Lost Recap

So, I'm picking up the little blobs of brain that are all over my living room after last night's episode caused it to explode. It's a messy job, people. I sat with my mouth agape for the entire last 15 minutes. HOLY LORD! Oh Ben, you are something. This is gonna be short but let's see what happened.........

-We start with Boy Ben in the Other's camp post-healing. He gets a visit from Constantine from American Idol. No wait, that was Charles Widmore! Of course it was! He tells Ben, who is protesting his return to Dharma, that going back means he can still be "one of them," only from a different location. A child spy? Probably. Future Ben wakes up to see who? Zombie Locke! They are finally face to face post strangulation and I was hoping for an epic smackdown but Zombie Locke has some weird serenity about him and he wasn't having any fighting. Zombie Locke asks why he is so surprised to see him and we learn that Ben didn't really know he would come back to life but he had a hunch. He tells Zombie that he came back to be judged by the smoke monster for breaking the rules (coming back to the island), which we now are being led to believe is some sort of judging deity. Interesting.

-Back on the beach with the NEW losties, who I will call newsies, and Ben decided to throw suspicion on Zombie by egging on Caesar and making him think John was already on the island. Caesar doesn't look too smart so he believes this. In a flashback, we see that a slightly older Ben and a young Ethan were ordered to kill Danielle and Alex, who had been living on the beach since they wrecked there. Ben goes to kill her but sees the baby and rethinks it. Instead he takes the baby and tells Danielle that if she wants her to live, she should NEVER try to find her and that if she is out and hears whispers to RUN LIKE HELL. This effectively keeps Danielle insane and afraid and at bay for the next 16 years. He brings the baby back to camp where Widmore appears to be in charge, even though Richard is right there. Widdy is pissed that he didn't kill them and so Ben gives him the baby to kill but Widdy takes a pass and Ben takes the baby for himself. Widdy makes a claim that everything he does, including killing, is done for the sake of the island. Hmmm....where have we heard that before? Back in the present, Ben and Zombie Locke are in Ben's old office and John finally asks Ben why he killed him. Ben said it was the only way to get everyone back and John asks why he didn't just let him kill himself and Ben says that he needed to pump info out of him and dead bodies don't talk and after that, he didn't have time to convince him to re-hang himself so he took a shortcut. I do not believe any of this except for the pumping info part.

-Back on the island, Ben and John are attempting to take a boat to the main island but Caesar stops them. Ben makes eyes at him, furthering his suspicion of John, Caesar is all "I'M IN CHARGE HERE" and when he goes to pull a gun on Locke to stop him, Ben shoots him DEED! Ouch. Bye, Caesar. Ben tells John that was his apology for killing him. This whole scene was sketchy to me. They get to the dock, Ben is all "home sweet home" and John says he thinks Ben is lying and that he is there to atone for killing Alex, not for returning to the island. Ben doesn't like hearing this but I suspect he is right. They go to Ben's old house where we see Sun and Frank, who have been told by Christian to wait there for John, who they think is dead. When Ben comes in and they see John is alive, they are freaked out, but explain why THEY are there, which is to find the people that are stuck in 1977. Frank is all "I quit this crazy bitch. See you on the beach" and takes off while Ben tried to conjure the smoke monster by flushing an ancient toilet in a secret passageway in his home. That was weird. He waits outside for Smokey, who doesn't come, so John tells him he will take him to it. Ben is alarmed that John knows more than he does. So are we. Off they go to the temple.

-Back to past Ben, who is seeing off Widdy as he is being banished from the island for leaving too often, having Penny with an outsider and generally being a jerk with a bad wig. I made that last part up but it's probably true. Widdy tells him that things are gonna happen whether Ben likes it or not, namely Alex WILL die, and that Ben will be banished himself at some point. Ben tells him that no he won't, he will do it right and succeed. Now we know the connection. Widdy wants back on the island, which has banished him for screwing up knowing Ben wants to get back as well for the same reasons. Why does he want to go back? What is is that they are going back for?

-Sun, Ben and Zombie Locke go to the temple, but as they're walking Ben realized he hates that John knows what's going on and he doesn't. ZING! Welcome to John's world, Benny. In a future flash, we see that Ben did indeed try to kill Penny before they went back but stopped when he saw little Charlie and then Desmond, who somehow was unaffected by Ben's GUN SHOT TO THE CHEST, beats the crap out of him and pushes him into the water. I don't think that was the end of that but that's all we saw. Widdy knows he did this and I'm guessing he isn't too thrilled. Meanwhile, they make it to the temple and John tells him they are going under it to find Smokey. Ben tells Sun to tell Desmond he is sorry (see, it ain't over yet). Ben goes in with John and finds Smokey's place. It should be noted that there is a hieroglyphic on the wall above it that shows Anubis, which was the ancient Egyptian figure who brought the dead to the afterlife. That is VERY IMPORTANT. Smokey comes out, wraps around Ben, much like Dorothy was enveloped by the twister in The Wizard of Oz (make the connection, people) and sees his life with Alex, including her death. After it goes away, Alex appears and gives him a verbal smackdown, telling him to listen and follow everything Zombie Locke tells him to do. We finally see Ben as a vulnerable and emotional man and it was glorious. Alex was NOT nice to him and rightfully so.

-On top of all this craziness, we end back at the beach, where Frank has returned to some chaos. Illeana and some other men have decided to take over but we soon find out that things are not what they seem. Frank approaches her and she demands, at gunpoint, to know "what lies in the shadow of the statue?" Frank is like WHA? and has no clue. She persists and when he doesn't give it up, she clocks him out cold. This was the weirdest part of the episode. This lady wasn't just taking Sayid to Guam. She is someone and knows something. She is not who she seems and I think that there are others like her.

Okay, so this wasn't short but this was the best I could do. I am still working through the info and I don't have much else to add except that I'm glad we know why Ben and Widmore hate each other and we now know that the smoke monster can take the form of people whose dead bodies reside on the island. Yemmi, Christian, Alex, etc. Does this mean it can go off island ala Ana Lucia and Hurley? Next week looks BANANAS and we only have 4 episodes or so to go so things are going to get more complicated before they get clear.