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 is located. One of the crash survivors, Caesar, searches through Benjamin Linus's old office in the Hydra Station, finding several documents and a sawed-off shotgun. He is interrupted by Ilana, who informs him that a man no one remembers seeing on the plane has been found: John Locke. 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 taken to a local hospital and visited by Charles Widmore. Widmore tells Locke that he led the Others until Ben took over and tricked him into leaving the island. Widmore pledges to help Locke reunite the Oceanic Six—Jack Shephard, Kate Austen, Sayid Jarrah, Sun-Hwa Kwon, Hugo "Hurley" Reyes and Claire Littleton's son, Aaron—in order to take them back to the island. Widmore gives Locke a fake identity, Jeremy Bentham, and assigns Matthew Abaddon to assist him. Sayid, Hurley and Kate all refuse to go back to the island after being visited by Locke. Locke also visits Walt Lloyd, but 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, who he discovers has died. While visiting her grave, Abaddon is shot and killed; Locke gets into a car accident after he flees the scene in a panic. He awakens in Jack's hospital, where the two once again argue about the island. Before Jack leaves, Locke tells him that his father, Christian Shephard, is alive on the island. This greatly upsets Jack, and he leaves. Locke then goes to a hotel, where he attempts to hang himself. Ben, however, shows up and talks Locke down. He admits to shooting Abaddon, claiming it was to protect Locke. After learning of Locke's plan to seek advice from Eloise Hawking on how to return to the island, Ben kills Locke, making it look like suicide. He then takes Jin-Soo Kwon's wedding ring, which Jin had entrusted to Locke. The narrative returns to the present on the island, where Locke discovers an unconscious Ben among the injured passengers of Flight 316.
Production
This episode and "316" were written at the same time by executive producers Lindelof and Cuse. "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" was originally meant to be aired first, but the order was switched because they felt it made more sense and was "cooler." While in the "mini-camp" where the writing team decided the plot elements of season five, it was decided to have five episodes continuing the story of most characters, before a "concept episode" telling the story of Locke's journey before dying, as it was "the missing piece" to the story of the Oceanic Six and their return to the island. The script originally requested for Locke to suffer a head-on collision, but stunt coordinator Michael Trisler suggested a change to a crossroads accident between three cars, because a head-on could not be reenacted in a way it would be safe to the stunt driver. Two blue cars like the one Locke drives were used for the stunts.
Reception
The episode attracted 12.078 million American viewers and 359,000 Australian viewers.
