I'm live-blogging tonight (a bit delayed).





******* Major Spoilers Below The Fold *********

Previously, Sayid shoots littleBen.

Keamy shoots Alex as the words "she means nothing to me" come out of Ben's mouth.

And Sun clocks Ben with an oar. Good.

And, finally, Locke recognizes Ben among the wounded of flight 316.

Now, the show: A man rides up on a horse. He looks like he should be the lead singer of a rock band. He rides up to Richard in some Other camp in, I assume, the past.

According to Richard, Jacob wants Little Ben healed. "The island chooses who the island chooses".

The guy on the horse is now talking to LittleBen. He tells Ben that he's among friends, and they are going to take care of him. Ben does not want to go back to his dad.

"Just because you're living with them doesn't mean you can't be one of us. You should be dead, but the island saved your life."

The man is Charles Widmore, the Younger.

Present day: Locke sits beside Ben. "Welcome back to the land of the living"

Ben says he knew that it would happen, though he acts surprised.

"It's one thing to believe it, John, it's another thing to see it."

Ben broke the rules. He came back to the island. He's here to answer for what he's done. And if you believe that, I have a submarine to sell you. Update: Well, what do you know. He wasn't kidding.

Ben is here to be judged. "By whom?" asks John. Ben replies "we don't even have a word for it, but I believe you call it the monster."

Commercial ****************************

On the beach, Ben talks with Illana. She and the 316ers are moving some stuff in a crate. I wonder what's in there? Ben wishes them a great day.

Caesar walks up. "How are you feeling my friend?"

Ben: "Like someone hit me with an oar, but I'll live."

Caesar mentions to Ben that Locke thinks he killed him. "Really, because he looks fine to me." Heh.

Ben is weaving a pretty good tale. He's selling the idea that John Locke was already on the island (an Other!) and that he's seriously deranged. No worries, because Caesar is packing heat and he's got Ben's back.

I think we're in a flashback, because Ben looks younger. And Ethan looks really younger. They look like they are playing cowboy.

I think this must be the theft of Alex we are witnessing.

Alex cries, and Danielle wakes up and begins screaming at Ben in french.

Ben tells Danielle to be grateful she's still alive, and "if you want your child to live, every time you hear whispers you run the other way." He takes Alex.

Man! Ben!

Back in the present: Ben is rifling through a dilapidated Dharma office. He has found a snapshot of himself and Alex, from happier days.

Locke barges in. "So this is your old office, huh? I never pictured you leading your people from behind a desk. Seems a little . . . corporate," John snarks.

Locke wants to talk about the elephant in the room, meaning the fact that Ben killed him.

"To get you back to the island."

Locke wonders why Ben didn't just allow him to kill himself. Ben says he needed information, so he had to talk Locke out of killing himself before turning around and killing him after he got some information.

"I didn't have time to talk you back into hanging yourself. So I took a shortcut." Ben's evil, but in kind of a likable way.

Locke: "I was just hoping for an apology." Heh, Locke's playing it cool. But he's decided to help Ben. To help Ben be judged.

Ben and Locke decide to take a boat over to the main island. Caesar doesn't think that's a good idea.

Ben claims that Locke didn't give him a choice. Caesar refuses to allow them. He's calling the shots and tells Locke to sit down and tell him how he knows so much about the island. Locke refuses, so Caesar reaches for the sawed off shotgun that is no longer in his bag.

"Looking for this?" And then Ben blows Caesar away! He had his gun.

I wonder if Ben and Locke are the ones who were chasing and shooting at the time-jumping Losties in the earlier season.

Ben tosses the gun to Locke. "Consider that my apology"

Has anyone else picked up a kind of "cowboy" theme in this episode?

Commercial ****************************

Locke and Ben make it to the dock on the main island.

