We start out with Jack’s eyes opening, just like the pilot episode.  Nice touch since they were back on the Island.

Jack immediately started out to rescue people as Hurley was yelling for help.  It’s like Jack is right back in his nature.

This episode was really about Jack and his own personal journey to this point in his life. Kate, Sayid, Hurley arrived at the new plane, the plane that Ms. Hawkins told them that they had to be on in order to get back to the Island, without any explanation.  Those stories are for future flashbacks/forwards.

Jack had to be able to accept everything in order to be in a place to get back.  Ms. Hawkins gave him a strange job, Jack visited his granddad and received some wisdom, and Jack had to read Locke’s suicide note.  It was all a way to give up what he was before in order to start again on the Island.

It was a way for Jack to transform himself from man of science to man of faith.

Ajira Airways Flight 316 was the flight that Ms. Hawkins said they had to be on and they had to recreate the original flight (815) as closely as they could.  Destiny was playing a part here as well as Sayid was arrested and being escorted by what looked like some kind of agent (although we know she is not).   Hurley showed bu and bought out the remaining 77 seats on the flight, preventing a bunch of innocent bystanders from getting on the plane.  I really liked that part as it fits very much into Hurley’s character.

And flying the plane happened to be Frank Lapidus.  His line of “This plane isn’t going to Guam” after seeing the Oceanic 6 onboard was great.

As the turbulence hit, there was a white flash much like the time shifts and Jack, Hurley and Kate wound up in water on the Island.  The rest of the plane was nowhere to be seen.  Then, shockingly, driving up in a Dharma Initiative van, dressed in a Dharma jump suit, was Jin.

Lots of areas where we need to see what happened and how things wound up where they wound up.

There was a lot of things that happened here…maybe too much.  Danielle’s back story was over in five minutes as we saw her team being “infected” by the Smoke Monster at what appeared to be the mysterious Temple that Ben spoke of awhile ago.

Charlotte dies from the flashes.  It was sad, but it wasn’t because of Charlotte’s death.  She wasn’t here enough to make me care for her.  It was more of the pain that was on the face of Daniel Faraday that brought the sadness.  I have been able to connect to Faraday and Miles, but Charlotte had always been secretive and snarly so I did not feel as much for her.  She did reveal that she had been raised on the Island with the Dharma Initiative until a weird man told her and her mother to leave the Island and never to come back or she would die.  Charlotte thought that man was Faraday.

Charlotte told John to look for the well, if the Orchid wasn’t there went they arrived (because of time shifts).  Sure enough, the Orchid disappeared.  John found the well and started climbing down went another flash caused John to fall and break his leg.  The well disappeared leaving Sawyer, Juliet, Jin and Miles alone.  Jin had made John promise he would not bring Sun back to the Island because of Charlotte’s warning that “This place is death.”

Once down in the area, John was led to the donkey wheel by Christian.  Christian confirmed what Richard had told him… that he was going to have to die.  John turned the wheel and the light happened again.

In the flash forward, not too much happened.  Sayid and Kate left angry.  Sun wanted proof of Jin not being dead.  Ben took her and Jack to Ms. Hawkins.  Desmond showed up as well.  She indicated that she was ready to tell them how to return to the Island.

Jin is alive!

And he’s with a young Danielle Rousseau and the rest of her ill-fated French science team.

This is the second time Jin was caught in an explosion and floated back to the Island.

Apparently, Jin had been caught in the same time flash as the rest still on the Island.  Unfortunately for them, their brains seemed to be going all wonky from the flashes.  Daniel hypothesized that the longer you have been exposed to the Island, the worse the symptoms become.  What started as nose bleeds become worse as you flash.

Charlotte had passed out once, perhaps her mind was time traveling at that time.  Miles and Juliet have also shown the nose bleeds.  Why Charlotte and Miles are being affected ahead of the others is still unknown.

I love this time travel flashes.  It allows us as viewers a chance to see some of the key moments of the Island without just hearing about it.  Sawyer witnessing Kate helping Claire give birth was jarring for him, but an amazing scene for us.  We get to know more about Danielle.  Last episode we met an earlier version of the Others including a couple of characters that will become more important.  It is a cool storytelling technique.

And Sawyer’s reaction to the flash when they were on the outrigger being chased and shot at by the mysterious group was brilliant.

A chunk of this episode dealt with the flash forward, specifically who had sent the lawyer to Kate’s for a blood sample.  Who knows that Aaron is not Kate’s son?

There is a misdirection that makes us think that Claire’s mother is the one, but she is still in the dark.

