Hmmm, I correlated Locke's murder with the admission that Locke knew about David's mother. I'll rewatch tonight and see what's up. If you're right, that would make a lot of sense.

I've been trying to puzzle this out.... In what way exactly would THAT make sense? I don't get it at all!

We're talking about Daniel's mother, right? Eloise Hawking?

We don't really know anything about Ben's attitude toward Ms. Hawking. This is probably a mystery to be later revealed. But I agree, Hawking was the keyword that prompted Ben to kill Locke. Either that, or it was the information that Ben needed out of Locke before killing him as he had already planned.

I'm still not sold on either Ben OR Widmore being a good guy. I'm actually speculating that the intelligence that possesses the Island, Jacob, isn't good either. My prediction for the series' end will involve the flight 815 survivors putting a stop to a - as it's revealed - selfish and valueless war by destroying the Island. Perhaps with a handily buried H-bomb?

I posted those Star Trek characters' photo for a reason. I believe neither Widmore and Ben are "Good" or "Evil"; only that they are locked (ha!) in opposition. Their time is done and the Island stands alone, needing someone like Locke to do what's right.

For what it's worth, I believe Richard has his heart in the right place too. He just isn't Locke, who is special. Furthermore, now that he's been resurrected and is back on the Island, John has fully accepted his role and fate, whatever that is.

I can't wait to see John's next meeting with Ben.

A curiously flat episode this week. I have no idea why they would take up an hour of time, with such limited episodes left, to go into so much detail about what had happened with Sawyer, Juliette, Miles and Daniel. I feel like we could've seen this through some flashbacks, instead of dedicating and entire episode to it.

Maybe the question of "Will Sawyer and Kate get back together?" is much more intriguing to some other people than it is to me. I got bored of the Jack-Kate-Sawyer-(Juliette) stuff a long time ago. Next week should make it up.

I liked last night's episode. I thought it was very moving and had particularly good acting from Sawyer and Juliette (who I usually hate).

I agree with you about the Jack-Kate-Sawywer triangle but I thought it was a decent episode that offered a lot of story (three years in fact) in one hour. We got to know some of the Dharma players, saw their relationship with the Others (WTF with Paul's execution out in the valley? Damn, they really are ruthless - even with Richard at the helm), and even got a couple of hints about the ancient inhabitants of the island. They've also set up conflicting loyalties amongst the losties by having Sawyer and Co. embedded with Dharma for so long. Not too shabby.

I think it's always a bit of a let-down after we're given the answers to the mysteries that have buoyed the show so far. The mysterious Dharma foundation is a lot less mysterious once you get to know them. It's a reall catch-22 for the writers as we contantly howl for answers.

Back to the episode, the statue looked to me like Anubis, giving credence to the theory of an ancient Egyptian inhabitation. I'm betting that Ankh necklace is an artifact Paul found on the island rather and one he imported. I also wouldn't be surprised if their new baby boy will grow up to be someone we already know.

I still can't wait for Ben to wake up and see John smiling down at him.

--EDIT--

Oh yeah, one more thing: I think the actor who plays Richard Alpert could pass for Egyptian. How old is he really? oooOOOooo!

Wait! So could Ceasar from the new losties! That's more of a reach but that's the fun of this show.

I love how this show continually makes you rethink your alliegences to characters. First we had the Losties, and the "Others" were the enemy. Then, we weren't sure about the others and the Dharma folks seemed like the bad guys. Now, even the Dharma folks seem ok (Especially now that some of our losties are mixed in with the Dharma, it's like chocolate and peanut butter!)

I dug how the group last night was a little mix of everyone, we had Sawyer and Jin (OG Losties), Daniel and the other dude from the freighter and Julia (Post Dharma Other), mixing with the Dharma folks and living with them for three years. Funny how we saw what everyone but Daniel were doing at the initiative. Where could he be...

I'm not a big Sawyer fan, but I think the actor does an excellent job with the character and I liked seeing Sawyer and Julia together. Good episode that leaves me hungry for next week.

Hey! Jin lost his accent!

