Uncharted Island

Okay, I needed more space! It’s the commercial break immediately following Sawyer’s plunge into the ocean.

Another Sayid hit. Long hair is quite becoming on him, even though he is a hitman.

“I think visiting hours are over, dude.”

What circumstances have changed? Bentham’s dead, two days ago.

Sayid stopped Hurley from saying who Bentham really is. Guessing that it’s Ben seems too easy, too obvious. Bentham? They wouldn’t do that, would they?

Hurley was playing chess against Mr. Eko. Does Hurley get to talk to everyone who died on the island?

Keamy’s last words. “Wherever you go, Widmore will find you.”
“Not if I find him first.”

And there’s the red light.

That was too tense. I couldn’t type at all until this commercial break. Sun watching Jin run up onto the deck of the ship as they pulled away on the helicopter… Oh my God. It’s a miracle they were able to keep her from jumping. They would’ve had to hold me back, in her place.

And Christian showing up to bid Michael farewell? A nice touch. “You can go now.” So I was right. The island was done with him. He was allowed to die. So Hurley did know that Michael was dead when Walt came to visit him in the mental hospital. Desmond would’ve been able to tell him that Michael stayed behind to give everyone else a chance to get off the boat.

I suppose it is possible that Jin could’ve survived. He was on the very edge of the deck when the first explosion occured. He could’ve jumped…

Who is the second man that Sun blames for Jin’s death?

Sun is meeting Mr. Widmore in London. Curious. She’s calling him on his knowledge about the island. Is she going to be able to make him an offer he can’t refuse? “As you know, we’re not the only ones who left the island.” Is she talking about Ben?

“If I were you, I’d duck.”

Is Ben moving the island? Jack told Frank to go back to the island. Moving it would be a good reason for that not to happen.

“Is that our boat?”
“It was.”

Good reason to be drinking DHARMA rum, Juliet. But isn’t it odd that they can see the smoke from the wreckage of the freighter from across the island’s border protections? I think it’s odd.

Right now, Sawyer is just wondering if he made a great decision that just saved his life, or a terrible decision because he left Kate to die while saving his own sorry hide.

Ben’s going somewhere cold. Jacob didn’t tell Locke how to move the island because he didn’t want Locke to suffer the consequences. Whoever moves the island can never come back. This is when Ben ends up in Tunisia. He loses the better part of a year.

“You’ll find your way, John. You always do.” He told Locke how to assume leadership of the Others. Whoa.

Richard Alpert knows. He was expecting it. “Welcome home.”

Ben had to destroy the Vault to get behind it through the hole in the wall, hence all the metal. He’s got a crowbar. Quite the tunnel through there. To a chamber of ice. A broken ladder. Jacob’s ladder? That’s how Ben hurts his arm.

There’s a big friggin’ wheel. Frozen.

“I hope you’re happy now, Jacob.”

Ben seems like way too much fo a wuss to be able to turn that big ol’ wheel that moves the whole island. Is the sky about to turn purple again?

There is a bright light emanating from this wheel. And Ben just got pixellated like Hurley did earlier.

Wow. That was a bright light. And… whoosh. It was gone. That was pretty cool. Except that it sucks for everyone on that raft Dan had, and for the people in the helicopter who were hoping to get back to the island. How do you hold onto a baby when your helicopter crashes into the ocean?

This underwater sequence is too freaky and disturbing.

Desmond… is he okay? He can’t die!He has to get back to Penny! Come on, Jack. Oh good. The island may be gone, taking with it its magical healing powers. But CPR is still CPR.

They keep changing the type of film they’re shooting on. It’s very distracting.

Is Kate about to start seeing dead people in this flash forward? Backward talking on the phone?

OMG. It’s Claire. She came to see Aaron. “Don’t bring him back, Kate. Don’t you dare bring him back.” She dreamt it, but she’s started seeing dead people, too. Only she’s not being told to go back to the island. She’s being told not to bring Aaron back.

Why is Kate telling Aaron she’s sorry?

“I can’t believe he did it.”
“Who did what?”
“Locke. He moved the island.”

“If you’ve got another explanation, man, I’d love to hear it.” Awesome, Hurley.

There’s a boat. This is such a reflection of the season one finale.

“We have to lie.”

This is where the lying starts. Kate doesn’t think they can pull it off, but Jack thinks they can, if they let him do all the talking.

The Searcher. IT’S PENNY’S BOAT!

I’m so happy for Penny and Desmond that I’nm crying. That kiss may be even better than the one Sawyer gave Kate tonight.

“How did you find me?”
“Your phone call. I have a tracking station.”

If they’re going to lie about everything, I guess Penny Widmore is the one who can help them pull it off.

Octagon Global Recruiting. What was that ad all about?

One week later. Membata. Penny’s going to help them stage their fake rescue. “Just long enough to give you a nice, convincing sunburn.”

Well, that explains how Desmond and Frank don’t have to be explained.

“Don’t let ‘em find you, Desmond.”

“I’ll see you in another life, brother.” Nice turnabout.

At least they got a nice week to relax on Penny’s boat before having to start living their life as a lie.

Jack’s flash forward, back at the Hoffs/Drawlar funeral home. He’s gonna break in. To look in the coffin? See if Betham is really dead? The coffin is much bigger now, I think.

Ben is talking to Jack. Alive? “Did he tell you I was off the island?”

“He told me that, after I left the island, some very bad things happened, and it was my fault for leaving. And I had to go back.”

“The island won’t let you come alone. All of you have to go back.”

Ben has a few ideas.

Dammit. Everyone who said that Locke was in the coffin was right. Dammit. Dammit. DAMMIT!

Locke is Jeremy Bentham.

Here it is! I’ve got butterflies in my stomach!

Tiny coffin in the previous scenes… do we learn who was in it?

Kate’s backing up… from the end of last season’s finale! Jeremy Bentham? “You believed him? Him, of all people?” To keep Kate and Aaron safe. Kate’s reaming Jack out pretty good… I’m not getting all of the exposition.

