LOST Rewatch: The Brig

We learn that the Others have been eagerly awaiting Locke’s arrival among them. Ben tells Locke that Locke brought his father to the island. Ben tells Locke that he isn’t ready to join the Others, because he is still bound by the person he was before he came to the island. Everyone needs to make a gesture of breaking with their past, and in his case, he will have to kill his father. They are keeping Anthony Cooper tied to a pillar. Ben gives him a knife, but Locke can’t bring himself to do it. The Others are watching, and Ben turns to them and says, “I’m sorry, he’s not who we thought he was.” The next day, Richard Alpert tells Locke that Ben wanted to embarrass him and make everyone see him fail. Ben doesn’t want people to think Locke is special. The Others need to remember there is a bigger purpose for them than fertility projects. He gives Locke their file on Sawyer. Meanwhile, the Others move, leaving Locke and his father behind.

Locke goes to find Sawyer, tells him that he has infiltrated the Others and kidnapped Ben, and has him tied up, and wants Sawyer to kill him. When he says he isn’t a murderer, Locke asks about the man he killed in Sydney. He tells him what else was in the file, using the information to make him start thinking about how his parents died. Locke brings him to the Black Rock, where someone is tied up in the brig. But it isn’t Ben, it is Anthony Cooper. Locke locks them in together. Cooper thinks they are dead and in hell. Sawyer realizes that Locke’s father is the con man who went by the name Sawyer, who he had been looking for. He pulls out the letter he has carried with him since he was a child, written to Mr, Sawyer, and makes him read it, but he reads a bit and then tears it up. Sawyer strangles him, asking him, “You wanna go to hell?” When Cooper is dead, Locke comes in and says “Thank you.”

Locke tells Sawyer about Ben’s plan to raid the camp in three days to take the pregnant women, saying that Juliette is a mole. Locke gives him the cassette recorder so that they will believe him. Locke then sets off carrying his dead father’s body.

The parachutist’s name is Naomi. Those who found her are not sure they can trust Jack, given the time hespent with the Others. So they tell Sayid. She says that they found the complete Oceanic 815 in an ocean trench, with all the bodies inside. She says she was hired by Penelope Widmore to look for Desmond, having been given coordinates in the middle of the ocean. Eventually Kate tells Jack.

The idea of having to kill one’s father to be free of one’s past is a frequent image in mythology. It is ironic that it features on LOST, because the show in general challenges the idea that anyone can entirely leave their past behind and make a completely fresh start. Living or dead, the influence of our parents remains with us. But it is also interesting, because James Ford has finally found and killed Sawyer, and in many respects that will require, and facilitate, a new beginning for him.