Lost 2/25/09 Episode "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" Recap  2/26/09

The episode begins an unknown amount of time after the crash of Ajira Airways Flight 316, which took off from Los Angeles in the previous episode, "316", and has crashed on the small island where the Dharma Initiative Hydra Station is located. One of the crash survivors, Caesar (Saïd Taghmaoui) searches an office in the Hydra Station and finds several documents and a shotgun. He is interrupted by Ilana (Zuleikha Robinson), who informs him that another survivor of the crash has been found: John Locke (Terry O'Quinn). Locke explains to Ilana that the last thing he remembers is dying.

The narrative shifts into an extended flashback of Locke's time off the island, since he left it in "This Place is Death". In late 2007, Locke awakens in a desert in Tunisia, where he is brought to a local hospital and visited by Charles Widmore (Alan Dale). Widmore informs Locke that several years previously, Benjamin Linus (Michael Emerson) exiled Widmore from his command of the inhabitants of the island, referred to as the Others, and tricked Widmore into leaving the island. Widmore pledges to help Locke reunite the Oceanic Six—Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox), Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly), Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews), Sun-Hwa Kwon (Yunjin Kim), Hugo "Hurley" Reyes (Jorge Garcia) and Claire Littleton's (Emilie de Ravin) infant, Aaron—in order to bring them back to the island. Matthew Abaddon (Lance Reddick) is employed by Widmore to assist Locke.

After being visited by Locke, Sayid, Hurley and Kate all refuse to go the island. Locke also visits Walt Lloyd (Malcolm David Kelley) and decides not to ask him to return to the island because he has been through enough already. Meanwhile, Kate's conversation with Locke leads him to look for his old girlfriend, Helen Norwood (Katey Sagal), who, he learns, has died. At the cemetery, Abaddon is shot and killed, causing Locke to flee the scene and get into a car accident. He awakens in Jack's hospital, where the two once again argue about the island. Locke tells Jack that his father Christian Shephard (John Terry) is alive on the island before Jack angrily departs. 

Locke goes to a motel, where he attempts to hang himself. Ben, however, shows up and talks Locke down. After learning Locke's plan to seek advice from Eloise Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan) on how to return the island and taking Jin-Soo Kwon's (Daniel Dae Kim) wedding ring, Ben kills Locke, strangling him, and then makes it look like the suicide. The narrative returns to the present on the island, where Locke discovers Ben among the injured passengers of Flight 316.

"The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" is the seventh television episode of the fifth season of ABC's Lost. The ninetieth episode of the show overall, "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" aired on February 25, 2009 on ABC in the United States, being simulcast on A in Canada. The episode was written by showrunners and executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and directed by Jack Bender.

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