SEE a Collections Supervisor of a Box Company raised from the DEAD!!!
SEE Brutal Mutant Hostile Man/Boy push his beautiful daughter on a SWING!!!
SEE Berserk Control Freak Blasted with a shotgun meant for ZOMBIES!!!
SEE it ALL in Ectoplasmic COLOR in IllustrO 720 HDTV!!! (1080p on Blu Ray, Dec 8 2009)
DON’T Walk….RUN … to SEE THE THRILLS…. SEE THE SHOCKS… SEE THE HAIRSTYLES…of
DEAD IS DEAD!!!
And now after that implausible anticipatory build -up … some thought about this week’s fabulous episode. ( * Some people really, really enjoyed it…. 🙂 )
Middle aged Charles on horseback is Russell Crowe’s stand-in… but in a good way. 🙂
” The Island chooses who the Island chooses. You know that. ” 
Richard Alpert to Charles Widmore. What exactly is the criteria in that process?
The Hostiles/Others don’t have a name for it… you (Losties) call it ” The Monster”. Do they not name it out of reverence to it? Is this much like not speaking Jeremy Bentham’s name in Season 4 finale. Come to think of it, 
Kate tried to keep people from saying Aaron’s name as well on several occasions. Plot devise or clue?
Big silver box that Illana and her crew are fiddling around with. Putting polls on the side to carry it. Ark of the Covenant ? Mini Jughead bomb? Dead body? I hope it the rest of 
Locke’s 400 knives. 😉
Caesar assuring a “concerned” 
Ben he “Got your back” about their potential ” Locke Problem” ? And Ben “got his front” with the sawed off shot gun that Caesar took from the Hydra Station. Sometimes… I just think Ben lies purely for the love of it.
Younger Ben and little Ethan… reminded me of River Phoenix (Indy) and his scout friend in the beginning of ” Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”. But instead of a gold cross… they took a baby. Ben even had the emo bangs and the neckerchief.
Indiana Ben telling young 
Rousseau if she looks for him and Alex, he will kill her. “Every time you hear whispers, you run the other way!” Are the whispers the Others? What brought Ben “back”? Are they they near the “wormhole” that might be a way of help/escape? Time will tell (no pun intended)
Ben finds Photo-shopped picture of him and Alex at the The Others Company picnic (seeing that Locke seems to see Mr. Linus’s leadership style as a bit on the “corporate” side). Ben then informs an apology-seeking Locke that he didn’t want John to die until he got some vital information from him. The two points of interest that came up in that info : 
Jin Kwon is alive and Eloise Hawking is 
Daniel Faraday’s mother and that’s who was to help Locke. I assume that the former was to give validity to his plan for getting 
Sun on the plane. But did Ben not know who he was talking to this whole time in LA? Was it because she is Daniel’s mother and this has much bigger significance?
John making Ben take him to his ” judgment” by Smokey is much like Locke making Ben take him to Jacob’s cabin. At the cabin, Locke was able to see and hear things Ben thought John was “too limited” for. I wonder what new knowledge Locke will acquired on this field trip? Is Locke’s insistence on going actually part of Ben’s “plan”… or has finally thrown away his playbook after his Smoke Encounters of the Weird Kind, underneath the Temple wall?
First Widmore wants to kill young Ben…then new mother Rousseau…then baby Alex. From Charles perspective, I’m curious as to who else exactly would be the “wrong” side of winning in the war?
Ben and Locke at the old New Otherton. Risk on the table… last thing they were doing before The Keam Team showed up. Light in Alex’s old room… is from Sun. 
Frank Lapidus is there too. Waiting for a dead Locke to appear, by orders of a dead (?) 
Christian Shepard. How did Frank know who Locke was if they never met? For one thing, I’m sure that word got back to him that Locke was the man who killed Naomi. Also, Frank does a pretty bang up job at memorizing manifests, with I’m sure he recalled a John Locke (Deceased) on the list.
John’s “got some ideas” how Sun can see Jin again even though he’s in 1977… Just like Ben told 
Jack before they left on Ajira 316. Are those “ideas” coming from the same “source”?
Just for a second, when Sun was told that Ben had to do something first before she was going to see her husband again, I thought he was going to kill her too. 🙂
Ben pushing Alex on the swing in a now New Otherton. When was this? Most likely, post purge, 1992 and beyond
Alex born : 1988
The Purge: December 19 , 1992 ( Ben’s thirtieth birthday)
The Crash : September 22, 2004
The Return : 2007
Charles said he was leader for over 30 years. ( The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham)
Charles said he has been trying to get back to The Island for almost 20 years
So, Charles was exiled after the purge. 2007-1992 = 15 years.