It isn’t hard to figure out that it was Ben doing this.  It felt like his slimy maneuver from the start.  When Kate confronted him, his admission of guilt and his “sorry” was classic Ben.

Ben should be aware because Sun has a gun and is ready to make him pay for Jin’s “death.”

More time travel and some Desmond and Penny goodness.  What more could you need in an episode of LOST?  Well, how about an atomic bomb?

We started with a flashback to Penny giving birth to Desmond’s son…Charlie.  I swear, everything with Penny and Desmond is perfection.  Even their fights are bloody perfect.

Present day- Desmond arrived in Great Britain.  Desmond telling young Charlie about the wonderful Scotland was as charming as you would expect it to be.  Penny worried about her father, but Desmond comforted her.  It had nothing to do with Charles Widmore, he said. He was wrong about that.

Desmond went to Oxford only to find out that Faraday never worked there…*wink*.  In fact, he had been removed from the college because of what he had done to a girl.  Desmond went to see her too only to find her in the mind time travel as he encountered in The Constant.  He did find out that Charles Widmore had funded Faraday’s research for ten years.

So Desmond stormed into Charles’ office to confront him.  He demanded to know where Daniel Faraday’s mother was.  Charles told him she was in LA.

Desmond went back to the boat and told Penny Faraday’s mother was dead, but Penny knew he was lying immediately.  Desmond told her that Faraday’s mother was in LA, but he was done.  He had promised that this would only take one day and he was done.  Penny knew Desmond would not be able to let this go.  She knows the kind of man Desmond was so she and Charlie are just going to have to go with him.

Desmond and Penny are so awesome.  They are truly the heart of this show.  I remember watching originally and fearing that something was going to happen to Penny.  We know that Ben was after her.  Just the thought of Penny being killed was unacceptable.

On the Island it is 1954 and Daniel, Charlotte and Miles have been captured by the ’54 team of the Others.  They bring them to Richard Alpert, looking just like he always does.  Richard thought they were with the US Military and had attacked the Others last week.  Daniel mentioned the bomb.

There was an A-bomb on the Island and it was causing trouble.  Daniel said he could disarm it.  Richard gave him a chance and Ellie took Daniel to the bomb.  Sawyer and Juliet were able to disarm Ellie, but not before Daniel got a look at the A-Bomb.  The casing is cracked and it is leaking.  Faraday said to bury it with concrete.

John walked right into the Others’ camp calling for Richard, causing everyone to freak out, especially a young Charles Widmore.  John needed information and he tells Richard everything from the future.  John wanted Richard to tell him how to leave the Island because Richard (the future version) told him he had to.  1954 Richard was confused but Locke had given him the compass Richard (the future) had given to Locke and he told Richard (1954) that Locke was going to be born in two years and he could come see him.  Richard does… in “Cabin Fever” during season 4.

The path of that compass is wild.  Let’s see… in 1954, John Locke gives it to Richard.  Richard goes to see young John Locke around 1960ish and asked him which object belonged to John, including the compass.  Then future Richard would give this compass to John Locke, who had just been shot, to give to 1954 Richard so he would believe that Locke was telling the truth.  And we haven’t seen this yet, but there is a reason Richard gave Locke this compass.  That is still to come.

This time travel is being done so well and weaving beautifully in with the narrative going on that it is seamless.

The flash forward becomes the main focus of this episode as Hurley is desperate to get Sayid somewhere to help while the weight of the lie pulled down on Hurley’s shoulders.

We find out that Hurley was the main hold out of the Oceanic 6 where the lie was.  Hurley did not want to lie for the rest of his life and only agreed after everyone else turned on him.  We see how that lie affected Hurley over the next three years.

We also saw Hurley’s “super power” in effect again as he has a conversation with Ana Lucia about what he needed to do.  Hurley has been able to carry on conversations with dead people since returning from the Island.  Ana Lucia was able to give him help and warned him not to get arrested.  That was something that Hugo would not be able to avoid.

Hurley took the unconscious and drugged Sayid to his house where he had his father help hide him.  This led to one of the best lines of the episode, “Why is there a dead Pakistani on my couch?”- Hugo’s mother.

Hurley finally tells his mother the truth about everything and gives a history of the past four seasons in about 30 seconds.  His mother believed him but she did not understand him.

Hurley’s dad had taken Sayid to Jack, who took him to the hospital.  Jack got Sayid to wake up and nearly got choked out for his trouble.

Kate, meanwhile, met up with Sun in LA and Sun brought up how Kate was supposed to have gone for Jin, but she didn’t.  Sun said she did not blame Kate.

On the Island, the group was trying to make a fire and Neal “Frogurt” got shot with a flaming arrow.  Sawyer and Juliet are grabbed by a young man in a uniform and he was going to cut off her hand when Locke arrived to save the day with his flying knives.

The show ended with Ben arriving at what looked like a church in LA that had some kind of weird machine running in the basement.  It was being run by Ms. Hawkins and she told Ben that he only had 70 hours to get all of them ready to go back or “God help us all.”

Season five started off with an episode so fun and enjoyable that I couldn’t believe it was over when it ended.  It felt like it just started.

Time travel started in full this episode. We see Daniel Faraday working on constructing the Orchid station. What?

The time travel of LOST has rules, which is vital in any narrative that is going to use time travel as a story telling technique.  The rules, as told to us by Daniel Faraday himself, is that time is like a stream. You can go forward or you can go back, but you cannot go off on another stream.  One vitally important phrase that will be repeated all season long was uttered by Faraday.  “Whatever happened, happened.”

By setting this rule there is no worries about paradoxes.  No alternate timelines.  Anything that happened, already happened and cannot be changed.

Except for one person.  Desmond Hume.  Faraday was able to speak to Desmond while he was inside the Swan hatch and he told Desmond that he was special.  That the rules did not apply to him.  He was the one person who could help them out.  So if Desmond can change time, maybe that is why Ms. Hawkins was so concerned over Desmond buying that diamond ring in “Flashes Before Your Eyes,” because he could have changed time. Of course, one wonders why he couldn’t save Charlie if that was the case (although technically, he did save Charlie several times).

When Ben turned that donkey wheel at the finale last season, he bumped the Island out of time and the group started flashing through time.  For some reason, it was only the Oceanic 815 survivors and the remaining freighter people who moved in time.  The Island was staying put.  Why that is the case is a big question that I am not sure is ever really answered outside of “that’s what happened.”

So Sawyer, Juliet, Miles, Daniel and Charlotte flashed about the history of the Island. They showed up at the Swan hatch and they saw it blown up, and they saw it fixed.  John Locke witnessed the Nigerian plane with Yemi aboard it crash and he was shot by Ethan Rom.  Later, Richard found Locke and started working on the gunshot wound.  When Locke asked Richard how he knew he was there, Richard said, because told me.  Richard then handed Locke the compass from the episode where Richard went to see little John and ask him which object was “already his.”

With the way this season is going, the writing is vital.  The writers are weaving everything together and we may not know what is important until we see it again.  For example, Richard said that the next time Locke sees him, Richard won’t recognize him.  How does Richard know that?  With a good time travel story, we’ll find out.

Time travel can be difficult to handle in a narrative, but in this manner, LOST has a pretty good handle on it.

In the flash forward world, Kate got a frightening visit from someone wanting blood samples from her and Aaron.  Sayid and Hurley was attacked, forcing Sayid into some super Sayid fighting.  Death by dishwasher was certainly epic.  And Ben and Jack prepared to start recruiting the other Oceanic 6 members.  Meanwhile, Sun was on her way to LA to find and kill Ben Linus.

Season four of LOST was the shortest of the all six of the seasons, but it did not hinder the quality.  In fact, it is arguably the best quality per episode of any of the seasons.

The time travel aspect being introduced would be a huge piece for LOST and will be explored even further in season 5.  Several new and fascinating characters were introduced thanks to the freighter and we had the return of one favorite.

There is amazing performances all season long from Michael Emerson, Terry O’Quinn, Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, Elizabeth Mitchell, Henry Ian Cusick among others.

There were tears of joy and tears of loss and tears of reunion.  All in all it was a great season. Several shows were crippled by the writer’s strike, but LOST just kept on going.

Best Episode: The Constant.  One of the best hours of television on TV ever, The Constant gave us even more reason to hope for that Penny-Desmond reunion.  It was a magical episode.  Runner-Up:  There’s No Place Like Home, Part 2

Best Flashback/forward:  Ji Yeon.  The combination flash forward and flashback was a cool gimmick to keep viewers on their toes.  It is my favorite Sun/Jin flash yet.  Runner-Up:  The Shape of Everything.

