Ben is a right arsehole that should have been KILLED by EVERYBODY HE MEETS at the EARLIEST OPPORTUNITY.

I don't mind villains getting away with stuff but Ben's no villain, he's just a confusing bastard.

Thats the thing though, I reckoned Ben will turn out to be a good guy of sorts, well I did before that episode, the flash/forward scenes of him suggest hes still an evil bastard especially when he gives that cheeky grin after im guessing fooling sayeed into killing that man. Its going to be interesting whos the real bad guy between him and whitmore.

I dunno about that MrD. Ben has done some nasty stuff for sure, but I have a feeling (a hope even), that it'll turn out that he is somehow the 'lesser of two evils'. Jim Robinson being perhaps worse, maybe. Runcle, I dunno that he did trick Sayid. I reckon he told the truth, but he did actually want that guy to give a message to Whitmore, and Sayid turning up and killing him was not what he wanted - though Sayid giving his service definitely did put a big smile on his face. He's all about brief facial expressions. Awesomeage.

When Ben runs off into that hidden room, and apparently then activates the black smoke - the expression on his face after he opens that rather ancient looking portal and enters - gone is his usual aloofness, he looks totally different. It's not just the lighting, he looks absolutely terrified, just for the second or so you see him enter. For me, that was the most interesting part of the episode, though I found it All Good.

I love how he has continually put himself in massive amounts of danger, because to him it's all some sort of wonderful game... until this week when they killed Alex, and 'the rules have changed'.

I'm now interested in what the rules were!

Also, interesting that Ben wakes up in the Sahara not knowing 'when' it is. How did the guys on horseback know he was 'coming'. How did he get there? There must be some form of strange arcane transport system on the island, which links Island/Arctic/Desert. This explains the survey team in the ice, the polar bears on the island, the polar bears found with the Dharma logo in the desert, Ben's clothing upon appearing in the desert, and the fact that his first breath out once appearing was frosty.

I loves me some Lost.

I'd feel like I was wasting too much time watching the back stories of people they just then kill over and never reference again. Seriously, there were SO MANY fucking 'Charlie' flashback episodes and then he fucking died. What a boring waste of goddamn time. It's only the rest of the intrigue that's keeping me going.

Hmm, I was thinking that Ben similar to curiosity, theres a look of puzzlement on his face when he looks around, and the clothes suggested arctic, is it a machine or some kind of ability aswell. I also had a feeling Ben may have the ability to create those hallucinations people had seen. Possibly that secret chamber he goes in gives him that ability and that of the black smoke. also the whole 'changing the rules thing' Im guessing family shouldn be killed and that andy 'powers of the island shouldnt be used, thus why ben didnt use the black smoke before the army men reached the village.

Aye to the tedious and pointless flashbacks. I have hope however, that they might revisit some of those flashbacks though. To show you that OMG BEN WAS THERE ALL THE TIME or OMG JACK IS A WOMAN or whatever. This or something like that.

The bad guy/important data gets away/gets killed/gets destroyed at the last minute, shortly after revealing another way to diffuse the situation. En route to this alternate solution, Jack is ambushed.

This weak's episode.

After a Ben-centric episode of thrills and spills, it was a lot to ask of me, to care for Jack's health and well-being for 45 minutes. Even if it had been his birthday, and it was the present he most wanted.

Yeah, it was kinda okay, and at least filled in from Kate's court case -> Jack going mental as seen at the end of Season 3, but on the whole 'Jack' episodes are often the most boring.

Ben is the bestest character ever