Three years. She’s been trying to forget all the horrible things that happened the day they left for three years. That makes it the end of 2007 or the beginning of 2008 here.

“Of course you’re fine. You’re always fine.” Sundance. LOL.

Is Hurley peeing on a tree? Ha!

Meanwhile, back on the freighter…

Desmond did six months of explosives work when he was in the army. I’ll have to grab exact wording of that quote later. It was awesome. And he does seem to know just about enough to keep from getting blown up. Jin catches on quickly about the “boom.”

Wait… this episode shares the title from last week?

Okay, so Ben gave himself up so that Keamy and his team would leave the Orchid and head back to the helicopter so that Locke could find his way into the Orchid.

Kate is leading Keamy’s team into a trap, I think. Uh oh, whispers. It’s a traaaap!

Taser darts. Nice to see them again. It’s just another lovely ambush by the Others.

Keamy just kicked the grenade at one of his own guys. Nice one, boss.

Nice tackle there, Sayid. Action Sayid is definitely a good Sayid. And Richard Alpert to the rescue, shooting Keamy in the back just before he crushed Sayid’d windpipe.

“They help us free you, and we let them off the island.”
“Fair enough.”

“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”

Huh. It can’t be as easy as that.

I’m going to have to submit this after one hour and start a new one for the second hour. It’ll be way too long, otherwise!

Flash forward to Hurley in St. Rosa’s. “Are you Hurley? Are you dangerous?” It’s Walt’s grandma. And Walt is there. Wow, he’s gotten big. He’s a man now, with a man’s voice to go with it.

He was waiting for someone to come see him, but no one did… except for Jeremy Bentham. Will we learn who that is before the end of tonight?

Hurley says that lying is the only way to protect everyone who didn’t come back. Like Michael. So Michael is definitely not the man in the coffin. My money’s on him getting blown up on the Kahana as of right now. Would Hurley know Michael’s fate? I don’t know if they’ll make it back to the freighter.

Locke wants Jack to reconsider leaving the island. He wants him to stay.

Locke is the one who tells Jack they have to lie.

“Just wait until you see what I’m about to do.”

Here’s that whole man of science, man of faith thing again.

LOL at Ben shaking the flowers that Locke couldn’t identify to get into the Orchid.

Nitrogen? Cryo-Cyl? What’s that Michael has there? Oh, it’s supposed to take care of the C4. Hmm. So they can freeze the battery for a short time, but only until the tank runs out. Then they’ll have a warning before the whole thing goes off. Who’s going to stay behind and sacrifice themselves by spraying the battery until it runs out, so that the others can escape on the raft? It’s gotta be Michael. Desmond wants to get back to Penny. That’s when the island will let him die, when he makes up for what he did on the island.

“You’re very dire. But I’m still going to stay.” That’s great, Miles.

Miles knows that Charlotte has been on the island before? “What do I mean?” Cue the mysterious music… dun dun DUN!

“How deep is this station?”
“Deep.”

“Is this the magic box?”
“No, John, it’s not.”
The look on Ben’s face was hysterical.

Orchid video… becoming canon? No way!
*happy dance*
We are witnessing history.

Negatively charged exotic matter in the Vault. Highly volatile and unpredictable. But Ben is placing a number of metallic items in the vault… that must be how the island can be moved.

“Is he talking about what I think he’s talking about?”
“You mean time traveling bunnies? Yes.”

The elevator is going back up.

“You expecting someone?”
“May I have my weapon back?”

Oh man, here they are. The rest of the Oceanic 6… and Sawyer. Sawyer looks jealous as Kate inspects Jack’s wound.

Hacksaw for the handcuffs. Ha.

The film looked odd when Hurley mentioned coming back for Claire. He looked… pixellated.

Keamy’s not dead. I guess they should’ve buried him first. He was stabbed and shot in the back. Good body armor, although he certainly is limping and leaking blood.

Ah. His dead man’s trigger is connected to his heart rate. That makes sense.

“You just killed everybody on that boat.”
“So?”

He is so cold. Good thing the battery is, too…

Yay for the Pushing Daisies promo!

Charlotte is going to stay. For now. “Nothing’s forever.” She was born here. She can’t be Annie, can she? She’s too young. Unless she’s… slowed. Or halted.

Daniel seems to know he’s not going to get back to the island again. And he’s taking a raft full of Redhsirts. They’re going down.

I wonder how the time anomaly works with Keamy’s trigger.

Gunshots are not good for helicopters. I wonder what all that stuff is that they’re tossing out.

“Just do it, Freckles.”

Sawyer bailed on the helicopter so that there would be less weight and enough fuel to get back to the freighter. He told Kate what to do about Clementine, gave her one hell of a kiss, and then dove for the ocean and swam back to the island. That was his choice. That’s the choice he made. I knew it wouldn’t be a long-thought-out decision. He wouldn’t rationally choose to leave Kate and stay on the island. He sacrificed his return so that the others could make it.

Sawyer’s a changed man. It makes it that much sadder that Kate can’t be with him.

So now is as good a time as any to apologize for using “Keamy” and “the captain” interchangeably. I didn’t realize that the guy Keamy shot was the captain. Oh, and the internet ate my first draft of this post up to the first commercial break, so I may have left some things out that I thought I said when I tried to retype it all… Rawr.

The return of the Oceanic 6 is a flash forward. Hmm. Aaron is an awfully good baby, sitting there quietly in the cargo hold of that rickety old plane.

I’m all teary-eyed. Watching them walk off the plane to their families… And no one there to greet Kate or Sayid.

So Keamy’s headed to the Orchid. I wish I’d paid more attention to that TLE orientation video for the Orchid. Daniel knows about Keamy’s secondary protocol, but Charlotte does not. And Daniel knows that they need to get off the island, or they will be torched along with everyone else. How can he torch the island from the Orchid? I have no idea, but I’m sure some of the diehard TLE people already know. But FINALLY some REAL tie-in with TLE!

