I have really enjoyed the flash-sideways parts of the first five episodes.  They feel kind of like the old Marvel Comics series What If?  Alternate timelines that play out a story in the fashion if something else happened than what did happen.

While I have enjoyed Locke as a substitute teacher, Jack as a father and Kate still running, they do not feel as if there is a reason for them to be done here.  Although I suppose you could say that each flash-sideways is dealing with some core issue at the heart of the character.  Jack dealt with his own father issues iby dealing with his son.  Locke had to work through the paralysis and how it affected him as a man.  Kate hasn’t yet stopped running, but I expect that will be focused on at some point .  Claire had to come to the understanding that she did not want to give up Aaron. In this manner, these characters are facing some of their biggest personal problems in this alternate world that is familiar, yet somehow off.

We know they feel off because Jack did not remember having his appendix removed.  His mother told him that it happened when he was 7 or 8, but we know Juliet removed it on the Island.  This Jack knew that the childhood surgery did not feel right, but he accepted it because he was not ready yet to understand everything that was happening.

I have to say that I have enjoyed Dylan Minnette as David Shephard.  Dylan has since this been the lead character in Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why, and he has been in several movies such as Don’t Breathe, Goosebumps, and Prisoners.  He’s a great young actor who did well here.

On the Island, Jacob gave Hurley instructions on bringing Jack to the Lighthouse.  Jack asked how they hadn’t seen this structure before and Hurley said “maybe we weren’t looking for it.”  That feels like a perfect explanation for this.  We know they are both candidates..maybe only candidates can see this.  Perhaps the lighthouse is out of time- as we know the Island is and there is a certain moment that it can be found, with precise instructions- like Jacob gave to Hurley.

The wheel inside with the mirrors that let you watch places on the mainland was a cool idea and having these different people corresponding to the degrees on the wheel was another epic use of those numbers.  Jack showed he was still the old hothead as he smashed the mirrors to bits when Jacob would not show up.

In the end, Jacob talked to Hurley and told him that he wanted Jack to understand how important he was and, most importantly, he had to get Jack and Hurley away from the Temple because something bad was coming.  Smokie, most likely.

Then there is Claire.  Claire is coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs right now.  Too many days alone on the Island being corrupted by the Smoke Monster would turn anyone into a raving loon and Jin realized that he was in serious trouble as Claire was wielding that axe.  The axe to the gut of the Other was shocking from Claire, without a doubt.  One wonders what she had done during these three years… as crazy squirrel baby may indicate.  Claire’s claim that she was not alone was very creepy as well.  She said she was with her father, Christian, who we saw take her in the first place.. and her “friend”.  At the episode’s end, we meet the friend.  John Locke walked into her tent, Jin called him John.  Claire said, Jin, that’s not John, that’s my friend.  She obviously means the Man in Black/ Smokie.

Claire’s threat to Kate at the end about killing her if she had taken Aaron was just full of crazy train.  I wonder if this is the future for Sayid as well, if Claire had been “infected” as Dogen had said.

We now have an answer about what a “candidate” was.

According to John “Smokie” Locke, Jacob would bring people to the Island whom he considered candidates to take over the job of Island protector, a job which Jacob has now.  Locke took Sawyer to a cave on the side of a cliff where Jacob had scrawled names all over the wall, most of which were scratched out.

That is…except for six of them.  Each one had a number beside it.  Yes, they were the numbers.  Locke said Jacob had a thing for numbers.  The names included 4 Locke, 8 Reyes, 15 Ford, 16 Jarrah, 23 Shephard, 42 Kwon.  There were many other names on the wall but they were all scratched out.  “Locke” went ahead and scratched Locke out as well.

Locke was trying to convince Sawyer to forsake the Island and join him in getting off the Island.  Sawyer agreed to join him.

I like the connection to the numbers. I do not think this is the final explanation of them.  I believe the Valenzetti Equation, an equation to determine the end of the world, is the main idea behind the numbers.  Still, it is fun to think about how the numbers are continued to be used.  We got flashbacks to the Incident when Jacob approached each candidate in their younger years.  For some reason, Kate, who was also touched by Jacob, was not shown on the wall. I guess they ran out of numbers.

On the trip to the cave, Smokie was approached by a young blonde boy.  Locke chased him but fell on his face.  The boy stood over him and told him to remember that he cannot kill him.  I am assuming that this means that the Smoke Monster cannot kill any of the candidates and that is why he needs others to do it.

