Ben: “Who the hell are you?”
Widmore: “She’s with me. Hello, Benjamin. May I come in?”

• How great is it to see these two old enemies in the same room again at last? We learn that it was indeed Widmore who rigged Ajira with explosives, and that following his Season Four assault on the Island Widmore was approached by Jacob, who apparently leveled with him and convinced him to give up his seemingly-genuinely-selfish pursuit of the Island in order to help Jacob save it. If this is the entirety of the truth it makes me wish we’d seen that scene and it makes me long for the alternate universe 22 episode version of this season, but I’m content with the vertigo we experience as an audience having Widmore suddenly, openly explain that, hey, he’s decided that he’s working for the “good” guys now and if Ben doesn’t like it he can stuff it. It explains why it is that Miles is told he’s playing for the “wrong team” when he’s picked up by the Shadow of the Statue people (because Widmore apparently didn’t have Jacob’s interests in mind at all when he sent the Freighter, a confirmation that I appreciate, since it preserves Widmore’s earlier selfishness and means I can continue to freely hate him the next time I revisit the series) and it makes Widmore seem consistently-dickish, even when acting in what we presume to be the Island’s best interests.

• Since we’re talking Ben and Widmore, what of their “rules”? Can we assume that they’d set up a kind of “gentlemen’s agreement” wherein they promised not to drag their respective daughters into their conflict? No we can’t, because the “rules” also seem to have included a prohibition against Ben killing Widmore. Can we assume, as I’d suggested before, that Jacob’s rules extended somehow to them both, in that they were both leader of the Others at one point? Are the Others maybe prohibited from harming one another without the consent of the larger group (see: the meeting to decide Juliet’s fate)? I dunno. Slot this question up above with the others. It’s in the “I wish I understood more” category, but not in the “this pisses me off” category. Just so you know.

• How did Widmore return to the Island? Jacob invited him. That’s a heck of a lot simpler than the answer I’d concocted – something involving tracking beacons and/or knowledge of wormholes in space/time. I like that. I also like how this mirrors Jacob’s entry rules for the Foot House he inhabited. Who could enter that place? Only the people that Jacob had invited. Even Jacob’s cabin (a structure that now more than ever I believe I’d pegged semi-correctly in one of my Too Much Information columns – Jacob’s former home, abandoned once the Man in Black’s attacks grew too dangerous to stay there. You can read this stuff by clicking this link.

• If Ben hadn’t already wanted to kill Widmore for the death of Alex I’m pretty sure being told that he’d been overlooked by Jacob in favor of Widmore would have done the trick.

• Back off-Island Ben gets his moment of reflection in the Doctor’s office, and it’s clear that he’s shaken by what he’s seen. Notice that his injuries mirror the injuries that Desmond gave him in Season 5. He’s got an arm in a sling, and his face looks remarkably similar to the way it did back then.

• If you’d indulge me for a moment: It’s possible to look at Ben’s flashes of “enlightenment” (all of these flashes, really – but especially Ben’s) as a literal confrontation with his Other – a representation of concepts I brought up during Ben’s first episodes. He’s literally witnessed a mirror image of himself thanks to Desmond’s Fists of Destiny, and that act highly resembles the wordy Philosophical concept I mentioned directly above. It also brings up again the notion of “good being,” something explored in Aldous Huxley’s novel “The Island,” which was itself the source of the name for Lost’s “Pala Ferry.” You can read a little about Good Being by clicking here.

Ben: “The man told me that he wasn’t trying to hurt you. He was trying to get you to let go. And for some reason I believed him. Do you have any idea what he was talking about, Mr. Locke? Does that mean something to you?”

• The doors of perception are starting to open wide, to paraphrase another bit of Aldous Huxley. Locke receives another nudge, this one from Ben, but there’s no “enlightenment” for him. Not yet.

• Giachinno’s score in this episode is not to be underrated. Great stuff that really compliments the scenes.

• We return to off-Island Sawyer and Miles. Miles is prepping for a Museum benefit concert – presumably the same concert David will be playing at. Charlotte will be there, as will Desmond, Kate, Sayid, Hurley, Jack, Pierre Chang, potentially Dogen and his son, and presumably Sawyer and Jack’s mysterious ex-wife. Everyone seems to agree that she’s going to be Juliet. That seems like the right choice to me. But knowing Lost, Jack’s ex-wife will turn out to be the woman who’s father he operated on back in Season Two, and Juliet will be there for some other reason altogether, or outside the Museum totally, where she and Sawyer can conveniently run into each other and go grab a cup of coffee.

