Forgot to add, like Jedibanner said, thanks for getting this reviews up so quick Joe, must be tough being in the West Coast and trying to have this early for us in the East.

I however, will not concede to Ben being good.  Miles told Ben that till the last second Jacob was hoping he was wrong about Ben.  Something along the lines of "Turns out he wasn't" were Miles words to Ben.

It's good to see Balls of Steel Jack back.  Great acting there as well, you could tell he both believed/wanted to believe he would be blown to bits, yet there was still a little nervousness and doubt there.  Very well played.  Very powerful scene.

Ben, oh Ben.  It was a great scene.  Both of forgiveness and redemption.  I'm both pleased that it happened, and how it happened, very pleased with the writing there.  We've seen Ben haunted by his Alex's death several times before, but he never really broke apart and let it shine through until last night.

SLU Ben however surprised me.  We've seen alot of characters be a bit different in the SLU, so i was completely expecting Ben to throw Alex under the bus because he never had Jacob's influence to show him power wasn't everything.  So seeing him make the right call and preserve Alex's "future" took me by surprise.

Good ole Hurley.  Yes, I too, believe it was Cheese Curds.  funny none the less.  And I agree with ddiaz that the hurley line mixed with "wanna try another stick?" were just awesome moments

If SLU is the epilogue, it means that Jack is not the island guardian, since he's off-island with no island awareness - or perhaps that he will choose to sink the island and finally end "it" - as Jacob said: "It only ends once..."

"Lucky Hurley" though, he could be the guardian. And Jacob still seems a little deuschy to me. "Sure, I'll tell you why you need to commit genoicide and kill strangers... not!" How many years as Alpert been waiting? How long did Ben wait for a little pat on the head, a little conversation, as he was forced to do really terrible things? Puh-lease.

FINALLY!

The first non-crap episode of season six.

Took them long enough. And it still had problems.

Hanso - true, and I do believe Miles words to be accurate in regards to Jacob's last thoughts.  However, I believe his "turn the corner" moment was in talking to Ilana, and thats why she let him live.  Because she realized he had become what Jacob always hoped him to be. 

 So he was in the darkside but turned the corner to the lightside.  I can see that.  Everyone was right!  :)

Good episode, good review. (I'm a stoic Minnesotan. You can read "good" from me as "great.")

People not liking the SLU have to admit one morsel of information this week ties back into the main story. We learned Ben's dad still took him to Dharma, but they left. Before seeing this, I was thinking they would have left when the island sank in 1977, but no mention of that trauma, so maybe it did sink later (or Ben's dad has blocked out the memory?) On the other hand, they could have only been there in, say, 1973-1974 and left well before "the incident" in 1977. If so, I think this is the first major clue that history in the SLU was altered even before "the incident".

I've been saying Ben may be becoming good, which is a little different than "is good." Is just doing what you "believe" is "right" enough to make you good? Doesn't everybody do that, in a sense? A certain amount of honesty and unselfishness is required to be truly good, and that's what Ben is moving toward.  (So I'd agree with hanso, he's turning from the darkside to the lightside.)

So in the SLU Ben chose Alex over himself. I suppose we may see more "redemption"-type stories in the SLU, but it's interesting that characters redeeming themselves in the SLU in 2004 can do it there chronologically before the event that they needed redemption for in the Still-on-the-Island Universe.

I was really curious to see who Jack & Hurley would run into first on their way back to the temple, and Richard was a good choice. (So what's up with Jin and Sawyer?)

I also have felt for a long time that Richard had arrived on the Black Rock, and this episode (almost) confirmed that. I've thought this since he looked pirate-y way back when he met young Ben in the woods in the 1970s. (Although he was not "pirate-y" in the 1950s.) He also could have been an ancient Egyptian. Or an ancient-Egyptian pirate. ;^)

I was wondering if any of Ilana's original team (Jacob's bodyguards?) were left, and the answer is apparently NO. But she's picked up Miles, Sun, Frank, a potentially transformed Ben, and now Hurley, Jack and Richard. Let's hope they can add Jin. And those nine will be our ragged band of Jacobites to resist the forces of SmLocke. (All brought to the island by Jacob - "The Fellowship of the Bring"?)

Of course, we'll also have Widmore, and maybe Desmond, to complicate things. And Faraday, unless he'll only be in the SLU from now on.  And we don't know which side Sawyer and Kate will end up on.

(By the way, after typing "Jacobites," I thought I'd see if there is an entry on Wikipedia, and there is a disambiguation page with about 11 entries. So, good luck to anyone who wants to sort that out and see if the Lost writers may have had Jacobites in mind when they named Jacob.)

So, in the interest of finding "answers" and sorting out what's actually going on, what are the priorities ahead for the Ilana & Jack side now? I'd say:

1. Survive; don't let SmLocke kill you.
2. Prevent SmLocke from leaving the island (assuming he's a danger to the outside world).
3. Sort out this "candidate" business.
4. Keep Widmore from screwing things up (assuming he's out for himself and not on either side).

I don't see "cause the SLU to happen" being on anyone's mind at the moment, but you could add that to the list if you think Jack still wants to make things go that way.

I'm going to make a guess and say that the SLU universe is a series of tests designed to draw up sides, or figure out (of the contestants) which ones are worthy.  Obviously Ben and Locke (the only one I don't understand) and Jack all passed their tests.  I guess you could say that Kate did too.  With this idea in mind I can't wait to see Sawyer's SLU.

Update/Fun Fact(?):

I guess it was actually still late 2004 when Alex was killed, so Ben could theoretically have been making the choices between himself and Alex in both universes at exactly the same time.  (If that makes any sense.)

One more observation about the morality in Lost:  Seems like it's evil to kill someone yourself, but OK to get someone else to do it for you, or at least "not as bad."

I'm not just basing this on the "rules" of the island. . .  I caught a few of the pop-up factoids in the rerun of last week, and they said that Dogen was trying to get others to kill Sayid because if he did it himself it would tip his "balance" the wrong way (from good to evil).

I'm not sure what to think of this.  You decide the island would be better off if someone were dead, then you remain a good guy by getting someone else to commit the murder.  Does that make sense?

If Jacob makes rules like that, he may not be such a good guy.  But maybe the rules are just part of a test, and people that have deals with Jacob or are "candidates" are judged on their actual choices and character, not by how precisely they follow the rules.

(And maybe Dogen's death was punishment for trying to have Sayid killed, despite not doing it himself.)