Sawyer just called the barracks New Otherton. Yes!

“Hold up! You don’t get to die alone.”

Press conference. Membata, in the lesser Sunta islands. Day 108 brought them a life raft which allowed them to get to the island of Sumba. Kate’s baby, which she gave birth to on the island. Eight people left after floating on the cushions. Jin never made it off the plane. Aaron is a little over five weeks, which would’ve made her six months present at the time of the crash.

And Nadia was outside waiting for Sayid! I want the screen cap of them standing together by the police car.

Ben says that the Orchid is a greenhouse. And it’s possible to move the island from there. Moving the island is dangerous and unpredictable, a last resort.

Hurley’s happily noshing on 15 year old DHARMA Saltines. Ben’s communicating with some of the Others with a mirror.

Daniel is taking Sun, Jin, Aaron, and some Redshirts on the raft. I’m confused. I guess that’s the point. They can’t make it back to the freighter like that. But the raft can’t capsize or anything, because Sun and Aaron have to survive.

That’s an awful lot of stairs for a pregnant woman to climb at Paik Industries. Mr. Paik was berating his businessmen about a corporate takeover… and Sun was the one who bought controlling interest! Booyah! Take that, Daddy! That was awfully smart of her, using five banks to buy the shares.

Hurley’s driving his old clunker, with a bag of chicken from Mr. Cluck’s. There’s a coconut on the floor. And whispers in the mansion. It’s a surprise birthday party. Although why they thought an island theme would be appropriate, I’ll never know.

Sayid and Nadia look awfully happy together. “Interesting choice of theme.” Great minds think alike, Sayid.

Hurley’s dad fixed the car after Oceanic 815 crashed. 48151.6 on the odometer, with 234.2 on the trip odomoter. Doh.

Keamy’s team is already at the Orchid. Oh snap.

Oh this can’t be good. The raft DOES get to the freighter… which means that Jin and the Redshirts are probably going to die, along with whoever else comes back on the second raft.

Michael got the engine working. And found himself face to face with Sun and Jin. Yikes.

Frank dropped the phone so Jack could find him, but they cuffed him to the copter so he couldn’t run off the the jungle.

Jack’s finally delivering his father’s eulogy. It’s a bittersweet memorial service for his mom; her husband is still dead, but her son is not. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“I believe I’m the reason he was in Australia when he died.” OH MY GOD! Claire’s mom woke up out of her coma! And this is how Jack found out the truth about Claire being his half-sister. Talk about getting blindsided.

And we got a quick summary of how Michael got back to New York with Walt.

…And that’s a whole lot of C4.

Richard Alpert and his merry band of Others seem to have Kate and Sayid surrounded.

“How many times do I have to tell you, John? I always have a plan.” Plans don’t work so well when you get knocked unconscious… although I suppose Ben has a plan for that, too.

That is an evil, evil place to leave the end of the episode.

Record players again. Who is this chick? Emily? Is that Locke’s mom? It is!

And he was born like three months premature. Was Emily crazy before she got hit by the car, or because of a traumatic brain jinury from the car accident? And man, those ’50s chicks sure knew how to hide a pregnancy!

And there’s a very alive ship doctor. And Keamy’s going rat hunting. Except… the Island really won’t let Michael die. But now they know he’s the mole. Uh oh.

On the Island, apparently ghosts can cut down trees. Horace’s ghost can, at least. “I’m not making any sense, am I? That’s probably because I’ve been dead for the past 12 years.” Horace’s ghost is chopping down trees and telling Locke that Jacob has been waiting for him for a really long time.

Oh, it was just a dream. I hate when that happens. I have a terrible habit of dreaming that I’m awake.

“I used to have dreams.” So it would appear that Ben is no longer having dreams.

Locke was the youngest premie to ever surprise in the hospital. And he survived a number of infections, including pneumonia. I had pneumonia when I was born, and I spent the first two weeks of my life in an incubator.

WHOA! In case you didn’t get it about Richard Alpert’s eternal youthfulness… he appears as a young man in a nice suit, hanging out outside the room where little baby John Locke’s incubator was. Richard Alpert has not aged since John Locke was a baby. And for how long before then?

More than that, Richard Alpert - representative for Mittelos Bioscience and DHARMA exterminator - knew that John Locke was special way back before he’d even left his little incubator. How many strings were pulled to steer him toward the day when he boarded Flight 815? Fate and destiny are funny things…

Young John Locke actually spoke with Richard, at an age where he should be able to remember it. And of course, John is playing backgammon. That kid looks familiar. I’ll have to IMDB him.

John drew Smokey when he was a kid?

“Which of these things belong to you?
“To keep?”
“No, John. Already.”

“Are you sure the knife belongs to you? It doesn’t.”

And because he took the knife, he wasn’t ready for Richard Alpert’s special school.

Ben says he really wasn’t “thinking clearly” when he shot Locke.

Locke found the blueprint to the cabin that Horace was building before he was gassed in the Purge. Jacob’s cabin?

Secondary protocol. It’s what Ben is doing. Widmore has his ways of knowing.

They’re going to torch the island, and there’s only one place Ben can go. The cabin? Protected by the circle of ash? Keamy seems to be the only one (other than Naomi, perhaps) who is okay with this whole torching the island business. The other guy thought he was on an extraction mission, and wants to help Sayid and Desmond stay alive. They’re going to ferry people off the island with a little boat?

“He actually thinks staying is his idea.”
“I’m not you.”
“You’re certainly not.”

Gawky teenage John Locke was stuffed in a locker. And way back then, Dr. Alpert from Mittelos Laboratories wanted to get him to go to “Science Camp” up near Portland. They’ve been trying to get their hands on him for a long time. Wow.

“Don’t tell me what I can’t do.” I believe we’ve heard that from Locke before!

Frank and Michael are teaming up. Michael told him that Keamy plans to kill everyone on the island, and, “You don’t want that on your conscience, man. Trust me.”

