I was thinking about the choice of being able to take a pivotal moment in your life and change the event.  I’m sure all of us have at least one moment in our life where you wonder, “what if…”  But would you really change it if you could?  Should the Losties mess with their fate?  What if they were meant to die in that crash?  What if Jack manages to change the future and instead of crashing on the island, the plane crashes in the ocean and they die?  What does Jack have to go back to anyway that he’d want to change the crash?  Wouldn’t he be better changing his actions with Sarah, his dad or the drugs?

1.  I don’t think the Mrs Hawking does know what happens next (she tells Penny in the hospital).  Let’s assume that she picks up the journal when she shoots Dan back in 1977.  She has the events up until the time that Dan goes back and then shoots him.  Now she doesn’t know what is going to happen because the journal ends.

2.  Why would Dan think that Jack and the others don’t belong there in 1977?  What does he know or what did he learn back in Ann Arbor that we haven’t learned yet?

3.  I think that when we see Eloise go to Dan playing the piano as a young boy, this isn’t a flashback, if you consider 1977 as the “present.”  I think that we are seeing her after she shoots him on the island and gets the journal.  That is how you would explain that she knows Dan has a destiny to be fulfilled.
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4.  Everyone is in a jumpsuit except Juliet and she’s in a red “death shirt.”  I think that the writers are going to use the overworked plot device that someone is going to have to stay behind and die so that the others may live and return to modern times.  Juliet will be the one.  Think about it.  She loves Sawyer but knows the moment he calls Kate “Freckles” that their life there together is over.  She also still loves Jack.  She can save them both by sacrificing herself to get them back where they belong.  This is my prediction.

5. When Dan has Miles take him to the Orchid station and Pierre/Marvin pulls up, he looks at his watch and says, “right on time.”  OK, I can believe that Dan understands the physics of the island but how can he know the movements of Chang?

6.  And Dan spills the beans to Pierre about Miles knowing it will lead him to send the children off of the island.  How could he know this stuff?  I’m wondering if we are going to see that Dan is the one who made all the calculations under the church where older Mrs Hawkins talks to the Losites.  That is how he figured when the incident would be on the island and that is why he has to get back.

7. OK, the scene where Dan is crying over the news footage of the plane crash totally changes in the middle.  At the beginning Dan’s hair is wet and slicked back.  Then 30 seconds later it’s dry and longer.  Bad editing or does something in time change like it did with the pictures at the lady’s house that Miles “talked” to her dead son?
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8.  There is never much product placement but turns out JJ Abrams is a guest editor for the magazine this month.  The magazine we see is “The Super Power” Issue from August 2003. Issue 11.08.  See a large picture of the cover here.

9.  When Dan approaches Charlotte I wonder if he tells her the same thing about not coming back to the island or if he tries something different this time.  If I were Dan I’d probably try a somewhat different strategy.

10. Dang, Jack sure is a good shot!  Is there anything he can’t do?

11.  If Dan’s plan is to detonate the hydrogen bomb, was he going to let them all die?  I didn’t hear anything in his plan about getting them out of there before he bombs them.  But, we also don’t really know why he wanted to see his mom on the island so badly.  Maybe she will be the catalyst to getting them back to current time.  Maybe in 1977 she sees the journal and knows she has to help the Losties get back to real time.

12.  And I think that Desmond is going to end up being the Variable.  Why would he let them change anything?  I can see him doing anything to preserve his path that leads him back to Penny.

100 days of Obama, 100 episodes of Lost.  And they both just keep getting better….  Thank you Mr President for slamming the door shut on the conversation right at 9:00 so we didn’t miss one second of Lost.  That’s pretty awesome.

What is NOT awesome is that we lost Dan.  That sucks hard.  Yeah, yeah, I understand why but that doesn’t make it any easier to accept.  But I love that from the looks of next week Dan’s torch has been passed to Jack.  Jack starts reemerging as the leader.

1.  What an incredibly hard decision to make.  Do they really want to prevent the plane from crashing?  Why on earth would Kate want the chain of events to be different?  Jack just likes to fix things but I can’t see why he is so hot to stop the plane from crashing.  I’m not convinced that they will change the future though.

2.  So Dan tells Jack that they are really not supposed to be there.  I think that Jack and the others *are* supposed to be there and Mrs Hawkin is right, just like she sends Dan back to the island to be shot (by her) because that is correct chain of events.

3. Mrs Hawkin comes to Dan while he’s a boy with tears in her eyes because she knows that she is setting Dan on the course of events for his life that will ultimately lead to her shooting him.  She even tells him she has to keep him on her path.

4. I also love Mrs H’s reaction when Penny asks if Ben is her son, “Good Lord No!”

5.  Every one of the Losites has their jumpsuit on except for Juliet.  She is wearing her red shirt.  I hope they don’t sacrifice Juliet to get them all back to current time.  I thought that Dan would be the one to stay behind with the bomb in order for the others to get back, but now I’m thinking it might be Juliet and her love for Jack and Sawyer.  She’ll want to save them.