Basically what I’m saying is, if Juliet and Sawyer don’t get that cup of coffee they’re going to tick a loooooooooooot of people off.

Anyway, the point is this: a lot of Castaways are going to be at that benefit. Will whatever Desmond’s plan is culminate there? I’m not sure. On the one hand, that seems like the safe bet. On the other hand, I have a craaaaazy theory. Want to hear it? Here it goes!

Earlier in the episode, Desmond tells Jack that Christian’s coffin will be arriving at LAX “by the end of the day.” That means, presumably, that he wants Jack back at LAX. This could be because it’s the only way to effectively facepunch him, but that seems a little much. After all, if Desmond’s got his cosmic mojo going he ought to be able to make a beeline for Jack’s hospital and facepunch him there. Telling Jack that the coffin arrives “by the end of the day” sets up something of a conflict for Jack – he’s meant to be at David’s concert, but he’s also got a coffin waiting for him with a pretty stinky dad inside. Is the point of this to keep Jack away from the concert? To delay him? To make him confront the figurative (and maybe the literal) “ghost” of his father before he can truly be “ready” to join Des? Or is it something else altogether? Does Desmond want Jack back at LAX because that’s where the planes are?

Is that potentially the plan? Is he gathering these people in order to take a flight? Will Des and his buddies (who’ve now split up, seemingly on separate missions) be swinging by David’s (and Charlie’s?) concert, picking up more strays before heading to the airport and trying to get everyone onboard Oceanic 815 or some other Pacific-bound aircraft? Do they need to choose to take that trip in order to accomplish whatever it is that Desmond is trying to accomplish?

Something to chew on ‘til Sunday. I’m probably way off, but this is quite literally my last chance to be this kind of way off. So I’m taking it.

• Desmond turns himself in to the police and gains access to Kate and Sayid, which seems to please him enormously. I love Cosmic Desmond, and could easily watch a spinoff featuring him going around punching people for a “higher purpose.”

Sawyer: “The bomb on the sub…you said he couldn’t kill us.”
Jack: “I’ve been wrong before.”
Sawyer: “I killed them. Didn’t I.”
Jack: “No. He killed them.”

• Where Sawyer continues to cling to his guilt, Jack has truly let go here. Previously, he’d have blamed the both of them for failing to save everyone. Mostly, he would have blamed himself. But here he puts the blame for the deaths of Jin, Sun, Sayid and Frank squarely where it belongs: at the feet of the Man in Black.

• It’s much subtler, but this mini-scene works for me as an echo of Ben and Ilana’s moving scene in Dr. Linus. Both Sawyer and Ben are in despair, and both are given quiet absolution in a moment of great need. It’s really nicely done.

Young Jacob: “Give me the ashes.”

• As they make their way to the Well, Hurley spots the ghost of kid Jacob, who grabs his own ashes and makes a run for it. I admit to confusion over this. Why does Jacob appear as a child at one moment, and then as an adult the next moment? Well, here’s one explanation:

It could be that, because the Island sits at the “center” of space/time, and because the Island’s protector is empowered, seemingly by the Island, that Jacob’s ghost is similarly unhinged in time. And yet, whenever Jacob usually speaks to Hurley (including tonight) he appears as an adult. Who knows what that’s about. Cool iconography though.

• Hurley’s question is a good one – where has Jacob been? Much as I want to trust in his ultimate plan here I’m suspicious of Jacob’s potential hidden motivations, and of how little he knew about what he was getting into when he took this job – something that’s largely echoed in Jack’s assumption of Jacob’s mantle. I like that Lost forces me to question my faith in the Island’s “protector” and in doing so causes me to examine the beliefs that I happen to hold. Can you make a spiritual show that’s also caustically critical of and suspicious of religion? I believe that you can, and that Lost can be seen as just that show. And yet I’m also reminded again of Flannery O’Connor (it’s theme week on Back to the Island!), who once wrote:

“Our age not only does not have a very sharp eye for the almost imperceptible intrusions of grace, it no longer has much feeling for the nature of the violences which precede and follow them.”