Desmond’s not going back to the island, not when Penny’s coming for him. I hope that decision doens’t get him killed before he can see Penny! We know that Sayid lives. We haven’t seen Desmond in a flash forward off the island, so we don’t have any guarantees of his safety. I have to say that I will be seriously ticked off if he dies before he can get back to Penny.

“Destiny, John, is a fickle bitch.” QUOTE OF THE NIGHT!

“Guys? Cabin.” Thanks, Hurley.

And now, here’s balding non-gray John Locke in physical therapy. And… Matthew Abaddon is wheeling him back to his room.And he’s the one who told him about the Walkabout.

“Oh, I’m a lot more than just an orderly, John.” Understatement of the year?

“When you and me run into each other again, you’ll owe me one.” Say what? I hardly think Locke would believe he owes Abaddon anything for that advice, even if it did help him to find his destiny.

So Keamy killed the doctor because Frank wouldn’t fly him in the plane. So we know how the doc died, now, we just don’t know how his body washed up on the beach while Keamy’s team was still on the island from the first trip.

What’s Frank going to do now? He doesn’t want Keamy to torch the island. Is he going to take a wrong heading or something?

Randomly back to the beach, with only five minutes left. Because the helicopter is coming. Who dropped the pack, Keamy or Frank?

Ben’s not going into the cabin. “My time is over.” And Hurley’s cool with Locke going in alone, too. LOL.

“Are you Jacob?”
“No, but I can speak on his behalf.”

And it’s Christian. But I could tell that before we saw his face.

And yes, Locke is there because he was chosen to be. And… Claire’s there. Is she… alive? Or dead?

“The baby’s where he’s supposed to be. And that’s not here.”

What’s the one question that does matter?

“How do I save the island?”

OMG, Claire’s totally dead.

And there’s Hurley sitting there with Ben, ripping into a candy bar. Ha! He gave him half! It’s almost like a Snickers commercial.

“He wants us to move the island.”

Huh wha…?

Jack’s not looking so hot. Hey doc, you got a bit of sweat… all over there.

Those were some pretty little red panties. And… a Millennium Falcon? “Yankees bludgeon Red Sox in Series Sweep.” My baseball history is a bit off, but I’m sure someone else already knows the exact date by now.

Is that… Juliet’s voice from the shower? They always try to do that “husky voice” thing to mask an identity until we see the person’s face. Whoa wait… Kate? And they’re… smooching?

Oh my. This is not a happy day for Skaters.

Jack’s reading to Aaron. Aww! Nice moon and stars mobile above that big boy toddler bed. (My son is almost three and still in his crib.) I’ll need a closer look at the screencaps later because I was typing; did Aaron look

Jack’s referring to his dad in the past tense. He was a good storyteller. So hopefully that will put those “Christian is still alive” theories to rest that cropped up when Jack went all crazy back in the first flash-forward where he went off on the Chief of Surgery about seeing if his father was drunker than he was.

What did Jack change his mind about? Kate is so glad he changed his mind. She’s so glad he’s here. And… a nice little panty shot for the hot-blooded males out there.

Miles heard some ghosts. Danielle and Karl’s ghosts. He found their bodies. Dammit. Danielle really is dead. No flashback. Poor Claire… she looked like she was going to be sick.
I give her credit for not throwing up all over the place. A few months on this weird island still wouldn’t prepare me for the sight of an unexpected shallow grave containing the decomposing bodies of people I’d talked to a few days ago.

Juliet has a great solution for not being able to trust Dan and Charlotte. Give Jin a gun and tell him to shoot them in the leg if they try to run. Because he will.

Sawyer’s funny, warning Miles off of Claire. Restraining order! LOL! “What are you, her big brother?” He was all protective about Hurley last week, and now it’s Claire.

It would really suck needing to have surgery on the beach. And Jack wants to be conscious to watch the surgery and talk Juliet through it? And he wants Kate to be there with them, holding the mirror. Yikes.

Whoa. Jack just saw his dad walking through the lobby. And Dr. Stillman from Santa Rosa called him about Hurley’s refusal to take his meds. Oh dear.

Hurley’s convinced they’re all dead and never got off the island. The voice of some fans with a theory! Ah, that’s what he changed his mind about… Kate. Or not Kate, but Aaron. Because that’s why he didn’t want to go see Kate for more than just coffee. After the trial. So this flash forward takes place sometime between “Eggtown” but before “Through the Looking Glass.”

Hurley was happy until he saw Charlie. And apparently Charlie keeps visiting him and sitting with him on the bench. Charlie knew that Jack would be stopping by, and gave him a message. “You’re not supposed to raise him, Jack.” Oh dear. “You think he means Aaron?” I hope he doesn’t mean it as a warning against necromancy and his father… who will apparently be paying him a visit soon. Because Charlie said he would.

Dan wants to go in first, to “make sure it’s safe.” Was that code? Or was he all nervous like that because, like Sun and Jin said, he likes her?

Frank Lapidus! “Keamy’s coming back, and if he sees you, he’s going to kill ya.”

The birds were very helpful, deciding to start chirping just when Aaron started to fuss. The Island at work! And Frank really does have the best interest of the castaways at heart.

“So it looks like I’m going to be your nurse.” “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

That was a weird angle for that shot into Jack’s car window. Waiting for Charlie? And he’s worried about if he’s “good at this,” being a dad. And… he just proposed. He’s got a ring. It’s pretty! I’m guessing that’s platinum, not white gold, since the Oceanic 6 are loaded. And Kate said yes.

Will we find out what goes wrong before the end of this episode? I mean, something has to go wrong for Jack to hit the bottle and call Kate to meet him in a secluded place instead of just talking to her at home.

I knew she understood them. I knew she did. She’s an anthropologist. I didn’t need to see her smile when Sun and Jin were talking about her to know.

That was a tense surgery scene.

What’s that beeping? “St. Sebastian Neurosurgery Group.” It’s the smoke detector. I hate when that happens. It’s always in the middle of the night!