It was also said that Smokie could no longer take on a different face, indicating that his appearances as Christian, Yemi, Alex were now finished, probably with the death of Jacob.  That means we will be getting John Locke or the Smoke Monster for the remainder of the series.

Ben, Frank, Sun and Ilana buried the body of the real John Locke. Ben’s words were touching and felt sincere.  Ending the eulogy with the “I’m sorry I murdered you” was weird, but surprisingly touching.  Sun’s look was great as was Frank’s response about this being the strangest funeral he’s ever been to.

One has to wonder how many people Jacob brought to the Island in search of a replacement for Island protector.  How many lives were lost because they did not measure up to the job.  In this case, Smokie is not that far off.  He says he just wants to leave the Island, and that does not seem unreasonable.  I wonder if he would retain the ability to change into a pillar of smoke off Island.

By the way, it was great to see Helen again this episode.  She and Locke are truly a great couple and have the chance to be happy.  Seeing Ben as the history teacher was funny.

Time is flying as the show LOST winds down to its final.  In “What Kate Does”, a toss back to the “What Kate Did” title from season 2, we get the return of Claire Littleton to prominence in the series.

First, we see her in the flash-sideways, where she was in the cab that Kate hijacked to escaped the airport.  After dumping her off, Kate found Claire’s bag full of baby stuff and felt bad so she returned to the scene of the crime to find Claire.

Kate took her to the people who were going to adopt the baby only to find that couple had split up and the wife was in no condition to be considering adopting a baby.  Claire started having contractions and Kate rushed her to the hospital.  We see Dr. Goodspeed (Ethan) there and he said Claire could have the baby, but she wants to hold off.

Claire and Kate bond over lying to the police and that was really about it for the flash-sideways.

On Island, I don’t understand why the Others do not just tell Jack and his group the truth.  Why do they have to mask it in lies and mysteries?  Everything could have been avoided if they just had told them the truth.  Instead of seeing them as captures, the could see them as friends who are protecting them as candidates. That idea is still to come.

This episode Dogen tortures Sayid to see if he has been “infected” and when he finds out, he wants Jack to give Sayid a pill, but he was mysterious and secretive about it.  He wouldn’t tell Jack what was in it, and … well, he just tortured Sayid.  I have no idea why Jack wouldn’t trust him.  Jack did not give Sayid the pill, and in fact, took it himself.  Dogen desperately made Jack spit it out and admitted that the pill was poison.

Dogen tells Jack that Sayid has been “claimed” and that they have seen it before…from Claire.

At this point we see Claire saving Jin from the Others by shooting Aldo (dumb ass who responds with anger, what do you expect) and the other guy who was a decent guy.  Claire appeared to have taken the place of Rousseau as wild Island woman, even going as far as setting several traps like Rousseau used to do.

Claire has returned big time to the show after being absent since she disappeared in season 4. At this point, she does not seem to be a great mother type for Aaron, but we’ll see where this goes.

Josh Holloway wins the best scenes of the episode as he sat on the dock and blamed himself for Juliet’s death.  He remembered talking Juliet out of leaving on the sub and he knew that if he had not done that, she would still be alive.  James has shown a remarkable growth over the years of the show, but he seemed as if he might be regressing back into Sawyer.

The final season kicked off with a two-part episode “LA X” which seems to have started to show us two completely different realities.  The original reality we known on the Island, and a reality where the Island is on the bottom of the ocean and Oceanic 815 landed in LA.  Kind of.

The thing is… there are things about this Oceanic 815 that is wrong.  Desmond is there, sitting and talking to Jack.  Desmond was not on the original 815 flight.  There is no sign of Shannon Littleton and her brother Boone indicated that he failed to break up her relationship.  Did Shannon stay in Australia?  Jack had a cut on his neck from out of nowhere.  Hurley claimed to be the luckiest man in the world.

What is going on?

We did get a really neat meeting of Jack and John in the airport.  The flight had lost John’s case of knives and Jack’s father’s body and the pair of them bonded over the airline’s incompetence.   Jack offered John his card and told him he was a spinal surgeon and told John he should come in for a consult.  When John said his injury was irreversible, Jack told him, “nothing is irreversible.”

Kate escaped from Mars AGAIN… and jumped in a cab with Claire, and, by gunpoint, told the taxi cab driver to go.

