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Dead is Dead proves to be bad to the dried bone.

The bad guys showed up in greater number and revealed their rivalries with egotistical flair. The pace of this show moves forward with the speed of an airliner crashing out of the sky.

Benjamin Linus proves to be both regretful and fearful, but still remains a lying scoundrel. “Dead is Dead” plays out the life of our most feared Island diva.  But while Ben’s lies to the Others, to the Dharma personnel, to the survivors of both flights pile on and on and on in a confusing tapestry of maliciousness, his actions and choices prove more inexplicable but endearing.  He saves Danielle and Alex when ordered to murder her and the infant Alex. He gives Danielle the order to run whenever she hears the whispers. Presumably the baby would not survive such a flight, so Ben decides to raise her as his own in the face of Widmore’s plans. And though the older Ben Linus seems to have no apparent moral bottom to his disturbed psyche, Ben marches back to the Great Smokey Cerberus to be judged at the gates of the Temple. He even tells Sun to tell Desmond he is sorry, gasp!  And the question of what happened to Penny reverberates through the air like an out of tune tuba.

Richard Alpert meanwhile proves to have way more morality than I expected. His devotion to Jacob and the Island seem almost admirable. He saves Ben’s life, stands up to Widmore, and seems to be genuinely protecting his people, from what we still don’t know. His agelessness sets him apart as something else, something to be feared. The Others are aging after all, but not Richard. Stranger still, his immortality does not equate with all knowing. He reveals more and more confusion over the succession of events. I find myself caught up in his character, rooting for him. The writer’s may twist my mind against him next week, but for the moment I am ennamored.

Adversely, I find myself hating Charles Widmore. He is alive and well, though aged, when Ben is healed in the temple. Not to mention that he’s a jerk. This was not the face of the Widmore sipping tea with John Locke. He appears even older still when Ben kicks him off the Island with the explanation that Widmore broke the rules. Those same words are echoed when Ben faces Keamy. “Charles broke the rules,” he announces just before Keamy murders Alex. Ben tries to explain that to Penny when he hunts her down.

The final scenes left me reeling. No surprise here that Ben wants to kill Locke as well.  Who doesn’t Ben want to kill?  But the angst in which we find Alex, that same desperation that Clair exhibits when she tells Kate not to bring Aaron back to the Island, puts us in mind that something evil, something beyond Widmore and Alpert and Linus is still out there. The suspense is building and the clues are unraveling. Enter bad guy party number four: the same madam that brought Sayid back to face the Island. “Do you know what lies in the shadow of the statue?” Apparently, Llana does.  I am in earnest for the next leg of this journey.

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