And so the rest of the series is not about Good vs. Evil or Widmore vs. Ben, but the Chessplayers vs. Pawns (Losties) where the Losties are led by new Jack and new Locke, working together, now able to access the secrets of the island because of their new openness, (and in Locke’s case, adjustment of priorities).

I also liked the slight development of Widmore. Lost has a really great way with language. When Locke asks if he was the leader of the “Others,” Widmore says, “They weren’t the ‘others’ to me, they were my people.” And later, he notes the rationale behind the alias “Bentham.” Widmore holds grammar and language in high opinion. I have a feeling he’s the opposite of Ben, psychologically, if not morally. Whereas Ben has learned to survive by constantly lying to always reserve potential leverage, Widmore doesn’t fear any outcome and never feels the need to lie at all – (although he lies by omission to manipulate Locke.)

Thanks for the discussion everyone! I agree about the end scene’s darkness, Andy, and Calamity I also enjoy the show’s opennes and vagueness in moments like this. Makes watching it (and writing about it) much more fun.

And Aaron, that’s a really interesting parallel – am curious to see if we get that played out more when Locke gets his hands on Ben.

Myles’, you haven’t mentioned anything here about Richard Alpert with good reason considering he doesn’t even appear. But this episode further brought question into my eyes about his nature and his story. If we are to believe Charles Widmore, he at some stage becomes leader of the ‘others’. Is this in opposition to Alpert who appears in the 70s flashback to be their leader? And while Alpert leads another group of rebel looks types in the woods when we meet Benjamin Linus as a young boy is he leading some kind of splinter group? In the Losties original time on the island Alpert answers to Ben until he decides it is time to anoint John as the leader they’ve been waiting for.

With every episode this just becomes a bigger and more significant question for me, especially as John has been sent by Richard Alpert – not Widmore or Linus who are instead manipulators in this mission – to bring back the O6. I dream of a Richard Alpert centric episode and it’ll be a crime if we don’t get one.

Again, it doesn’t really mean anything, but it is somewhat ironic.

Alan Sepinwall has pointed out, quite logically, that the crash victims of 316 appear to be in the Hydra station (they were on another island separated from the main one). I missed this, but mainly because the TV I was watching it on was pretty cruddy, and it looked like a sort of dark cave the entire time. He also notes that they appear to be in the present (the presence of the boards, the abandoned nature of the station itself), which would partially explain why Ben had them all building a runway – for Flight 316, or any other flight, to land on. But there’s a lot of leaps there that will take a rewatch to decipher.