Best Performance:  Michael Emerson, The Shape of Everything.  The loss of Ben’s daughter was the moment where everything changed for Ben.  Ben could not believe that Alex wound up dying for his sins because that is not the way the rules were meant to be set.  Runner-Up:  Henry Ian Cusick, The Constant

Biggest Jerk: Martin Keemy.  One of the new characters this year was a heartless, cruel mercenary that did not care whom may be in the way between him and his target Ben.  After all of the shades of grey, a little straight villainy was welcomed.  Runner-Up:  Charles Widmore

Best Death:  Alex.  Didn’t see it coming.  Alex was being used as a hostage to get Ben to come out of the building.  The witness is never killed in that way.  Surely Ben wouldn’t let his daughter die.  When the gunshot rang out, I was as shocked as Ben and this moment fundamentally changed Ben for the remainder of the series.  Runner-Up:  Michael Dawson

Biggest Surprise:  Danielle and Karl are shot and killed.  After so many years, you would think a character such as Danielle Rousseau deserved a better send off, but this showed how cruel Keemy and the other mercenaries were. Runner-Up: John Locke is in the casket

Funniest Moment:  Ben fills the Orchid device with metal as John watches the orientation tape.  John’s expression was perfect as Ben continued to fill up the container with metal despite Dr. Halliwax saying that there should be absolutely no metal inside.  Runner-Up:  Hurley gives Ben a candy bar

Best Moment:  Desmond and Penny’s phone call.  Easily.  Might be the best scene of the series.  It had so much emotion and hope and love that it was remarkable.  And there were two amazing performances from Penny and Desmond.  Runner-Up:  Alex’s death

Most Character Development:  Ben Linus.  Everything changed for Ben and he developed as a character.  It is not necessarily for the better.  Runner-Up:  Michael Dawson

Best New Character:  Miles Straume.  There were several good choices here, but Miles felt like he had the most to do.  Runner-Up: Daniel Faraday

Season 5 is next!  Time Travel to the Dharma Initiative.

Another fantastic finale.

“There’s No Place Like Home, Part 2” was a two-hour finale that brought the season long Oceanic 6 storyline back around to the beginning and showed us everything that happened to get Jack, Sayid, Kate, Sun, Hurley and Aaron back to the real world, and continued to leave us asking questions about exactly what the hell is going on, including especially how did John Locke end up in the coffin?

So much to unpack here.  The season started back where season three ended, with Jack telling Kate that they needed to go back.  However, Kate did not just drive away as we thought.  She responded to this in a fairly negative manner.  Jack is already shaken, but this is the first place the name of Jeremy Bentham is dropped.  That is who is in the casket at the funeral home. Kate did not leave much question about her thoughts about making a return to the Island.

Later at the funeral home, Ben showed up and spooked Jack badly.  Ben said that the Island would not let Jack come back alone.  He had to bring all of them, including the guy in the casket.  The camera panned around and it ended season four with the shot in the casket of Jeremy Bentham…aka John Locke.  We have no idea how John wound up here. let alone dead.  Last we saw Locke, he was arriving at the Others’ camp like a long lost hero.

The other flash forwards all play into the storyline moving ahead into season five.  We see Sun in London, approaching Charles Widmore.  After a few moments of polite conversation, Sun turned on Widmore and wanted him to drop the bull.  He knew who she was and that her story was a lie and she knew who he was.  And she wanted to work together to reach common goals.  It had us wondering about the new attitude for Sun.  Plus, Sayid sneaked into the mental institution where Hurley was staying, after killing a man who had been watching the place for a week.  Sayid wanted Hurley to come with him.  Hurley mentioned that he had been having visitors from dead people for awhile now.  In fact, just before leaving with Sayid, Hurley finished the chess game up saying “Checkmate, Mr. Eko.”

Ben, who ended part 1 captured by Keemy and his men, get a last minute rescue from Kate, Sayid and the Others.  We were treated to the slugfest of Sayid vs. Keemy, a knockdown brawl for sure.  Richard interrupted it by shooting Keemy three times in the back, but someone has to explain to the people of this series that a nice bullet to the head is harder to shrug off.  We’ll see Keemy again later.  As of now, the Others let Kate and Sayid go back to the chopper.

Ben headed to the Orchid where John hasn’t found the elevator yet.  Jack was still there, grumbling his disbelief still.  Ben basically dismissed Jack and sent him off to the helicopter.  John and Ben took the elevator way down into the Orchid.  Once down there, Ben started doing all kinds of things and John was confused.  Ben said that Jacob told John what had to be done but he did not tell him how because Jacob wanted Ben to suffer the consequences.  If you move the Island, you cannot return to the Island.  Ben gives John another orientation tape with Pierre Chang, under the name Dr. Edgar Halliwax.  This station is about time travel.  Halliwax said that under no circumstances are you to put any metal into the chamber. As John is watching, Ben is loading the chamber up with all the metal he could.  Before they can do anything, the elevator starts coming down.

