Whatever Happened, Happened

So “Whatever Happened, Happened”...Interesting episode. Most of the ‘interesting’ came in the second half of the episode. The ending was superb…we finally learn that it was not a writing erro - when Ben said that he was born on the island. Whatever the methods, Ben will be 'reborn'in the Temple, where Richard takes him. Richard says to Kate and Sawyer that Ben ‘would not remember any of this’.

So – Ben gets rehabilitated. Somehow, he eventually makes his way back to the Dharma Initiative. He goes there with the instructions from Richard as to how to kill the DI'ers. Yet - his father seemed to have trusted - or at least not doubted him - in the van ride they took right before Ben unleashed the poison gas.

On Top of Ol' Smokey

It would seem that we now know a lot more about Smokey. From seeing Smokey try to pull Locke into one of it's vents, as well as Rousseau's team, and now we know that it will 'reprogram' Ben, we understand the nature of Smokey as a defense mechanism. Smokey 'reprograms' you. So - we now know why certain people were on the lists, and certain people weren't. They were candidates for reprogramming. We don't yet know much about what the reporgramming pre-requirements are, but the question then begs itself: who has been 'reprogrammed'? Has Juliet, as one of the Others?

Juliet claimed to Kate that the Others didn't know exactly what Smokey was, just that it did not like the sound barrier/security fence. Hmmm...do they really not know (could be that this was a Ben Linus/Richard/Jacob secret) could it be that Juliet was lying?

There are theories all over the net that clues (in Lost Xbox game, those interactive in-between-seasons-online-spiels, and even on the map Radzinski painted on the hatch door) is that Smokey is referred to as 'Cerebrus', and the vents through which it moves are called 'Cerebrus Vents', or CV. Hence, there are a couple of places on the map that are listed as CV I, CVII, etc.

Kate

I am really getting annoyed with Kate. If there is an opportunity for her to screw something up, she’ll do it. I really liked how Sawyer put everything in perspective by saying “whoever this kid turns out to be in twenty five years, it’s still wrong to let a kid die.”

I was not surprised that Kate spilled the beans to both Cassidy and Mrs. Benton. I was annoyed, but not surprised. If the show has a theme of dealing with your issues, Kate is the one major character who has yet to do so. She is always running from something. Here, she was ‘running’ from the plan that she and the others committed to.

Jack has dealt with his issues of needing to fix everything. That's a welcome respite and development. Kate said ‘she didn’t like the new Jack’. Well, this is the new and improved Jack. By refusing to treat Ben, he affirms that his need to fix has its limits.

In the conversation between Myles and Hurley (a bit trite, but still neat, no?), we hear the reference to Back to the Future.

Something that many people who have seen BTTF think at some point is – ‘if I had access to the DeLorean, would I go back in time and kill Hitler, et al, before he had a chance to do anything? Well, here, Jack says yes.

I loved the shot of Hurley trying to see if his hand was disapearing, a la Marty McFly.

And it’s not that he is doing something for personal benefit…He’s not getting Gray’s Sports Almanac and betting on results like Biff Tannen. He’s simply not willing to be an active and willing participant in saving someone he knew would grow up to be a tyrant.

Questions

Where does the poison gas Ben uses in the purge come from? Did it belong originally to the army unit stationed on the island in the 1950s and experimenting with Jughead?

What happened to the army unit? At least now we know how Goodwin got that army knife that Ana Lucia identified as an older style army knife right before she and Goodwin fought (to his death).

Next Week

In the preview for next week’s episode, we see Ben Linus with his gun drawn, walking up a dock. That is no doubt how he will kill Penny. However, I think that the show/writers are too smart for the story to play out exactly as how everyone surmises and extrapolates.