Whatever Happened, Happened...?

KATE: ''You know I don't like the new you. I liked the old you. The one who didn't sit around and wait for things to happen.''

JACK: ''You didn't like the old me, Kate.''

Yay! After last week's shocker-ending, this week's episode of Lost follows up with a (pardon the pun) bang. Who knew I could like a Kate-centric episode so much? Good job Ms. Lilly, I'm back on your team (as far as her acting ability), but am I on Team Kate? NEVER! What the heck did she do last night? Oy vey!

First, let's talk about the major event of the episode -- Baby Ben is shot, Jin revives and shleps him into the VW - rushing him back to Dharmaville so Juliet can fix him. BTW, does anyone question that she's a doctor working in the Motor Pool? I find that more suspicious then Kate chilling with Sawyer in the jail... or maybe equally as suspicious, because WTF?!? Does Kate think she's back in charge? Is she suffering from Old-Jack Syndrome? As opposed to New-Jack, "I-don't-give-a-shit" Syndrome?

But, as usual, Juliet can't save Baby Ben because she's not a surgeon. Seriously, do you think after ALL these years on the island performing surgery, she'd figure it out? I mean Bullet Holes should be 101 coursework for her in this place! Anyway, of course, who do they turn to, but Jack! And note Sawyer's calling him "Doc" again when he needs his help.

In repayment for Sawyer's verbal beatdown of Jack in "Namaste," Jack plays a cool card and doesn't give in to Sawyer, or to Kate, or to Juliet. Go New Jack! After Jack told Sawyer that he wouldn't help, Paul lept up and yelled "Tell me how my ass tastes, Le Fleur!?!" (a la Shaq's rap about Kobe Bryant) and I smugly agreed, "I LIKE the new Jack!" In response, on the show, Kate says, "''You know I don't like the new you. I liked the old you. The one who didn't sit around and wait for things to happen.'" Proving to me that Kate and I are POLAR (bear? heh!) opposites when it comes to the school of rational thought. She thinks with her heart, she can't sit still, and she's constantly motivated to action via her own self-hatred and guilt. I think with my head, love to sit still, and love myself enough to sit around watching/blogging Lost. Kate, even when Evagelline Lilly is amping up the acting chops (which, I have to give her props, that Aaron goodbye scene was painful, plus she looked smoking hot in the grocercy store when she "lost" Aaron), I just don't like Kate.

But you know who I DO love? Hurley and Miles.

They RULED this episode -- at least until the last minute! That minute was all about a Ben/Locke staring contest, and oooh! I CANNOT wait until next week! Holy smokey! It looks like my DREAM episode -- all about my boy Ben!

But back to my favorite Dharma boys, Hurley and Miles -- yay! I love that Hurley is always the Greek chorus of this show, saying what everyone in the audience has thought about and commenting on it with smarmy humor. They play him as a boob, a "dude" guy -- but he's the one who offers us true insight into the show... ya know? And Miles... I just heart him! I loved their conversations about time travel, the references to Back to the Future (which we've ALL been thinking about because anyone who lived through the 80's have had our time-travel knowledge fundamentally based on that franchise), and just the snappy banter/comic relief. This show needs it! And the questions that they ask each other that lead to more questions - they're portraying us, the average viewer locked into the world of Lost and not knowing what the heck is REALLY going on.

So - back to the plot line, Baby Ben's been shot so Sawyer puts Kate, Jack, and Hurley on House Arrest because they're suspect (or rather, Jack's suspect, but Sawyer's playing things safe). Jack won't help, even though everyone else in the love quadrangle is begging him to help. Juliet suggests taking him to the Others - so Kate heads out, helped later by Sawyer. And they hand Ben over to Richard -- thus, changing Baby Ben FOREVER. So, in reality, the "monster" that Ben turned out to be was truly spawned by Jack, Sawyer, Kate, and Juliet - if Jack had helped, if Juliet hadn't suggested the Others, and if Kate and Sawyer hadn't delievered him, Ben wouldn't be the man he is (and who everyone hates) today. Good job guys! In essence, Jack created Ben by merely doing nothing. Damn! Totally shifted my perspective on like New Jack - because Old Jack totally would have helped and prevented Baby Ben from dying -- thus he never would have needed to become an Other. JACK MADE BEN! Ben's the victim!

Ironically, Sayid also had a hand into turning himself into a killer when he shot Ben - therby turning Ben into someone who would exploit Sayid's killing abilities. Sayid helped make the Ben we know today, if he'd just shut up and joined the Dharma party, none of this would have happened!

The exchange itself was quite interesting - first with Richard's explanation:

"If I take him, he will never be the same. His innocence will be lost. He will not remember any of this. He will be one of us forever. Are you SURE you want me to take him?"

