The Variable

We start off with Farraday telling Jack that his mother - Eloise - was wrong...they don't belong back there at all. Bummer - all the effort and motivation of the last two seasons...and they don't belong there???

We go to the Orchid, where Daniel interacts with Pierre. We have seen a brief clip of Farraday here before in an earlier episode, and now understand the fuller meaning. He begs Pierre to evacuate the island, because the energy released at the Swan will be 30,000 times more powerful than the energy at the Orchid. He reveals to Pierre that he is from the future, and that Myles - is his son!

In a flashback, we see Eloise taking Daniel out for lunch after graduation. After revealing to her that the man who gave him a grant is 'some industrialist...Charles Widmore', she gives him his gift - a journal. She gives him the very journal that he will keep all his time-travel, etc., notes in.

We cut to Daniel crying at the sight of Oceanic 815 at the bottom of the ocean. He is then, overwrought, visited by none other than Charles Widmore. This scene could have been cheesy, but - the actor playing Daniel Farraday did it quite well. He is also distrought over what happened to his assistant Teresa, (also his girlfriend) who was incapacitated by the experiment he was testing (which we saw back in The Constant). Apparently, Daniel has gone through the experiment to some extent as well. Charles tells him that going to the island with his team will heal his mind.

We see a very touching moment with Farraday talking to a very young Charlotte. Charlotte had earlier alluded to this scenario. There was a little fadichah when the writers did not match up Charlotte's age as told by Ben with the year in which she appears here. But - none the worse for wear. Farraday scares the living daylights out of her and begs her to leave with her mother.

Another eerily touching moment when Farraday talks to his mother Eloise, and agrees to go on Widmore's mission when she confirms that going to the island will make her proud of him.

I won't go into the casuality issues, i.e. - this is our present, any one of us can die. But suffice it to say - major implications for how the show will progress.

We later hear from Farraday that he spent so much time focusing on the constants, that he forgot about the variables - human choice. He reveals that his plan - which will eliminate the future where Oceanic 815 crashes - is to detonate a hydrogen bomb at the Swan. The bomb would be Jughead.

Penny's ttalk with Eloise was interesting. She admits that she does not know what is going to happen next. Join the club, Elli!

Penny is fine. Desmond is recvovering. The rest of the blogging world must be going crazy - everyone has been suspecting that Ben had killed Penny, and maybe Desmond and Charlie too. Yet it all worked out.

Now - we see Eloise and Charles! We find out that Charles is Daniel's father. That means that Daniel and Penny are at least step-siblings. Question is - who is Penny's mother? Who is the outsider that Charles Widore had a child with?

Daniel walks down into the Hostiles' camp and speaks with Richard...and is shot by his own mother! With his dying breath, he says to her - 'you knew!' Eloise was aware, during Daniel's entire life, that it was his destiny to be killed...by her!!! The conversation earlier between the two when she says that she would be proud of him for going to the island takes on a whole new darkness...

Some Like It Hoth

This episode begins with Myles as a child first being able to use his 'sixth sense' of contacting the deceased. We get to see his mother, who we only saw briefly with her husband 'Pierre Chang'.

We then see him try to talk to the man who was seemingly shot in the head, and given to him to transport by Radzinsky. We later learn that this guy's dental filling went through his head - pulled, no doubt, by the magnetism at the Swan!

Jump to a later point in Myles' life - he's at the bedside of his mother, who is ill with cancer and seems to be treated with radiation and chemo. He presses her to reveal to him why he is the way he is, and who his father is.

She lets him know that his father is dead. So - how did Pierre Chang/whatever his real name is die? When he asks about his father's body, his mother replies that it is somewhere he can never go. So - we know he died on the island!

We learn the reason why the titles is - Some Like It Hoth...Hurley is writing the script for The Empire Strikes Back. For those who aren't familiar with the details, the film starts out on the ice planet of Hoth! Later, while talking to Myles about his daddy-issues, he says "That was Luke's attitude too...in empire, when Luke found out that Vader was his father, instead of putting his saber away and talking about it, he overreacted and got his hand cut off. I mean they worked it out eventually, but at what cost? Another death star was destroyed, Boba Fett got eaten by the sarlac, and we got the ewoks. It all could have been avoided if they would have just you know, communicated . And let's face it, the Ewoks suck, dude." Except for the fact that I like the Ewoks (yub-nub), brilliant!

We see Miles backstory, including him wrestling with whether or not to reveal to a grieving father that he couldn't actually communicate with his son, which he had previously claimed to, beceause the son was cremated and there was no body.

Kate...Oh Lord on High, please incur your wrath on the writers of Lost for butchering her character. Kate just can't stop blabbing to anyone who will listen about anything and everything. She thinks she's acting in the best interest of everyone involved, but to be Shakesperean - she's fortune's fool. She speaks with Roger (Workman) and tries to comfort him, but ends up raising his suspicion, and really screws everything up. For everyone. KATE!!!

We see Naomi recruiting Myles for the mission. Interesting that she says his purpose for being on the team - they are looking for a man who may be difficult to locate, and - there are a number of people on the island who are dead, and this man is responsible for them being dead, so therefore they needed him to communicate with the deceased. She could be referring to the DI members, killed by Ben in the purge, and she would have received this information from Widmore.

We get to see Hurley and Myles at the Swan site when the numbers are put on the hatch...4,8,15,16,23,42. Surprisingly, Myles says 'what hatch?' - it appears that not all the characters are in sync with each other.