In the other reality, the group who had detonated Jughead in 1977, were back in the present time on the Island.  Most of them were near the Swan site, which had been built and exploded just as it always had been.  This supports my assumption that the Jughead explosion was the actual “Incident” that the Dharma people had talked about.  None of them seemed to have any sort of radiation poisoning and were the same way they were in 1977.  That meant that Sayid was still dying with a gunshot wound in his gut and Juliet actually was still alive at the bottom of the pit.

I was a little sad that they kept Juliet alive only to have her die in Sawyer’s arms.  Juliet’s final words were confusing, and Miles, later on, did not help when he told Sawyer that the words that she wanted to tell him was “It worked.”  Unfortunately, she could not tell that to him as she passed away.

Hurley received a visit from the ghost Jacob, who just died an hour ago.  Jacob told Hurley to take Sayid to the Temple and they would save him.  He told Hurley that Jin could lead him to the Temple, the place with the hole in the wall that he saw with the French team.

This means we are finally arriving at the Temple, that Ben mentioned way back in season 4.  Inside, we come across two new Others whose names are not mentioned.  They are quite ready to kill them even after stewardess Cindy told them that they were all on the plane.  Hurley spoke up and took charge of the situation, telling them that Jacob sent him.  He also opened the guitar case that Hurley had been hauling around (and through time, as he said) to reveal an ankh that contained a piece of paper (a Jacob list?).

After not killing them, they take Sayid to a pool of water, but it is not clear any more.  They put Sayid in the water and drown him despite Jack and Hurley and Kate yelling at them.  When they bring Sayid out, he is dead.  And we know on LOST that dead is dead.

Until it isn’t.  Sayid comes alive at the end of the episode.

The other big reveal here… John Locke, who manipulated Ben into killing Jacob, was the Smoke Monster, who created massive chaos by murdering a group of the Ajira passengers in front of Ben.  Ben couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Locke left the foot and confronted Richard, knocking him out after saying he was glad to see him out of the chains.  Richard finally knew who Locke was.  Locke threw the unconscious Richard over his shoulder and started walking off.

LOST season five was a lot of fun. I know there were some people who had dropped out of the series by now from frustration or impatience, and I find that to be a shame, because there are some tremendous episodes in season five.  I also loved the time travel element in the series.  It really brings everything together

So here is the review of season five…

Best Episode:  “The Incident”  The season finale really threw the action into overdrive as Jack and his merry band went to drop a nuclear weapon down the Swan hole in an attempt to blow up the electromagnetic anomaly that would lead to the crashing of Oceanic 815 in the future.   Great action, character development and drama.  Runner-Up:  The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham.

Best Flashback:  Jacob is everywhere, The Incident.  Jacob had inserted himself in our main characters’ lives and we see him all over the place.  Makes one wonder how he can get off the Island so easily.  Runner-Up:  Desmond beats the hell out of Ben, Dead is Dead

Best Performance:  Josh Holloway, The Incident.  Sawyer’s desperate attempt to hold on to Juliet and not let her slip from his grasp is one of the singularly most emotional moment of the year and Josh knocked it out of the park.  He was very consistent all season long as well.  Runner-Up:  Michael Emerson, Dead is Dead.

Biggest Jerk:  Stuart Radzinsky.  One of the Dharma Initiative who you really wanted to punch in the face.  How does Kelvin Inman last as long as he did pushing the button in the Swan Station with this guy?  Big time a-hole.  Runner-Up:  Roger Linus

Best Death:  Jeremy Bentham, The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham.  Aka John Locke. We saw how John wound up in that coffin and it was just horrific.  Damn you, Ben.  To see John Locke at the lowest point of his life was terrible, only to end up strangled by a person he thought was there to help him.  Runner-Up:  Charlotte

Biggest Surprise:  John Locke is dead… still, The Incident.  We all thought that John Locke had returned from the dead when they brought his body back to the Island.  Nope.  Dead is dead.  The other passengers on Ajira 316, who have some connection to the Island, brought a box with them and dumped out the corpse of John Locke.  Meanwhile, the other John Locke is inside the statue’s foot.  Shocker. Runner-Up:  Ben strangles John Locke.

Funniest Moment:  Hurley and Miles debate time travel.  This is just the most fun debate on the season.  Miles tries to get Hurley to understand, but instead Hurley stumps Miles.  Runner-Up:  Dr. Chang catches Hurley, “Ok, dude, we’re from the future.”

Best Moment:  Sawyer holds on to Juliet.  The relationship between James and Juliet was a highlight of the season, so when James desperately tried to keep her from falling down the Swan station hole, you saw the fear in James’s face.  And Juliet struggles free from his grasp to prevent him from falling in as well.  Beautifully tragic moment. Runner-Up:  Sayid shoots little Ben.

