captive as it is about assimilating him into the captor’s group. The Prisoner concludes with a trial by jury where, the jury is dressed in black and white. The prisoner sends the station into chaos and ends up driving home in a truck. Home, London, turns out to be 20 miles away.

Unanswered questions

For fan theories about these unanswered questions, see: The Man Behind the Curtain/Theories

• Hostiles:
  • Why did the ground shake when the DHARMA Initiative was attacked by the Hostiles (during the flashback with Ben in a classroom)?
  • Did Alvar Hanso know the island was already inhabited when he sent the DHARMA Initiative to work there?
  • Where did the hostiles come from?
• Pregnancy:
  • Is it coincidence that Ben’s mother both delivered prematurely and died in childbirth, and that condition seems to afflict other pregnant women on the island?
  • Have pregnant women always died on the island, or did this symptom appear after the purge?
• The Purge:
  • How were all of the DHARMA members killed so rapidly? They appeared to drop in place, as opposed to Ben’s father, who thrashed around for a while… even though his gas dose was likely much more concentrated
  • Why did they choose Ben’s birthday as the day to kill everyone from the DHARMA initiative?
  • Why was the mass grave still open?
  • Despite the clear indications of a surprise attack, none of the bodies lying in the compound appeared to be children. Were children spared/taken? Do the conception issues date back that far such that there were no juveniles at that time?
  • Was Annie killed in the purge?
  • Why did the Others wait so long to initiate the Purge?
• Jacob-related:
  • Why did Ben seem so angry when Locke told him what Jacob had said?
  • How did Alex know that an encounter with Jacob might be violent?
    • Did she know that Ben would attempt to kill Locke once he knew who Jacob was? or Did she expect Locke to Kill Ben?
  • Who or what is Jacob, why was he invisible, and did the light make him briefly visible?
  • What was the trail of grainy substance that Locke stopped to investigate on the way to see Jacob?
  • What was the painting of that Locke focused on immediately upon entering Jacob’s cabin?
  • Why couldn’t Ben hear what Jacob said to Locke?
  • Why does technology appear to enrage Jacob? Or is Ben lying, and Jacob actually needs or desires technology?
• Richard-related:
  • Why does he not personally know Jacob or where he is.
  • Why does Richard not appear to age but yet Ben does?
  • Why is Ben the “leader”, not Richard?
  • Was he born on the Island?
• Why was Ben so surprised and angry when he heard about Naomi, the ship offshore, and the satellite phone?
• How did Mikhail know about Naomi’s ship?
• What was Ben’s dead mother doing on the island? Was she actually alive?
• What were the whispers Ben heard at the Sonic Fence, as well as in the jungle?
• Did Ben volunteer to kill his father? Why did Ben make Locke do exactly the same before accepting him into the Others group? Is it a test amongst their people?
• Is Locke dead?
• If Locke doesn’t die and is just wounded, can the Island heal him?
• Did DHARMA continue to operate the Swan after the purge? If not, why has DHARMA continued to make supply drops?
  • And who is Kelvin working for? He came to the Swan sometime after the Gulf War (as evidenced by his presence in Sayid’s flashbacks); was that before or after the purge? Who brought him there?
• How did the van get from the mesa to where Hugo found it?
• Did Annie die in the purge? If not, will she appear in an upcoming Ben flashback next season? Did she die giving birth to Ben’s child before the events of the Purge? If she died, where is the Ben doll now? Did her death motivate Ben to focus the efforts of the others on this topic — which Richard had previously said was not the main reason why they came to the island?
• If Ben’s birthday is December 22 (the date this episode takes place on the island), why was the weather so warm 32 miles outside of Portland on the day he was born?