6.  Loved that we saw several scenes this week from a different angle that we’ve seen before.

7.  I think that Dr Chang believes Dan and he ends up sending all the women and children off of the island.  So when Dan tells Miles that he will “see” why he told Dr Chang the truth, Miles will see why his dad really sent them off of the island so long ago (and not because he didn’t care about them).

8.  I’m not convinced that Mrs Hawkin didn’t have something to do with Teresa going into her “coma.”  She wanted to make sure that Dan stayed on his life course and Teresa was definitely a distraction from that.  She does warn him that any women in his life will end up “terribly hurt.”

9.   Great new nicknames for Dan from Sawyer “Twitchy” and “HG Wells.”  Too bad he won’t be around for them to stick.

10.  I would love for the island to *heal* Dan but I don’t see that they will write that into the story.  Dead is dead afterall, right?  Except for Locke, and Christian, and Richard, and Jacob, and….

11.  The magazine on Dan’s couch is a “Wired” magazine and the title is “The Impossible Gets Real.”   Sounds like a little “wink, wink” from the writers of Lost to the fans of the show.

12.   I think that Widmore cares at least somewhat about Dan.  He helps to fund his research and then comes to Dan personally to ask him to go to the island.  He sends Naomi to talk to the others but comes to Dan himself.

13.  Juliet gives Kate the fence code yet Sawyer immediately forgives her.  First, I think that Juliet gives her the code because Sawyer calls Kate, “freckles.”  As soon as he says it Juliet gets this look on her face then tells Kate that “it’s over here anyway.”  She knows Sawyer still loves Kate (excuse me while I go barf after typing that).  I think Sawyer knows that he messed up with Juliet but I think he also does love her.

14. Looks like Dan has mommy issues.  The only one so far that isn’t on dysfunction junction with their dad.  Sure, his dad is a control freak, but Dan doesn’t even know that Widmore is his dad so it doesn’t count.
15.   I can’t wait to see what is in Hurley’s guitar case.  I doubt it’s a guitar.

16.  Dan thinks that they are the variables and that they can change their destiny.  But can they?  Seems like everything that has been happening is exactly what is supposed to happen.  I guess if they can then Jack will be the one that would do it.

17.  Why did Mrs Hawkin come to the hospital to see Des?  I don’t believe that she doesn’t know what is going to happen next.  She does know and there is a reason that she came there.  I was worried that she was going to steal little Charlie and send him to the island as a way to get Des back there.  But it doesn’t appear that she did, thank goodness.  And Des’ promise to Penny seems a little too prophetic… about him not leaving her again.

I’m wondering if Adult Miles will meet with Baby Miles and that will somehow relate to why he’s “special.”  I’m pretty sure that Miles is either going to tell Chang/Candle about the Dharma purge or something that will cause him to send Baby Miles and his momma off of the island.

Don’t forget that this week is a clip show.  The previews make it look interesting.  Guess we’ll see.

1.  Cute, the dead guy hid his key under a white rabbit.  We’ve seen a lot of rabbits in this show.
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2. The Circle of Trust.  Was anyone else thinking of Meet the Parents and Robert DeNiro?

3.  I’m frustrated with what they have done with Kate.  She had redeemed herself somewhat and now she’s back to meddling in things.  I know I’m not the only one who feels this way.  When we had a campaign to get rid of Ken and Barbie it worked, hopefully the writers will hear our call to bring back the old Kate too.
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4.  For as much as he’s a jerk, Roger caught right on to Kate didn’t he?  Guy may be a drinker but he’s pretty observant. “You want to help Kate?  Why don’t you just mind your own business!”

5.  There were so many good lines and dialog with Miles and Hurley this week.  I was glad that some humor was brought back in.

6.  There’s a lot of dead bodies around food.  We have Alvarez in the van by the sandwiches.  Then there is Felix in the restaurant.  Gross.

7.  Miles was chosen to return to the island not only because of his “ability” but also because he’s Pierre’s son.  Mrs Hawkins knows all about course correction and probably was instrumental in the choice of him being on the freighter.

8.  The more we see of Ben the more I’m not convinced that it’s Wimore versus Ben.  Ben wasn’t chosen by the island, Locke was.  But neither was Widmore.  I’m wondering now if it might be Widmore versus Ellie/Mrs Hawkins.  After all, when Richard agreed to take Ben they asked him if he had discussed with Widmore or Ellie which makes me think she was pretty powerful on the island.  Why isn’t she there anymore?

