Uncharted Island

I’ve read a lot of complaints about how “Exposé” was just fluff, a filler episode that didn’t advance the plot at all.  Many people disliked how Nikki and Paulo were thrown at us and we were suddenly supposed to care about them.  A lot of people hated them and wanted them to die, but I think more were just disinterested and didn’t care one way or another, and thought that giving them their own flashback was a waste of an episode.

I think these people are missing the point.

Sure, most of the episode was just a bit of fun, getting to see the characters who have been dead for a while, giving more of the redshirts a chance at the spotlight.  But then there was the bit that mattered.

When Paulo was hiding in the bathroom of the Pearl station hiding the diamonds in the toilet tank, he overheard quite a conversation between Ben and Juliet.  A lot of things became clear.

Ben knew he needed Jack as his spinal surgeon pretty far back.  Jack was visible on the Pearl monitor, which placed the island timeline in season two, since they had already found the Swan hatch. This means that they already had Walt in their custody, but did not yet have Michael.

I don’t know why Ben felt the need to make Jack come to him, but he did.  He could’ve grabbed Jack, Kate, and Sawyer the same night they caught Michael, but he didn’t.  Ben, the master manipulator, concocted an elaborate plan to get Jack to come to him using Michael.

So instead of grabbing the three people he needed for his plan - since we now know for sure that Kate and Sawyer were only kept in the bear cages to make Jack jealous and make him want to do Ben’s surgery - he only held onto Michael.  That set the wheels into motion that ended in the deaths of Libby and Ana-Lucia.

What else do we know from the brief scene with Ben, Juliet, and Paulo?  Ben was on his way to the Swan for Jack - not Locke, as he said.  He may or may not have gotten caught in Danielle’s trap on purpose.  I used to think it was intentional, so he could get more information on the crash survivors as their prisoner, but now that we know about their surveillance from the Pearl, that wasn’t necessary.  He probably had several plans for how to worm his way into their midst.  Getting caught may have been Plan B or C.  I doubt the crossbow was in his plans, though.

But however Ben ended up in the Swan, he knew what he was there for.  Everything he did and said was a long con to manipulate Jack.  He played Locke and Jack against each other, putting all of the pieces of the puzzle into place.  For most people, the game he was playing was a dangerous one with no guarantee of a favorable payout.  But Ben has perfected his technique; he knew Jack would bend to his will eventually.  It makes me wonder what else he’s done to get so good at it.

Smaller things we learned from the scene with Paulo hiding in the bathroom?

There is a second entrance to the Pearl, just like at the Swan.  If Ben and Juliet had climbed down the ladder the way Paulo had, they would’ve had the conversation about the hatch door being open and Tom having been there a few days ago at the top of the ladder. They also appear to be barefoot, and their feet are clean.  You don’t get clean feet by traipsing through the jungle without shoes on. This is just more evidence that the Others are using tunnels to move around the island.

And, of course, this goes to show how no one tells anyone anything on the island.  Paulo knew of Ben’s plan to use Michael to get Jack to do surgery on him. Sure, he didn’t know the details.  But that might’ve been worth sharing with the rest of the class.  Then again, he’d have a hard time explaining how he knew that, and people might find out about the diamonds.

Oh well. Sorry I don’t have a picture to go with this one. Out of all the screencaps I scrolled through for the episode, not one of them had a shot from inside the Pearl.