Three years without a fire

Lil’ Ben is seemingly dead. Let's contemplate that, shall we?
Point: Sayid is a stone-cold killer, if there’s one thing he knows how to do it’s gun down a kid.
Counterpoint: the past cannot be changed, according to the rules of this show
True: yet the past already has been changed by the fact people from the future have gone there
Counterpoint: the island has healing powers, as we;ve seen numerous times in the past
Point: yet it doesn’t seem to have healing properties yet in 1977, or else one would think that wouldve come up in Dharma orientation or something. Perhaps the healing is a byproduct of the Incident, whatever that is.
Counterpoint: if lil’ Ben is dead, then the Oceanic group almost instantly wouldve disappeared from 1977 because then their past was changed and they never would’ve ended up on the island again. Kinda like that whole 'Butterfly Effect' idea, if you saw that Ashton Kutcher movie.
Counterpoint: so if Big Ben had been shot 30 years earlier when he was a kid, you’d think adult Ben never wouldve worked with adult Sayid.
Point: maybe the act of shooting Lil' Ben caused a split in time, with now our Losties being in an alternate reality, as every action we do creates branches and offshoots.
Counterpoint: this show already deals with time travel and smoke monsters and giant statues from ancient Egypt. If we start delving into alternate realities too, then this show may be jumping the shark big time. This isn't 'Sliders,' for pete's sake.
THe counterpionts seem to have it.
But let us praise Ben. The master manipulator tricked Sayid into thinking that killiing off Widmore folks was Sayid’s idea, a way of protecting the islanders. And I’m pretty convinced Ben hired the bounty hunter that brought Sayid back.
Meanwhile what is the deal with the Swan hatch? It was built underground, seemingly to hide it. ANd now the Dharmites seem willing to kill in part to keep it secret. It seems far more important than just for the study of electromagnetic radiation, yknow?
Random thoughts:
- It's been awhile since we had a flashback episode. Interesting return to form.
- William Sanderson! For us fans of 'Newhart' and 'Blade Runner,' it's always good to see that creepy-ass guy finding work. Here's hoping we see more of Larry, and perhaps his brother Darryl and his other brother Darryl.

Lostsources

For those of you who care, I thought it'd be useful to share some of the resources out there for Lost.
I'm sure most everyone knows about Lostpedia, the Lost wiki. Invaluable as a reference tool.
http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
My favorite Lost podcast is Lostcasts, which also has a quite good Web site as well as some interesting analysis that they synthesize from what's online in various forums
http://www.lostcasts.com/
And I always enjoy the USA Today 'Pop Candy' discussions after an ep. While most of the comments are ignorable or loopy, a few raise some interesting questions or hypotheses.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/popcandy/

Back in the saddle again

Yes, yes, I know.
Anyway, let's get to the important stuff:

- So why didn't Sun and Ben end up on the island in 1977 with the other Oceanic crew who needed to return? My guess, because Sun and Ben already are on the island in 1977. We saw lil' Ben (nerd!!!) and I'm betting that Sun is there in some fashion as well. You can't have that kind of paradox, as anyone who saw Jean Claude Van Damme's Timecop can attest. As to why Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sayid had to return to the island in 1977, that remains a big question mark. There had been some speculating they were needed to prevent or cause the Incident (which many thought might be Ben's killing of the Dharma folks. But that happened in 1992, so no reason for the Losties to be back 15 years prior to that). But perhaps whatever is involved with the Swan hatch construction and the numbers thhat have to be pressed and all that weird light in the sky energy release is key. Who knows. This show is starting to hurt my head.
- So how awesome was that, Juliet seeming to screw with Kate and leaving her dangling briefly at the Dharma orientation? I think we're definitely going to see a love triangle around Sawyer at some point.
- So how awesome was that, Sawyer being Mister In Control and quietly telling Jack off? I like how this show started out with Jack being a stereotypical TV uberhero - good looks, in control, take charge, and over time we've seen how messed up and ridiculous he can be at times, leaping before looking.
- So now we get a sense of a couple other Dharmas who survived the purge - baby Ethan I think we're to believe grows up to be Other Ethan, and Rasinski is the same guy who drew the big mural map of the island in the Swan hatch and was one of the people punching in the numbers and then blew his brains out and left the job to that CIA guy who was living in the hatch when shipwrecked Desmond showed up, that Rasinski.
- So why did Othersburg look so messed up when Sun and Frank went over there? Am assuming the plane landed on the island in 2007, three years after everyone left, so the jungle has reclaimed some of it. After those commandoes on the freighter shot a lot of it up. Meanwhile, that runway the jet landed on - the same thing Kate and Sawyer were clearing when they were prisoners of the Others? But what prompted the Others to clear this runway to begin with? Do Sun and Frank (who I now am giving the Sully Award for the awesomest flying of the year on TV) go back in time and relate what happened to them and someone in 1977 is taking notes of 'here's all the stuff we need to do in the future - in 2004, a plane crashes, here is a list of folks on it of interest; in 2007, another plane nearly crashes, better clear off a runway)?
- So Christian Shepard was dead, brought back to life on the island in a plane crash (assuming that is in fact Christian). Can Locke do the same thing now? All this appearing all over the place?
- So where the heck in 1977 are the other Oceanic survivors, like Bernard and Rose? Are they in Other/Hostile hands? Are they actually Others now/then?
- So based on the previews, next week looks awesome. Sayid out to kill a kid. Major Lostie vs. Lostie fighting.
- So overall I thought it was a decent if not wow episode. It moved some plot points along and it was awesome to see Ben get a paddle to the head, even though it was buy crazy-eyed Sun. And I enjoyed Sawyer's Winston Churchill monologue. Remember - RIF. Reading. Is. Fundamental.