Ben's Birthday Gift

Lost is almost done for the season. Time now for some explosive answers, right? No! Then what would they do until 2010? But we did get a glimpse at more answers, plus there seems to be strong hints that many island inhabitants have superpowers. Locke? Healing. Desmond? Foresight. Ben? Puppet master. Alpert? Eternal youth. Anywho, here's some of what I took out of last night's episode:

- Remember when Mr. Eko used his last breaths to warn Locke that he was "next"? And remember hearing that there'd be a bunch of deaths on Lost during the month of May? And remember seeing how Ben kind of KILLED LOCKE and left him in a mass grave? You know, despite all of that, I don't believe he's dead. Could be, and it'd be a sweet way to kill him off. (He lived and died a gullible, too-trusting person!) And, quite frankly, his backstory is pretty well tied up. Not his island life, but we know his previous life pretty well. I dunno. I think he's alive, but, boy, I don't know!
- Nothing to do with this season, but apparently the 4-toed statue won't be dealt with until next season. So said the main dudes themselves. Also, Smokey will be one of the last mysteries to ever be solved on the show. Sad!
- Ben's parents were Roger and Emily Linus. Emily died after giving birth in a very clear allusion to the paternity problems on the island. (And/or, it was just a plain awesome - and tricky! - opening sequence.) The Linus family was picked up by some (unbeknownst to them at the time) DHARMA workers while 32 miles outside of Portland. It's such a huge Easter egg, my brain is about to explode!
- Jacob... exists? Ben took Locke to a remote house, where Ben began talking to a empty chair. Locke was bemused (so was I, Michael Emerson deserves an Emmy for that performance!), but when he left to go away, he heard a DEEP voice saying "Help me," then the room caught on fire, plates broke and the editor vomited up a bunch of images of stuff going wrong. However, the episode was a little heavy on the Wizard of Oz imagery, which could mean that there may or may not be a Jacob and that Ben can create the dog-and-pony show like Locke was saying. Or, Jacob's power may be Invisibility. Although, did anybody else notice those 3-4 glass bottles with oddly-colored stuff inside when they walked in? I don't think they were drinks... Maybe it helps keep Jacob, well, Jacob? Or maybe Ben is the man behind the curtain after all. Stupid episode, it "shows" us Jacob and we still don't know anything about him.
UPDATE: I blinked. They showed Jacob.
- The DHARMA Initiative people really did like saying "Namaste" to everyone.
- DHARMA and the island's creepy natives didn't exactly get along at all. BUT... How did Alpert get modern-ish clothing? After all, the submarine was at first DHARMA's, until the natives "purged" (ie Mass Murder!) them all. We came to understood a lot about DHARMA, but now, I'm really curious about the history of the "natives," of which Alpert was one. And Alpert? May not age at all. I'm not sure about that yet. (He loses hair, though. So maybe not.)
- There's a dormant volcano somewhere on the island. We learned that through flashbacks and Locke may have found a trial of old, ashen lava earlier. Either that or a trail of sand. At any rate, Ben was super mad that Locke noticed it.
- It was Ben's birthday. Happy birthday, Ben! Only Alex, his "daughter," remembered.
- Roger, the corpse in that VW van that Hurley found? Was Ben's dad. Also, Roger? Not a nice man.
- Without commercials, I'm pretty sure this particular episode was only 23 minutes long.
- Ben used to be in love when he was young, with a Annie. Whether she survived the purge or not, I don't know.
- Jack and Juliet reveal that the Others are coming for Sun. Why didn't Jack tell them all earlier? Because he wasn't sure what to do yet. Does he know what to do now? Does he? Wait a week to find out!
- Ben was quite the tricky person. At a young age he conspired with the "natives" to join them. He didn't like living with his drunk dad at all, and, by extension, the whole DHARMA initiative. After all, he grew up to be a janitor, too! What evil mastermind wants to make oodles of money as a work man?
- Next week, apparently, Charlie dies. Desmond says so. It's sweeps, after all. So why not?
- We saw another DHARMA orientation training video, explaining the barracks and the pylon fence. It is a real fence, and thankfully for Mikhail, the potency can be adjusted.
FUN FACT: The first DHARMA video seen was filmed on the set of Alias.
- Here's a teaser about the season finale from TVSquad: Try to interpret Damon Lindelof's teaser for the season finale: "It will make you realize that the house you are standing in actually has a lot more rooms than you thought when you came into it."