LOST - Meet Kevin Johnson

It appears that Aaron is one of the Oceanic Six--this according to the promo that flashed the faces at the end of last night's episode.

And the "someone will DIE!" promo from last week: looks like Karl and Rousseau are history--felled by gunshots as they, along with Alex, were on their way to seek refuge at the Temple.

And finally, Michael is definitely Ben's man on the freighter. Didn't you love the episode recap by Sawyer (You mean Michael who shot and killed two people and betrayed us so he could leave the island with his son?). Or perhaps that's yet another Sawyer nickname...

Michael may very well the person in the coffin we saw in Through the Looking Glass as he definitely exhibited suicidal tendencies throughout the episode. I was struck by how similar his post-island despair was to Jack's in the Through the Looking Glass. Michael was suffering from extreme guilt over shooting Libby (who continues to haunt him) and Ana Lucia (who obviously doesn't have a contract with the show). That guilt, in addition to his estrangement from Walt to whom he confessed what he had done, causes him a great deal of pain. Like Jack who attempted to jump off a bridge, Michael drives his car into a wall--but miraculously survives.

He pawns the watch Jin gave him to get a gun. When he attempts to shoot himself, he is interrupted by none other than Mr. Friendly, aka Tom from the Others. Tom says, "Manhattan, huh? We let you leave one island and you just come to another..."So we've learned that Ben and Richard Alpert aren't the only Others who can leave the island and that Tom is gay. I'm not sure what the point of introducing Arturo the boytoy was other than to let us know that Mr. Friendly is uh, friendly. So are we supposed to feel bad that Sawyer shot him in the chest now?

Tom tells Michael, "You can't kill yourself. The island won't let you." And as he attempts for a third time to kill himself, he is not only stopped by a jamming gun but by the newscast of the found wreckage of Oceanic 815. When he shows up at the Hotel Earle to confront Tom about this news, Mr. Friendly tells him that the wreckage was faked by Charles Widmore and offers Micheal a chance to redeem himself. He can save his fellow crash survivors by killing the freighter people.

Michael aka Kevin Johnson joins the freighter crew as a deck hand. We get to see Minkowski and Naomi alive and well again, as well as the bloodthirsty Captain Gault who shoots skeet with a machine gun. When Michael/Kevin says he thought this was a rescue mission, he is told to go mop something. This gives Michael the balls to utilize what's in the box that Mr. Friendly sent to him. But before he can set the bomb off, Libby haunts him again telling him not to. He pushes the button, the timer counts down and--a note pops up. It says, "NOT YET." Those Others--such kidders!

Later, Minkowski tells Michael/Kevin he has a call from the mainland from "Walt." Only it's not Walt, it's Ben who tells Michael that the bomb didn't go off because, "I will not kill innocent people." Yeah, right Ben. You're the "good guy." He tells Michael to make a list (Another "list"? Orders from Jacob perhaps?), disable the radio room and take out the engine. When Sayid confronts him in the engine room asking him why he is on the freighter, Michael says, "I came here to die" and then relays the whole story to Desmond and Sayid. Sayid incredulously asks, "You're telling me you're working for Benjamin Linus?" Ah, Sayid--little do you know that YOU will be working for Ben as well soon enough! But Sayid drags Michael to the Captain and outs him as a spy and a traitor.

So that's where we are until April 24. Four weeks to wait to find out who shot Rousseau and Karl (I'm guessing it was a hit ordered by Ben), what happens to Kevin/Michael, who really faked the crash wreckage (Ben says Widmore, Widmore says Ben), how the Oceanic Six made it off the island and what happens to those who aren't part of the "Six." Until then check out the recap at Lostpedia, screencaps at Dark UFO and Liz Kelly and Jen Chaney's Dueling Analyses and the LOST Hour chat via the Washington Post's Celebritology.