9. Coincidence that the kids on the island are learning about ancient Egypt?  And how many kids are there anyway?  We haven’t really seen that many.  Perhaps the education is, in Juliet’s words, Others 101.  Also interesting is the alien drawing hung above the chalkboard.
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10.  Looks like Bram knows how to get back and forth to the island and is working on the same “team” as Ilana.
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11.  It sure does look like Pierre cares about Miles as a baby.  And ironically, he’s reading him a book about polar bears.  Unlike Luke, maybe Miles will communicate with his dad so he doesn’t lose his hand.
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Hoth, check it out here.  Freaking amazing that they can work this stuff into the show.  I just hope that this doesn’t open the door to all of those theories that they are on some distant planet.

1.   Wow, did Mile’s mom in the opening look like an older Sun or what?

2.  The numbers are back in full force.  Opening scene, 316 on the microwave.  Room Mr Vonner is in, #4, Sawyer is on screen #4.  Sector 334.  Can’t wait to see the source of the serial number for The Hatch (the famous original numbers).
3.   Sawyer tells Miles that he “owes him one” for erasing the security video.  But, since Miles kind of messed up his job I wonder how that will play into the relationship with Sawyer and Miles.  Now he owes him one in another way.

4.   It looks to me like workers who have “accidents” at the Hatch construction site get taken to the Orchid to be experiments for the Donkey Wheel.  Why send live people when you can shoot dead bodies through it.  Sure, you don’t know what happens on the other side, but you can see what happens on the Island end of things.

5.   Alvarez didn’t get a bullet hole in his head digging the ditch.  Remember the magnetism in the hatch (think Sayid’s cross)?  I think that it pulled the filling out of his mouth and through his head.  Oopsies!  Horace is also talking to Pierre and says that he “doesn’t know if it was caused by the electromagnetism.”
6.  I’m digging the punk Miles with the spiked hair and the piercings.

7.  Miles has daddy issues.  No wonder he fits in with the Losties.  I’m not convinced that Pierre kicked Miles and his mother out when he was a baby.  I’m thinking that Pierre may have known that that the Hostiles would take them over or something bad was coming and actually saved them by making them leave the island.
8.   I’m also convinced that Pierre knows that adult Miles is his son.  We’ve been told that Pierre knows about time travel and remember the video from Comic Con?  He knows it’s possible and doesn’t seem the least bit surprised when Hurley points out that they have the same name.

9.  Having Hurley back on screen was a very welcome sight.  He’s hilarious and I love that he asks so many questions.  And re-writing The Empire Strikes Back?  Excellent!

10.   Maybe Hurley isn’t so crazy afterall, that he can talk to dead people and play games with dead people.  His gift is just a little bit *different* then Miles’. But what I want to know is why Hurley never talks to Libby?
11.   Mr Gray is the brother-in-law from Breaking Bad.  For anyone that hasn’t seen that show you must go immediately and rent a coyp and watch season one.

12. Oh boy, back to whiney Kate.  I agree, she needs to keep her mouth shut about Ben.  It’s nice that she feels bad for Roger, but she helped to save his son so can’t she take any relief in that?  She’s meddling where she needs to just back off (take a tip from Jack, Katester).

13.   I guess we can see where Miles gets his sense of humor from.  Pierre tells Hurley to keep quiet or he’ll be shoveling polar bear turds on Hydra Island.  But that douche is Miles’ dad.  Some great lines tonight.

14.  Looks like a major reveal tonight.  Widmore was the one who purchased the plane and sunk it in the ocean to look like 815.

15.   Jack in the classroom – erasing the information about Egypt on the blackboard.  Considering hieroglyphics are Egyptian, I would like to know why they are teaching the kids about the culture and what it has to do with the island.

16.   Jack defends Kate to Roger.  How sweet.  *cough, cough*

17.   Guess we also know now why Miles asked Ben (when Ben was captive) for $3.2 million.  He wants the money not to turn him in to Widmore’s people.
18.  OK, how does all of this huge construction equipment get to the island?

19.   Hm, shadow of the statue riddle again.  Makes me think that Ilana (with the same riddle) is working for Ben.

20.   Uh oh, Juliet’s in a red shirt.  Not a good sign for her.

21.   Remember the eye from the cabin that appears when Hurley is there?  I’m thinking that was Pierre.  I’m starting to think that Pierre might actually be Jacob.  If not, then he’s in that cabin for some reason.

22.   DAN!!!  I was just as glad to see Dan as I was when Locke came back.  But what the heck was he doing in Ann Arbor, hanging out with the Degroots?  And now that Dan is back, he can help the Losties get back to modern time and probably causing the “incident” in the meantime.  AND!  The tie is gone!

23.  The 100th episode.  Dang!

OK, it’s wrong how much I love this show.  I keep wondering how they are going to top themselves week after week but they just keep doing it.  I don’t think that another show will ever be as captivating to me.  I’m glad they won’t drag it on forever but dang it, I’ll miss it when it’s gone.

1.   I almost forgot about how much I hated Keemy.  Seeing him in the recap tonight reminded me just how evil he was.

2.   I thought it was kind of funny how Charles was riding the horse with his long, flowing hair.  Looked kind of Midevil.

