Lost is back, it’s good, and bloody as hell.

Oh and, holy SMOKE MONSTER!

I don’t even know where to begin, except for the very beginning where Hurley says to Sawyer during a game of Risk: “Can’t believe you’re just giving him Australia. Australia is the key to the whole game.”

A clue? Probably, but to what? Who the frak knows.

The Beach People

Let’s get the beach out of the way because it was the minor story.

Over on the beach the dead doctor washes up. They finagle a Morse code thingamajig out of the phone and get a response back. Daniel tries to lie about what the response was, but Bernard, that cagey old man, he knows he’s fibbing.

The boat says, “What are you talking about, the doctor is fine?”

Steaming mad, Jack asks Daniel if they ever meant to rescue them.

“No,” comes the reply. Finally, a real answer. Doesn’t make anyone happy though.

On top of it, Jack is sick with some intestinal issue. What’s that about? (I know now thanks to ABC’s horrible previews for next week, which give so much away)

Although we do know his gut says they are getting off the Island. Good guts.

The Attack and Smoke Monster Madness

So the freighter mercenaries are the ones that blew away Karl and Danielle. They capture Alex and force her to turn off the protective grid outside Locke’s camp. But of course she put in a secret code, which rang a phone in Locke’s cabin and repeated “14J.”

They tell Ben, he freaks out and they barricade themselves inside the house with guns galore. Sawyer goes to rescue Claire, and in the meantime watches three random people in succession walk out of their cabin and get blasted.

Despite her house getting blown-up, Claire survives and is brought back by Sawyer to Locke, Ben, Hurley and the baby.

Then things start getting crazy. Miles rings the doorbell (along with the phone, just seemed funny because it’s just so out of place), and brings walkie-talkie to Ben. They have his daughter, so he watches out of the window and tries to tell them she isn’t his. Alex is just a pawn he says. And he’s not coming out.

So Keamy, the leader of the freighter mercenaries, shoots Alex in the back of the head.

Bam. People are dropping like flies.

Ben stares for a few moments (what an awesome face too – see right) at Alex’s dead body and then turns to everyone in the room:

“He changed the rules.”

Who what where? We’ll find out.

Ben rushes quickly into his hidden room, shuts the door and disappears into some ancient doorway in the back of his closet. It’s got markings and stuff all over it.

When he comes out, Ben is covered in dirt. He tells them all to be ready to run towards the tree line when he tells them to. And that they don’t want to be anywhere near the soldiers waiting for them in the trees.

And then comes the greatest Smoke Monster moment of all-time. The house shakes and rumbles, and Ben yells for them to run.

They get outside, and stop, and we see the Smoke Monster come snaking over the houses like a freight train. It dives into the woods and starts killing all the soldiers, snaping trees, and making all kinds of gruesome sounds. All the while there is the same old roller coaster clanking sounds of metal on metal like we’ve heard countless times.

I still want to know how it’s supernatural, but sounds mechanical as well.

He changed the rules. So did Ben. Whatever the rules are, the Smoke Monster wasn’t a part of it before. Now Ben is playing dirty.

They all meet up at the creek, and Sawyer, Claire, Aaron and Miles all leave to go to the beach, choosing not to hang around with the whack jobs.

But Hurley has to stay with Ben and Locke, because he’s the only one who can find the cabin for some odd reason.

And Jacob. They are off to find him to learn their next move. Can’t wait to see what happens with Jacob.

Ben in the Desert, Sayid becomes The Assassin

So the first scene after the opening was a shot of Ben waking up in the middle of the Sahara desert. He does it with a gasp, followed up by vomiting. He’s also wearing a parka and looks to have been shot.

Two men ride up on camels and he proceeds to own them with a telescoping rod weapon in his pocket.

Next we see him in Tunisia, renting a room in a hotel under his Moriarty alias, and while he’s there, Sayid appears on the screen saying he just wants to bury his wife.

Turns out, Nadia was killed by Ishmael Bakir, who works for Charles Widmore.

Ben finds Sayid at the funeral procession and tells him who killed Nadia. They form a little plan and Sayid ends up shooting a load of bullets in Bakir.

And that’s how Sayid became Ben’s henchman. His life is nothing now, and if Ben is after the same guy who had Alex killed, then it’s now Sayid’s war as well.

This all begins in October of 2005, which is very early on in the flash-forwards. The second earliest to be exact according to Lost Pedia.

Ben and Charles

So wow, the meeting at the end of the episode was flat-out awesome. Ben walks into Charles Widmore’s room in the middle of the night and tells him to wake up.

And the amazing thing is…he’s not scared, he knows who Ben is and what Ben is.

Everything that Ben has, he’s taken from Charles. The Island belonged to him before, and it will belong to him again. It’s always been Charles’ Island.

Ben shows up not to kill Charles, but to let him know that he’s going to kill his daughter, Penelope.

Desmond’s Penny.

An eye for an eye. A daughter for a daughter.

Charles shouldn’t have changed the rules, Ben says.

Charles says he’ll never find Penny, and Ben tells him that he wont find the island.

Both are now on a hunt. The Shape of Things to Come?

Questions

Okay, first off, what are the rules?

Secondly, my theory is starting to come true. At least, some of it. I thought early on that Charles has been trying to find the Island because Ben took it away, or cut off communications somehow. And now that’s sort of being proven true. It’s always been Charles’ Island. But he lost it somehow, because Ben took it over and “hid” it from Widmore’s eyes.

How does Ben land in the Sahara like that wearing a parka and having been shot? Was he in a cold climate before? Was he on the Island?

Is Ben traveling like Desmond did? It doesn’t seem to, because otherwise Ben’s other half would have just been sitting in the Sahara Desert waiting to wake up, so that doesn’t make sense. But how did he get there?

So Ben is either controlling the Smoke Monster, or knows how to control it when he wants. Obviously he told it exactly where to go.

Or perhaps the Smoke Monster isn’t being ordered around, maybe it’s more like a watchdog on a lease, and Ben set it free? And why is Ben all dirty? Where did that tunnel go?

What did you think of the episode? What questions do you have, or theories?

That being said, don’t read on if you want to stay clueless.

This upcoming Lost episode, which is called The Shape of Things to Come, will have two storylines it seems, although any flashback/flashforward tangent hasn’t been revealed.

First Locke and his camp will be under attack, and at the same time Jack finds a dead body washed ashore and will try to figure out just WHO this corpse used to be.

The only other cool spoiler is that Charles Widmore is supposedly making an appearance as well. Hmmmm…

The episode airs on April 24th, and it can’t get here fast enough.

In case you missed it, below is a preview we saw at the end of the previous episode which teases us with stuff coming up in the next five episodes.

[youtube 4ZL8Ill4Kzw]