Ben says "Home sweet home"

Locke notices the other boat, already docked. "That will be Sun and Lepidus"

Locke asks about Ben's arm. I'm sensing a flashback soon

Ben defends shooting Caesar, and seems a bit miffed that Locke is not as thankful as he should be.

They are heading to Ben's old house, because that's the only place Ben can "summon the monster."

Locke thinks Ben is lying. He thinks Ben wants to be judged for killing his daughter.

Flashback to sometime in the 80s. Ben and little Ethan, along with baby Alex, arrive in the camp. Richard is there (unchanged) and Widmore (older). "Well, did you do it?"

"We had a complication". Charles is mad that Ben didn't kill Danielle like he was ordered to do. But Ben didn't do it because he didn't realize that Danielle had a baby. Ben will not kill the baby, and asks Charles if he would do it. "Is killing this baby what Jacob wants?"

Richard and Ben exchange a glance. They are dressed up as cowboys, by the way.

Back to Dharmaville, 2007. "Who's idea was it to move into these houses?" Locke asks. Locke is wondering if it was Ben's idea, to relocate here after murdering the Dharma people.

"It just doesn't seem like something the island would want." The risen Locke seems to be far more in touch with the island than he used to be.

There's a light on in Ben's house. In Alex's room. There's a shadow on the window.

Ben heads over to his house. Creepy music plays as he opens the creeeeeeaky door.

There's a game, half-played on the table. Ben walks down the hall. CREEPY MUSIC!

He opens the door, and finds Sun. And Frank.

"What are the two of you doing in here."

They show Ben the picture. He pretends to not know that Hurley, et. al., were in the DI in the 70s.

Sun and Frank say Christian told them to wait for John Locke. "But considering he's dead we ain't holding our breath," adds Frank.

Well, you might want to look outside.

[John waves]

Commercial ****************************

Locke and Sun, and Frank and Ben. Awkward silence.

Sun: "What you're saying is . . . impossible."

Locke: "Well, there must be a reason."

"As long as the dead guy says there's a reason, everything must be peachy." Frank is losing it, and he wants to go back to the beach.

John convinces Sun to stay. He has some ideas about how to find Jin. The orchid maybe? Who knows.

"OK, how do we find Jin."

"Ben has something to do first, isn't that right Ben?"

Ben reluctantly agrees.

"Better get to it Ben"

Ben goes into a hidden chamber, in the room they were standing in. Inside is another hidden chamber, with a strange stone door that may have hieroglyphics carved into it.

He grabs a lamp that happens to be there (inexplicably lit) and crawls down a tunnel. He comes to a small, muddy pool, reaches in, and pulls a drain or something, because the pool empties.

"I'll be outside," he tells the hole.

Flashback. Ben is swinging a happy, little-girl Alex on a swing set.

Richard walks up and tells Ben that the sub is about to leave. Charles is about to leave. Ben walks up the dock to Charles.

"I came to say goodbye."

"No you didn't, you came to gloat."

"You brought this on yourself. You left the island regularly. You had a daughter with an outsider. You broke the rules Charles."

Ben says he deserves to lead, because he won't be selfish, and will make any sacrifice necessary.

"You wouldn't sacrifice Alex," Charles says, being all foreshadowy.

They trade a few more barbs. Charles makes some threatening predictions.

"I'll be seeing you, boy," Charles says, menacingly.

Present day, Ben's porch. Sun is sitting there. Ben asks where John is. Sun says he said he had something to do.

"Jack must have lied about Locke being dead," she adds. Jack is getting absolutely no love these days.

Ben responds that he knows John was dead. Ben says he's seen the island do many miraculous thing, but he's never seen anything like this. "Dead is dead. So the fact that John is walking around on this island scares the living h-ll out of me."

He tells her to go inside, because Smokey is coming.

Actually, it's just John, emerging from the jungle.

Observation: Notice that when the monster was supposed to show up, but instead Locke did.

"Any luck?"

"It hasn't shown up yet."

"It never takes this long."