3.  Jacob didn’t want Ben to live and neither did the island.  Richard forced that hand.  It seems like Ben was thrust into the leader role but he wasn’t really meant for it, Locke was.  So Ben didn’t really have a rivalry with Widmore, it’s more with Locke because Locke was born to be the leader.  But, Widmore and Ben both wanted the leadership role thus creating the rivalry.  And we’ve seen what Ben does to those who challenge or get in the way of what he wants (Juliet).

4.  OK, if you are loving the new Locke raise your hand.  He’s had a rebirth, literally.  I was loving all the straight talk and no “BS” John Locke.  This guy’s not the pushover softie anymore.

5.   Hm, what is in the big silver mystery crate on the beach that Ilana and gang are trying to open?  I think there are guns but they said it “needed moved” so maybe some homing devices so outsiders can find them?

6.  Interesting that Ben is trying to tell Cesar that Locke wasn’t on the plane but he’s not going for it.  Ben is switching roles now and he’s the survivor and Locke is the Other.

7.Remember that Jack’s tattoo says something along the lines of “He walks amongst us, but is not one of us.”  I was reminded of that when Widmore tells Young Ben that just because he lives with the DI doesn’t mean he’s one of them.
8.  Widmore ordered Ben to kill Danielle.  But how could they have not known that she had a child?  It’s interesting that Ben has such a soft spot for the children.  He also lowers his gun when he’s about to kill Penny and little Charlie comes out from the boat.  But the scene where Ben steals Alex was just horrible.  And we still don’t know what all the smoke signals were about when Danielle stole baby Aaron and tried to trade him for Alex.

9. Ben mentions that Danielle should run when she hears the whispers.  But I don’t necessarily think he controls them.  Need to stew on that one a bit.

10.  Locke calling Ben’s bluff about the smoke monster, just awesome.  What we’ve been waiting for for awhile.  Some straight talking.

11.  Ben knows about Ilana and Cesar not being “just” passengers.  I’m not convinced that Cesar and Ilana are necessarily working together though either.  So many new elements to consider.

12.  Why would Widmore think that Danielle was a threat to the island or was he just being a bully?

13.  Did Ben think that instead of killing Danielle he was doing her a favor by stealing Alex?  Seems pretty messed up.  Almost seems like Kate’s excuse for taking Aaron, to protect him, but in reality she wanted the baby.

14.  Ben doesn’t remember the rest of the O6 in DI, even though he was there.  Ben looks pretty shocked to hear that Sun has been talking to Christian.  We don’t know the connection yet with Ben and Christian.  Will be very interesting to see how this all fits.

15.   So cute when Ben was swinging Alex.  Almost made me forget that he’s a kidnapper.  But I do believe that she is the one person that he truly ever loved.

16. Has Ben been controlling when Smokey comes out to play?  Looks that way.  But before Ben was in control someone else had to be calling it’s moves.

17.  Ben’s wigs were really awful.  Too much in special effects and nothing left for hair pieces?

18.  I like how Ben tells Sun he can’t control what comes out of the woods and then John walks out.  Funny.  But what was our buddy Locke doing out in the woods?  And, he can’t control Locke anymore.
19.   Ben has killed many, many people.  The only one he thinks he must atone for is Alex.

20.   We assume that Ben doesn’t kill Penny but I don’t know that for sure.  The last we see Ben is in the water.  I only hope that it’s true.

21.  “What lies in the shadow of the statue?”  A riddle, like the snowman riddle Desmond has when they first go into the hatch.

22.  I loved this epi but the flashes of Alex in the smoke monster were a wee bit cheesy.  Again, seems like the budget must have been a little thin this week.  But the meaning was still there so I’ll forgive them.  It was all just so Wizard of Oz like when Dorothy is being swirled around in the tornado on her way to Oz.
23.  Alex comes to Ben like Yemi came to Eko.  Only Eko turned against him and was killed whereas Ben does not.

24.  Has the smoke monster given Ben back the innocence it took away from him as a child?  I can’t wait to see!

Should the Losties really be going back and course correcting?  What if their purpose is to go back and change something?  I appreciated that Jack refused to help Ben.  Sure, it violates the Hippocratic Oath, but I appreciate that he’s operating more on faith now and doesn’t have to control and fix everything.

1.  Are we so sure that Claire’s mom is on the up-and-up?  After all, she was meeting with Ben’s lawyer.  And, just a few short months ago was in a coma and now miraculously, and conveniently, she’s up, walking around and meeting with shady lawyers.   I’m going to hold judgment on her until we see a little more.  I still think that Aaron is going to show up on the island and maybe she’ll be the one to bring him.
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2.  Jin says that Sayid is headed North. Everybody heads north in this show.  When Michael went looking for Walt remember which way he went (North)?  Remember Eko’s stick… “Lift up your eyes and look North.”
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3.   I want to know if Hurley is still seeing his dead friends now that he’s back on the island?  Any more chess with Mr Eko?

