You Wait For Ages…

Then two come along at once… Yup this week Kate got the flashback treatment, and despite the title of this weeks episode “Whatever Happened, Happened” there was still no sign of Daniel Faraday.

So what did we learn this week? We finally learnt why Kate came back and what happened to Aaron. In fact this weeks flashbacks were not anywhere near as bad as last weeks but still we didn’t “need to know” what they were telling us.

For example Kate goes to see Cassidy, possibly the best looking non-regular flashback-e, but other than the fact that Kate confides in her the truth about Sawyer and the others there is little information that we gather from the encounter. Unlike in other Kate flashbacks where we see her kill her stepfather only to discover he was her real father, these tiny scraps of information we learn this week could just have easily been assumed. I mean what happened to Lost leaving us guessing?

One of the major points of the flashbacks in my opinion was that Aaron vanished which Kate had always assumed would happen one day… In fact I seem to remember her having nightmares last season about Claire coming for the baby… All of which begs the question why she didn’t take the baby with her… back to the island if she was supposed to return it Claire? Also then she made the decision to leave Aaron with a total stranger, admittedly a blood relative, but a stranger nonetheless, personally i would have felt it was more believable that she left him with Cassidy, who over the last three years she had cultured a friendship with.

Anywoo Kate decides to return to the island to quote “rescue Claire”. Yup that’s right, Miss “in it for herself” Austen is returning to island to rescue the girl who vanished in the middle of the night without her child after being slightly blown-up only hours earlier.

So back on island, young Ben’s eyes open and he calls to Jin for help. Clearly the island is intervening here because Sayid shot Ben through the heart and left him for dead. Also what kind of killer for hire doesn’t check a kill? Surely if Sayid feels so strongly about killing Ben he would make sure the job was done, especially if he will (without a doubt) have to live with the guilt of what he has done, Sayid loves his guilt… maybe he’ll go on another walkabout and find Rousseau again…

So in another echo moment Jack is called upon to save Ben’s life, first by Sawyer, then by Kate and both times he says no. What has happened to poor old Jack? Kate tells him “She liked old Jack.” to which Jack replies “You never liked old Jack.” which hurts Kate, but hey, the truth hurts. However it isn’t just this episode that Jack has been showing a change. The entire season Jack has been very different to the Dr. Shepherd of old. He wouldn’t be racing across the island to save anyone the way he is now would he? Lets face it, Sayid was in a cage for several episodes and Jack never once mounted a rescue. Sun hasn’t been seen since they arrived but has he even asked where she is? Or for that matter has he asked where the forty other survivors he left behind are? Frogurt? Bernard? Rose?

After Jack refuses to help, Kate begins to donate blood and apparently she is a universal donor… I’m sure that might have come in useful at some other point… However Juliet knows no amount of blood will save Ben, so the girls hatch a plan to take the kid to the Others, to Richard Alpert.

Meanwhile Hurley and Miles discuss time travel and how NOTHING can change, that what has happened has already happened. To which Hurley points out that maybe Old Ben might have remembered Sayid shooting him while the Iraqi was torturing him in the Swan hatch. Miles replies with “Huh? I didn’t think of that…” Is this someone admitting something? Hmmmmm… I was tempted to believe it was a nice joke until they revealed just how they planned to get out of it…

Sawyer and Kate reach Richard and hand over Ben, where a random other delivers the cringe-worthy line “You shouldn’t do this without asking Elle… and if Charles finds out!” Was this seriously the best way they could come up with of telling us that Widmore and Eloise had joined the Others? And for random other to point this out to Richard, please, Richard is some kind of immortal Other, island embodiment thing, don't tell him what he can do!

However that wasn’t the worst line in the whole episode, this was: “If i take him, he’s not ever going to be the same again. What i mean is, he’ll forget this ever happened.” Seriously? Then how does he manage to have a flashback to four years prior to this episode? How does he remember the girl Annie or the doll she made for him? Or that he has daddy issues which later cause him to gas the entire Dharma Initiative? Or is the memory loss so specific as to target only those memories that would disrupt the timeline of the show? It all seems a little too convenient no?

Now, since Richard appeared in season 3, I’ve had a theory that he is in fact Smokey manifested in human form, hence the eyeliner. A theory I discarded after it was announced that Richard would not be a main feature of the show due to the filming of Kane. However in the closing of this weeks episode i begin to question this theory once again as Mr. Alpert carries the wounded Ben into Smokey’s den, otherwise known as the temple. It certainly would explain Richards everlasting youth…

However, this leaves questions. Firstly last season Ben sent Alex, Karl and Danielle to the Temple, but why would they go? Danielle watched members of her team be slaughtered by Smokey in the Temple. Also Richard is the only person we have ever seen even being allowed to enter. Also if Smokey lives in the Temple then why was his direct line installed in a Dharma building? If Smokey is connected to the island, I would assume that the secret tunnel Ben used to summon him would be as old as the island, thus why would the Others allow Dharma to build houses there?

Anyhow, slightly off topic, lets return to the episode. Ben is carried unconscious into the Temple and as he is, Older Ben awakens from his coma. A nice touch, a sort of indicator that maybe the past and present are linked. Except for one problem, Ben didn’t fall unconscious at the moment Young Ben was shot.

So that was the episode, which leaves us with the question of next week’s title “Dead is Dead.” If its not referring to Ben then who? Is Sayid going to become consumed with grief and top himself? Or is it maybe a referral to Daniel and young Charlotte? Are we possibly getting a Miles Strom episode, i don’t think we’ve had a full length one yet. Are we going to see any of the present? With Frank, Sun, Ben, Locke, Caesar and Ilana all trapped there something must be happening?

Whatever it is, i just hope it doesn’t feature the quayside flashback again… Anyhow, that’s My Two Cents… I’ll leave you to make up your own minds.