Meanwhile, on the freighter, Michael had come up with an idea to use liquid nitrogen to freeze the battery so that it cannot give off the charge when the signal comes in. They only have one canister so they had better figure something out.  The wiring was too complex for Desmond’s limited knowledge from the army.

Back in the Orchid, the elevator held Keemy, still alive and looking for Ben.  Keemy said he had a “dead man’s trigger” on him that if his heart stops beating, the boat would explode.  John tried to talk him down, but Ben sprung from out of the shadows with a knife, stabbing him several times in the throat while yelling “you killed my daughter.”  Ben anguish was clear, but John, trying to keep Keemy alive, said to Ben that he had killed everyone on the boat.  Ben responded with a “so.”

The helicopter had taken off from the Island with Jack, Sawyer, Hurley, Kate and Sayid, but there was a bullet hole in the copter’s tank, so they had to dump whatever loose weight they could.  After they were done, Frank said he would like it if they had another 200 pounds or so.  Sawyer whispered something to Kate, making her promise to do it and then he jumped out of the helicopter.  Sawyer started to swim back to the Island.

Despite Locke’s efforts, Keemy died, and the red light on the C4 on the boat went on.  It did not explode, but Michael realized it was just a matter of time as they were almost out of liquid nitrogen.  He told Jin to get out of there and go be with Sun and their baby.  This was Michael’s redemption as he continue to freeze the battery.

As the copter was returning to the freighter, Desmond was trying to signal for the helicopter not to land, yelling that there was a bomb.  Frank had to set it down, covered the hole with duct tape as they began to get ready to fly again.  They got some gas and they grabbed Desmond, Sun and Aaron.  Jack made Kate get on and they took off.  Jin came running out too late as the copter was already in the air.  The boat exploded.  Sun screamed bloody murder as she looked down begging to go back for Jin, but Jack finally stopped her by saying that he was gone.  The helicopter turned to fly them back to the Island.

Ben tells Locke to go and be the leader.  He blew a hole in the chamber and climbed through a tunnel down to what looked like an ancient donkey wheel.  It was frozen and cold in this place.  Ben started working on getting the wheel to turn.  He is all dressed up like he was when he appeared in Tunisia in the episode “The Shape of Everything” which must occur immediately after he finished turning the wheel.

As it turned, everything began to rumble and glow and the Island disappeared.  Frank, who had the Island in his sights dis not understand what happened. The helicopter ran out of gas and crashed int he water.  They got a raft from the copter and they all were able to survive and swim to the raft.  Jack still denied that Locke was able to move the Island, but Hurley basically said, you got another explanation?  Not too long after this, a spotlight was shown on the raft and they saw a boat.  They were excited, but Jack, repeating something that Locke had told him, said they were going to have to lie about where they were.  It was the only way that they could protect those who stayed behind on the Island (Sawyer, Claire, Juliet, Rose, Bernard etc).  They did not like the idea but eventually agreed.

Surprise, surprise.  The boat that had found them belonged to Penny, and she was there.  She and Desmond had a wonderful reunion, one of the best moments of the episode.  Penny had traced Desmond’s phone call and had an idea of his coordinated and came after him.   Safe on Penny’s ship, the Oceanic 6 story came to fruition.  Desmond stayed with Penny and Frank stayed as well.

There was so much in this two-hour episode that it was packed full.  I did not expect the Penny and Desmond reunion so soon, and I, originally, was very concerned that Desmond would wind up dead since he did not come back with the Oceanic 6.  However, the reuniting with Penny could not have been sweeter.  The Oceanic 6 were all just shocked and dismayed over the events that found them returned to the real world.  Sawyer had swum back to the Island and found Juliet sitting there with some Dharma booze drinking.  He asked her is she was celebrating but she said she was not, pointing out the boat explosion that happened while Sawyer was swimming back.  This is the start of the brilliant relationship between Sawyer and Juliet over the final two seasons.

Things are being set up for the big season finale.

This is the opening salvo of the finale, setting details into motion and putting pieces into place, like on a chess board.

We see how the Oceanic 6 arrived back in the US and was reunited with their family.  It was sad to see no one there for Kate.  They held a press conference where they lied through their teeth for some reason.  Then we saw some clips from their lives.  Sayid and Nadia reunited.  Sun took over controlling interest in her father’s company and stuck it to him.  Jack had his father’s funeral and found out that Claire was his half-sister.  Hugo had a surprise birthday party and those pesky numbers popped up again.

