This episode offered action, surprises, answers, and of course more questions.  So far, this is one of my favorite episodes this season.  Ben has gone from bad guy leader of the Others, to one of my favorite characters on the show.  Lots of things happened on the island with both groups, as well as off the island, so here we go:

Jacks got a stomach ache.  He and Kate have a terrible conversation about crackers.

Doc Ray washes up on shore.  Notice that the scar on his face is now fresh and has stitches.  on the boat it looks as though that scar is pretty old.  Is he both dead on the island yet still alive on the boat?  The whole time difference thing with the island is getting right confusing.

More games being played.  This time the game is Risk and “Australia is the key to the whole game”.  Speaking of risk, Ben’s going to take a big risk in a few minutes.

Alex enters 1622 to turn the fence off.  The code also sends a message of “14J” to Ben’s house by telephone.  The code lets them know that “They’re Here!”.

Flashforward - Ben wakes up in the middle of the Sahara desert with a parka on and his breath is still cold as you can see it coming off of him. He then throws up some orange liquidy grossness. (I think that this is important after watching the previews for next week’s episode where Jack also throws up).

Ben has a cut on his jacket down to his arm and he seems quite frightened upon arriving in the desert.  This cues me to think that Ben was in some type of struggle that he was trying to get away from. Possibly polar bears, or maybe a struggle with some scientists in an arctic station (end of season 2 anyone?)

Ben can apparently speak multiple languages and is a deadly with his club.  “Oh..so you do speak English?”.

Back to the island - Sawyer goes to save Claire.  The freighter people are pretty good shots when killing the extra’s but terrible when aiming for Sawyer.  This is either your typical bad action sequence where the bad guys never hit the hero, or maybe something more.  Sawyer not being hit could be along the same lines as Michael not being able to kill himself until some “job” has been completed.

RPGs have no major affects on Claire since she gets up and is “just a little wobbly.”  Claire is certainly in some type of danger, as Aaron comes to be in Kate’s hands in the future.  I think the writers are just toying with us and the fact that rumors are running wild that she will die.  Claire also makes a comment - “I’m OK, I’ll live”.  Miles pipes in and says  I wouldn’t be too sure about that”.  Interesting bit of foreshadowing…

Back to Ben who is now in Tozeur, Tunisia.  He checks in under the name “Dean Moriarty”, and says he “hasn’t been there in a while”.  Strange how his name from his last check in was only a page or too deep in the register.  I think Ben has not been there in some time when looking at the island time, but off the island he was there just days before.  It’s also odd that Ben has to confirm not only the days date, but also even the year.

The name Dean Moriarty is a character in a book called On the Road which is based on the spontaneous road trips of a man and his friends.  I think that goes right along with the quick changes in location the Ben has obviously just gone through.
Sayid is shown on the news on TV and is being hounded by the press as he is trying to burry his dead wife?  It seems that since the time Sayid got off the island he has somehow found Nadia, married her, and shes been murdered by Widmore’s people.  I could be wrong, but that also looks like a picture of Locke and Kate in the paper the lady is holding.

Ben tracks him down and so the relationship between Ben and Sayid the hit man begins.

Back to the island - The freighter people are at Ben’s house and they have Alex on her knees with a gun to her head.  Ben, the man the man who seems to know everything and every outcome is outplayed for the first time. Ben takes a risk (great tie in to the game of risk being played earlier) and Keamy shoots Alex in the head.  For the first time ever on the show, Ben looks completely in shock and out of control of a situation.

Killing Alex was against the rules.  “He changed the rules”, and Ben was about to fight back.  He goes into his secret room and through a hidden door covered in ancient hieroglyphics (ancient similar to the ancient 4-toed statue) to summon the smoke monster.

Back to the beach - Farraday (who is really getting on everyone’s nerves) fixes the phone to send morse code.  He recieves a message back from the boat saying everything fine and the helicopter is coming in the morning.  Bernard apparently knows morse code and tells everyone he’s lying.  The message said the doctor and the losties on the boat are fine.  Farraday finally admits that they were never here to take them off the island.

Back to Ben - Sawyers had enough of “these wackos” and takes Claire, Aaron and Miles back to the beach.  He tells Hurley to come but Sawyer and Ben says No.  Sawyer seems to be growing a bit of a soft side for helping people lately and says if they hurt Hurley that he would kill them.

Flashforward - Ben is now in London, England to see Mr and Ms Kendrick in 4E.  Upon entering the room, we see someone I didnt expect to see meeting Ben, at least not this season - Charles Widmore.

Ben makes an interesting comment saying “You’re rock is lovely this time of year”.  This is followed by Widmore saying that the island was his and will be his again.  This to me confirms that Widmore has been to the island previously.  I also like this shot of Ben.  It’s like he’s coming out of the dark and into the light.  Similar to his character shifting from the bad guy Other, to teaming up with the Losties and keeping the bad guy Widmore away from the island.

When Widmore asks Ben if he’s come here to kill him, Ben says “you know I can’t do that”.  There have been some interesting speculations that this is because Widmore is Ben’s constant.   Ben tells him that he has come to tell him he is going to kill his daughter, Penelope, so that he will understand how he feels, and that he wished he had never changed the rules.

I mentioned in a previous post that Lost could be explained with the game of Mousetrap and that it was being played by Widmore and Ben.  This scene is even more proof that there is some kind of game going on between the two, and everyone else is just part of setting up the trap.
What did you think of this episode?