This episode has Ben claiming that he is the last person to have been born on the island, and the only one who has seen Jacob, the man to whom he answers. Ben says that Jacob is not a man you go and see – he is a man who summons you. Locke thinks Ben is lying, and suggests that Ben is “the man behind the curtain.” Ben takes Locke to a vabin, around which there is a circle of ash. Ben talks to an empty chair. Locke wonders if he is crazy or is putting in a show for him. Locke says Ben doesn’t know anything about the island. But he hears the words “help me” and things go wild in the cabin and he sees a figure. But he still is persuaded that Ben is a fraud. Ben admits that he hasn’t been entirely honest, for instance about being born on the island.
In flashbacks, we see Ben’s mother die in childbirth near Portland. Horace Goodspeed is driving and stops to help. Later, he brings Ben and his father Roger to the island to join the Dharma Initiative. Roger becomes a Work Man. We see a Dharma classroom, as an alarm sounds and people react. We learn about the “natives” – Horace says they don’t know exactly who they are.
Young Ben becomes friends with a girl named Annie. She gives him a birthday present. But Roger drinks, and blames Ben for killing his mother, and says it is hard to celebrate. Ben runs off, and sees his mother standing beyond the pylons of the sonic fence. Later he runs away and meets Richard Alpert, who looks exactly the same, except for longer hair. Ben wants to go with him, but Richard says he has to be patient.
When Ben is older, we see him and his father driving the old Volkswagen van, listening to the tape that would start again when Hurley gets the car to start years later. Ben looks at his watch, then puts on a gas mask and releases a canister of gas, killing his father. Ben then walks back to the barracks, where bodies are strewn everywhere. Like his father, they all bled from their noses. Ben takes the time to close Horace’s eyes. The “hostiles” come in, wearing gas masks too. They clear away the bodies, but Ben asks that his father’s just be left out there.
In the present, Ben shows Locke the mass grave of the members of the Dharma Initiative. Ben shoots Locke, and he falls in the pit. Ben says he did it because Locke heard Jacob.
The episode does nice things with the figure of Jacob – indicating that, on the one hand, there really is such a figure, while on the other hand, indicating that Ben had not been hearing from him. But it also does a wonderful job of giving us Ben’s backstory, making him both sympathetic and more disturbing than he had been previously.
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