And… Christian’s kicking back on a black leather couch in the lobby. Who is that woman, Erica? Thanks to my husband! Jericho. She was Hawkins’ wife. And she just wrote him a scrip for clonazepam. That Klonopin is good stuff for anxiety, and sleep.

Kate was on the phone with Maureen, one of the moms from the park. Huh. This from the woman who said she doesn’t do taco night.

Hey, uh, Jack… chasing two of those pills with a beer can really mess you up. I guess this is the beginning of the end for his happiness.

WHOA! Was NOT expecting Claire to wake up and see Christian holding Aaron! “Dad?” Yeah, now Claire sees dead people. She just doesn’t know he’s dead… just that he’s not supposed to be there.

Bernard’s pretty handy to have in a makeshift operating room, even if he’d only ever performed dental surgery.

Uncomfortable girl talk. Juliet’s telling Kate about how Jack kissed her… and that she doesn’t think he meant it for her, but to prove that he doesn’t love Kate. Sigh.

And Jack was awake to hear it.

Jack is trashed on the couch. He’s paranoid and suspcious about why Kate stayed out late. “I’m going to ask you to trust me.” Sorry, Kate, but what kind of an answer is that? What are you hiding?

“I was doing something for him. For Sawyer.”

Sawyer chose to stay. Sawyer chose to stay on the island, and Jack chose to come back with Kate to save her. Sawyer doesn’t die. (Phew!) At least not before the Oceanic 6 leave.

“Your son? You’re not even related to him!” Does Jack know, then, that Christian was Claire’s father, too? Oh… Aaron heard him. And was clutching a stuffed Shamu toy.

Miles told Sawyer that Claire walked off with someone she called Dad.

That is just a weird picture… dirty, scruffy Sawyer with a gun on his back, in the middle of the jungle, holding Aaron in a blanket.

The preview for next week… Was that Ben’s dad talking to Locke? Or someone else who was gassed in the Purge?

Jack still has quite a store of medication left in that suitcase! I wonder if the drugs are still as effective after sitting out in the heat and direct sunlight for so long.

Vincent and Bernard have discovered the body of… is that the doctor from the Kahana? Okay, thanks for that Dan.

“We’re all gonna die.” Thanks, Hurley. LOL! They’re playing Risk. And Hurley plays like I play… Australia is definitely the key to the whole game.

1627? Is that the keycode to shut down the sonic fence?

The phone rang. Code 14J. The Others had a code for I have a gun to my head and someone’s making me turn the fence off? I guess it sounds cooler than tell my sister I love her. I guess it makes sense. After all, Ben did help orchestrate the systematic disposal of everyone in the Barracks once before.

Ben! In… the Sahara Desert. Lying on his back in a furry DHARMA jacket. Men with guns riding horses.

Wow. Ben’s a lot more badass than we thought. Concealed weapon, produced while at gunpoint, then takes out the guy on horseback with his partner’s machine gun. Just… wow.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch… Ben is chastising Locke and Sawyer for waiting to ask him about the phone.

The boat doc’s throat was slit. “When is a… relative term.” I don’t think I have that wording right. I was still typing up the bit about the phone call when Dan said it.

They’re barricading the house. Hurley has Aaron. Sawyer’s not getting in. Three Redshirts just bit the dust. Sawyer’s getting shot at while running along a white picket fence. (Don’t shoot Sawyer!)

Claire’s house just got blown up! No way… Commercial break. Claire can’t have that unceremonious of a death. Off-camera. I know something has to happen to her in order for Kate to end up raising Aaron back in the real world, but she at least deserves to die on camera.

And… here’s Ben in Tunisia. Although he’s Dean Moriarty, a preferred guest at whatever establishment this is. October 24, 2005. Is Ben like Hiro Nakamora?

Sayid was on the television. “I just want to bury my wife in peace.” So the timeline is a little less fuzzy now, but we still have more questions.

Okay, Sawyer has an injured but conscious Claire, asking for Charlie. They told Hurley not to open the door for him, so Hurley threw a chair through the window. I love the new, gutsier Hurley.

And Miles is out. With a radio. The Kahana folks want to talk. (I guess I’ll take to moment to admit it… Fine, I was wrong about Alex’s kidnapping being a Ben setup with the Others pulling the trigger. It is still possible that Ben is somehow pulling the strings to influence events, though.)

So Sayid did find Nadia, and married her, and now she’s dead. In Tikrit. On October 24, 2005. (I guess my theory about time as related to the ARG is completely whacked now, too.)

Who’s that guy that Ben’s snapping pictures of? Even as a pallbearer, Sayid knew Ben was there. Ben wants to help Sayid find the man who murdered Nadia. And he’s lying about how he got off the island, with Desmond’s boat. Desmond’s boat didn’t land him in the middle of the Sahara. And Nadia was murdered in Los Angeles.

Something Ben actually wasn’t prepared for. They have Alex as a hostage. Ben knows exactly who the captain is and what he’s capable of. Poor Alex. How in the world does Ben have this under control?

OMG, did he just kill Alex? ALEX? WHAT IS WITH ALL OF THIS DEATH?

“He changed the rules.” So Ben was pulling the strings. And now, with Alex dead because of him, he hopped into his little panic room and disappeared into some secret passageway that I can only assume is like the one from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.

Sayid got his revenge, killing that man. But was it the man who really killed Nadia? Or Ben’s little patsy? “Once you let your grief become anger, it will never go away. I speak from experience.” He makes himself sound almost human.

This is where Sayid starts working for Ben. “This is my war.” “Benjamin, who’s next?” Oh, what a creepy smile. It’s what Ben wanted all along. I wouldn’t doubt that the man was a patsy.

Smokey! Smokey with lightning! And I think that it’s… feasting on the Kahana boys.

And Alex is really dead. There’s no miraculous recovery scene here.

The scary thing? If we thought Ben was bad before… now he has nothing to lose.