Most character development:  Sawyer/James LaFleur.  Or whatever you want to call him.  Sawyer is a totally different person from season four.  He is a straight forward good man who goes out of his way to help people.  LaFleur is night and day from the Sawyer we used to know.  Runner-Up:  Jack Shepherd.

Best New Character:  Iyana.  This was a choice that feels like a runner-up choice instead because there is no real new character.  A lot of characters who we have heard about or seen that were expanded upon (Jacob, Horace, Radzinsky, Roger) but none of them are new characters.  Iyana is fairly annoying but she fits the bill.  Runner-Up:  Phil.

One more season to go….

After several years of hearing his name, we finally get to meet Jacob.  And he dies.

I have a feeling that we’ll still be seeing Jacob as the story moves along.

We find out that the John Locke who has been running around the Island is not the John Locke who was strangled by Ben and who was always demanding that people not tell him what he couldn’t do.  Dead is dead after all.

We meet the Man in Black, who within the first few minutes of the episode admits to wanting to kill Jacob and that he was looking for a “loophole” to do it.  Apparently, the Man in Black has been looking for that loophole for a long time, since the statue of Taweret was in one piece during the scene we meet them in.

That statue of Taweret was important in another way. Turns out that Jacob’s home is found inside the foot of the statue.  Richard led John right up to the entrance, even though he did not want to.  Ben came along, despite Richard not wanting that to happen either.  Locke had told Ben earlier that Ben would be the one to kill Jacob.  That must have been the loophole.  We had heard about how there were rules with Ben and Charles Widmore and being unable to kill each other was one of them.  The Man in Black and Jacob must have the same deal.

In flashbacks, we saw Jacob inserting himself in the life of several of the Oceanic 815 survivors over the years.  He was at the funeral of James Ford’s parents.  He stopped Kate from shoplifting a lunch case.  Jacob was outside the surgery that Jack performed where he counted to five for the first time.  He was outside the jail when Hurley was released after being arrested for murder.  Jacob was there when John was thrown out of the 8th story window by his father.  He was at Jin and Sun’s wedding.  Jacob was everywhere.

In fact, the Man in Black implied that Jacob had brought the boat that they saw in that opening scene.  How Jacob was supposed to have “brought” them there and why… is still a question.

Since we just met Jacob, it was shocking when Ben buried that knife in his chest several times, and then Locke kicked him into the fire.

Back in 1977, we had a rush to the Swan site where Jack planned on dropping the bomb and changing the future.  I wrote in the last review how I believe that the bomb WAS the incident, and, in this episode, Miles put in words the same idea as I had.  I saw nothing here that changed that concept for me.

I have to say though, some of the motivations of the group were questionable.  Juliet changed from “we have to stop Jack” to “we have to let Jack do this” without really much explanation.  Juliet’s questions over Sawyer’s feelings for her got old. He had shown her everything she should have needed.  She was too upset over “looks” he may have made at Kate.

Kate, Sawyer both changed their opinions on what was going to happen.  The final action scene was exceptional.  The best scene of the episode, however, was the Sawyer and Juliet scene where Sawyer desperately tried to keep Juliet from falling down the hole in the electromagnetic Swan site.  Tears.  Tears everywhere.

Of course, Juliet did not die from the fall.  She used a stone to detonate Jughead beside her.

And the screen went white.

There is a lot of stuff going on here.

I am even more convinced that the detonation of Jughead is the actual “incident” referred to in the orientation video of the Swan and is what always happened.  This is the reason why Eloise Hawkins was so insistent that all of the members of the Oceanic 6 had to go back to the Island and when she said “Lord, help us all” when the idea of not the entire group returning was raised.

Without Jack, Kate, and Sayid, they never would have taken Jughead out of its underground tunnel and the electromagnetic disruption at the Swan would have destroyed the Island.  When she had said that she did not know what was going to happen (this was to Penny in the hospital during The Variable, I believe), Hawkins did not know yet whom was going to be on that Ajira 316 flight and she did not know how that might affect what had happened.

While Eloise’s motives in 1977 was to save her son from being shot, Ms. Hawkins’ motive was to make sure the timeline played out just like it was supposed to play out.  Destiny.

What happened, happened.

