Lost - The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham

What I liked:

--The best John Locke episode since the first season's "Walkabout, which had the famous reveal at the end that Locke was actually crippled pre-Island. All at once we see how earnest Locke is at trying to show that he has faith in what he believes in, even though he isn't entirely sure. Lost has always worked better when the episodes where more character driven than mythology driven, and this episode is a big example why. We learned that the plane to Guam went down, but we didn't find out much else, and it was still compelling and interesting.

--The visits to each character. I liked the little differences from each visit, Sayid refusing to go because he felt he found a better purpose, WALT(!!!!) looking about 35 years old but acting like a kid around John, Hurley believing that Locke was a figment of his imagination, Kate and Jack acting like douchebags. Somewhat surprisingly, Locke didn't force the issue when trying to convince each character to return, and only visited Walt just to see how he was.

--Ben's about face. He goes from talking Locke off the ledge to strangling him and staging the suicide when he hears Eloise's name. Lost has really been great about answering questions, and then raising a whole set of new ones at the same time over the last two seasons.

--The Cold War betwen Ben Linus and Charles Widmore. "Who's the real villain" isn't the question, it's "Does it matter who the villain is?" I would actually be disappointed if one of them ended up turning into a hero. The chess game they've been playing has been a great subplot.

--HDTV. It's not my favorite show of all time, but it might be my favorite show to watch in HDTV. Every single island scene is beautiful to watch.


What I didn't like:

--I don't think I like the framing device that shows the beginning of the ending at the start of the episode. It's interesting that they're not saving their money shots (the Oceanic Six returning to the Island, Locke being brought back to life), but they would have been more effective if they saved it for the end. I'm not entirely sure why they're going this route.

--I still have no idea how to work out how all the time traveling works, maybe it's best not to think about it too much.