No wonder Jacob seemed so intrigued by O’Connor’s writing. What that means for the Castaways at this point is anybody’s guess.

Jacob: “You should get your friends. We’re very close to the end, Hugo.”

• Meta!

• Burning his own ashes appears to give Jacob some momentary solidity. He becomes like Anti-Locke in his ability to interact with others and with the Island around him. Unlike

• Anti-Locke docks, and sends Ben, Widmore, and Co. scurrying. Miles takes off for the woods, carrying a walkie talkie that I assume will come in handy on Sunday night. Widmore and Zoe duck into the secret room, Ben stays inside, and Richard goes outside to “talk” to a Smoke Monster.

Richard: “I’m gonna talk to him. I know this man. All he wants is for me to join him, and if I can get him to leave with me, maybe that’ll give the rest of you a chance.”

• Uh, yeah. That doesn’t work out too good. I hope this isn’t how the writers chose to sweep the character off the board permanently. I would like some kind of closure on the character, personally, although I realize that all these hoity-toity O’Connor quotes have sort of made the opposite argument for me.

• And let’s look at the MiB’s change in temper around him for a minute. Can we assume that the Man in Black was attempting to groom Richard as his first-choice assassin/Other turncoat during the beginning of the season? Because that’s the only reason I can see for not doing something like this to Richard right away. Now that the Others have been dismantled, and two more of the remaining Candidates have been killed, does that signal the end of Ricardus’ usefulness?

Anti-Locke: “I need you to kill some people for me, Ben.”
Ben: “And…why would I do that?”
Anti-Locke: “Because once I leave this Island, you can have it all to yourself.”

• I love the scene between Anti-Locke and Ben on the porch. You can see that Ben is visibly afraid of him, and you can understand why Ben takes the course of action that he does. At the slightest hint of uncooperativeness, Anti-Locke can end him. But as long as Ben plays along he’ll remain alive, giving him time, depending on your outlook, to find a way to save his own skin or to save them all. Or both. That’s assuming, of course, that Ben hasn’t just flipped back to the dark side. I mean, that’s a possibility, but it’s not nearly as interesting to me. If Ben is now attempting to con Anti-Locke then it’s essentially a suicide mission from this point forward. Ben has to know this, and I find that dilemma/dynamic really interesting.

Ben and Ilana’s scene together was too powerful for me as a viewer to want to see Ben hastily retreat back from that potential redemption, but I also like the fact that we’re watching a flawed man try, in his flawed way, to go out in a way that has meaning and possible hope.

Besides which, Anti-Locke offers Ben the Island here only to tell him at the episode’s end that he’s going to destroy the Island. So it isn’t as though Ben’s operating under any illusions from here on out.

But for all of that, Ben still gives up Widmore and Zoe at the drop of a nonexistent-hat. You can argue that this was an ultimate “good,” because had Ben lied Anti-Locke would’ve immediately killed him, then found Zoe and Widmore anyway and killed them also. But you can also argue that Ben has wanted Widmore dead for a very long time, and that this is pure revenge on his part.

• Notice that the scene between Widmore, Anti-Locke and Ben perfectly mirrors the scene between Jacob, Anti-Locke and Ben at the end of Season 5. In both episodes, Ben leads Anti-Locke into a secure, hidden chamber. In both, Anti-Locke confronts an apparent “champion” of the Island. In both, Ben kills the Island’s self-proclaimed protector. In Season 5, the killing takes place in a location specific to Jacob – the statue’s foot. In this episode, the killing takes place in a location specific to the Smoke Monster – the summoning chamber.

• Rousseau! It is beyond bizarre to see her looking like a modern woman, and not a half-feral, twitchy-eyed survivalist. It’s also weirdly fantastic. The idea of Ben, Rousseau and Alex potentially becoming a family feels curiously right to me.

• We learn that Alex’s father died when she was two – later on in her off-Island life than in her on-Island life.

• The smile on Ben’s face when he’s told that he’s the closest thing to a father she’s ever had is heartbreaking in the best way.

As we’ve learned over and over again, the MiB’s word is worth its weight in nothing at all. And yet Widmore folds like a bad hand as soon as Anti-Locke invokes Penny’s name. What a wuss.

MORE LOST GOODNESS AFTER LE PAGE BREAK!