Did anybody recognize Horace? He has been on two previous episodes. In season 3's episode called The Man Behind the Curtain we see Horace pulling over in the car and helping Ben's parents right after Ben is born in the woods and right before his mother dies. Also, when Ben's father is hired by Dharma several years later it was his old buddy Horace (the leader of Dharma) who hired him. Horace is the reason Ben was brought to the island. I wonder how much further they will have to go to get to that point in time?

Well, for two things, he's warning Charlotte not to return to the island and he's working at the Orchid and looking on in astonishment as the Dharma Orientation guy is mentioning the time travel possibilities.

As much as I'd think I'd hate it on paper, I like how the time travel is blurring the distinctions between flashbacks and flash forwards. Which does Faraday at the Orchid - in that previous episode - count as?

Horace was the ghost in the woods, the architect of Jacob's cabin right? Where is Ben in the 1977/1974 timeline. Horace brought him there when he was an infant and since Ben is at least 50 now he had to be 20+ years old during the time that Sawyer and company spent at the DHARMA camp.

Are we to assume Amy's baby is a known, important character in the show? With a Date of birth sometime in 1977, Hurley is the only one that matches. That's a long shot given that he doesn't look that much like the woman(Amy) that gave birth in this episode..

Personally I liked this episode, I thought it was important to age Sawyer the same number of years as the oceanic six. It puts them all on even footing. If they hadn't done that Kate would have been away from Sawyer for 3 years but Sawyer would remember seeing Kate just days before. They just had to give him to get over her and find someone else before bringing them back together.

Liked the episode, but had to watch it online. I guess my cable company screwed it up, that channel was frozen until about 25 minutes into the episode. Anyone else get that?

I just hope the island doesn't turn out to be the Garden of Eden...

i really enjoyed this episode compared to last weeks, which i thought was extremely boring until ben hung locke. other than that, it was a worthless hour to me. this weeks was much more intriguing and had a lot of interesting twists and story lines.

Hurley might not be 32 and it's entirely possible Jack, Kate or Sawyer are.
Anyone else notice that Jack's mother is played by Veronica Hamil(Hill Street Blues) but hasn't been on very much? Don't pass on anything these guys might think up....

Ben came onto the island as a 'tween--probably 11 to 13. And there's no way the current Ben is 50. I think he's in his early to mid 40's. So that puts his arrival at the island as... imminent.

Of course, he's also already there, having left and come back on the new plane crash.

As we were watching this episode, the question came up: so those guys boarded a plane in 2008 (or something) and crashed into 1977? How'd that happen? I think the answer is simply: Because that's when the island is.

I'm pretty sure the plane wreckage and the rest of the passengers are still in present day, as shown by the scenes with John and Ceasar snooping around the abandonded Dharma office.

I think the island's time frame was in a hightened state of flux when the plane passed by, which can explain their split arrival.

Interesting. Cesar did say that Hurley disappeared from out of the plane mid-crash...

The question then becomes, why didn't Ben, John and (apparently) Sun, (who I think stole the canoe and with Pilot Guy in present day) jump to 1977 as well?

Perhaps the show's anti-paradox time travel rules here forbid any situation where present day and past/future day people could interact. If Tween Ben is already there in '77 (or due anyday) then the island blocked him. Perhaps this is why Charlotte had to die.

Personally, I like the idea that Ben first meets the Lost as a teen and has known and been waiting for their first arrival all this time.

Going farther afield here, then perhaps Sun is there too as a child. I wouldn't be surprised by a link between her wealthy family and Dharma.

As for John? Well, he's "special" and that's enough for me.

Well, and he bounced around through various timeframes, including the pre-Purge Dharma era. If your theory about not being able to interact with yourself is true (and if whatever's enforcing that is intelligent--Jacob/Christian?) then the only safe thing would be to bring him to present-day time when he hadn't been yet.

The Dharma office might have been abandoned due to the fact that the others were apparently shooting Dharma Initiative members on sight.

