Jacob's Ladder

Right off the bat, I must apologize to anyone on the East Coast who might have been awakened by my "?!!!?!?!?????!!!!!!!!!!!?!?!?!???!???!?!?!????" emails that reached you around 2am (JW!), but, hey, that's what happens when I'm 3 hours behind you!!!

With that out of the way, we'll get down to it:

Oh. My. God. They didn't really kill off Locke, did they? They can't.... right?! Locke is .... well, he's Locke. The Man of (albeit spasmodic) Faith. What's going to happen to the Man of Faith vs. Man of Science, Locke vs. Jack dynamic now? It's going to be Man of Science vs..... ? I mean, did it all just end anyway for Locke inside The Pearl station (I think) when he and Eko saw those TV monitors and then just gave up on everything? No more hatch, no more button... no more faith? To John Locke, the island was everything he ever wanted: it healed his broken body, and all he ever had to do in return was believe that "everything happens for a reason." He said it himself! He can't really be dead, though, right? He was still alive (barely) when the episode ended! Ooh, but then again, so were Nikki and Paulo. And Mikhail.... Crap!

I can't even organize coherent thoughts after all that. But with that said, as utter baffling as the last five minutes of the episode were (hardly out of the ordinary on this show, I realize), I think "The Man Behind the Curtain" gave us mucho insight on why Ben is The Way He Is... sort of. Let me explain.

Now, certainly, the emotional scarring that stemmed from Roger (Ben's daddio) blaming Ben for his mother's death speaks volumes to the type of man Ben has become. I'm sure that could be a tad hard to deal with. Not to mention living in constant fear of "Hostiles," a term which never seemed to be elaborated upon. (Upon which never seemed to be elaborated? That's not right, either.... oh well.) Teachers with rifles, chaining students in the classroom, "taking positions?" Absolutely the making of future mental cases! So at the very minimum, there are at least a few instances to which we can point as being the beginning of Sir Evil. And it most definitely explains Ben's adamant order to Locke to kill his father; a sort of "if I did it, you can too" demand. And, if we're going to go with the oft-cited-and-equally-oft-rebutted Purgatory theory wherein, once your "issues" are resolved, you can move it on up, (or down, depending, I suppose...) then it only seems fitting that Locke would bit the big one. But then, wouldn't Sawyer have the same thing going (or in this case, coming) for him? Or is he going to be the next casualty? I wouldn't be surprised: the way the producers have hyped up Charlie's death recently, you certainly can't put it past them to pull a fast one on us, make us believe it will be Charlie, then actually have it be Sawyer (or someone else). I did hear it leaked that there will be (I think) 5 deaths during the latter half of this season. Tally: Nikki, Paulo, Anthony Cooper, Locke (wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!), and .... ? Unfortunately, I think my money is on Sawyer. I've heard tell that a Survivor will sacrifice himself for the good of the group, and, given Sawyer's friendly, I-Love-Everyone-What's-Good-For-The-Group disposition of late, I fear the end is near for our beloved redneck.

Like I said, incoherent thoughts. Swarming all over the place...

Um, on to "Jacob's" creepy bungalow. First of all, surrounded by ash?! And what do you think of the whole thing? Is Ben seriously delusional? I mean, we all heard "help me" loud and clear, did we not? And we all saw "Jacob" sitting in that chair (well, maybe not the first time around, but at least our husbands did and rewound it and pointed it out to us.... just saying, is all...) after things started tweaking out. Now, Doc Jensen, whom I find to be highly entertaining, if not just a bit over my head occasionally, seems to be of the thought that "Jacob" is a time-warped Locke himself. Simply because Jacob appeared bald. I think I'll be needing a bit more solid proof, but it's certainly worth considering.

And finally, the $64,000 question: Just whose freakin' side is Juliet on, anyway?!