Don’t Cross The Streams

What I Liked:

• If everyone on Lost died in the next episode except for Ben and Locke and we had to spend the next season and a third just watching Michael Emerson and Terry O’Quinn play off each other, I might be okay with that (as long as we get guest spots from Desmond and Faraday)
• Bye Caesar.  I guess you were just a redshirt who got a lot of lines.
• Ben didn’t kill Penny! Thank God.  This was the one thing I was fearing all season long.
• We got to see Widmore’s reign as leader of the Others and his banishment
• I like new confident, almost all-knowing Locke and more importantly the effect the role reversal has on Ben.
• We finally get a closer look inside the Temple…or at least under it.

What I Didn’t Like:

• We didn’t get to see what happened when Young Ben went into the Temple and what about it changed him.
• I still don’t like the copout that Ben doesn’t remember anything about getting shot.
• Ben and Charles Widmore’s “youthful” hairstyles.  Ben looked like a newly-retired member of A Flock of Seagulls and Charles…well, I don’t have anything witty to say about the Brillo pad he was wearing
• Tania Raymonde (Alex) still can’t act.  I agree with James Poniewozik. She is the Sofia Coppola of Lost
  

Lines of the Night:

• “How are you doing?” “Like someone hit me with an oar, but I’ll live.” – Caesar and Ben
• “Well, I just didn’t have time to talk you back into hanging yourself…so I took a shortcut” – Ben to Locke regarding his strangling of Locke
• “I was just hoping for an apology” – Locke to Ben regarding Ben’s strangling of him
• “No sense in my dying twice, right?” – Locke to Ben regarding Ben saving him from Caesar
• “As long as the dead guy says there’s a reason, I guess everything’s going to be just peachy.” – Lapidus to Sun regarding Locke
  
• “…So the fact that John Locke is walking around on this island scares the living hell out of me!” – Ben to Sun regarding Locke’s resurrection
• “What lies in the shadow of the statue?” – Ilana to Lapidus

Questions:

• Do either Widmore or Ben really know “what the island wants”?
• When Alpert invokes Jacob’s name as his reason for doing things, is he being honest or is it just because no one can prove him wrong?
• What happened to Ben when he was brought inside The Temple?
• Where did the Others get horses from?
• How come Ben only doesn’t remember getting shot?
• What’s inside the big metal box that the Aijira survivors are trying to open? (My wild guess: Locke’s coffin and body)
• If Ben is right and “dead is dead,” what does that mean for Christian, Locke and maybe Claire?
• Are we ever going to see the book of Rules that Widmore, Ben and Alpert keep referring to?
• Why didn’t Ben kill Danielle when he had no problem wiping out the entire Dharma Initiative?
• Why does Ethan side with Ben and the Others and why did the Others let him?
• Why doesn’t Ben remember any of the Oceanic crew in the 70’s particularly Juliet or Sawyer?
• How does Locke all of the sudden know everything?
• What does it say that Christian has never appeared before Ben?
• What’s the correct answer to the question “What lies in the shadow of the statue?”
• What’s up with Ilana and the armed members of Lost: The Next Generation? Are the more of Widmore’s people, a secret cult that worships whatever that Temple was built for or possessed by the sickness that got Danielle’s crew?
• Is that Anubis on the hieroglyphics on the wall?  Is the statue really one of Anubis?
• What force controls or compels Smokey?
• Is what happened with Ben and Smokey the same thing that happens to everyone?
• If so, what did Seth Norris, the pilot of Oceanic 815, ever do wrong?
• Did Smokey decide that Ben was worthy of survival or was the island not finished with him yet?
• Who took the form of Alex: Smokey, Jacob or the island (or some combination)?
• Does this mean we are never going to see Desmond or Penny again?