Originally from dialog, I thought…
Jughead : 1954 -1984 thirty years as leader.
Exiled in 1984, still trying to get to Island in 2007
2007-1984 = 23 years
But then again….
Maybe Richard came back in 1961, five years after Locke’s birth when he gave John “the test” and in frustration , made Charles permanent leader. So…
1961-1992 Leader of Others
1992- Exiled
2007- Searched for 15 years…kind of a stretch for “almost 20”
Probably making a “thing” out of this but ” Time is the Essence” . So, should I chalk this up to writer error or something else like what happened in Daniel’s rocket experiment when 31 minutes went “missing”? Please, any theories…love to hear them. 🙂
And speaking of Widmore exile who is the “Outsider” that Charles had a child with… and who is that child? And was it inevitable that Alex was going to die, whether by Charles orders or some other means (Course correction)? And if that is the case, recruit 
Juliet and tell her ” You’re mine!!” if she appears to be an “Outsider”? The only recruitment we have seen so far by The Others are of John and Juliet…both who are on The Island in the past…which means they were already here…? So, technically, they aren’t “Outsiders” but might just have been rounding up a couple of their own people? (
Miles….help me out here! 😉 ) Or is it one of those “beyond science” issues, that
Daniel spoke about? Hmmm..
” I assure you Sun, I’m the same man I’ve always been.” says John Locke. Yeah but….To quote 
Hurley “Who is this guy?!” Or should we start saying ” What is this guy?!” John mysteriously wanders off after Ben pulls the plug to call Smokey. Red herring or another clue? Too soon to be sure.
Ben saved Locke’s phone that Widmore gave him. He dials up #23 and gets Charles on the phone. ” I’m going to kill you daughter” Ben tells him. And while he’s there, he shoots a grocery toting 
Desmond for good measure .”Our Mutual Friend” was almost the last thing Des did ever read… on the back of their boat. But instead, Des gives Ben the beating of his life ( and that’s sayin’ somethin’) and dumped in the ocean. 316 Mystery solved!
( Got to love LOST. Even when characters are hunting down the answers to time travel or their ultimate destinies… they still need to stop at the store.)
Locke, Sun and Ben going to the Temple… Well, the wall around the Temple. The real thing 1/2 a miles inward. Ben says that this was where he was healed. Thought he wouldn’t remember. Maybe someone told him… or maybe the forgetting part didn’t “take”?
Frank is back with the Ajira passengers, as any good pilot would. Ilana and her friends and more interested in knowing ” What lies in the shadow of the statue”. Sorry, Frank. No shadow…no snowman…no mercy. Ilana says ” Tell the others its time” . Question is ” Who are the others…and what is it time for”? Think maybe Walt dream of Locke in his suit about to get hurt is a part of it.
Ben and Locke under the wall. Room full of hieroglyphs. Some images…
Upside down ankh
A snake
An eye
A river
A staircase
Egyptian god Anubis, kneeling
A creature with a lighting body and dragon like face
Anubis looks subservient to the creature. The stairs are taken to get to Smokey. The eye (possibly the “eye of the island) is next to the “river” which are under the creature and Anubis. Perhaps these two are watching over the Island?
After his ” This if Your Life” experience. Ben “repented” and lived. 
Eko didn’t and died ( Seasons Three’s “The Cost of Living” ). But until we know what Smokey is… not sure who actually did the wise thing. ” Alex” caught Ben wanting to kill Locke again. But if he does anything other than follow, listen and do whatever Locke says…. ” Alex” will destroy Ben. ” She” , in the end, let Ben live. And this might be the thing that changes Ben permanently. Now, if it’s for the better, is yet to be seen.
And…
Biggest mystery of the episode : Why is one of the red shirts still wearing a lei ?
* Donald from Donald is Lost Podcast 🙂
James and 
Charlotte? I mentioned this a few weeks ago on the podcast. I put up the idea that Horace and Olivia were Charlotte’s parents. Horace had Olivia and Charlotte leave the Island as part of the “truce” that were concocted by Richard and him. Charlotte was very young, Maybe the “scary man” that Charlotte saw that night that told her that if she came back she would die, wasn’t 
Mikhail. 
Charlie 😦 
Michael Dawson from LTDA, ” Who ARE you people?!” 
It's About Bunnies! 