(Previously on Lost: “Meet Kevin Johnson“)

The wait is over! After four (or is it five?) excrutiating Lost-free weeks, we’ve finally got a new episode to obsess over. For the first week or so of the hiatus, I didn’t really know what to do with myself. It was almost worse than the long trek between seasons just because I knew that it was coming back soon… just not soon enough. I filled my time by starting a new TV series that I’d never watched before — Battlestar Galactica. And it’s good, yeah, and I can see why it’s popular.

But it ain’t Lost.

And once again, this week, Lost has proven why it’s the best thing on TV. The writers may not have been writing during the WGA strike, but it’s clear that they still had Lost on the brain, just like the rest of us.

This week opened with an immediate shocker — Ben suddenly and (it seems) surprisingly awakening in the middle of the Tunisian desert, wearing a Dharma parka (?!) — and it didn’t let up for the entire episode. This episode delivered on everything and was one of the more densely-packed episodes of the series.

“The Shape of Things to Come” gave us more of the time traveling mythos that “The Constant” blew our minds with, only a seemingly different aspect of it (but still one that’s not entirely clear — we still don’t know how the whole space/time travel thing works on this show), but also offered clues and answers (!!) to some of the other mysteries of the show.

There was almost a mind-numbing amount of information being thrown at us this go ’round. Dead Doctor Ray! Almost dead Claire! Bernard knows morse code! Sayid marries Nadia! Nadia is killed! OMG Alex! SMOKEY! And “The Rules!”

DID YOU SEE THAT?

During Ben’s flash-forward, after Sayid agrees to help Ben hunt down Widmore’s men, we see a sly little smile appear on Ben’s face. What’s he up to? Obviously, he meant to recruit Sayid for his dirty work, but how far did he go to do so? I think Ben may have had more to do with Nadia’s death than he’d have Sayid believe.

BEN’S TIME-TRAVEL

Ben is clearly started when he wakes up in Tunisia, and not properly dressed (and with a wounded arm to boot), though he’s obviously appeared in the country before since he’s a “preferred guest” at the hotel (and hearing his alias Dead Moriarty’s name seems to have taken aback the hotel clerk) and we know that DHARMA has had some dealings in the country before. Dealings involving polar bears.

So Ben can teleport, but apparently this teleportation involves time travel too, right? And I don’t imagine Ben is someone who’s going to teleport (by whatever means he’s do that) without knowing the when and where he’s headed. But he was obviously in some sort of trouble and had to get out of it in a hurry, which is why he’s unsure of what year he’s traveled to. It’s almost as if he didn’t have time to plan when/where he was headed. Wherever he was, it was cold. (Also of note: Ben’s parka has a new DHARMA logo on it, and the name “Halliwax.” Halliwax is Marvin Candle’s alias from the Pearl Station video, but the DHARMA logo seen in that video is different than what’s on Ben’s parka. The Pearl Station is widely thought to be where time travel/teleporation experiments are conducted. We should be seeing this station on the show in the next few weeks.)

I’ve got a theory that Ben is actually traveling to the time of the flash-forwards from the time that we see him on the Island. All of those passports that we saw in Ben’s secret room? They were for traveling, yeah, but not by traditional means. I think that Ben’s manipulating events both on and off the Island at the same time.

SPEAKING OF THAT ROOM

Did those hieroglyphs on the door look a lot like the one’s from the counter in the Hatch? What was Ben doing in there? Is there something that he did in there that helps him control Smokey or simply unleash him (Ben seemed weary of going anywhere near Smokey one it was unleashed, indicating that Ben isn’t actually controlling it, but does have a way of imprisoning it and then releasing it at will.)

“IT’S THE RULES!”*

The biggest shock of the episode was the death of Alex. Michael Emerson deserves all of the accolades that he gets because of performances like the one he gave here. Somehow he managed to make a man who’s been pretty evil most of the time completely sympathetic, especially when he went to tell Alex goodbye. The saddest part of all is what Alex heard him say just before she died, that she meant nothing to him, that she wasn’t his daughter, that she was just a pawn.

Ben obviously thought that Keamey would release Alex at this point, but when Alex was killed “The Rules” were changed. What are the rules? What’s really going on with the battle between Ben and Widmore? When Ben visits Widmore in London, he mentions this to Widmore, and tells him that he’s going after his own daughter, none other than Desmond’s love, Penny.

But the biggest revelation in this scene (and possibly in the entire episode) was Charles Widmore’s statement that the Island is his, has always been his. If that’s the case, why’s he having such a hard time finding it and how did he lose it?

MORE QUESTIONS FROM THIS EPISODE

• There’s a lot of devour this week, and this recap is already getting pretty lengthy, so I’ll just end it with these questions:
• How did Ben end up in the middle of the desert, and why’s he dressed for cold weather? Where was he before Tunisia? What happened to his arm?
• Why is Ben unsure of the year?
• Who killed Doctor Ray Sweeney Todd-style? Why does the message from the freighter say he’s fine? Is this more of the Island Time/Freighter Time mismatching?
• How does Bernard know Morse Code? He’s a dentist, right? Maybe he’s also an Eagle Scout.
• What do the hieroglyphs in Ben’s secret room mean?
• What’s in that room? What was Ben doing in there and why was he so dirty when he came back out?
• Is Ben controlling Smokey?
• Why is Hurley the key to finding Jacob’s cabin?
• What are The Rules?
• Why can’t Ben kill Widmore?
• Why does Widmore refer to the Island as “his?”

As I’ve already said in so many words, this was another incredible episode of Lost and I can’t wait to see what happens next. I’ve almost gotten to the point where I’ve stopped speculating about where this show’s going because the writers just keep blowing my mind with new revelations and new mysteries.

Next week, it looks like Jack’s battling a burst appendix (this was given away by the previews already, which is why Jack’s stomach ache didn’t appear on my unanswered questions list) and it’s a Jack-centric episode, which is always good.

Oh, and during the game of Risk between Sawyer, Locke and Hurley, did you catch this line? “Australia’s the key to the whole game.” This obviously isn’t true in the actual game of Risk, so this is either a huge clue or a red herring thrown out by the writers to screw with us. Either way, pretty cool.

*Every time Ben mentions “The Rules” in this episode, I can’t help but think of Michael Emerson’s performance in Saw, and his character’s insistence on playing by “the rules.”