Lost: The Man Behind The Curtain

This episode of Lost was the episode I have been waiting for: the long anticipated back story of Henry Gale/Ben. It was sometimes slow and often infuriating, but an incredibly revealing episode, to say the least. It also needs to be said that it ranked high on the "Lost" scale of moments that made me say "WTF?!"

Was I the only person who half expected Emily to give birth to some weird alien spawn in the opening scene? Maybe it was just the eerie music playing, or maybe I just secretly wanted island babies to be superhuman.

I was kind of surprised and disappointed that Ben was born in Oregon. I don't know why, considering he's almost never been an honest kinda guy.

The palpable shift in power between Ben and Locke is awesome. I love that the Others are all about Locke now, and it gives me hope that maybe the Losties and Others can all get along someday after all. Although that probably wouldn't make for great television.

"The Man Behind The Curtain" is Ben. Hey, does anyone else remember who the man behind the curtain was in the Wizard of Oz? He was a total phony, and kind of a wuss. Sometimes I wonder why Locke just doesn't kick his ass, like he did Charlie. And his father. And Mikhail.

"Namaste" is how the Dharma people greet each other. Wonder if they have any other cool catch phrases.

Horace mentions the "island's abundant, diverse...wildlife." Well, that's one way to gloss over "smoke monster and polar bears."

Young Ben is all about little Annie, and clearly he's still affected by her in real time. However, we never find out what became of her, or whether or not she was gassed like the rest of the members of the Dharma Initiative. Something tells me we may find out.

So Mikhail survived because the fence wasn't turned up to the highest voltage. Lame! Why would the fence ever be on lower voltage? Also, didn't he claim that he survived because the island provides special healing powers? (By the way, tell that to Boone!)

I can't wait until I learn more about Alex and how she came to be Ben's "daughter."

Trying to sort out the "who's who" of the Dharma Initiative hurts my brain. So Ben goes to school, lives in the community — but is his part of the island in cahoots with experimental guys like Kelvin, Desmond's hatch buddy?

Ben sees his dead mother, like Jack saw his dead father, and Shannon saw Walt. I've tried to make connections between these three incidents, but Walt really throws me off the track by being alive and all.

So Ben's dad is an alcoholic and blames Ben for his mother's death. Ergo, Ben has serious daddy issues.

Juliet changes sides more times than anyone I've ever seen.

So Richard was once a "hostile/native" but he looks like a hippie. He doesn't seem to have really aged from Ben's flashback to real time, unless the "Lost" producers expect us to believe that a haircut ages a guy a good 30 odd years.

Did Richard and the hostiles coerce Ben into killing his father and the rest of the Dharma people or was it the other way around?

The whole Jacob extravaganza was really irritating. I didn't find it creepy, intense or mind-blowing. I was just really irritated. Also, I think it would've been awesome if the writers had just made Henry Gale insane.

So Ben kills his father, takes over and becomes leader of the others, can talk to what may or may not be an imaginary friend. Locke kills his father (kinda), starts gaining respect of the Others, can talk to Jacob too... this doesn't bode well for Ben, which is why he went and shot Locke. However, I don't believe for a second that Locke is a goner.