4. Kate is using Cassidy as her confessional.  She tells her about the crash, the survivors and even that Aaron is not her son.  Is it fair that she puts all of this on Cassidy?  I don’t want to believe that this will come back to haunt her but on the show you never know what kinds of connections people have.  Heck, for all we know Cassidy is a Widmore.

5.   Listen to Jack, new man of faith, “Did you ever think that the island wants to fix things itself?”  Poignant moment or Jack making excuses?  I like to think that Jack is going to let whatever happened, happen.

6.  I don’t think that it’s such a far stretch that Juliet is now “doctoring” Ben and that none of the DI is questioning it.  According the conversation between Roger and Kate, when you get to the island you just get “stuck” in a job until they deem you worthy of a better position.  So Juliet was working on cars and they had a doctor so they really didn’t need her to step up until now.  If I was Roger and it was my kid who had been shot, I still would have been asking questions about her qualifications to be able to operate on my child.  I’d also be insisting that they pull the doctor out of the Looking Glass and get him up on land to help my kid.
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7. Hurley’s question to Miles about why Ben doesn’t remember getting shot by Sayid as a kid is answered by Richard.  His memory of the event will be gone.  Not all of his memory, just of that event.  However, I think that someone must tell Ben about it because Ben is convinced that Sayid is a cold blooded killer and I think that is because he knows that Sayid is capable of shooting even a kid for the greater good.

8. Yet another example of no one asking questions.  Why doesn’t Kate ask Juliet why she thinks that the Others can help Ben?  Wouldn’t you wonder if they had a surgeon or a doctor or what her thoughts were?  I guess you wouldn’t think to ask if it might be a mystical temple with healing powers, but you would want to know something.  It’s season five with only one season to go, I want answers!

9.  There is just no way it’s a coincidence that the woman with Aaron looks just like Claire.  Ben probably has someone following Kate just looking for opportunities like this to mess with Kate and the others.
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10. So Cassidy sure is working hard to convince Kate that Sawyer is a bad guy.  Kate must not have told her everything because Sawyer didn’t necessarily break her heart, she left him.  Yes, he was a real jerk acting so excited when he found out she wasn’t pregnant, but he did want to be with her and he was upset when she left him in Otherville.  I remember Kate mockingly asking Sawyer if she was supposed to stay there and play house with him.  So Cassidy has her own motives and wants kate to hate him as much as she does.

11.  Uh oh, Claire’s mom is in a red shirt.  You know what that means…
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12.  Kate is done running.  As much as it hurt her, she stopped.  She did the right thing by giving Aaron to his grandmother.  She is even going back to the island to find Claire which had to be incredibly hard for her.  Now maybe we can move forward with the evolution of Kate from being “lost” to somewhere good and I hope that in the end it doesn’t mean Jack or Sawyer (sorry guys, I think this chick needs to move on from the island after she finds Claire).

13.  I think that part of her insistence to help young Ben also has to do with her feelings of protecting the children.  That she would do anything to protect them.

14.  If Richard doesn’t answer to Ellie and Widmore, then who does he answer to?

15.  The Temple, circa 1977.  Why does Ben and the Others in “current” time go there to hide from the Freigther gang?   Why does Smokey live there?  What are the healing powers?  Does any of it have to do with the “Dark Territory” that Danielle had mentioned?
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16.  I think that Locke’s welcome to Ben to the Land of the Living was meant to be an ironic statement and didn’t have anything more behind it.  And, might I add, I missed Locke!!!!
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17.  Ben’s judgment day is next week.  That could mean lots of things but one thing is for sure, it’s bound to be a great episode and hopefully full on answers.

18.  Hopefully we’ll get some Desmond next week too.

Spot on writers!  Ben would survive.  It happened once and happened again.

I love the new and improved Jack.  Won’t save Ben, puts a shirt on when Juliet walks in on him nude, and listens to Sawyer? Jack the new man of faith.

Kate scored a few points tonight for doing the right thing with Aaron.   She’s on the right track.  We’ll see if she can keep it up or will go back to whiney.

1.  What is the creepy relationship with Roger and Kate?   Ew!

2.  What a cute baby they have for Aaron.

3.  Cassidy is back.  She was a reality check after seeing the softer side of Sawyer.  Yeah, he was a pretty creepy guy back home and did some pretty terrible things.  Guess I wanted to forget who he was but she made some good points – like why Sawyer really jumped out of the helicopter.

4.  Why does Kate trust Cassidy so much?  She told her the whole truth and Cassidy doesn’t seem very surprised by the story.  They left them behind on some crazy island and this doesn’t surprise her.  Is it just me or is Cassidy suspicious?

5.   Now Roger is becoming a concerned father?  I’m wondering what would have happened if Jack would have saved Ben.  What a twist!  Ben may have ended up being a relatively normal guy but because of Jack’s refusal to help he actually contributed to Ben becoming Crazy Ben.  Wow!  And Kate is directly responsible for Ben going to Crazy Town by begging Juliet and Sawyer to help save him.  I love it!