There was a fun scene with Hurley and Dr. Chang, who quizzed Hugo about events that a 1977 man would have known and, just like Hugo had worried about, the identity of the President of the United States was an important question.  This scene included Chang realizing that Miles was, indeed, his son and he was convinced to start an evacuation.  I would have liked to have more with Chang and Miles, but there was a lot to do in this episode.  Miles was able to see Chang putting his mom and his baby self on the sub.  Chang was yelling at his wife and Hurley wondered why he was doing that.  Miles understood that she wouldn’t have left other wise.  This gave Miles a better understanding of his father’s choice to sacrifice his love in order for them to be safe.  Miles’ smile told the truth that he understood what had happened.

In the present, John Locke had ingratiated himself into the leadership position of the Others, to the chagrin of Ben and the uncertainty of Richard.  John was doing things that no other leader of the Others had tried to do.  He came out to the entire group and invited them along with a trip to see Jacob.  John had pressured Richard to take him to see Jacob and forced his hand by telling the people what he was doing.  You could almost see Ben impressed with John’s manipulations.

However, John is not all honesty and forthrightness.  He had told Sun that Jacob would be able to tell them how to get Jin and their people back, but he did not care.  He later told Ben that he was going to see Jacob in order to kill him.

Where is Hurley when you need a “wait…what?”?

We get some background on Daniel Faraday in “The Variable” and we get an exceptional performance from Jeremy Davies as all Hell is breaking loose at New Otherton.

Faraday returned and immediately started stirring the pot.  He told Pierre Chang that he needed to evacuate the Island and that he was from the future.  He told Jack and the others that they did not belong here.  He came up with a wild plan involving Jughead.  Then he walked right into the “Hostiles” camp demanding to see Eloise.

Who then shot him.

Mother shooting son to death is one thing, but then you realize that Eloise Hawkins pushed Daniel to follow the mathematics/science path of learning instead of piano playing as he had wanted.  He encouraged him to go to take up an offer from Widmore to go to the Island.  She did all this knowing that this path would lead to Daniel being killed by her own hand.

Thanks, ma.

Daniel came back with a theory that humans were the Variable in the whole “Whatever happened, happened” idea and that he was going to try and fix things by using Jughead to blow up the electromagnetic pocket of energy at the Swan.  Faraday told Jack and Kate that, he believed that if he would do this, that the Hatch would never be created and that Oceanic 815 would never have crashed.

In other words, he was trying to change history.

However, I am not certain that he really believed that.  I think it is completely plausible that the reason he wants to detonate Jughead at the Swan site is that the bomb going off was always what happened and would be referred to as the “incident” from then on.

If he really believed that this would work, why did he go to the young Charlotte and tell her to make sure she and her mommy left the Island?  Just covering his bases?  Or is it more than that.  Older Charlotte was dying, she told Daniel that he spoke to her in the 70s.  Couldn’t he have proven that the past could be changed in just that manner, by not speaking to Charlotte?  It seems easier to accept that then trying to detonate an A-bomb.

I am still under the belief that Jughead was always the “incident” referred to in the Swan orientation tape and everything just happened that way.

Meanwhile, the crew of our future fighters were feeling the collapse of their little world tightening on them.

Everything is building toward another huge season finale.

“Some Like It Hoth” is another episode that many people found weaker and unnecessary, but that I liked quite a bit.

It is a lighter episode featuring a Miles back story and the pairing of Miles with Hurley.  Hurley episodes may not tie directly into the bigger story going on, but that does not mean that they are not rousingly entertaining.

This episode conformed that Miles is the adult son version of Pierre Chang, aka Dr. Marvin Candle from the orientation videos.  Miles believed that his father never cared about him and that he dumped him and his mother when he was just a child. This is true, but, with some of the evidence shown in this episode (specifically Pierre reading to little baby Miles), it would not be out of the question that Pierre sent his family away because he had knowledge of what was going to happen and wanted them safe.

Any time Miles and Hurley were together in the Dharma van, the dialogue really popped and the connection was obvious.  Yes, Miles was yet another character with daddy issues, but that does not mean that he is not a worthwhile character.

I really enjoyed the banter between Miles and Hurley when they were comparing notes about talking to dead people.  Hurley claiming that Miles is just jealous because Hurley’s power was batter than is was a hoot.

Then there was the fact that Pierre Chang was really enjoying his conversation with Hurley even though he was desperately trying to keep his composure.  Those very slight smiles Pierre had showed how much he was enjoying Hurley.  I mean… everybody loves Hurley.