Back at the beach. Dan’s tapping Morse code to the Kahana. Bernard knows Morse code. I knew someone would understand! “What are you talking about? The doctor is fine.” And they were never going to rescue the castaways. Big surprise. We can only wonder how that changes.

So Ben does control the smoke monster, and Jacob can tell Locke all about it, because Hurley knows where the cabin is.

Sawyer’s taking Claire and Aaron back to the beach, and Miles is going with them. Hurley wants to go to the beach, but Locke wants him to stay to guide them to Jacob’s cabin.

“You harm as much as just one curly hair on his head, I’ll kill you.” Aww Sawyer, we didn’t know you cared.

And… Ben knows the way anyways.

Now Ben’s in London. To see Mr. and Mrs. Kendrick in Room E. With his special secret weapon in hand.

“Wake up, Charles.”

This is the sound of jaws dropping on floors.

Ben is going after Penny. He wants to take her away from Charles Widmore the way his (stolen) daughter was taken away from him.

Charles Widmore says that the island is his, always was, and always will be. But he doesn’t know how to find it. How does that work?

I half-expected to hear them discuss how to kill Superman.

I’m agog that we actually got given so much information tonight.

Wow, these scenes from “Previously on LOST…” are a real blast from the past!

There’s a motley crew. Claire, Aaron, Danielle, Karl, Alex, Kate, Ben, Hurley, Sawyer… then Sawyer parades Miles in, sans bomb in the mouth.

It’s exposition time! For everyone who hasn’t been paying attention for the past few weeks.

That alarm on the freighter sounds like the push the button alarm from the Swan. Yikes for Desmond!

Sayid to Michael: “Why are you here on this boat?”

Michael to Sayid: “I’m here to die.”

Um… what? That seems to easy to be the answer to the promo spot that said someone was going to die this week.

Ben told Alex that the people from the freighter are more dangerous than he is. Assuming he’s telling the truth, it might not be the truth we thought we heard. Maybe they’re more dangerous to him, and by extension, to Alex. Not necessarily to everyone else. I’m not sure if I buy the “they’re going to kill everyone else once they have me” bit. Although that would certainly be a reason for the Oceanic Six to have their cover story following the rescue.

SWOOSH! Flashback time.

We’re going way back. Wait, Michael’s accident was a suicide attempt? That sheds a new light on a lot of things.

Libby! I knew that sounded like her voice!

So this isn’t so far back as his accident pre-flight. Okay, verification that this is post-island. Walt is staying with his grandmother, and having nightmares. Michael was only missing for two months after the crash. No time variation there. Then again, I firmly believe that any time anomalies began after the fail-safe key was turned. And since they left the island shortly after that happened, there wouldn’t be too much of a difference.

Ramming his car into a dumpster didn’t work, so now he pawned Mr. Paik’s really expensive watch for a gun to shoot himself… and he was stopped by Tom. Whoa. How long after he left the island is this taking place? Because Tom was seen quite often on the island… telling Kate she wasn’t his type, needling Sawyer in the polar bear cage, fretting over Ben on the operating table… And he’s just there at the right moment, at just the right spot in New York City to stop Michael from shooting himself? He had an apropos greeting, too, asking Michael for the time right after he pawned the watch.

Tom’s got a mean right hook!

Oh man, Michael told Walt about Ana-Lucia and Libby. Father of the Year, I tell ya. (Sarcasm, in case you didn’t catch it.)

So the island won’t let Michael kill himself? So all on-island deaths are people who are “supposed” to die, then. And anyone who miraculously lives through something that should’ve been fatal… the island doesn’t want them to die. Yet. Because the island allowed Naomi to heal from her bail-out wounds, but not the stab wound. And Charlie got a number of reprieves before he finally died. (I should do an entry about all of the times Charlie almost died before he died.) Maybe that’s why Mikhail seems to have more lives than a cat - the island wasn’t done with him yet. But did he die his final death yet?

Ooh, timeline. Flight 815 was just “found” at the bottom of the ocean.

Arutro! That’s why Kate wasn’t his type! Some people called it when he first said it.

Tom says that Widmore planted the fake wreckage. Widmore’s freighter captain said that Ben planted it.

Eww! Graverobbing was the source of all of those dead bodies. Well, at least he didn’t kill people to come up with the bodies.

Who to believe? Did Ben plant the wreckage? Or did Widmore? I almost asked, “Or maybe they’re working together?” But then I realized how ridiculous that sounded. Widmore wouldn’t be searching for the island if he was working with Ben, because then he’d know how to get there.

So Michael is swabbing decks in order to kill everyone on board the freighter. And according to Miles, the people on the freighter arer there to get Ben and then kill everyone left on the island. This isn’t another Purge, this is a war. I’m beginning to think that the cover story the Oceanic Six are telling is covering up a horrible massacre - but will it be the castaways or Widmore’s people who die?

Fiji! Must be easier to fake Fiji when filming in Hawaii than it is to fake Manhattan.

Minkowski when he was still sane. Naomi has a crate that was delivered for “Kevin Johnson.” What has Ben shipped him? Miles knew that Michael’s name wasn’t Kevin. How? And does he suspect the truth? He can’t. Can he?

Naomi argued with Frank about who was going to go to the island first. Maybe it would’ve turned out better for Naomi if she’d let Frank go first.

Frank is a conspiracy nut, it seems. But not really, since he was totally right about the conspiracy, even if he has the details a little fuzzy about who’s responsible for it.

Michael’s hearing the whispers in the engine room of the freighter? And seeing Libby? Whoa. “NOT YET.” This is the island refusing to let him die. And there is definitely something supernatural about this.

“You going Nicholson on us?” The Shining. Hehe.

Walt called? Or is this Tom saying he’s Walt? Oh, Ben pretending he’s Walt.

Ben won’t kill innocent people? I think the members of DHARMA would disagree.

Huh. Ben wants Michael to make him a list. He’s big on lists. So Michael makes the list, and Michael is the saboteur that destroys the radio and the engine room.

