s5e07: The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham

It's been kind of an odd season so far. There are scheduled to be 17 episodes, and yet at the end of Episode 7 - not even halfway through - everyone's back on the island. So what, exactly, was so important about leaving? It's almost like the plot only went that way to help add some depth to the Ben/Widmore dichotomy which, needless to say, got quite a bit more interesting tonight.

So Widmore claims to have formerly been the leader of the Others and then exiled by Ben. He also knew to watch the exit point in Tunisia, although apparently he didn't know to watch it when Ben popped out of it (you'd think Charlotte's discovery of the polar bear skeleton was the major tipoff, and that was certainly before Ben's appearance there, but I guess getting a surveillance camera set up in the middle of the Tunisian desert takes time). Matthew Abaddon is working for Widmore - no surprise there - and drives Locke around to visit Sayid, Walt, Hurley and Kate. None of the O6 agree to go, and Locke doesn't ask Walt (probably because he doesn't have the heart to tell him what happened to Michael). Finally Locke demands to know if Abaddon could locate Helen, his former girlfriend (not seen since Season 2); Abaddon takes him to her grave (both Drew and I found this scene a little suspect, but I have my doubts that there's any trick behind it if only because that's way too much at this point). As they leave the cemetery, Abaddon is gunned down; Locke takes off in the car and ends up in an accident, sending him to the hospital at which a not-yet-fully-bearded Jack is a doctor. Jack is dismissive of Locke until Locke tells him that Christian said to say hi, at which point Jack freaks out a bit. Finally Locke decides to kill himself. It's not clear at this point whether he really believes that's the only way to get everyone back or whether he's simply despondent. At any rate, Ben comes in and stops him from hanging himself, but when Locke reveals that he's supposed to see Ms. Hawking, Ben strangles him to death and sets up a fake suicide. The entire flashback is bookended by scenes on the island, where we see that Locke is alive once more.

So. Who's good and who's bad? Or is it just not that simple at all? It seemed like the mention of Ms. Hawking - on Widmore's bankroll, we might remember - led Ben to kill Locke, perhaps because of the Widmore connection. But then how is Ben able to work with her? And since Christian told Locke to find Ms. Hawking, does that mean that the island "prefers" Widmore's side?

It could be. Consider that Widmore was aware that Ben had tried to kill Locke (by shooting him, recall, in the late S3 episode "The Man Behind the Curtain"). The only people who knew this were Locke, Ben, and Richard (who, we can surmise, guessed it after Ben brusquely informed him only that Locke had an "accident" in "Greatest Hits"). We also know that Richard has been able to leave the island in the past. So if Richard is working with Widmore at this point... is Widmore really the good guy? Did he simply miscalculate with Keamy, trying to find someone who could capture/kill Ben at any cost and looking past his most mercenary tendencies?