6.   I’m very glad that Jack had the conversation with Kate that he already saved Ben once because Kate begged him.  Is Jack on to something that maybe The Island wants to fix itself.  The Island has the ability to heal and to supposedly prevent people from dying (think Michael in the car crash) so it does pick and chose who lives and dies.

7.  Why would the doctor be in the Looking Glass station for a week?  Seems like he/she would have more use on the mainland.

8. Kate understands what Roger is talking about when he says that a boy needs his mother.  She lets Claire’s mom watch Aaron while she goes back to the island to get Clarie.  Good, noble cause.

9.  I think Hurley is wrong.  I think Ben *does* remember that Sayid is the guy that shot him as a kid.  That is why Ben was so insistent that Sayid was a killer and was confident he would kill to protect his friends.  After all, Sayid would shoot a 12 year old boy to protect his friends, why not dozens of perfect strangers?  Or, Ben doesn’t remember being shot as Richard says if they take him he won’t remember the incident.
10. Juliet knows the Hostiles/Others can help save Ben but she must know what the consequences will be.  She knows this by living with them all of those years.  I would hope that Sawyer will come back and ask Juliet what it all means, but it seems like Hurley and Jack are the only ones asking questions lately.

11.  Ah, the cog in the wheel – the scene at the dock seems to be the cog and all the spikes (stories) of the Losties spread out from there.

12.  I would guess that Ben paid the blonde lady who looked *just* like Claire to take Aaron off by the hand to freak out Kate.  Way too much of a coincidence.

13.  All right, so Ellie and Charles are making the calls for the Hostiles.  Mrs Hawking and Widmore.  Ben must really pull a number on Widmore when he’s older to get Mrs Hawking on his side.  But what on earth must they have to do to Ben to save him.  I’m going to guess it’s something affiliated with the smoke monster considering they are in the Temple and we know who lives there!  Why does he lose his innocence?
14.  I say Ellie and Charles because the guy working with Richard asks him if he should ask them first before they take Ben.

15.  Yes!  Locke is back!  I was missing him.  Now we need to bring back Daniel and Desmond too.  Ben looks genuinely surprised to see Locke.
16.  Clever editing?  they make it look like Ben is talking to the young Danielle.  But he doesn’t look like young Ben.  But maybe it is, maybe we’ll see the scene where Ben takes Alex from her.

One of the things that I love about Lost is that you have to think.  I appreciate that the “powers that be” give us credit for being intelligent and give us information without full explanation.  For instance, at first blush I assumed that this week’s title came from Sawyer’s line to Sayid about Oldham.  But after watching the episode back several times (for this blog, not because I’m obsessed…. ok, yes I am obsessed) I started to realize the duplicity of it’s meaning.  Sayid is to the past what Ben is to the present in so far as he has to kill for what he believes is right for the greater good.

Initial thoughts and comments are here.

1. Isn’t it horrifying cute that Young Ben brings Sayid a chicken sandwich immediately after we see a scene of Sayid killing a chicken with his bare hands as a boy?

2.  I still can’t get over the fact that Ben was living among the DI and Sawyer didn’t mention anything or make a big deal about it.  When Jack showed up wouldn’t you totally be like, “You won’t believe who is here!  But you can’t say anything when you see him.”  I know that Sawyer says that he had no choice, but to not even mention it?
3.  Young Ben is already quite the little sneak.  He keeps coming to Sayid and just starts chatting about Richard.  And, Ben knows that the cameras only have pictures, no sound.  Ben also knows how to break out a prisoner.  So, as much as Sayid may be an influence on the killer in Ben, it seems like Young Ben was already well on his way to being the conniving man he becomes.  Plus, Ben was already working with the Hostiles when Sayid shows up so he’s not quite the innocent we may want to think he is as a young boy.

4.  I was thinking about the O6 and how they had to live a lie back home.  There was no freedom for them because they had to live with the weight of knowing they left all the others behind.  But, things weren’t so easy for those back on the island as they also had to live a lie.  They couldn’t tell the truth either and at least for Juliet, had settled into a life they thought was it for them. So I can understand why Sawyer wanted Sayid to lie and join the *Dharma Party* because their life really wasn’t all that bad for them there in 1977.  It seems a heck of a lot better there than it was for Sawyer back home but they weren’t totally free from guilt either.

5.   I really hate feeling this way, but I just cannot stand where they have taken Kate’s character.  Right now I wish they could have left her behind.  But, I am hoping that there is something positive to come for her and that she can stop crying and whining and go back to being strong and independent.  I know that next week is Kate-centric so here’s the chance.

