Oddly enough, I never even thought about what it would like for the survivors to get off the Island: that moment where they are reunited with their families again. It was happy, sad, and creepy all at the same time. Jack is still leading them, making sure they've all got their stories straight. He wants to talk to the press. He wants them to get it over with. He wants them to be in shock; that'll just make it easier. The families reuniting was a very sweet scene, especially when Hurley one-arms Sayid over to his parents to join in their bear hugs.

The Six stick to the Widmore lie... their story jibes with Oceanic 815 being at the bottom of the ocean with a bunch of dead people in it. We learn that they are rescued on day 108. According to Lostpedia, we are at about day number 100 in the "present". We can't buy any of their story of how they got rescued because everything else they tell the press is a lie. CREEPY! The only time it sounds like the 6 might be protecting the other survivors is when Sayid is asked if other survivors are possible, and he says, "Absolutely not."

Sayid is reunited with Nadia, but how can we be happy?! We know she'll be dead soon. Sun is reunited with her parents, but stands up to Mr. Paik (a crony of Widmore's, maybe?) when she buys half the company and blames him for Jin's death (along with someone else: "Two people are responsible for Jin's death, and you are one of them"). Hurley is reunited with his parents, and they throw him an extremely inappropriate birthday party. Some of the 6 show up, and Hurley gets freaked out by his numbers again. Jack finally gets to have a memorial service for his father, and gets a visit from previously-in-a-coma mother of Claire, who drops the half-sister bomb. This satisfactorily answers why Jack couldn't be around Aaron aka his nephew. Creepy factor = 7.5 when the would-be grandmother tells Kate how beautiful her son is.

• Why are the O 6 sticking to the Widmore lie? Are they protecting everyone else? The Island?
• Who put that C4 on the freighter? Is it the signal that's interfering with the radar?
• Who is Ben using the mirror to communicate with?
• How do they keep running in to each other in the jungle so conveniently?
• When Sun mean accuses her father of being ONE of the people responsible for Jin's death, who is the other?
  
• Does the Orchid station being a greenhouse have anything to do with the actual station?
• Does Ben's baton mean more than just a sinister weapon?
• How do the 6 get back together? (see below)

Our first clue that this is a flash forward is the Millennium Falcon toy – we’ve never seen Jack around a kid before. Then a baseball reference (specifically “A Rod”) in the paper that didn’t clinch it for me, but I’m sure it did for Amon! Then the proof positive: Kate in the shower. A further clue about when this is, she jokes about buying him a razor. So we know this flash forward is after Kate’s trial, but before bearded crazy Jack. Jack reads to Aaron – from Alice in Wonderland. And the white rabbits just keep hopping about. Remember: the episode in the first season where Jack first sees his father on the Island and discovers his empty coffin is entitled The White Rabbit. Jack begins his descent into crazy bearded Jack when he sees his father at the hospital. It must be strange for our Man of Science to go from the supernatural Island to a normal place again. If he’d never had his Island experiences, he might have reacted completely differently when he saw his dead father. Now, he knows that it might be a real thing; not just a hallucination.

Seeing Hurley certainly doesn’t help Jack’s descent. He is grasping at his hold on reality it seems. “Take your meds, Hurley.” But we know better when we see Jack idly waiting in his car, staring at the bench Hurley said he saw Charlie.

Jack’s descent continues as his suspicions of Kate rise. His previous wife’s infidelities probably don’t help his paranoia. Well, that plus the drugs and booze. We find Kate is doing something for Sawyer. I think this might have to do with Sawyer’s daughter, Clementine. Remember that Kate has actually met the mother, Cassidy, in one of her own flash backs. This is hurtful to Jack, and might have been the worst thing he could have heard from her. We discover that Sawyer has chosen to stay on the Island. Jack’s frustrations and desperations rear their ugly heads again: “I am here. I am the one who saved you.” The seeds have already been planted in his desperation to get back to the Island. And let’s not forget this tidbit: “You’re not even related to him!” Jack must know he’s Aaron’s uncle.

Back on the beach, in the ‘present’, Jack continues to make his promises to our Losties. He almost seems desperate, and this manifests itself in his flash forward, too. His promises make us question again, why only 6 of the Oceanic flight get off the Island? We find out Jack’s got appendicitis. We don’t care. We know he won’t die. But it is apparent that Jack doesn’t trust Juliet. He wants Kate in the surgery and to talk Juliet through it. Jack’s control is slipping! He can’t control this, or those pesky freighter people.

The scene with Rose and Bernard was significant, I think. She reminds us that people on this Island don’t get sick. Why did Jack get sick? Why did Ben get sick? Did they do something to ‘anger the gods’, as Bernard laughingly suggests?