Hurley’s constant allusions to the Star Wars universe was also fun.  Comparing Miles to Luke Skywalker and Pierre to Vader actually does work somewhat.  The idea that Hurley wanted to re-write The Empire Strikes Back is very funny.  Ewoks suck, dude.

Hurley is so wise.

The scene where Pierre comes out and see Miles and said, “Miles, I need you” and Miles responded with “You do?” was emotionally strong.  You could hear in those two words how much Miles needed to hear those words from his father. Yes, Pierre did not mean them in that context, but it peeled back a layer on Miles and showed just how much getting to know his father could mean to him.

And then, there was Daniel Faraday back on the sub.  I was thinking that he was the person who designed the Lamppost in LA.  Chang said the sub had scientists back from Ann Arbor, which was where the DaGroots were from  makes one wonder if Faraday was at the heart of a lot of the research for the Dharma Initiative.

Things are going to get hairy moving forward.

Ben is judged for his actions by the Smoke Monster beneath the wall that hid the Other’s Temple.  Lots of Island mythology involved here, as this chamber where the Smoke Monster inhabited was filled with hieroglyphics and imagery.  Oh, and judgement.

Ben was led to this location by John Locke, who, in opposition to the episode’s title, does not seem dead.  Ben and Locke have switched places from earlier seasons where Ben had the answers and John was blindly following with the hope of picking up any tidbit of knowledge he could.

Ben was judged by the Smoke Monster, and then put in his place by the Monster in the form of Alex.  Alex pinned Ben against the wall and told him that she knew he was already planning to kill John, but he will not touch him at all.  He will follow every word Locke said.  Alex’s ferocity revealed that this was not the same little girl who feared her father and anted to get away from him so she could be with Karl.

We have also seen a weakness in Ben.  Children.  We had a chance to see him abduct Alex from Danielle in a flashback.  He was sent originally to kill the woman, but when he discovered the baby, Ben chose to leave her alive.

Later, Ben approached Penny with the intention of killing her to get back at Charles Widmore.  He had already shot Desmond and was approaching Penny when little Charlie came out from below deck on Our Mutual Friend, Penny’s boat.  The arrival of charlie stopped Ben and made him reconsider the course of action.  Desmond, who was shot but far from dead, jumped Ben and beat the bloody hell out of him, dumping him in the water.

Why does Ben pause when there are kids near?  Could it have to do with his own childhood, where he grew up without a mother and an abusive father?  He does not want to put another child through the same loss?  Or maybe it has to do with the fact that subconsciously Ben remembers being shot as a child and could not bring himself to inflict the same kind of pain on another child, knowing that he would have had to eliminate the baby and Charlie as well.

It was possible that baby Alex was just one way to try and make Charles Widmore look bad.  I would expect that Ben was already plotting against Charles at this point in history and that he believed calling Charles out as a baby killer in front of the Others would help get rid of the man.

Ben has a new mission.  To follow John Locke or to die.  But let’s never doubt that Ben Linus has a plan to turn things in his favor.  Maybe it will have something to do with the line that Ilana asked Frank:

“What is found in the shadow of the statue?”

Faraday’s rules come back in this episode that seems to really put them to the test.

The best part of this episode is clearly the conversations between Hurley and Miles regarding time travel and its effects or lack there of.  Hurley, pulling his physics and philosophy from Back to the Future, still winds up stumping Miles with his questions.  This scene showed the great comedic pairing that Hurley and Miles could be, previewing what we will get later in the season.

Otherwise, we find out what happened with Kate and Aaron and why she decided to come back to the Island.  Everything with Kate makes a whole lot of sense and turns out to be the simplest of answers.  She took Aaron back to his grandmother, Carole, and she told her the truth about Aaron’s parentage and the Island.

Kate also told Carole that she was going back to the Island in order to find Claire.

Kate is able to admit to herself that she kept Aaron as her own because she needed him because of what she had lost.  Her con artist friend Cassidy (the mother of Sawyer’s daughter) was able to help Kate come to that conclusion.  Cassidy and Kate formed a solid bond with one another and their friendship was another strong bit of this episode.

Kate no longer feels the need to run away from everything.  Aaron helped her realize that her feelings for Sawyer were stronger than she thought they were and she needed to deal with that.  Of course, she dealt with that by immediately going to Jack and having sex with him.