Which would explain how Ben thought he was "born" on the island -- he doesn't remember anything before it. But that kind of confuses me, because I always viewed the flashbacks and forwards as something connected to the characters (like they were envisioning them or whatnot), but that wouldn't hold true if Big Ben doesn't remember his Dharma time... He would only remember his time as a Dharma traitor. And how the heck is Richard going to magically fix him (via the Temple?) and then get him back into the Dharma initiative in order to act as an inside operative for The Purge? How's he gonna splain that one?

Richard: Oh, hey Horace, remember that kid who that Hostile shot up, well, we felt bad and fixed him up for you. Here he is, right as rain!

Horace: Gee! Thanks Richard! I'm not even going to question how he came into your possession, I'm just happy he's okay! Ben's our boy!

Then, Richards interactions with his own people -- with one of the other Others questioning Richard as to if he should ask Ellie (obviously Faraday's Mom) or Charles (Widmore - duh!) first. Richard, almost irritated, snapped back that he doesn't have to ask for their permission. This leads me to believe that The Others have more than one leader, it might not be as centralized as we originally thought. AND that Charles and Ellie are ON THE ISLAND in the 70's! Woah! Anyone else think that Charlotte might be Widmore's daughter, also?

It kinds of makes sense... I think Charles and Ellie are on the same team (I'm still holding to my brother/sister theory) and Ben/Richard usurped them. They're pissy and want they're island back. But... my only problem with my own theory is that in recent viewings of "Orientation" the Season 2 episode where they first start pushing the button every 108 minutes in the Swan Hatch. In this film, an Orientation to the Swan Hatch and Dharma Initiative (provided by "Marvin Candle" - really Pierre Chang - with a limp arm that wasn't limp in "Namaste"). In that film, they refer to Alvar Hanso (or something like that) the funder of the D.I., and then they zoom in on a building where he is -- and he looks JUST LIKE WIDMORE! But... if Widmore is clearly on the island and an Other, then who's funding Dharma? Or maybe Dharma is literally funded by the Others! And RUN by the Others... ooh! MANY possibilities!

The Kate-element focused on her returning to visit Sawyer's Baby Mama (and her old gal pal) Cassidy, and her daughter Clementine. I liked the way they were totally BFF after three years, and that Cassidy isn't fazed by ANYTHING Sawyer does. She's clearly well-versed in dealing with Sawyer b.s. -- Oh, he survived a plane crash and is lost on an island? Neat. Oh, here's a big lump of cash that he wanted you to give me? Typical Sawyer. Sawyer jumped out of a helicopter to save you all? He's totally running away. Cassidy does NOT heart Sawyer!

But Kate CLEARLY still does! And when he called her "Freckles" (d'oh!) and helped her cart Baby Ben out, I saw bursts of him CLEARLY still liking her... even if he prefaced it with, "I'm doing this for her." Meaning Juliet. Yeah...right.

And Kate clearly does truly love Aaron. But her overwhelming guilt at having "taken" him pushes her to give him up to Claire's Mom, and tell her that she's going back to save Claire. So, that's why Kate came back to the island... but why the psycho-scary "DON'T EVER ASK ME ABOUT AARON!" thing? I mean... Jack would have been cool with it. I'm just saying...

Kate's Mommy-issues don't end back with Aaron. Instead she channels them into Baby Ben - clearly making him a priorty (or a proxy Aaron? hee hee, and you thought we were done with proxies!). Heck, she donates blood for the little guy! AND gets mildly hit on multiple times by Roger Linus - who totally creeps me out! But who I felt mildly bad for -- mildly, because when his kid DIDN'T have a bullet wound in his chest, Roger was a total prick!

And then, the mea culpa of the episode. After we see WHY Ben is the way he is - because of the collect "help" of Jack/Sawyer/Kate/Juliet, we cut to Ben... waking up in the present (2007). And who's sitting bedside? Our boy, John Locke.

Even with no dialogue, the eyes said it all -- Michael Emerson, again...WOW. And Terry O'Quinn... Double WOW! Put them together and a one-minute scene becomes one of the most compelling moments of television...EVER.

"Hello Ben. Welcome to the world of the living." DUN! Bad Robot!

Then, we're privvy to the coolest promo of all time -- next week's episode looks AMAZING!!! A Ben-centric, Smoke-Monster-Inducing, John-Locke-confronting, all-around gooood time! I cannot wait! From the promo it looks like Ben made an attack on Penny, although the promos always seem to mislead!