Key moment - Ilana, the tall guy, and a few others pick up Myles and tell him to pass on going to the island with Charles Widmore. They won't pay him a dime, but offer him the knowledge of who he is, who his father is...and Myles turns them down.

Who are they???

The end of the episode - Myles and his unassuming father pick up some Dharma scientists coming in on the sub from the Dharma facility in Ann Arbor. Among them....none other than Farraday! So - he has been firmly entrenched in Dharma research for these past years.

Dead is Dead - (post was stuck in drafts)

We start the episode meeting a middle-aged Charles Widmore. Charles confronts Richard about the fact that he brought Ben Linus to the Temple (not Temple Beth Israel, mind you). Richard replies that the island chooses who it chooses.

Widmore then goes to speak to Ben. It is obvious that Ben has memories from before he was brought into the Temple. He talks about how he doesn't want to go back to his father. However - it is clear that he is not the same little kid. Widmore instructs him that just because he goes and lives among 'them', doesn't mean he can't be one of 'us'.

Then we cut to Ben waking up and seeing Locke, seemingly shocked. He seems genuinely surprised, though as we know - nothing with Ben is genuine. He claims to have known it all along. Ben reveals that his morivation for going back to the main island was to be judged for what he had done (breaking the rules by coming back out of exile). Later, we see Ben telling Locke that he killed him once he had revealed necessary information. He had to then kill him to ensure that the Oceanic 6 would all come back, in the best interest of the island. Locke will now help Ben be judged, by Smokey. Just a note on Ben and Locke...although Ben killed Caesar (see below), it definitely seems like Ben and Locke have switched roles. Locke is more dominant, Ben more submissive.

Ben then offers to help Ilana and the tall guy (whose name I can't remember) move their crate. They turn down his offer, but when asked what's in it, they say - just some stuff we've got to get moved. What the heck do they need to move? There's definitely much more here...just don't know what it is.

We cut back to Ben and Ethan going to kill Danielle and her baby. Ben lets her live, and takes the baby...could this be a sign of morality in Ben? It is obviously an indication that Ben is willing to disobey orders. He tells her that everytime she hears whispers, she'd better run the other way. So - now we know that the whispers are indicative of the 'Others/hostiles' being around.

Back to the present...and Ben pulls Caesar's own gun on him and kills him. Wow. No negotiation, no remorse. Love Linus. What a great juxtaposition then, that the next scene is Ben fighting Widmore for the right to raise Alex.

A key moment is then revealed (maybe) when Sun shows Linus the photo of the Oceanic 6 in the Dharma Initiative photo from 1977. Locke claims not to have known that they were in the DI. If true, this throws the whole show for a loop, and gets into all kind of science jargon about alternate timelines, and destinies...i.e. headaches (Elad, just for you: I hate the department of temporal investigations!). If he's lying, then...who knows?

Ben heads down through the Temple through a secret door in his house. More hieroglyphs. He then appears to release a valve or vent = see last episode's write-up.

Ben then goes to see off Charles Widmore, who is being exiled. It is reveale that Charles is being exiled because he broke the rules, left the island, and had a child with an 'outsider' woman (obviously, the child is Penny). They then debate as to whether it was Widmore or the island who wanted Alex dead. Widmore says that one day he will have to come face to face with the fact that Alex will have to die, or he will be banished. It was partially a self-fulfilling prophecy, as we know, since it was Widmore who sent the commando team (inlcuding Keamy) to come and take Ben. When they couldn't, Keamy shot and killed Alex.

Ben reveals to Sun that dead is dead - "and the fact that John Locke is walking around this island - scares the living hell out of me." So - Locke lied earlier to John. What is the deal with Locke?

Locke tells Ben that he knows how to summon Smokey. How the heck does he know how to do this? This is kinda like Locke was reborn as a knew upgraded version, much how in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the wizard Gandalf the Grey is killed, and then reborn as an upgraded 2.0 version of himself as Gandalf the White. Is this Locke the White? How does he know that they need to go beneath the Temple and not into it?

Ben tells Sun to apologize for him to Desmond Hume if she ever sees him...is this what I have been predicting and dreading for so long? Does Linus kill Penny in order to exact revenge on her father, Charles Widmore?????? Ben hesitates when he sees Charlie, just long enough for Desmond to give him (yet another) good pummeling. New Lost drinking game - everytime Ben gets hit in the face, you drink a shot.

When Frank goes to confront Ilana and the others as to why they've got guns and are now 'in charge', Ilana asks him "what lies in the shadow of the statue?" He doesn't know, and they knock him out. Ilana says to the tall guy - get everyone else, we're going, and he's coming with us. Ok...so - what did she mean with "what lies in the shadow of the statue?" Lies as in 'is located' or lies as in 'doesn't tell the truth'? I.e. in the presence of the statue (whatever the heck that represents), what bears false witness? Obviously, we have Ben Linus, but he's more of a who rather than a what. Little confused here.

Lastly - we have Ben getting judged - by Smokey and an apparition of Alex! He is allowed to live, but he has to follow everything Locke says. This just goes to show how connected Locke is with the island. Interesting note - when Locke is shown all of the images from his past by Smokey - I would surmise that this is what we are seeing when we see the flashbacks/forwards. In other words - since episode 1, we have just accepted the flashbacks/forwards as an element of the show, and not tried to figure out what they really are...they are an examination by Smokey of what the individual does in the past or future that relates to their present circumstance.

Can't wait for next week!