Jack, on the other hand, has changed a lot since returning to the Isalnd.  Jack’s refusal to help the dying young Ben did not seem in character for him.  Sure, Jack hated Ben and Ben will cause Jack nothing but trouble and pain, but, going back to the time travel theory, all of that pain has already happened, so it happened.  There is no changing that.  Jack has accepted that and believed that he did not have to save Ben because the Island would not let him die.  He has taken his place as the man of faith.  By doing so, he is pushing Kate away from him.

Ben is saved by Richard who takes the boy into the Temple and told Kate and Sawyer that Ben would not remember any of this.  It feels too easy of a resolution but I suppose it is what had to be done.  The end comes with adult Ben waking up to see alive John sitting over top of him, welcoming him back into the land of the living.

The character of Sayid has gone down quite a dark path since we met him on the beach.  Even though he was a torturer in the Gulf War for the Iraqis and he had done things that he regretted in that job, Sayid Jarrah felt like a good man.

After “He’s Our You,” that case is a much more difficult one to make.

Sayid believed that he figured out what the purpose was for him to return to the Island.  It initially seemed like fate, because, to Sayid, he was grabbed by a bounty hunter who was returning him to Guam to face justice for the murder the man on the golf course at the beginning of the “Economist.”  That was why he was on the same flight as Kate, Hurley, Jack and Sun.  And Ben.

You could see Sayid knew he was screwed. He tried to get Ilana to change flights, but she refused.  Then, when he wound up in a Dharma jail cell with a 12-year old Benjamin Linus bringing him sandwiches, Sayid knew what date was telling him.

He had to kill Ben.

The old time travel problem of “would you kill baby Hitler” falls into play here.  Sayid sees Ben as one of the most evil men he has met, even going as far as to lay genocide at his feet.  Sayid has to believe that if he killed Ben before the kid has a chance to become the mass murderer that he does become, that the world will be a better place.

For a minute, I thought that Sayid was going to change his tune.  When he saw young Ben getting manhandled by Ben’s father Roger, Sayid stood as if he wanted to intervene on behalf of the boy.  Maybe he could take the boy under his wing and change his attitude in that manner.

No.  Not this Sayid, who has convinced himself, mainly thanks to older Ben’s manipulations, that he is a bad man, and who was a born killer.  So, once free and on the run with young Ben, Sayid shoots him.

Of course, Faraday told us that whatever happened, happened.

Of all the characters on the show, Sayid has taken the darkest turn since we met him. He is a long way from saving.

Who was president of the United States in 1977?  Hurley wondered this.  One of many time travel questions someone from the future may ask.

In “Namaste,” Sawyer, known here as James LaFleur, has integrated Jack, Hurley and Kate into the Dharma Initiative after they arrived on a plane.  However, the plane itself was not in 1977. It was in present day as Sun, Ben and Lapidus wound up crash landing on the runway built during the beginning of season three.  It is a cool throw back to a previous question and it makes one wonder if the writers had the plan for this runway use back when they had it in season three.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t all wonderful for the passengers of Ajira 316.  Frank’s co-pilot took a tree branch through the chest.  Ben took an oar in the face from Sun, which knocked him out and allowed Sun to steal the boat to go back to the Island.  And Sayid wound up in 1977, but gets caught and mistaken for a “Hostile.”

Sawyer is able to manipulate things to get Sayid moved to the barracks, but he is still not sure what they are going to do.

We see a bunch of appearances…

Christian… shows Sun that Kate, Hurley and Jack are in a photo of new recruits from 1977 Dharma Initiative.  We heard the Monster sound before Christian showed up so it is possible that he is the Smoke Monster.

Radzinsky.  This is the name that Desmond gave for the Swan partner of Kelvin before Desmond arrived.  Radzinsky wound up killing himself in the Swan.

Pierre Chang.  aka Dr. Marvin Candle.  aka Dr. Halliwax.  The face of the Dharma Initiative orientation video is here and is a scientist on the Island.

Ethan.  The baby that Amy gave birth to… she and Horace named Ethan, who would grow up to become an Other and hang Charlie from a tree.

Ben.  Young Ben from “The Man Behind the Curtain” brought captive Sayid a sandwich, which is also ironic considering what happens to a captive Ben at the hands of Sayid in the future.

Jack is getting a clear picture of Jim LaFleur, who is different than the old Sawyer.  However, LaFleur did slip back into old habits when dealing with Jack and the others.  For now it seemed that Jack is happy to let LaFleur handle everything.  How long will that last?