TARA'S BIG LIST OF LOST QUESTIONS

"WHATEVER HAPPENED, HAPPEND"

1. OMG! Where is Daniel Faraday? [Note: I will be asking this question EVERY week until he shows up again, so they'd better bring him back before I piss off all my readers! All three of you!]
2. Will Kate find Claire?
3. Didn't that women in the grocery store look EXACTLY like an aged Claire?
4. Did Sayid/Jack/Sawyer/Juliet/Kate create Evil Ben? Or did Evil Ben create them? Chicken/egg again -- good fun!
5. Would Kate have made the same decision about Aaron, to give him to his grandmother, if he hadn't been thirsty (leading her to lose him)?
6. What the heck did Richard do to Baby Ben in the Temple? Was it similar to what happened to John Locke?
7. Was that THE temple?
8. Did Juliet know that the Others have some weird healing mojo? And if so, how?
9. Was Roger hitting on Kate?
10. Kate clearly has some Mommy-issues, no?
11. Where did Sayid go running to? Rose and Bernard?
12. How did Charles/Ellie come to divide from Ben/Richard?
13. Does Widmore work for BOTH sides? Hmmm... he's a tricky one!
14. Will Smokey kill Ben next week?
15. If Richard doesn't answer to Charles and Ellie, who does he answer to? Smokey?
16. Why are Miles and Hurley so awesome? No answer needed, they just are!
17. Do you think it's possible that Charlotte and Faraday are actually related?!? Ew.
18. If Jack had helped Ben, do you think the time-altering paradox would have occured, thus ending the world? So maybe it was better...?
19. Was Jack trying to pull a Sawyer with that shirtless action? If so, more of that!
20. Was I the only one who was SUPER-happy when Juliet asked Jack, "WHY DID YOU COME BACK?" and totally called him out on coming back for himself -- he doesn't even know what he's doing there... at least he's not calling the shots, right? I mean, I like the whole Jack, "Man of Faith" instead of "Man of Science" thang - but him and Sawyer are totally having role reversal, or him and Locke... this is confusing!
21. Why does "Motorpool" Kate feel entitled to enter the D.I. high-security area? She totally pulled a Jack this week, thinking she was part of the cool crowd again. Memo to Kate: In the D.I., you work in the MotorPool (one word? two? who knows), period.
22. When Richard said that Ben won't remember "any of this" - does he mean his whole childhood or just Kate and Sawyer saving him?
23. Did Richard really recognize Kate? And where the heck did he come from - charging out of the bushes? ESP much? Me likey Richard!
24. And seriously Sayid... even though you weren't in this episode, I'm still shaking my head at your shoddy assasination attempt - oy! Aim for the brain next time you want to REALLY kill someone!
25. Is Richard the evil mastermind behind the "war"?
26. Where's Smokey? When does he start eating people? Not until the 80's? I like the idea of an 1980's Smokey - maybe with jelly sandals, a charm bracelet, and neon push-down socks and high-top Reebocks, the fun Smokey (heh!)
27. Is John Locke going to kill Ben? His bedside manner was remarkably calm and soothing, yet menacing and scary - yay!
28. Will John and Ben join together, and John help Ben get back to the main island to face Smokey?
29. Did anyone else see a a glimpse of Alex in the promo? And if so, yay! I was so sad when she died, and how she died, oy!
30. Just how much does Big Ben know about the Losties/O6, DOES he remember them? And if so, how much?
31. How does Ben re-enter Dharma after being "resurrected" by Richard?
32. Around this time in history (the 70's), teenage John Locke was getting trapped inside Lockers and beaten up, do you think Widmore and Ellie upped their search for him once Baby Ben entered the picture - seeming to be a threat?
33. Is Ben working with Ellie or with Widmore, or against them? I'm confused.
34. Is Ben Thomas the Apostle? And if so, what the hell is with all the subtext Mrs. Hawking keeps throwing at him? Oy!
35. Will Ben die in the next episode?!? If so, I don't know if I can handle life. I know I'll keep watching Lost, but I'll be DEVESTATED. It's like losing a friend. A really brilliant, creepy, often psychotic -yet awesome, friend. Boo!
36. Am I the only one who wants Hurley and Faraday to have a similar Hurley/Miles interaction? I feel like Faraday would have more answers!
37. Do you think that after realizing the Ben freed Sayid, Roger had a turn-around and tried to be a good dad? But Ben's gone... right?
38. And if Ben really "won't remember any of this" -- how come he has such hostility directed towards Dharma and his Dad? Is it just pure Other-loyalty, or does he remember how his Dad was prick and how Dharma made his Dad even crankier than needed?
39. Was the reason that Ben had Kate, Sawyer, and Jack brought to the Other's camp (back in Season 2/3) because he remembered them? And if so, how would he possibly remember Jack? He didn't have any scenes with him!
40. Will Kate find Claire?
41. What are Sun and Lapidus doing while all this hoopla is going on?
42. Why can't it be next week already?!? OMG, I may DIE before then!

Until next week Losties!
Namaste!