Sayid blows Michael’s cover. Could this be the moment that Sayid realizes he screwed up and is later responsible for the deaths of many innocent people, and that’s why he ends up working for Ben off-island?

Oh my God. Karl’s dead. He did have a bad feeling about this. Ben was playing them. Why else would Karl and Danielle end up dead, but Alex is still alive? I would bet that Mikhail or one of Ben’s other cronies was the assassin.

So we finally see Regina, and she’s pretending to be reading outside the room holkding Sayid and Desmond.

Lima beans. Yummy. I would gag on every bite, but I guess that would be better than starving.

Sun doesn’t want to pick a name for the baby until they get off the island. I can understand that. “Deal.”

And Sun does get off the island. We “knew” that. But she makes six. And the fact that she has to call for an ambulance just confirms what that means… Jin doesn’t get off the island.

Wait… Jin? Jin! He wants a panda for the baby. So… Aaron didn’t count in the Oceanic 6 then. Fake out!

Oh look, a note! “DON’T TRUST THE CAPTAIN.” In very boxy letters, like a kid had written it.

Is the captain the guy who talked to Frank at the beginning of the episode? (Incidentally, I needed to hear him say la-PEE-dus. I thought that it was LAP-id-us.) He looks familiar to me, and I don’t know why.

Sun’s doctor is away at a conference. I don’t trust that to be the truth. We’ve already seen Hurley being manipulated by Abaddon. I think this replacement doctor is somehow connected to Widmore. Or is otherwise shady and trying to get his hands on the baby. I don’t think he’s on the level.

Poor Jin, lost his panda and his cab. What’s the deal with the panda? Does it have some sort of significance in Korean culture?

Not a good time, Bernard. Well, maybe they can have a man to man talk. Ha… Bernard babbling about marriage. “We must be the good guys.”

Is that Morse code being banged on the pipes? Even though I’m a fan of Jericho, I still know nothing of Morse code.

Regina just jumped off the side of the boat wrapped in chains. Um… wth?

I just used IMDB to check up on the captain. I have no idea why I recognize him.

And the good ol’ captain just confirmed that Ben wasn’t lying. The boat is Charles Widmore’s boat. Unless, of course, he’s in cahoots with Ben. But I doubt that. Oh… and we just got a good rundown of exactly what went into staging the fake wreckage of Oceanic Flight 815. Widmore didn’t do it, Ben did?

Wow, Sun is a champion pusher! She took less time pushing to get her baby out than I did!

Johnson. That’s totally Michael. Kevin Johnson, huh? Not a big surprise. But I did just hear the collective sigh of hundreds of LOST fans who had hoped against hope that Michael wasn’t going to be Ben’s man on the boat. The only thing I’m surprised about is that we saw him before the last five seconds of the episode. I thought his face would be revealed right before the end credits rolled.

“I made dinner.” Aww. Jin really has changed. Although I wonder if he’ll need to use his old skills to commandeer the helicopter when it comes back.

Whoa… it was a flashback and a flash forward. Weird!

Crap. That means that Jin doesn’t get off the island?

Okay, I’m crying now, and trying to type through my tears. Hurley came to see little Ji Yeon. Sun was just completely out of it when she asked for Jin during labor. And they went to see Jin’s grave stone…

The stone said that Jin died on September 22, 2004. The date of the plane crash. Jin doesn’t get off the island. But is he actually dead, or is he just… still on the island?

Look at that, a flashback! It looked like a building out of New Otherton from the first shot, so I did suspect. I knew not to make any snap judgments, though - this is LOST. Juliet’s seeing an on-island therapist. That’s kinda funny. And Tom had a mustache! Has he lost weight since filming his death scene last season? The actor, of course. In the case of the character, he would’ve gained weight from that time up until the island’s present time.

And Juliet meets up with her old therapist, Harper, in the jungle. Is she really there, perhaps on an excursion from the Temple? She is all wet with rain.

Ah yes, she’s delivering a message from Ben. Her appearance and disappearance was accompanied by the whispers. Could she be like Richard, one of the island’s original inhabitants? Juliet seems confused by them, so it would seem that ordinary Others aren’t responsible for the whispers.

“Ben is exactly where he wants to be.” Isn’t that what Miles said as prisoner in the boathouse? Just a few scenes before he ended up with a live grenade shoved into his mouth?

Aww, and Juliet met Goodwin to bandage up his arm. He was married to Harper? I guess there’s a good reason for Harper to have more than a little animosity toward her, considering Juliet ended up sleeping with him.

The Tempest is the power station. And did I hear Harper say that the gas canisters were also being stored there? The kind of gas used in the Purge?

What doesn’t Dan think he can do? The easy answer would be to speculate that he and Charlotte will orchestrate a second Purge. But that would be too obvious, wouldn’t it?

Kate knows that Charlotte is lying about the satellite phone being out of juice and looking for the packs they threw from the chopper. She saw the phone’s light on. And… she got pistol-whipped. Doh.

Harper seemed “hostile” for a therapist. Would that be hostile or Hostile?

So apparently, during a woman’s second trimester, the woman’s immune system turns on the fetus. And… we don’t know what she was about to say next. I wonder if Goodwin’s visit was really about an egg salad sandwich, or if it was meant to be a booty call.

Yikes. Harper is not a very good therapist. You don’t confront your patient about sleeping with your husband - at least not during her session. Threats are not cool, either. Who does Juliet look like, and why would Ben harm Goodwin for sleeping with Juliet? Does Juliet look like a grown up Annie, maybe? Is she one of the women who died in pregnancy?

Claire makes a good point to Locke. It sounds a lot like what we fans said all along about the Others and how they treated the castaways.

Ben wants to know if the rabbit he’s eating for dinner had a number on it. We know what that means, but apparently the experiments run on the rabbits weren’t too bad. Ben still ate it.

What could Ben do to Goodwin? Now we know. He could send him over to the Tailies, which would lead to his death. Did Ben know how it would turn out when he chose him? And if so, what did Ethan do to get on Ben’s bad side? I mean, Ethan was their surgeon.