I think the biggest thing I'm curious about is who Richard and the original hostile natives are. I'm pretty sure some of them had modern day type tattoos and haircuts, so I can't see them being from some ancient society. I'm guessing one of the original military detachments that was sent their originally to scout it. Then they pulled an Apocalypse Now and went crazy/native.

There's something more than that going on with Richard. A few weeks ago he was referred to at "Old". You could hear the capital "O".

I'm looking at "Captain Eyeliner" as an agent of the islands power, instead of the power itself (but yes, extremely old. If we ever see the statue again, I'll bet we see Richard too...). My guess is that he's the one that rallies whatever new faction comes onto the island to overthrow the old one. He encourages the Others to go after the Losties, and the Dharma's before them. I'm also guessing some of the army folks from '54 are in his group that wars with the Dharma folks. Guy seems to have a lot of misplaced agression.

Maybe it's just my experiences with another well written show, but doesn't Lost seem to be falling into a "this has happened before and will happen again" kind of pattern? I wouldn't be surprised to find out Jack's a cylon at this point.

Did we ever learn from whence the black nano-cloud came, or is it still a mystery?

Still a mystery from what I can remember.

All we know about the smoke is that it's part of the island's "defense system" though whether it was created by the Dharma folk, the hostiles, the others or is native to the island is unclear. Ben activates it using Dharma technology, so presumably there is some degree of control over it. Beyond that, it's still big, loud, scary, deadly and strange.

Maybe some of them came from the Black Rock as Pirates, which would help explain their ruthlessness. Is the Black rock still intact or was it blown completely apart when the dynamite went off?

As for Richard, a friend pointed out how eyeliner was de rigeur in Ancient Egypt so perhaps that's a clue. On the other hand he could just be a modern zealot who fetishizes the style. We'll just have to wait and see.

That's not eyeliner, that's just how Nestor Carbonell's eyes are.

I LOVE that the LOST writers listen to their audience enough to play with it, though. Having Sawyer refer to him as "Eyeliner" was a thing of beauty.

Speaking nicknames:
Sawyer's nickname generator

Mine's "Oliver Twist"

Damnit, why the hell does my computer always not let me do the fun stuff??
Nothing happens after the link loads. (I did block a pop-up, though) :(

Mine is "Gizmo"

Don't fret about it, that thing sucks. I put the same answers in twice and got two different nicknames.

Something that's been bugging me since the "Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" episode...

I had assumed that Sun knew about Ben's (partial) responsibility for Jin's (assumed) death because Locke made it off the island and told her. But apparently Locke never does visit her - he keeps his promise to Jin.

How does she find out? What happens before her first meeting with Widmore?

I'm not perfectly sure what you're asking, but I think you're asking about how Sun "knew" Jin was dead?

Sun assumed Jin died because she saw the boat that she knew he was on explode while he was on it. Fairly reasonably, she assumed that when she saw that explosion that it took him with it. She didn't need Locke or Ben or someone else to go and tell her. I'm pretty sure if I saw a boat blow up I'd assume the people on it didn't make it, too, but who knows.

Now, a question that I'd like answered about Sun is that Ben promises to bring her to someone who can prove that Jin is still alive. As far as I remember, Mrs. Hawking never says a thing about Jin, to say nothing for proving that he's still alive. What do you think it was that convinced her to get on the plane?

He brought her to himself. Linus was the person he was bringing Sun to. When they got to their destination he said he had to make up a story about someone to get her to come. Then Linus showed her the ring and she knew Jin was alive.

I assume she got on the plane because she knew Jin was on the island still.

No, not quite what I'm asking. I'm asking how it was that Sun knew to blame Ben for Jin's death. Who told her that Ben killed Kearny?

Oh, huh. I don't know why I totally forgot that. I guess that's what I get for multitasking. Thanks for the reminder.

Whoa.

Wait, so what does this mean for the continuum? If Spoiler: 12 year old Ben is dead, does that create an additional time line or does it alter the existing time line?

Do we know that Spoiler: Ben is actually dead? It seems to me that all we know right now is that Spoiler: he was shot.