Ben's Not the Kind of Guy You Want Having a Crush on You...

It’s always hard to follow up a Desmond episode. I knew I couldn’t expect The Other Woman to blow me away like The Constant did. But it was an interesting installment nonetheless. And we got to see Tom again, albeit for about a minute... Still, I was excited about that, and amused by the image of him "cryin’ about [his] daddy," and it was nice to see Goodwin too, except when he was pinned to the ground with a stake. Ick.

The flashback seemed a little bit repetitious to me, what with seeing that plane crash scene from the Others’ perspective yet again and seeing impaled Goodwin yet again and seeing him fooling around with Juliet again, though this time we had the added information that he was married. I wasn’t too surprised that Ben had a crush on Juliet; I got that vibe a couple times before, but it was funny to see him so giddy when they had their little dinner date. (When he pulled the ham out of the oven, Dad said, "Oh, I guess he’s not Jewish!")

It was awfully nasty of him to leave Goodwin with the castaways until he got killed. What a vindictive thing to do. Makes me wonder if Ethan did anything to tick him off. I’m also curious about Annie, who I assume is the "her" to whom Harper referred. It would seem that she did remain on the island as an adult if Harper was able to say that Juliet looked just like her. My guess would be that he married her and then she died in childbirth, just like Ben’s own mother did, which is a really depressing thought. I’d really much rather she be alive and suddenly return at some point to help Ben redeem himself. (As for Juliet, I don’t see her being much of a match for Ben or Jack. The feeling definitely isn’t mutual with possessive Ben, and she and Jack just lack a certain chemistry, as evidenced by their rather grueling end-of-the-episode kiss.)

It’s good to know that I’ve pretty much had Charles Widmore’s number all along. Bad news and majorly involved in the bid for control of the island. I’m encouraged by the fact that Ben said the "friends on the freighter" aren’t the enemy, and Dan confirmed that they were on the castaways’ side when he rendered the gas inert. Ben might have to worry about those two, however. He and John continue to have an intriguing dynamic. I liked the fact that he asked whether that rabbit had a number on its back; aw, isn’t that sweet? Ben cares about his pet bunny...

There was some interesting misleading dialogue in this episode. The beginning was worded in such a way that I think we were meant to at least consider the possibility that this was a flash forward and Juliet was a member of the Oceanic Six, and when Dan said, "What if I can’t do this?" to Charlotte, I thought maybe his conscience was getting in the way of him performing some dastardly deed. His worry, of course, was entirely different - that he literally would be unable to come up with the proper commands to disable the gas in time.

I loved the despairing look he gave Juliet when she came barging in; it was heartbreaking, even though all we could see was his eyes through that hazmat suit. The commercials were misleading, though; they had Dan shooting an alarmed "You speak for yourself!" look at Charlotte when she told Juliet she’d just have to shoot them both. I waited for it in the episode, and I never saw it. Ah well...

Sun and Jin didn’t have a lot to do in this episode, but I’m glad we at least saw them, and I think it’s rather nice that Jin gave Dan and Charlotte the benefit of the doubt. Still no Rose and Bernard, which is frustrating, but that end shot of Sawyer and Hurley playing horseshoes and then incredulously watching Ben walk into the house was terrific. I also liked Claire’s conversation with John, especially her point about "All Charlie said was whose boat it isn’t. Don’t you want to know whose boat it is?"

Who does Ben have on the boat? Someone who would shock John, and supposedly us. The first possibility that would spring to mind is Michael, but if that’s the case, I’m really not going to be too shocked since we’ve been seeing his name on the credits all season. Libbie says AnaLucia, which makes so little sense it actually could be true. I’ll go with something equally unlikely and say Christian. Maybe we’ll find out in this episode, which is Sun and Jin-centric. I suspect Sun is a member of the Oceanic Six and Jin is not. Hopefully if that’s the case, he’s not going to be killed off this episode...

I had a dream last night that I saw the next episode of LOST. I don’t remember too much about it, but it involved a speech-making Hurley and spider-like aliens, one of whom had braces. In fact, the episode opened with them, far into the future, but they were traveling back in time to rendez-vous with the castaways... or something... and I recall thinking that there was no question at this point that LOST had gotten itself firmly into sci-fi territory. I don’t think there will be any aliens in this episode. But you never can tell with LOST...