SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS HO

* “May I please see the storage facility, Mr. Venkman?”

* Here’s a phrase I never expected to hear in conjunction with Lost: “Directed by Mario Van Peebles.”

* Tania Raymonde = Great Googly Moogly

* It would be odd of Ben’s dad (legitimately great make-up job on Uncle Rico/the werewolf, by the way) to suggest that their life would have improved if they’d stayed on the Island had a nuclear bomb gone off and sunk it to the bottom of the sea, right?

* But who knows what kind of strange rules apply in a world where high school principals exercise dictatorial control over the budget and teachers jockey for power to replace them in the middle of a school year.

* Arzt is getting annoying. (Getting?–Ed.) I sort of wish Locke had been the guy riding shotgun with Dr. Linus’s scheme to take down Principal Walter Peck, but I suppose that sets up all kinds of parallels they weren’t prepared to do.

* I also sort of wish Illana weren’t such a pivotal character right now, because we have so little to go on with her. We’re less attached to her than to any other surviving character on the entire show. She is to the cast what the Temple set is to Lost sets.

* One way I could tell in this episode that things are moving to a head is that they had two climactic confrontations: Jack and Richard, and Ben and Ilana. Either could easily have been the focal point of an entire episode, and would have been, in an earlier season–or hell, earlier in this one.

* As it stood, I think I preferred the Jack and Richard scene. I loved seeing both men pushed past their limits: Richard in panicked despair, divided between shadow and light as he frantically explains why he’s now so desperate to die; Jack in crazy-eyed, careless confidence, bound and determined to find out the reason he’s now so sure he has to be there, a Man of Faith to rival Locke from earlier in the show. Good stuff.

* Ben’s scene was as well-acted as you’d expect from Michael Emerson, and I bought it, but again, using Ilana as his foil made it feel like a dress rehearsal rather than closing night. Imagine if his interlocutor had been Locke, Jack, Kate, Sawyer, or Richard. (Moreover, you’d think Miles, Lapidus, or Sun would have something to say about forcing a man, even Ben, to dig his own grave.)

* So maybe the episode was a bit…off-balance? Given the subject of the flash-sideways, Ben’s story should have been the main one. But you had a big moment with Jack, Richard, and Hurley, while Fake Locke showed up as well. It dulled the impact.

* I always enjoy a good slow-motion smiley reunion scene on this show. With all the team-ups and split-ups and bumping into each other in the jungle and storming off in a huff that goes down, it’s occasionally nice to get a reminder that a lot of these people really like each other, or did at one point, and care about one another. We care about them too!

* Miles psychically detecting Nikki & Paulo’s diamonds was a hoot. It was like the writers raced to pick up something even the most die-hard fans wouldn’t have put together. (That said, I’m sure someone said “hey, wouldn’t Miles notice Nikki & Paulo’s diamonds?” before, but I almost feel bad for that person.) Would have been nice if he noted they’d been buried alive, but still.

* So Fake Locke’s posse is on Hydra Island, huh? I wonder if Sawyer and Kate will have one last roll in the polar bear cage, for old times’ sake.

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