Meanwhile on the Island, the members of the Oceanic 6 all started heading in the general same direction and Faraday started ferrying people from the Island to the freighter.  Sun and Jin were the first to head out, along with Aaron.  Kate had passed Aaron off to Sun and she went after Jack and Sawyer.

Unfortunately for Kate and Sayid, they were captured by the Others, led by Richard.

Sun and Jin saw Michael and questioned him on his working for Ben, but they were interrupted by Desmond who brought them all down to a room where he found a ton of C4 wired to blow.

John, Ben and Hurley arrived at the Orchid and they saw that the mercenaries were already there.  Ben gave instructions to John on what he had to do to move the Island and Ben went ahead to give himself up to the mercs.

The finale is two-hours and split into episodes 13 &14.

Hurley is such a good guy.  Sharing his Apollo bar with Ben.  Now that is sacrifice.

John, Ben and Hugo were in search of Jacob’s ever moving cabin, and it took another weird dream for Locke to find the proper location.  It was a dream featuring the return of Dharma Initiative member Horace Godspeed, who pointed Locke in the proper direction.

Ben was fairly docile most of this episode, but I did not trust that.  Hurley, however, seemed to be forgiving.

When they found the cabin, only John wanted to go inside.  Inside he found Christian and Claire.  Claire was very much acting differently, and, of course we know that, Christian is dead.  Is this the Smoke Monster?  It is not Jacob.  Either way, Christian tells John what he has to do.

Move the Island.  Easy-peasy.

I guess if anyone could do it, it would have to be Locke.  He was special.  In flashbacks this episode, we saw some important points in Locke’s life including when he was born prematurely after his mom was hit by a car.  And there in the hospital stood Richard Alpert, looking no different than he did in the present.  A few years later, Richard visited Locke in his foster home and asked him which of the objects here already belonged to John.  Richard seemed unhappy when John chose the knife.  Richard’s interest in Locke is a fascinating story that will be covered next season.

Martin Keemy.  He is the head mercenary from Widmore’s freighter and it appears that he and his merc buddies (ex Omar) are the real trouble on the freighter.  The captain was a pretty decent fellow in this episode.  Too bad he was short for the world.  Martin Keemy is something that we are not used to on LOST.  He is a villain who is not a shade of grey.  This guy is downright monstrous.  Ben has been our villain for the last year or so, but he has his good moments.  You could even make an argument that he really was the “good guy.”  He certainly believed that he was the good guy in the story.  I am sure that Keemy had absolutely no question that he was the bad guy.  It’s kind of nice to have someone to completely cheer against.

It is why Alex, Karl and Rousseau died at his hand.  He had to be a threat.  In this episode, he showed his strength and his evil to the people on the boat, especially Frank who did not want to fly them back to the Island with the arsenal they were loading up.  Keemy slit the doctor’s throat and threw him overboard (we already knew he was dead last episode) and he shot the captain to death.  He is a bad man and he is coming for Ben.

Thankfully, Frank sees the truth here and is there to help with what he can.

Keemy could not over power the Island though as he tried to execute Michael “Kevin Johnson” Dawson, but Keemy’s gun would not fire when he pulled the trigger.  The Island was not done with Michael yet.

Before his demise, the captain got Sayid the ship’s zodiac raft and Sayid took off for the Island (on the proper bearings) to start moving people to the freighter.  Desmond stayed on the ship saying that he would never step foot on that Island again.

This is an excellent episode that will directly lead us into the two part finale for season 4 (which was shortened by the writer’s strike).

We flash forward this week seeing how Jack and Kate got together, got engaged, and broke apart all in like a day.

Meanwhile, on the Island, Jack needed to have his appendix taken out. Not much concern for whether or not the operation will be successful.  Juliet operates.  Kate holds the mirror so Jack can watch, but they end up knocking Jack out with chloroform.  It just shows Jack’s control issues once again.

Sawyer, Miles, Claire and the baby are on their way back to the beach after leaving Locke, Ben and Hurley.  Sawyer was doing his best big brother imitation when he saw Miles eye balling Claire.  He told Miles that there was a 20-foot restraining order.  It is kind of funny to see how Sawyer has changed over the seasons as well.  It was not that long ago that Sawyer didn’t care anything about Claire.  Last episode, he was running through gunfire to save Claire, pulling her out of the destroyed building and now he is in full protective mode.  Unfortunately, in the middle of the night, Claire is visited on the Island by Christian Shepherd. He has Aaron in his arms and she said, “Dad.”

The next morning, Sawyer wakes up and finds out that Claire is gone.  Miles told him she was with her Dad and they went off into the jungle.  He said he would have followed but there was a restraining order.

