Note To Self - Never Shoot Desmond

How rare an episode of Lost comes along in which we actually get more answers than questions and luckily last night’s episode was one of those times.

- First off we learned a lot about Charles Widmore. He was the leader of the Others and could only be trumped by orders from Jacob (the defacto spirit of the Island) or his right hand man Richard (the defacto spirit of badassery). He was certainly willing to go to extremes to protect the Island and had no problem killing a woman and her child. Well strike that, he had to problem telling somebody to kill a woman and her child, he didn’t actually do it himself. We also find out how he was exiled from the Island – not via the Wheel like we were led to believe but taken off by the submarine. And it was for a rather mundane reason – he left the Island several times and knocked up non-Islander with Penny (thus canceling my theory that Eloise was Penny’s mom in addition to Daniel’s). Given that Richard and Tom could leave the Island freely I’m guessing it was the siring of Penny that got him in trouble.

- On the subject of Alex, it seems that the Island did in fact want her dead and that Widmore was right for ordering Ben to kill her. It took a couple years but it finally got its bidding done and I think part of the reason Ben was spared was because Alex’s death was its will.

- Lots of holes about Ben filled in too! Turns out he totally just swooped in and kidnapped Alex. The curious thing about that was that according to the time frame, around 1988ish, the Purge hadn’t happened yet so he was still with Dharma yet he was doing the bidding of the Others. Not only that but he had brought along young Ethan too. How were they sneaking in and out of the Dharma camp to hang out with their Other buddies? And why was Ethan willing to forsake his own people?

- Another Ben answer that we pretty much knew – he went to the marina to kill Penny. But it turns out Ben does have a heart when it comes to kids and he couldn’t gun her down in front of little Charlie. Probably due to his own daddy issues. That lead directly to the ass beating of a lifetime at the hands of one Desmond Hume. He got of lucky with that, Desmond probably should have just shot him and been done with it. This was another reason I think the Island spared him – he is actually a good guy. For the most part.

- The main point of this episode I think was to establish the duality between Charles and Ben and Ben and Locke. Ben came in and usurped Charles’ position with the Others and now the same thing has happened to Ben with Locke taking over. Locke pretty much called it out when he asked Ben how it felt to not know what the hell was going on. At that point it was clear their positions had switched.

- Inside the Temple we get a whole bunch of what seems like Egyptian glyphs and a picture of Anubis Egyptian god of the dead communing with a weird zig zaggy thing with a face (the black smoke?). Smokie comes out, surrounds Ben, checks his soul, and then lets him live after Ben says he is truly sorry for what he did. THAT is the key difference between when Ben confronted Smokie and when Eko did. Eko had no remorse and was thusly beat to death. After his fun little Smoke meeting Ben then runs into Alex who proceeds to tell him that he’s going to follow John Locke and he’s going to like it. It’ll be fun to see follower Ben for a while, I wonder how long it’ll last. While Ben does like the Island he isn’t a follower, he’s a leader and sooner or later he’s going to try and take down John Locke. Speaking of...

- Here’s my Crazy Lost Theory of the Week™ - John Locke is really dead, the John Locke we’re seeing now is a black smoke apparition like Christian, Eko’s brother Yemmi, and Alex. Whenever the black smoke was around Locke vanished. I’m going to be paying close attention to his whereabouts in the future and see if he and Smokie exist at the same place in the same time. How could Locke have known where the Temple was? He’s never been before. Yeah Smokie tried to pull him down one of his holes but that was in the middle of the jungle. Jin, so far, is the only one who’s been to the Temple while he was time jumping and caught up with Danielle and her crew.

- Why doesn’t Ben remember Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sawyer, Juliet, and Miles from the Dharma Initiative? Either he’s lying or they’re going to be leaving 1977 before Lil’ Ben gets back from the Others healfest.

- And what’s up with Ella? All of a sudden she’s got guns and some weird passcode, “What’s in the shadow of the statue?”. She’s shaping up to be a Widmore plant and I’m guessing it was her crew that were totally shooting at Sawyer and company when they were in the outrigger.