LOST: The Truth About Turniphead

Good. But still not great.

Last night's Lost focused on Kate (again) but it was one of her better episodes. We get to see the return of Cassidy and Clementine in non-infant form. Also some Richard Alpert goodness and more 1977 fun. Let's get started.

Ok, Ok, I'm a big liarhead
This episode showed us what happened to good ol' Turniphead when Kate decided she had to go back to the island and that Jack shouldn't ask her where the child was and should boink her instead. During Kate's flashbacks she fulfills her promise to Sawyer and visits Cassidy and gives her a large sum of money for Clementine. Cassidy knows better than to believe that Sawyer gave Kate the money and calls out such. Kate then essentially crumbles and tells her most of the true story. (If Lost were back on cool ground there would be more to Cassidy than meets the eye in my opinion) Anyway, Kate feels that she can still lie about who Aaron is, but once again Cassidy is a smart cookie and knows that he isn't her child.

Later, we get to see Kate and Aaron grocery shop (yes!) and she pulls a poor mother routine and loses the tyke. When she next seems him in the store, it appears that his real mother is taking him out, of course we know it's not her. Point of interest though: did you notice the grocery store clerk's face when she told him her son (that he had just seen 30 seconds before) was gone? He looked at her like she had just eaten a shitcookie. ie: confused.

After that, Kate decides that Aaron might be better off with his grandmum. So she packs him up in a hotel room, goes and tells Carol who she is, what happened and that Claire is alive. (Poor Carol by the way....I mean talk about a lot at once) Then she walks off and washes her hands of the Aaron situation, telling Carol she's returning to the island to find Claire.

Dude, That's Confusing
Back in Dharmaland in 1977 our Losties are still schmoozing with the Initiative. When Jin wakes up he sees injured little Ben and wait...his bullet hole was on the opposite side of his chest in the last episode. I've read some interesting theories on this. Anyway, they rush Ben off to the hospital where Juliet starts trying to save her future dictator's life. She can't fully fix him though, and sends for Jack. Mr. Shephard wants nothing to do with the situation though. He claims that he's "been there, done that" and that he won't operate on Linus to save his life again.

In this time period, Hurley and Miles have a rather amusing/interesting conversation on how their time jumping works. It's a case of What happened happened vs. we can change what occurs. I'm one of the "they can alter things" situation seeing as how if they can't, this is one big elaborate drawn out way of giving Dharma backstory.

Back to the Ben story, Kate and Roger have a couple of heart to hearts and they really try to show the softer side of Daddy Linus. (odd, right?) Juliet tries her hand at Jack being all "maybe the island is trying to fix things itself, I'm not getting involved" and catches him in the shower. Jack doesn'st seemed bothered by this fact, he doesn't even bother drying off before he put his shirt on. I don't get it.....unimportant.

Kate and Sawyer drag Ben outside the fence and set up a rendezvous with Maybelline man himself, Richard Alpert. He knows that it's Ben who was hurt and tells them that if he helps him that Ben won't remember any of it and that his innocence will be gone. He then reasks Kate if she's sure she wants him to take him. As he starts to walk off, one of the others asks if he should wait on word from Ellie and says that Charles wouldn't like it. This finally confirms that Charles does indeed seemingly take over as the head honcho of the Others. He says that he doesn't answer to either of them and then takes Ben into the temple. So have we changed something? Did Ben always get shot and go off into the temple and re-infiltrate Dharma?

Ohhh Shit.
Once young Ben is carried off into the temple, we flash up to 2007 with old Ben waking up to see Locke sitting as his bedside and tells him "welcome back to the land of the living". Ben looks like he may have soiled himself.

The Big Questions
1. Will Jack go back to the original Mr. Shephard or will he keep up his Locke-like attitude?
2. Have things been changed with Sayid shooting Ben or did it always happen?
3. Where did Alpert come from in the jungle?
4. Does he answer to anyone at all? What exactly is his place in the others?
5. Are Widmore and Hawking running the show with the others right now?
6. Will Locke finally just punch Ben senseless?