1974.  Sawyer, Jin, Juliet, Miles and Daniel are stuck int he past and find their way to the Dharma Initiative.

Before we look at 1974, let’s mention the statue.  The last flash we got before Locke turned the donkey wheel and reset the time was of the back of a gigantic statue on the beach.  It looked Egyptian for certain and I know the existence of this statue caused much debate on the Internet about what the statue represented, who built it and what purpose did it serve?  I do know that the statue was not Anubis, as speculated, but instead Taweret, the Egyptian goddess of protection, birth and fertility.  The remains of the statue, a four toed foot, was seen by Sayid, Jin and Sun as they were sailing Desmond’s boat in “Live Together, Die Alone”.

Enough of the statue, the Island settled in 1974, leaving Sawyer and the group stranded, although they do not know when they are yet.  As they are moving across the Island, they came across a woman being grabbed by two men, and having a hood thrown over her head.  Sawyer and Juliet came to the rescue and killed the two men.  The woman, Amy, was panicked because of the “truce” and insisted that they bury the bodies.

On the way back to her home, they stopped at the sonic fence.  Amy tricked them into thinking it was off, and captured the whole group.  Sawyer woke up before Horace Goodspeed.

Sawyer used his con skills to invent a story about his ship wrecking in a storm and the five of them washed ashore.  He called himself James LaFleur.  Horace said they could leave on the sub tomorrow, but James wanted to stay longer to “find the rest of their crew” meaning he was hoping Locke would come back.

Sawyer, the same man who conned the camp so he could get the guns and who seemed to care for no one, has really changed his tune.  He had found a group of people he cared about and he would do, apparently, anything to help them.  Quite a different man.

Richard Alpert arrived at the Others barracks wanting to know where his men were, and ready to wreck things up over the supposed breaking of the truce, James came out and hit Richard with the truth.  He asked about Jughead.  He asked if he remembered John Locke limping into his camp 20 year ago and then vanishing.  James told Richard about killing his men and that he was not a member of the Dharma Initiative so the truce had not been broken.

Sawyer showed himself as a leader at this point, something he was never anxious to do with the Oceanic 815 group, especially with Jack & Sayid around.  He convinced Juliet to stay for two weeks and three years later, James and Juliet were in love and living together in New Otherton.

So when Jack, Hurley and Kate arrived, their presence threatened everyone’s happiness.

We also saw Amy, 3 years later, give birth to Horace’s son… if I remember correctly, the baby turned out to be Ethan Rom.

This started a healthy run of episodes with the Dharma Initiative where we learn more about that group and about the Incident that r. Candle spoke about on the Swan Orientation tape.

This one is a tough episode.

One of my all time favorite characters is John Locke and to see him broken down, manipulated to the point that he was ready to hang himself was rough.  To see Ben Linus talk him down from his perch was awesome, until Ben decided that he did not need John any more and strangled him to death.

It is an inglorious end to a fantastic character.  One that makes John Locke truly one of the most tragic characters on television.

John was a man who was always looking for the place where he could feel he belonged.  Given up by his mother, winding up in foster care, John wanted to feel that he was special.  At one point in his life, he could have had it all.  He was in love with Helen and she loved him back.  However, John’s obsessions, at this point with his father’s cruelty, cost him everything:  Helen, his ability to walk, his self-image.

But when John Locke stood up on his own feet on the Island, he knew this was a place where he was meant to be.  A man of faith, believing desperately that destiny had brought him to the Island for a greater fate.  Unfortunately, it was all just a way to manipulate the sad and pathetic man in a giant game of chess.  Maybe backgammon.

Seeing John on the edge was difficult, but when Ben showed up, there was hope.  I knew that John was in that coffin, but I had held out hope that something else would happen.  Maybe it wasn’t John after all.  And Ben talked him down.  Locke did not want to die.  He desperately wanted to be relevant.  To be important.  Special.

As soon as John told Ben that they had to go see Eloise Hawkins, he became expendable.  A pawn sacrificed for the greater good.

Then, ironically, John took Christian’s place on the Ajira 316, and then on the Island as well.

This episode once again blurs the lines between good and evil.  Charles Widmore appeared to be a nice man who cared about the Island and helping John out.  Ben was the same way.  It is very possible that neither of these two men are a hero.  That they are equally evil men, in a struggle for power.

It is a shame, because the Island could have used John as a protector and a leader, but he was manipulated off the Island and into the coffin.

A second character that seemed to be a total waste was Matthew Abaddon, who gets shot and killed by Ben in this episode.  Abaddon appeared to be important early in the flash forwards but he turned out to be John’s driver.  That kind of echos the main story of Jeremy Bentham as well.