So Lost: 316 (Spoilers for anyone who doesn't think I'd actually talk about what happened in the episode...)

I definitely have to watch this episode a second time. It was a mostly straightforward episode time-switching wise. Almost a relief!

Jack, with his "messiah complex" (From wikipedia: Messiah complex is a state in which the individual believes themselves to be, or destined to become, the saviour of the particular field, a group, an event, a time period, or in an extreme scenario, the world) is sooo easily led by the nose by Mrs Hawking and Ben. Here is a smart talented man who has no clue, but thinks it is always his job to save the day and "fix things". Couldn't he use those smarts to see that Mrs. Hawking and Ben and the Island aren't fixable? Noooooo. And there he is, in direct competition with John Locke who also believes he is destined to be "special" and save the Island. Criminy.

Kate is such a little psycho. How she manages to appear small and vulnerable while being up to no good 24/7 I just can't see. "You must promise never to ask me about Aaron"...yeah right. Lucky for you Jack always wears his leash so you can just give him a little shake now and then and he rolls on over to have his belly rubbed (dog reference).

What happened to Aaron we ask? My coworker JR (not the one from "Dallas") had a great theory that Charles Widmore has both Kate and Sun working on his behalf. We have seen Sun offering to work with him, but wily Kate?

He might easily be involved though...how did those two women, Sun and Kate leave their children behind and trudge off to the Island? He could have promised them something, and it would have to be something that would eventually allow them to be re-united with the kids. I can see that he could convince them to carry out some set of orders.

I think Sun is sufficiently obsessed with being back with Jin so that she would go no matter what. But not Kate. The other possiblity for Kate is that she had another visit from Claire, who told her in a previous episode not to bring Aaron back to the Island.

But...what about the whole "nobody must raise Aaron but Claire" thing? Hmmpf. Kate could have left Aaron with Claire's mom, but why? And why do that and go back to the island? Does she think she can switch places with Claire somehow? She would do that for Aaron I think.

The Dharma Initiative and its membership raises its intriguing head as the inventor of the pendulum that detects the Island. How they guessed there was an island like this in the first place is a puzzle. I need to go back and watch the very first Dharma Initiative training film. In it, briefly, the founders of the Dharma Initiative, a man and wife are briefly seen and named. I don't recall that they have been referred to since, but they have remained in my mind. Woman with blond hair, hairy bearded guy...could be anyone. I keep thinking they are Eloise Hawking and Charles Widmore under bogus names but that would be too easy.

The whole 316 thing...over my non-theological head. Clearly John is the sacrifice and Jack the unbeliever (Doubting Thomas) who must be convinced. I will say I do not feel Mrs Hawking or Ben are remotely holy, reverent, or using the church, it's teachings or anything else as more than a tool and a screen. Ben can light candles till doomsday but he is a bad bad man.

Mrs. Hawking, though there is speculation she is a protector of the island and the timestream or some such...also seems bad to the bone. Did you see her face all hard and cold and ugly when Desmond told her he was there on Daniel's behalf to ask for help? Not exactly snuggly mama. Although it did occur to me as I pondered this that she is angry at him, perhaps for trying to alter time and events to save Charlotte. Ack and how could I forget, Daniel had funding for his time travel research for 10 years from Charles Widmore. So mama doesn't like her mumbly voiced son sleeping with the enemy. Aha.

Lastly, at the end we have Hurley, Jack and Kate back on the island, greeted by Jin with a brand new Dharma Initiative uniform and the blue van from previous episodes all sparkly and new. So they are on the island but in the early days of the Dharma Initiative. Maybe they'll meet those founders I find so intriguing.

We're missing Sun, who will be going BONKERS that Jin is not on the island as promised, though he's in another time frame, I speculate. How is Ben going to explain all that? With a full helping of slime, no doubt. I will be surprised if all of them are in the past and just in different locations on the island.

We're missing Sayid and his lovely police escort.

Of course John-in-a-box is missing. Too interesting to see in what corporeal form he shows up next.

And too cute! A whole back-of-the-plane-load of new shiny disposable Red Shirts! All of those people ready to be ground up in the Island Munch Machine.

Good stuff.

Note: here is the orientation film. I can't make out the names of the Dharma Founders, (DeGroots?) but I did see something I didn't pay attention to the first time around: Charles Widmore up in his office, seen through an outside window and said to be the financial backer of the Dharma Initiative. (Ah this answers my question above...how did the Dharma Initiative know to look for the island...Charles Widmore got them involved, since he funded them.) These two don't look like Widmore and Hawking at all so forget that wild theory. There we have it...