Before the strike ended, this originally was going to be the final episode of the season, and man am I happy it isn’t. A Michael-centered episode was a nice move from the norm this season but as it didn’t tell us a whole lot we didn’t already know, it would have been a downer as a season finale. Happily, we’ll get five more for this season starting April 24th!

Most of the episode focused on how Michael ended up on the boat working for Ben and letting us in on his mission. I thought the flashback was clever in that it took a few minutes to realize his suicide attempt was after he had already been on the island and not before. It was nice to see Tom again and quite jarring to see him off-island (and was it just me or was he pretty openly gay there?). I think it’s safe to say that he and Ben are bluffing with their plan to have him kill everyone in the expedition. I doubt it has as much to do with saving everyone on the island and more to do with saving Ben. But it does make me wonder, as I have all season, if they want more than just Ben. Maybe it’s another of Ben’s half-truths– Whitmore only really wants Ben but he doesn’t care who he has to kill to get to him. Or is there also some truth to what Ben said a couple of episodes back to Locke, about how Whitmore wants the island and its healing properties? If that were the case, he probably would kill everyone on the island.  Sometimes it’s difficult to tell if a line from one of the Others is a new piece of the puzzle or just another lie.

 But a number of new questions arise. I want to know why Michael couldn’t die off-island. He tries to kill himself a number of times and can’t. And Tom knows he can’t, which makes me wonder if this is something the Others have seen before. It’s bizarre, but what if a person can die on the island but something about being there makes it impossible to die after a person leaves? I think this is also new fuel for the purgatory theory– maybe no one is getting off the island at all and it’s all an illusion… but I doubt it. I think it’s one more weird medical mystery.

A more immediate question that I’m sure we’ll get answered soon enough is who killed Rousseau. We knew from the previews that someone would die this week but I didn’t expect it to be her or Alex’s boyfriend. I thought it would be Michael or Jin and I was happy that even though I knew someone would die it was still a surprise. Since Ben sent them to find the Others’ camp, I think it was probably a setup and that the Others killed them. There’s a possibility it was one of the people from the expedition who have been at Jack’s camp, though.

I think this also clears up the question of whether the real Walt came to Locke last season or not. He’s off-island, so it must have been another “hallucination” like Jack’s father and Kate’s horse, which I still think has something to do with Jacob. See you again for more Lost in a month!

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan