LOST - Whatever Happened, Happened

Best moment of the show: Miles trying to explain time travel (and thus the title of the episode) to Hurley. "Time isn't a straight line for us anymore," says Miles. But after witnessing the exchange where Hurley gets Miles tangled up in his own theory asking why older Ben didn't remember that Sayid was the one who shot him as a kid, one gets the feeling that the LOST writers may be just as confused about the concept as Hugo Reyes.

I know I am...

Hurley did go all Marty McFly on us last night. I'm sure the Dueling Analysts over at Celebritology are beside themselves with glee...

Despite it being a Kate-centric episode last night, the biggest storyline was the conclusion of the fate of the young Benjamin Linus. Yes, we got to witness Anakin Skywalker as he crossed over to the dark side and became Darth Vader. Or that's the way it seemed to me when Kate and Sawyer bring the mortally wounded boy and hand him over to Richard Alpert to save his life.

"If I take him, he's never going to be the same again," Richard warns Sawyer and Kate. "His innocence will be gone. He will always be one of us."

Despite an Other's warning referencing Ellie and Charles, Richard takes young Ben to the Temple--home of the smoke monster.

The previews for next week seemed to indicate that Ben is due for judgement and retribution. Wouldn't it be a nice piece of karmic justice if the evil one got swallowed up by the smoke monster? I loved how last night's episode ended--with older Ben awaking in the crash victims bunker with John Locke waiting at his bedside.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," Locke says to him ironically.

Creepy.

But back to Kate: we found out what happened with Aaron and why she returned to the island. Despite speculation, Kate was not coerced in any way to return. She did return Aaron to his grandmother, Carole Littleton. But as she tells Carole, "I'm going back to find your daughter."

I've never been a Kate hater. But even the Katers must have teared up a bit as Kate said good-bye to Aaron, or admiration when she stormed out on Jack and went to donate blood for Ben, or felt a tinge at her selflessness in taking Ben to the Others as well as taking the blame alone and not involving Juliet. Very reminiscent of Sawyer's selfless act jumping out of the helicopter last season--although Cassidy, mother of his child Clementine, had a very different take on that.

"He was trying to get away from you," she tells Kate.

Whatever Sawyer's motives may have been, he did show up to help Kate with Ben. Although for Juliet, not Kate. Meanwhile Juliet vents at Jack for refusing to come to her aid and help save Ben. Jack told Kate earlier that, "I’ve already saved Benjamin Linus and I did it for you, Kate." He also muses that he's done fixing things--and that maybe the island just wants to fix things itself.

"I don't like the new you," Kate tells him. "You didn't like the old me, Kate," Jack replies.

But back to Juliet ,who lets Jack have a piece of her mind. "That's not Ben yet. He's just a kid!" she angrily tells him and asks him why he came back. "I came back because I was supposed to," Jack answers.

So if Jack HAD saved little Ben, is it possible his innocence would NOT have been lost and he wouldn't have grown up to be evil Big Ben?

Favorite line of the night - Miles in response to Jack, Kate and Hurley asking if they were under house arrest: "You’re all free to leave whenever you want…but I’ll shoot you in the leg."

As always, check out the recap at Lostpedia, the screencaps at Dark UFO and Liz Kelly and Jen Chaney's Dueling Analyses on washingtonpost.com.