"The Man Behind The Curtain"

WTF? I don't know what else to say that wouldn't get into this week's episode of LOST so....

STOP READING NOW TO AVOID SPOILERS!!!!!

So we finally got to learn about Ben. I had a feeling he wasn't born on the island, but who knew that he had come as part of the Dharma Initiative? I could tell that his dad was going to be Roger Workman though as soon as I heard them talking about assigning jobs. Pretty funny stuff until we learned that Ben killed his own father, although he did have his reasons. This wouldn't be LOST if there was someone without "daddy issues."

I still don't know how old Ben is, but if we assume that the Dharma Initiative started in the late '70s and he seemed to be about 10-years-old at the time, that would make him about forty-five. That seems reasonable enough, but what I really want to know is how old he was when he killed his father as part of the Hostile's purge of the barracks. How long has he been their "leader." Why has he aged but Richard Alpert hasn't changed in the slightest other than his haircut. I found it very interesting that the presumably native Others have been following him for some time now without ever seeing Jacob. What did he do to gain their allegiance? I have a feeling that it was more than simply turning off the fence to allow the Others entrance into the barracks.

I loved how freaked out Ben was by Locke's insistence on meeting Jacob and how the rest of the Others seemed to be pretty much on Locke's side. That is except for Mikhail. He seemed pretty gung-ho about invading the Losties camp to get their satellite phone ASAP. Ben was equally shocked that a parachutist had gotten onto the island and that a ship was so close. Nevertheless, Ben took Locke to meet Jacob and boy was that creepy. Roxi and I were watching on a delay with Tivo and after that scene we re-watched in slow motion because I could have sworn that I saw a third person in that room at two different times. Upon review, the first instance turned out to be a weird angle of Locke's face, but the second proved to be a quick but very disturbing figure in the rocking chair. He (?) appeared to have long, stringy hair and was wearing very drabby clothes. And what did he tell Locke? "Help me..." What does it all mean?

Of course nothing could prepare me for how Locke's part of the episode ended. Initially I was very surprised by Ben shooting Locke at the mass grave of the Dharma people, but upon reflection, it makes sense. Ben is so threatened by Locke that he would resort to killing him despite his claims that he wouldn't kill anyone (although I always knew he was lying about that). So we are left wondering Locke's fate and to be honest, I don't think we will be seeing Locke again this season. I suspect that he will survive, but that we won't find out how or why until next season. But wasn't it pretty cool to see how freaked out that Ben was to learn what Jacob told Locke?

Meanwhile in the Losties camp, Sawyer and Sayid confronted Juliet about the tape. Of course she then had the Losties listen to Ben's return message and sort of cleared herself a little with Jack's help. I don't like how smug she and Jack were about it though. Why shouldn't the rest of the Losties distrust the two of them if they are going to keep this kind of stuff secret. So we will be gearing up for a war in the season finale, but not before we have one more story about Charlie and seeing how things have been going for our oldest characters lately, I have to really wonder if he will live to see Season 4. But alas we will have to wait a week for that.

Before I close out this post though, this episode has raised a couple of big questions in my mind that go all the way back to the Season 2 finale. When Desmond first arrived on the island, he was brought to the Swan Station by Kelvin Inman. In one of Desmond's flashbacks, Kelvin claimed to be a Dharma employee and was recruited after the Gulf War. He also referred to the natives as Hostiles. As mentioned earlier, we don't exactly know when the Others killed the Dharma people, but it would seem to have been longer ago than the earlier '90s. So who really recruited Kelvin? Was it Dharma or was it Mittelos Bioscience under the guise of Dharma? If it was actually Dharma, there is an outside chance that Kelvin was unaware of the purge, but more than likely, he was recruited by Mittelos. If that is the case, he would almost surely have met Ben and know a thing or two about him. Even if he were working with the Others, he might have hidden his discovery of Desmond from them.

We know from last season and this season that not only was the Swan Station being monitored in the Pearl Station, we also had a scene in which Ben and Juliet specifically went to the Pearl to watch Jack. Going back to Kelvin and Desmond, I don't know how long Kelvin could have kept his secret if for no other reason than the camera in the Swan. Certainly after Kelvin was killed (?), Ben and the Others would have seen Desmond punching in the numbers. So this leads me to my point: Presuming the Others know about Desmond, how much do they know and has he ever had any direct contact with them? I have always found Desmond to be very trustworthy, but I have to wonder if he might be involved in some way. I definitely think he wants off the island or else why wouldn't have kept his sailboat repairs secret (as Kelvin had before him). I almost feel like he is similar to Juliet in that he will do almost anything to get off the island (including letting Charlie die!?!), not to mention that he and Juliet arrived on the island at approximately the same time albeit by very different means.

So what's the point of all this? I'm not sure really but it does seem sort of suspicious given what we have learned about the Dharma Initiative tonight. I can't wait to find out more, but the clock is really ticking on this season and I fear that many of these new and/or lingering questions will continue to hang around for a long time.

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