36-15-28 opens Ben’s secret safe. With the Red Sox tape in it? “I taped over the game.” LOL. Charles Widmore! Confirmation that he owns the freighter and is looking for the island. We “knew” that, but now we know that. And Widmore does his own dirty work. I would’ve thought he’d hire someone like Jin to beat people up for him.

Oh come on, just tell us who the man on the boat is. Stupid commercial break. Tell us it’s Michael. That’s what most of us fans think, anyway. And if it’s not Michael, we need to know that, too. And then we need to know why Harold Perrineau’s name has been in the opening credits all season!

So Ben sent Goodwin on a death mission, then cooked a romantic candlelit ham dinner for Juliet. Wine. Opera music.

The children from Flight 815 were on Jacob’s list. Hmm. And Ben says that Goodwin is trying to bring Ana-Lucia to New Otherton, trying to make it sound like Goodwin “wants” Ana-Lucia in a sexual way. To make Juliet jealous.

I get a Season Four Mishear Award! I thought that Chemical Suit Daniel just told Juliet, “Don’t shoot me yet!” I was so taken aback by the phrase that I repeated it out loud. My husband turned to me and said, “Juliet. He said, ‘Juliet.’” So it was “Juliet, what are you doing here?” That makes a bit more sense.

That alarm sounds familiar. I’d be having flashbacks if I were so surprised that Charlotte is so… violent. “That was a close one.” They rendered the gas inert so that Ben couldn’t use it again.

Ben’s not more excited about Jack being a spinal surgeon because they just found Goodwin’s dead body. And he took Juliet to it.

“You’re mine.” Ben thinks he owns Juliet. He’s a bit sicker than we thought.

“Okay, what do I react to first?” That’s what I’d be thinking if I were Juliet. The impaled body of her dead lopver, and being told she belongs to a man she hates.

Jack will take their word for it, about Daniel and Charlotte saving their lives. When did he become such a man of faith?

Hurley says he’s lucky, playing horseshoes with Sawyer. Never thought he’d say that.

And is Ben now roomies with Locke? They’re awfully chummy.

Previews: Sun is almost certainly the last of the Oceanic 6. And Michael is almost definitely the man on the boat. “The face we thought we’d never see again.” Yeah, except for his name in the credits every week.

Oh crap, don’t tell me this really is time travel. What’s up with Desmond seemingly flashing literally from past to present?

“Your perception of how long your friends have been gone isn’t necessarily how long they’ve actually been gone.” BOOYAH! *does a little time theory victory dance*

And look at that. It’s the freighter!

Is Desmond jumping through time as a side effect of a moment off course from Daniel Faraday’s heading because of the electrical storm?

“This is not happening.” That’s not the first time we’ve heard this.

DUDE! Is that Hurley’s buddy from the psych hospital? What was his name - Lenny? Leonard? The one who kept repeating the numbers? His face was only shown for a second, so it wasn’t enough of a look to know for sure.

Look’s like Frank is in trouble for bringing Sayid and Desmond back.

Don’t go trying to call Baghdad. Ha!

Yes, Desmond has been exposed to high levels of radiation or electromagnetism. Hatch explosion, much?

I think Desmond’s going to kill himself if this doesn’t stop happening to him. It’s too bizarre. Poor Desmond is back in 1996. Can Dan fix him? In… the past?

This is where hundreds of time travel theorists are starting to do a happy dance of their own. Although it’s not Desmond’s body traveling through time, it’s his consciousness. He is physically in both 1996 and… whatever year it is on the freighter, but his mind is slipping in and out on its own little travel through time.

“I need my journal or I won’t believe him.” Does Dan’s journal travel through time? Oh, okay, good. He just has to repeat information that he couldn’t possibly know unless he had traveled back through time. And he knows about Heloise.

Hippy Professor Dan of Oxford thinks his colleagues are messing with him because they think he’s crazy. Until Desmond mentioned Heloise. “This is where I do the things Oxford frowns upon.” Heloise is a lab rat. And she ran the maze she hadn’t been taught to run yet. Sweet. And it was her consciousness traveling forward through time! I think I should pat myself on the back for that one.

The guy in the bed is George Minkowski, the freighter’s Communications Officer. Not Hurley’s crazy pal. Penny’s been calling him on the boat, and he was told never to answer it. That would almost explain why Charlie ended up speaking with her in the Looking Glass station… except for one thing. That means that the Looking Glass’s incoming frequency was set to the same frequency as the freighter. Why would that be? Is the freighter Ben’s? Is he playing both sides? It wouldn’t be a surprise. Why is Minkowski traveling through time, though? Has he already been to the island?

Poor Desmond, catatonic in the middle of a sentence. Five minutes in the future… 35 or 75 minutes in 1996? Desmond needs a constant. Faraday’s constant. I don’t know what that is in the scientific world, but I know it’s something.

Crap, Minkowski’s going to die before he can help Desmond, isn’t he? The nosebleed can’t be a good sign.

The Black Rock in the painting! It was headed for Siam! The First Mate’s journal was found in Madagascar. Lot 2342. Is that Penny’s father Charles Widmore bidding on it? Yes, it is. He just won it auction for either the journal or the painting… I lost track.

They have civilized urinals in the auction house.

“It’s not me who hates you,” Mr. Widmore said. Oh really? And is that really Penny’s address he gave him?

Oh, okay, Minkowski did try to get to the island. Because he was bored. That explains it.

“I need a minute,” Sayid says. Just a minute to fix that mess?

And… Minkowski bit the big one.

Penny’s house number is 423.

It’s Christmas Eve 2004 on the island. I stand by the fact that it’s not necessarily the same date on the freighter. But if the freighter folks knew that they might find the Flight 815 castaways, and they know who Ben is, they might be able to count the way time passes on the island.

Although it is Christmas Eve at Penny’s house. And Penny has my phone.

Aww. Happiness for Desmond and Penny!

“If anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume will be MY constant.”

Awesome.