Unbelievable, first is Locke dead?? Then is this Richard an immortal or something because he appeared in Ben's flashbacks and was the same age pretty much. Ben is also an evil bastard, of course that was clear before.

Ya the Richard part was the strangest of all. He almost looked older. Now how did Ben get from the shy little kid to the confident lying manipulating man he is today?? I refuse to believe Locke is dead.

Unless the island heals him or Jacob. So who is Jacob? That part I didn't get at all. I almost wanted to think it was the Monster. Also I don't see how Ben could be over Richard when Richard seemed to be his Boss before. I would like to know if Richard is immortal, a time traveler or what?

Great, insane episode. Jacob= WTF!!?? Is he a fucking ghost or what? I clearly heard a deep voice say, "Help me," that was neither the voice of Ben or Locke. Supposedly there were a few brief frames where you actually SEE Jacob, so I'll look for those and post the link here.

Locke better not be dead. I'm pretty damn sure he's not.

Oh, and Ben? Eeeeeeeevil man. He even killed his childhood friend, Annie. What a cold-hearted, manipulative bastard.

here is a screencap of Jacob..SPOILER:

I don't think Annie is dead because I think he would have went to her dead body. I almost want to speculate that annie is Rosseau. I mean Rousseau could either have lied to Sayid or is crazy. That would be a heck of a twist. We will see if Locke is dead or not. i guess the island could have healed him. Also I believe Jacob is some incarnation of the monter. I think Ben can communicate with it.

Huh, Jacob looks like Jesus to me. Could he actually be God or something? That would fit with all of the religious themes and imagery on the show, I guess.

I see what you mean about Jesus but I am not sure about that. It is hard to say at this point though.

Terrific ep. The scene with Jacob and the end were the highlights, but it was incredibly tense from start to finish. Even the subplot was great. This season just keeps getting better and better.

I think Jacob kind of looks like Jack's dad.

I really doubt Locke is going to die this early. If he is dead then I hate this show. NExt they'll probably kill Desmond just to get rid of every single character I like.

SPOILER: They said that Jacob is someone we haven't seen before, and we won't see him until he is 'revealed'. I don't know if tonight counts as revealing, but Jacob's definitely not Jack's dad.

I'm actually kinda, sorta glad they killed Locke off (if he really is dead). Sure, he's awesome, but there's nothing left to tell about his backstory now that his dad is dead, and his character has really gone as far as he can. I wonder if he'll get an Emmy nom now...

yeah. that would suck!!

I don't think Locke is dead. I bet next week they say the bullet went all the way through and the island healed him. Two reasons I don't think he's dead are: If he was about to die why would Ben have bothered threatening to shoot him again, Ben must have known it might not be fatal; and they made a point of saying a couple of episodes ago that the healing rate on the island is much faster, that was probably laying the groundwork for this.

Eyeliner man (the guy young Locke met in the forest) didn't seem to age. I'm guessing he's a lot more important than we've been let on so far.

Edit: I guess his name is Richard, from the posts below.

So does that mean you want everyone on the island to be killed? At least all the main characters? What is left to tell about Jack, Kate, Sawyer, even Desmond?

And he isnt really dead so don't get those hopes of yours up. I think there's still plenty Locke can do. Maybe they should just stop showing flashbacks!

Def. one of the best of the season

I don't think Locke is dead, Alex was probably trailing behind and will save him.

Jacob... holy shit! The screencap, ahhh.

Richard is evidently important. Annie is still alive I believe.

The whole Jacob thing was one of the creepiest things to ever happen on Lost, and they spookiest thing I've seen on TV in awhile. The whole set, the whole set up, the whole thing was just so eerie, as was the "Help Me". That was amazing television.

I love the fact that Jin's infertility is dropped during the playback in front of the whole(?) camp so he's probably the only one on the island who doesn't know that Sun held back that little tidbit.

I thought the only negative part of the screenplay was that his "Annie" friend kind of disappeared. Is there more there?

The island has found its champion, and it's champion is Locke. Locke has had his legs repaired at least three times and has had worse happen to him on the island. It will no doubt heal him.

I get the sincere impression that the "Others" are a force that was there to protect the secret of the Island and Jacob is an embodiment of that. I believe Jacob either is, or controls the monster, however, I don't know what the circle (of ash?) around his hut is.