We saw Frank Lapidus come across Sawyer’s group and he helped them hide from Keemy.  Each episode goes out of the way to show Frank in a different light than even Faraday, Miles and Charlotte.  Whereas Faraday and Charlotte are always exchanging glances with each other and then obviously lying, and Miles is just obnoxiously straight forward, Lapidus seemed to be a good guy who just wants to help people.  He helped Sayid and Desmond on the boat, was respectful to the other survivors, got Sawyer,Claire and Miles to safety and even helped distract Keemy when Aaron made a baby noise.  Frank is quite a guy and it is easy to like him.

There really wasn’t much to this episode.  Lots of little things but certainly not like last episode did.  It felt like one of those filler episodes that brought a bunch of things to the forefront to prepare for the finale.

And where is Claire?

It is amazing that Ben can literally go from monstrous villain to quasi-hero and back again within the stretch of the episode.  You can identify with Ben only to realize that he had been lying to you the entire time. One second he sounds sincere and the next he is putting the gun to your neck.  He is the most complex character on LOST for sure and Michael Emerson played him with such vigor and layers that you never knew what to expect next.

What a tremendously emotional episode.  There was one point where the truth came from Ben.  It was the moment after the remaining members of John’s group scattered and Ben told John that he had to go say goodby e to his daughter.  At that moment, you saw the real Ben Linus, with true emotion.  The baby girl he took from Danielle and raised as his own, a baby girl who Ben allowed to die because he did not come out from the house.

Of course, Ben believed that Alex was off limits.  He immediately said that he broke the rules.  When Ben said “he”, he meant Charles Widmore.  The pain and disbelief, the shock, was all over Ben’s face. Michael Emerson really was amazing in this episode.  To then take that pain and turn it into straight hatred, Ben showed us all that he can summon the Smoke Monster, and the Smoke Monster came in with a vengeance, which was one of the most amazing scenes of the series.

In the flash forward, we see how Ben can go into the other direction.  He manipulated Sayid in his grief over the death of his wife, Nadia, to become his assassin.  Ben, then, showed up in Widmore’s apartment and threatened to kill Penny, Charles’ daughter.

However, there is less of a question about Widmore, because mere seconds after Ben threatened Penny’s life, Widmore was talking about how the Island was his and that Ben had just stolen it from him.  He did not say anything about Penny, which was the threat that meant the most for me.  Charles was not much of a father, it seemed.

Back to Ben, we see this guy who was introduced to us as a weak, little man captured in a net, but the truth is Ben is a man who uses people for what he wants.  He is a dangerous man, as those two poor Tunisians found out as they found Ben in the Sahara Desert.  He is willing to kill anyone for what he wants.  He is willing to sacrifice anything for what he wants.

With Alex gone, the one remaining tie to humanity Ben had, maybe things will get worse.

One interesting thing that happens on the beach is when the freighter’s doctor washes up on shore with his neck slashed.  When Faraday hooked up a way to communicate with Morse code with the freighter, he asked what happened to the doctor.  The freighter responded, “What do you mean?  The doctor is fine.”  Faraday lied about the message, but, surprise… Bernard knows Morse code and Faraday is caught.

Well, we know that Michael is Ben’s spy on the freighter.  This is how he got there.

There are a lot of weird things introduced in this episode that was very unexpected.  The first thing that comes to mind is that the Island has the power to prevent someone from dying if it is “not through with you.”  The episode showed us this by having Michael try to kill himself twice in New York.

Tom Friendly arrived in NYC to recruit Michael to be Ben’s spy on the freighter.  He showed Michael how Charles Widmore rigged the wreckage that was discovered in the Indian Ocean, which spoke to an unbelievable amount of effort to go to.  Tom told Michael that Widmore intended to kill everyone on the Island and they needed to stop him.

Then, Tom realized that Michael had told Walt about what he had done.  You could see how disgusted Tom was about Michael telling a 10-year old boy that his father was a murderer because he couldn’t handle the grief.  This actually fits right in with the character of Michael as it has always been about him.  Everything that happened was about Michael.  He needed to tell Walt to ease his own conscience not even considering what it would do to Walt.

Even the attempted suicides are more about Michael than anything else.  Michael is not considering how his suicide would affect his son or his mother.  All he can think of is relieving the guilt he feels as an individual.  So when Tom offered him a chance to redeem himself, Michael took it, again not thinking about anyone but himself.  Michael is still one of the biggest assholes on the show.

Sayid certainly agrees as he listened to Michael’s story and promptly turned him in to the ship’s captain a a traitor.  Sayid had been burned by Michael too many times to take a chance now.