Now on to Claire and her dad: We know Miles has got some ghostbuster-y qualities. We don’t know if he can see Christian Shepherd like Claire could. Maybe he just senses him. He never tells Sawyer he “saw” him, just that Claire “went” with someone she called dad. Claire would have never left Aaron like that. What’s happened to her? I think it might be possible that Claire is a ghost… like Christian, and that she died in that explosion. At first it seems unlikely, why is she walking around holding Aaron? But we see Christian holding him by the fire, too.

Neat things:
• Daniel calling Charlotte out on her “bad attitude”.
• Daniel: “Where does all this power come from?” Charlotte: “Add that one to the list, Dan.”
• Kate’s headband.
• Jin figuring out Charlotte spoke Korean.
• Jin in general.
• The bittersweet proposal: we know it won’t work out!
• Juliet to Jack: “I know you’re awake.”
• Sawyer: “It’s too early for Chinese.”

Questions:

• Is that a new tattoo we see on his back?

• Why can Hurley see Charlie? Will everyone start to see dead people? Can Hurley get flashes of the future?

• Why wasn’t Keamy dead? Or at least more of his men? How did they escape the wrath of Ben and smoke monster?

• Has Jin found the way to get Sun and baby off the Island? Is this how she becomes one of the Oceanic 6?

• What would have Jack’s dad said to him if they hadn’t been interrupted?

• Is everyone dead as Hurley suggested?!

The Shape of Things to Come

Let’s start right off with the title of the episode: The Shape of Things to Come, which is also the title of a sci-fi book by H.G. Wells. Wiki describes it as “speculating on future events from 1933 until the year 2106. It is not a novel, but rather a fictional history book or chronicle”. This has helped shape my belief that Ben can/has/is time travel/ed/ing, and his actions in the “present” are shaped by his knowledge of future events, or at least his ability to accurately predict how the future will play out.

The name on the parka is Halliwax, a name that only the true crazies of LOST have seen before. This was a video that was broadcast on ABC during the hiatus:

The guy, aka Marvin Candle has been seen in other orientation videos. In this one he introduces himself as Halliwax. Hmm. The station he’s in is the Orchid station, which we haven’t before seen on LOST. . . not yet.

Ben quickly dispatches two men on horseback, with a very mysterious baton of some sort. As he travels through the desert, finally making it to a city we learn that he’s in Tunisia, where we’ve been before on LOST. In “Confirmed Dead”, the second episode this season, we learn tidbits about our four new island members. Charlotte (the red head) learns of the discovery of the wreckage of flight 815, and also finds remains of a polar bear complete with Dharma logo. Time travel experiments with polar bears perhaps?

Ben checks in to a hotel as a ‘preferred guest’, and learns that the date is October 24, 2005. Flash Forward, check. From there, Ben makes it to Iraq, where we have a guest star in Ben’s flash forward. Sayid is more than willing to murder the man responsible (who is under the employ of Charles Widmore) in retaliation for his wife’s death, Nadia. This, we realize is just another one of Ben’s master manipulator ploys to get Sayid in his employ. A question answered! (Sort of.) And another check in “Ben is one of the bad guys” column.

Back in the present, in one of the most shocking scenes, Alex; Ben’s ‘daughter’ is murdered by one of Widmore’s cronies. Ben tries to bluff his way out of it, telling the man that Alex means nothing to him. Bluff called, and we realize Ben might deserve a check in the good guys column. Until…

He says, “He changed the rules” (meaning Widmore, I believe), goes behind his secret hieroglyphics door where it seems he is summoning the smoke monster. But could this be part of the time travel mystery? Is this when he goes to the future to employ Sayid and threaten Widmore? Is Smokey a time travel side effect?

Speaking of his visit to Widmore: “We both know very well that I didn't murder her at all, Benjamin....You have the audacity to pretend you're the victim....I know who you are, boy! What you are. I know everything you have you took from me....That island's mine, Benjamin. It always was. It will be again.'' What did he mean by ‘What you are’?? Ben isn’t intimidated, and threatens to reciprocate with the murder of Widmore’s daughter, Penelope. Will Sayid be tasked with this odious job?

Going back to what I said at the beginning, Ben’s actions and manipulations in the present were masterful because he knew about future events, or at least the shape of things to come. Widmore, with the assignation of Alex, completely threw Ben. He did not expect this to happen, and believed it wasn’t supposed to happen. Ben, while not always seeming to be in control, I think he is. Take the shotgun in the piano bench. The warning phone call from the electric fence that only he knows what it means. His knowledge of Jacob that keeps his control over Locke. Not to mention that cryptic door, and possible control over Smokey. It seems that the Island really is his, even though Widmore is doing his best to (re)claim it.

I didn’t even cover the base camp events, but the Ben / Widmore evil genius plot was enough for me!