6.  I’m sure it’s not there, but when Sayid first *senses* Ben behind him then he turns around, I swear you can hear the rattling noise that you hear sometimes when Smokey is sneaking around.  Go back and listen!  Watching this scene back also has new meaning now that I know Sayid shoots Young Ben.
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7. My first question is, how does Oldham get power out in the middle of the jungle?  He’s playing a record in this tent.  My second thought was that it looked a lot like the tent that Locke built when he was going on his magic carpet ride to find out what the island wanted from him.  Lastly, Oldham is not nearly the bad a$$ that Sayid is unless there is more to come from this guy.  A drug laced sugar cube, really?  That’s the best he’s got?
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8. I’m still curious to know what the side affects of the sugar cube are going to be for Sayid.  I know that Boone was chased by Smokey and saw Shannon die from his trip.  Wonder what Sayid might see?
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9.  Sayid is drinking McCutcheon Scotch (with his pinkie up I might add).  This is the same scotch that Desmond bottled, that Widmore said Des wasn’t good enough to drink, and the scotch that Charlie used to get Des drunk.
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10.  Why doe Amy want to kill Sayid so much?  I understand that she’d be mad at the Hostiles, but to just kill him?  Maybe there is more to her that we haven’t considered yet.

11.   Why does Radzinski want to call Ann Arbor?  The DeGroots are there but why would they have any say in this? In a psychology class I took, we learned about an experiment at Stanford University where they took groups of students and made some of them prisoners and some of them guards.  You can read the whole thing here but long story short, the students became so enmeshed in their roles that they had to end the experiment early.  Could that be what’s going on here?  They all could have started from the same place, just split them into two groups and see what happens – one group civil, the other living in the wild.

12.  Why do they have to kill Sayid?  Why can’t they just wait for Richard and send him back?  Maybe the DI isn’t as peaceful as they seem.

13.   New job for Jack!  Firefighter!
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14.  Ben has to know when he sees Sayid on the flight that Sayid is on his way *back* to shoot him.  Back to the island and back in time, I mean.  Ben is so insistent on all of them going back that each one has a chain of events that they each must set in motion.  I don’t think that they are going to save anyone.  For instance, Sayid shoots Ben, he’s not saving his life, he’s just there to keep the record playing on the right song, so to speak.  I’m very interested to see what the role of each of the others will be, including why Ben gets to or *has* to go back to the island.
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15.  When Ben is saved, which he will be, no one saw him in the jungle so it will be easy for him to say Sayid kidnapped then shot him to escape.  But, Ben has to hear the conversation between Sayid and Jin so he also knows that there is more going on here then just Sayid being a Hostile.  Will the other Losties know that Sayid shot him for the greater good?
16.   I hope next week that Sawyer is going to ask Kate if she did the favor him that he had asked her in the helicopter.  Sounds like his daughter will be appearing next week so I’m guessing he will.

17.   Who will end up saving Ben?  My money is on Juliet.  Although, Jack does end up feeling guilty and helping others and he took an oath as a doctor.  But, I could see it being Juliet and that is why Ben is so enamored with her as an adult.

18.   I also think that however the O6 end up returning to present time, that is going to be the big *incident* that has been referred to.  My guess is that Sayid is going to end up running into Daniel.  He will tell him the story.  Dan is going to figure out how to get them back to the present but it will involve something drastic.  But I do hope that we get to see how Radzinski ends up being quarantined down in the hatch and how the numbers came to be.

Up until the end of this episode, I thought this one was a sweeper…. sweeping up all the little crumbs of Sayid’s past and how he came back to the island.  But still another home run for the writers and producers.

1.  The opening scene of Sayid and his brother reminded me of Eko and Yemi.  And we also get to see yet another with daddy issues.

2.   So Ben has been living there with DI and Sawyer and the others didn’t notice?  How?  Maybe they did know but then why wouldn’t they tell Jack, Kate and Hurley that he was there?

3.  Ben hands Sayid a book about using plants to really *see* things… like Oldham used on Sayid so he could see his purpose on the island?  And if this really was Sayid’s purpose will he die now?  Click here to read about the book.  It also reminded me of the wacky paste Locke used to use when he went on his magic carpet rides or sent Boone off into hallucinations.

4.   Ben sending Sayid to kill various people who were supposedly out to hurt his friends reminds me of when Sawyer was sent to kill Duckett in Season One when he thought it was the real Sawyer.  The guy who turned out to be just some guy who owed Hibbs money.  Ben has sent Sayid after these guys for some reason but it’s doubtful it had anything to do with the Losties.

5.   Ben shows up and says to Sayid that Locke was killed by the same people who are watching Hurley which is true since it was BEN that killed him.

6.   Cute, Hurley working in the kitchen.  I would think those jokes get old for Jorge Garcia.  I would have like to have seen Hurley maybe working in the entertainment hall or something more cerebral than the kitchen.

7.   If Oldham is DI’s torturer, wouldn’t he have had something more torturous then a sugar cube?  And what are side effects of the medicine?  Could Sayid have imagined the whole killing Ben episode?

