Locke's still key to 'Lost'
Posted: Wednesday, May 09, 2007 9:58 PM by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper
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TV
First off, how stupid would the show have to be to kill off Locke? I'm not buying it. ABC just announced that the show has three more seasons, 48 more episodes to go. Are they going to kill off a character who's been part of the heart of the show since the beginning? Not to mention a character who's been intimately linked to the island's powers in ways that no one else is, and one who's already seen the island heal him from paralysis. If Mystery Island can fix his broken back and withered legs, surely a bullet to the gut is nothing.
Locke has always been different -- from almost the show's premiere, viewers have argued about whether he is good or evil, whether he has the castaways' best interests at heart or only his own, whether he will somehow conquer the mysteries of the island or they will conquer him. Jack was presented as the island's leader, but his goody-two-shoes straightforwardness turned off more than one viewer.
Locke, masterfully played by Terry O'Quinn, managed to always keep fans guessing. His troubled past, his take-charge attitude, and his visible struggles have all fascinated us. Who can't identify, even if just a little bit, with a man who had Walter Mitty-like dreams of strength and success, but in reality, was mocked by jerks at the box company where he worked? To see him discover, once on the island, that his outer strength for once matched his inner abilities, was a smartly developed plot.
For several episodes early in this season, Locke had been underutilized, his character allowed to fade into the background as the Others came to the forefront. Like other fan favorites, including Hurley and Sayid, he was relegated to an occasional witty line or minor scene. And he was missed.
In recent weeks, more of Locke's past has unfolded. Viewers finally learned about how he landed in the wheelchair (no surprise, his evil dad was behind it). And Locke, eerily like creepy Other Ben, managed to get revenge on daddy dearest.
Locke was back this week, however, in an intriguing episode where he got to pound on Other Mikhail, a rather satisfying scene for regular viewers. He also learned, via Ben, that Ben didn't just kill his own father, he led the massacre of the original Dharmans. And the episode tied into Locke's mystery powers, too, when Ben took him to see supposed Other leader, Jacob. In a scene reminscent of HBO's "Carnivale" and its mysterious Management, Jacob at first seemed not to exist. (Eagle-eyed viewers, however, have already snatched screen grabs of a brief moment in which someone did seem to be seated in Jacob's otherwise empty chair.)
But Locke's powers came through again, and he heard a mysterious voice say "help me." His power to hear that didn't please Ben, and the lead Other raised his gun and tried to add John Locke to the pile of Dharma bodies in a creepy mass grave. But this longtime viewer's not buying it. There's no way we've seen the last of John Locke yet.