I also don't think Richard's age is a throw-away, I think it's probably vital to what is happening.

We got a very good rough idea of what the Dharma's public front was tonight, and it was straight up. We get the idea that the reasons behind them being on the island was known to only a few, maybe not even Ben.

The Others have just returned to being more creepy, now that we know that the Others aren't mostly Dharma.

How did Ben come to lead the others?

Why were the Others so in awe over Locke?

Does anybody else see the Anakin Skywalker parallels?

To anyone who says that Lost spins it's wheels and is a bad show for giving us new mysteries while solving old ones, I'd present them this episode as proof that it does not, and that that formula is an absolutely brilliant call. There wasn't a single second of this episode that didn't wow me. At the end I was quite literally shaking, and that's not something that has ever happened to me from a TV show.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. Great episode, maybe the best of the season.

Do you guys remember that episode where Juliet was in trouble for helping Jack, and they were starting to put her on trial? There was a middle aged blonde woman in that episode who was not explained and she acted as sort of the main person prosecuting her for lack of a better way to put it. Anway I thought that woman might be the same person as the little girl in last night's episode, they both have a similar look.

I'm in awe. That was just freakin incredible.

And I must say I may be more surprised by the lack of talk on the board (except last few posts) about the Dharma reveal. For 2 years alot of posters have been bitching and moaning about having no answers and so on. Since its return in February, we've had at least two big reveals... partly what the "others" are doing (the fertility thing via Juliet's episodes) and what exactly happened to Dharma (tonight's episode).

Finding out who Roger is.
The incredibly creepy Jacob scene.
The grave with the Dharma bodies.
Locke getting shot.

Incredible.

Here is something I don't see anyone has addressed yet...

We know that Jacob is real in some form or another but was Ben just making up his "talking" with Jacob. Locke may have been right about Ben not talking to anyone (however wrong he may have been about someone being there). Why? Because Ben obviously did not hear what Jacob said to Locke and was so desperate to find out. He must obviously not have complete access to "Jacob" and may have been pretending to talk in an attempt to rile up some reaction from Locke that could in turn, rile up Jacob.

Jacob was interesting, may be he's the smoke monster? But I was more freaked out by the guy who didn't age. For now he's the biggest mystery to me.

Wow, I must be the only one on the board who thought that episode was rubbish.

Ben's flashbacks were the most boring yet. The setup of Jacob being 'imaginary', and then ohmigosh he's real! was bollocks (and obviously going to happen) and seemed to exist solely to set up Locke up as the chosen one, which has already been set up god knows how many times. Also, anyone who thinks Locke's dead is an idiot. He'll turn up either at camp or during the big confrontation with the Losties to shoot Ben and take over something or other.

Oh, and finally, after three long years of Dharma this and Dharma that, we find out that the Dharma initiative's got nothing to do with the Others and were all killed long ago after having seemingly achieved nothing, rendering all those mysterious Hanzo websites useless. Hooray!

I was also expecting a lot more from the camp's confrontation with Juliet and Jack, but this episode instead turned out to be a placeholder for that plot thread, which infuriated me no end after the cliffhanger last week.

I had some of the same reactions, maybe not quite as negative but in the same ballpark. I wanted to sleep on it though, give it a little thought.

The flashbacks with the kid were painfully boring and more should have come out of both Jacob and the camp confrontation. Jacob was odd but more smoke and mirrors. The eyeliner guy was interesting to me, the most interesting thing in the episode.

It'd have been nicer if the episode had just been about the camp. I was really hoping that Sayid, Sawyer etc were going to turn on Jack and Juliet big time, after last week even a killing of one of them seemed possible. It was annoying when that fizzled out. I really had expected the whole Kate tells Jack thing to be more complicated, like Sayid plotted with Kate for her to test Jack's reaction.

Did anyone else find it laughable when the patch guy brushed off his still being alive as it wasn't set to a lethal dose? It just seemed such a cheesy way to resolve that.

But it was watchable, other than the little kid stuff. It was better than the first six last fall.

Who is the next episode about? Hopefully one of the core ones I find interesting: Claire, Sawyer, Kate, Desmond, Sun. But they've already had episodes.