"It's not a train, John. It doesn't run on a schedule."

Ben says he doesn't know where it is.

"I do" says Locke, ominously, with a grin.

Commercial ****************************

Locke and Sun, inside. Locke says it's weird for him too. But he assures her that he's the same man he's always been.

He and Ben (and Sun?) leave to search for Smokey.

Slight flashback: Ben calls Charles, to tell him he's going back. He's in a marina, and he says he's going to kill Penny. He's looking at her now.

Man, Ben. You're evil. You hurt her and you are dead to me.

Back to the island. Ben is haranguing Locke as to how John knows where he's going. John tells him that not knowing the answer to questions helps Ben know what it was like to be John.

Ben says "I think I know where we're going now." The same place they brought him as a child. The temple.

It's the place where Ben was healed.

"Well, let's hope it's as generous this time around."

Actually, it's not the temple proper, but the wall around the temple. But Locke says they aren't going into the temple. He looks into a hole in the ground.

"We're going under it. After you."

Ben tells Sun to, if she ever gets off the island, "find Desmond Hume and tell him I said I was sorry."

"For what?"

"He'll know."

Ben climbs into the hole.

Now, back to the marina. Ben is looking at Penny. But he hears Desmond, and so he pulls a gun and shoots Desmond!

Ben holds the gun on Penny. He's about to pull the trigger, until little Charles comes out.

Evidently kids hold a soft spot in Ben's heart.

While Ben considers what to do, Des jumps Ben from behind and beats the living snot out of him, and throws him in the water. Ben has blood coming out of every orifice. Good.

My only question is why Desmond allows Ben to live. But that question goes unanswered.

Question: When Des got shot there was no blood/bullet hole that I saw. So . . . what, was he wearing a bulletproof vest?

Commercial ****************************

Back to the beach, present day. Someone runs up, and tells Frank that "they found guns."

"They" is Ilana, and some others (not Others, others). The extra says that they say they are in charge now.

Illana holds a gun on Frank and asks "what lies in the shadow of the statue.". Frank starts to say he has no idea, but Ilana cold-cocks him with the gun, orders him tied up, and says "he's coming with us." So a subplot is born.

Back to Locke and Ben, in the tunnel. Sun is not with them.

Ben recounts how he let Alex die rather than leave the island.

"You were right, John. I did kill Alex." Ben seems genuinely repentant, but I'm not buying it.

Ben says he knows the way from here.

"I'll meet you outside, if I live--" and right then Ben falls through a hole in the floor.

Locke calls to him. "You alright?"

"Never better".

John runs to find a rope or something, and Ben looks around as a creepy wind sound begins blowing.

There are strange carvings on the columns. Hieroglyphic-ish. Ben looks at a carving of an Egyptian god of some sort facing the smoke monster.

His torch goes out. And here comes Smokey!!! Verrrrry slow. It surrounds Ben, and faces up to him.

Observation: Notice that the monster doesn't show up until Locke leaves.

Lightening flickers.

Images from the past are in the smoke. Ben sees Alex. When she's a little girl. When she's older, telling him she hates him. He hears himself say "She's not my daughter. She means nothing to me. So if you're going to kill her, go ahead and--" And then he hears the gunshot that killed Alex. Ben starts to cry.

The monster disappears. Ben's torch comes back on.

And Alex appears.

She walks slowly up to him, as he tells her he's "so, so sorry."

"It was all my fault."

"I know." she says, and slams him up against the wall. "Listen, you b-st-rd! I know you're planning on killing John Locke"

SmokeyAlex tells him to do everything John Locke tells him to do, and that if he doesn't, "she" will kill him.

He swears to do so, and she disappears.

Locke calls down. "Ben, what happened."

Observation: Notice that Locke didn't reappear until after the monster disappeared

"It let me live." Ben seems a bit disappointed.

Bam!

Next week. A Miles show! He hears dead people. And everyone on the island has a purpose.