8. Ben’s dad is a real jerk.  He should have killed the dad and spared Ben.

9.   I like getting back to flash backs and flash forwards.  I have come to expect the jumping around rather than a linear story.

10.  The lady who played Ilana has a very terrible accent.  I don’t know if she was trying to hide a real accent to pretend to have an accent, but either way it really took me out of the story.  The fake accent was too distracting.

11.   When Sayid was high on the sugar cube and started laughing, I started to think this is the only time I’ve seen him happy and laughing the whole show.  It was kind of nice to see a different side of him.

12.  I wonder if the DI talks amongst themselves.  If so, would Horrace tell Pierre Chang about what Sayid says about being from the future?  Remember that Pierre believes in time travel (when they are excavating the donkey wheel)?

13.   Ilana appears to be working for Ben, but if Widmore knows they have to go back to the island she could be working for him as well.  We’ve never established who Elsa was working for when she tried to shoot him.

14. If Sayid killing little Ben was real….. then Sayid has just changed the past.  Could be why next week is called “Whatever Happened, Happened,” that was Dan’s response when Sawyer asked him about helping Amy and changing the past.  Or, Ben knew that Sayid was going to kill him and that is why he understood Locke’s sacrifice.  Or, little Ben doesn’t die and either Jack or Juliet is going to have to help save him.

15.  Even though we know why Sayid knocked out Jin, I would think Jin is going to see it as a betrayal.  But I hope they find a way back together at some point.

16.  And from the  sounds of next week, Ben does live and the title makes me think that Daniel will reappear, which is good, I missed him!  The big question will be… is he still wearing the tie?  And, Clementine is in next week’s episode???  That is Sawyer’s daughter!

I liked tonight’s episode but to me it felt like a device to just get us from point A to point B.  Not a lot really happened, but it got us on track for big things to come.  No big surprise that Ben came to Sayid (well, to Sayid it was a surprise) but I’m sure there are really big things to come in that story line.

1.  Why didn’t Sun flash with the other Losties?  I suspect Ben had something to do with that but not sure how he did it yet.

2.  Having Sun in the future and Jin in the past is the perfect way to set them up to do whatever it takes to reunite.  We’ve seen the kinds of things that Jin did when he worked for Sun’s father so it doesn’t seem above him to do bad things when needed.  I’m assuming that Ben and Co. set it up that way because they will need Sun and Jin’s help to reunite all of the Losties.  Like players in a chess game.

3. We can see Sawyer start losing control when Jin takes off to look for Sun and the plane crash.  He seems to have done a good job regaining control of his life as part of the DI, now these 3 show up and start shaking the foundation.

4.  Back a few seasons ago I thought it was going to be Locke’s group versus Jack’s group.  Now I’m wondering if it’s going to end up being Sawyer versus Jack.  Sawyer considers DI his people now and I don’t think he’ll leave easily knowing about the purge.

5.  Interesting to see Radzinksy building the hatch.  Will need to get a screen cap of that.   I’m also very curious how he ends up *trapped* in the hatch.  I’m guessing his fate along with the “quarantine” signs on the hatch doors go along with the *incident* which probably involves the Losties and how they return to current time.

6.  Ben had no intention of going back to the big island.  He totally set up Sun.

7.   Ha!  Jack was tapping on his watch.  They said way back in Season One that watches didn’t work on the island so I wondered why everyone was wearing them.

8.  Jack was looking pretty fine in that tight blue shirt.

9.  And why was Frank still wearing his tie?  He’s just been through a horrific plane crash and he still wears a tie?  What’s up with these people?

10.  Speaking of ties…. will be very interested to see where Daniel has taken off to.  I’m sure they will need him in order to reunite with the present Losties.

11. Jack is a janitor.  Cute that Sawyer set that job up for him.

12.  Locke hasn’t shown up yet on the beach.  It must take some time to wake up the dead.
13. If Sun and Frank are in current time then why is Otherville in such bad shape?  When they left they had still been living there and everything was in good order. However, I remember the first time we saw Otherville and it appeared to be in the the middle of a large crater surrounded by jungle.  *This* Otherville may be something like Jacob’s cabin that appears and disappears.

14.  Sounded like Old Smokey in the trees before Sun and Frank hit the barracks, too.
15.  Why did Radzinsky care so much that a hostile saw the plans for the hatch and where they were building it?

16.  The Whispers are back! And was that not the creepiest image of Christian when he first appeared in the door?

17.   Wow, Sawyer really gives it to Jack straight about how Jack just reacted rather than thinking.  It seemed pretty mean but I can’t say that Sawyer was wrong.  Now, we just have to hope that Jack doesn’t go and mess up whatever Sawyer has planned.

18.  A friend of mine asked a good question – how is it that a newbie on the island gets to bring a prisoner a sandwich?  Ben could not have been there before because Sawyer would have known.  And I want to know how Juliet didn’t notice Ben’s name on the list from the sub.

19. Vincent, where is he??  And Rose and Bernard- do we assume they are dead?