Speaking of assholes, we get a little more about Keemy this week.  The end of the episode sees Karl and Danielle shot and apparently dead, as they accompanied Alex to the Temple, which is supposed to be the only safe place on the Island.  Ben insisted that Alex go there and that her mother would keep her safe.  Not so much.  Alex saved herself by crying out that she was Ben’s daughter.

The time line of LOST seemed to be all over the place as it feels like Michael was able to accomplish quite a bit during the short time that he would have been off Island.  I mean, season three did not take that long to progress.  There have been other questions of timing in other flashbacks that if you sit down and really examine where these things fall into line, there would be some big time discrepancies.  I suppose you could make an argument that time on the Island is all wonky and that any chance to align it to the outside world is not useful, but it seems like other times the timing matches up perfectly.  I guess it is just one of those things you have to accept as unexplained.

This is a perfect example of the misdirection that LOST likes to throw at the viewers work brilliantly well.  “Ji Yeon” is both a flash-forward and a flashback and the viewers did not have any idea.

We see A very pregnant Sun start to go into labor and go to the hospital.  We see Jin rushing to the hospital, trying to buy a stuffed panda.  During her difficult labor, Sun was calling for Jin.  It all made perfect sense.

Then it wasn’t .

Jin was rushing to the hospital because a business associate of Mr.Paik had a daughter giving birth and the panda was a way to strike the connection between the businessmen.  Sun was just delirious when wishing for Jin.

Sun is the sixth member of the Oceanic 6- Sayid, Jack, Kate, Aaron, Hurley and Sun.

And we found out that Sun believed that Jin was dead.  Sun and Hurley brought Jin’s newly born daughter Ji Yeon to see his tombstone.

I loved the twist at the end and it was very emotional to hear Sun speak to the tombstone, telling Jin about his daughter who he will ever get a chance to meet.

Back on the Island, Juliet told Jin about Sun’s affair to keep them from going to Locke’s camp.  I remember gasping the first time I saw this and just wanting Juliet to go away.  Sun eventually comes to understand why she did it, but it was just one more strike for me against her,

And on the freighter, we saw a crew member, Regina, wrapped in chains, jump overboard and drown while no one on the ship helped.  It was as if they had seen it happen before, which is a creepy thought.  The Captain told Sayid and Desmond that the ship belonged to Charles Widmore and they met Kevin Johnson…who turned out to be a face they recognized.

Michael.

If I remember correctly, we knew that Harold Perrineau was coming back for season 4 so, when Ben started talking about having a spy on the freighter, most people had made the guess that it was going to be Michael.  But just because it was known, doesn’t make it a bad choice.  Bringing Michael back gave the chance for some final justice.

But that is still ahead of us.

After one of the best episodes of LOST ever (and an hour of television as good as you get), “The Other Woman” is a serious step down into B-level science fiction and craszy stalker level rom-com.

There just seems to be a lot of plot points that are confusing.  Faraday and Charlotte know about a power station on the Island, the Tempest, and are going to do something with the dangerous, killer gas.  They are super secretive and the misdirection is that they are trying to help.  Just…if you are really trying to help and not have ulterior motives, then why not tell people what you are doing?  Why hit Kate over the head and leave her alone in the jungle where Smoke Monsters or polar bears could get her?

And Juliet deserts Jack when they find Kate so she can go on and do what?  She keeps that info to herself as well.  She later tells Jack that Ben had told her to kill both Charlotte and Daniel.  Again, why are you keeping this to yourself?  Might be an important piece of data to know.

The whole Jack-Juliet kiss after this was just out of place.  I still do not trust Juliet and won’t until the past comes along.  Why would Jack?  I never understood the fascination he had with Juliet.

The whole flashback to Otherton with Juliet and Goodwin was fine, though psycho wife was weird, as it was for her to show up at the beginning of the show.  Is she dead and was that the Smoke Monster?  That might make some sense.

Ben whole Stalker routine with Juliet is another thing that has come out of nowhere.  I would have liked some hints about that earlier than this because now it feels a little wrong.  I think a lot of the reactions make sense if you drops some hints earlier, but hey were not there.  The relationship with Goodwin came out of nowhere either.

And why in God’s name would John trust anything Ben has to say?  Hasn’t he learned yet that Ben is a total liar and cannot be trusted at all?  Does anybody really think that file about Charles Widmore was Ben’s last piece of info.  I don’t think so.  Why John consistently lets himself get manipulated by Ben shows a weakness in his own character.  I’m also getting a little tired of despot John as well.