s5e11: Whatever Happened, Happened

Jin brings shot-but-alive Ben back to Dharmaville, where Kate has just met Roger Workman. Then we flash back to early 2005; Kate drops in on Cassidy (Sawyer's baby mama), who's surprised and happy to see her until Kate says that Sawyer sent her. (Has to be one of the longest waits for a reveal of something that everyone guessed the second it happened in show history, right? Though I would like to know how Sawyer imparted that much information in about four seconds of whispering.) The meeting doesn't go all that hot; turns out it's not even Sawyer's money (so he didn't whisper a bank account number and PIN to her!), but Kate's. Cassidy says Kate got left by Sawyer, just like she did. Then she correctly divines that Aaron is not Kate's son. B'oh.

Back to Life on Mars: Island Edition. Ben very cleverly left the keys in the lock of Sayid's cell, so it's even clearer it was an inside job; only three people have that kind of keys, including Roger and Jack. (Every Dharma Initiative member has keys to the jail cell? Or every janitor has a skeleton key to everything, including the jail cell? To quote Dennis Nedry, no wonder you're extinct.) Sawyer tells Miles to "sit on" Kate, Jack and Hurley so they won't talk to anyone, as things are going a bit haywire. Roger is waiting outside the infirmary, where Sawyer finds he's the one missing his keys (no kidding). Juliet is operating on Ben and tells Sawyer Ben needs a real surgeon. Guess who.

Hurley brings up the Back to the Future corollary (if young Ben doesn't turn into old Ben, the A3 never come back to the island [or presumably never even get there in the first place, since if Ben doesn't purge the DI then the Swan probably isn't manned by Desmond and Inman like it is and 815 never crashes at all]), which proves that the writers are thinking about this stuff. "You can't change anything," Miles says. It always happened, but they just haven't experienced how it turned out yet. Sawyer asks for Jack's help, but Jack won't do it - he's cool with Ben dying, figuring, perhaps, that it could somehow be his ticket out of his current situation. (You do get the feeling that Jack was hoping to be greeted as a hero upon his return to the island, and being a peon in the DI isn't exactly his idea of a good time. But why should it be, really.)

Kate isn't sure this is such a good idea. Jack notes the connections to when he had to operate on Ben the first time, then asks Kate if maybe all the work he did trying to fix things on the island the first time was getting in the way of the island trying to fix things itself. Kate says she doesn't like the new Jack. Jack says she didn't like the old Jack. Kate huffs off and decides to donate blood because she's type O negative. Roger comes in and realizes Ben stole the keys, then actually looks human as he says that it's because of him. Then Ben goes into "hypoxic shock." Kate looks at him like she's trying to figure out a way to donate oxygen too.

The writers Miles have a scene where they try to explain time to the viewers Hurley. Hurley asks what I've seen many people ask - why didn't older Ben remember Sayid shooting him when he was a kid? "I hadn't thought of that," Miles says. (Correct answer: who says he didn't?) Hurley gives him a checkmate look. Meanwhile, Roger paces; finally, Juliet comes out and says Ben is stable. But after Roger runs off, Juliet tells Kate that Ben is going to die. When Kate insists that he can't, Juliet offers that maybe there's something they can do. You know, the Others? (This reminds me of a creepy story I read as a kid from a book called The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural. My recollection of the plot is that a kid wanders away from his family and falls off a cliff, but later returns unharmed, except that he keeps referring to a figure called "Boo Mama." In the end of the story, it turns out that the kid was saved only via a blood transfusion from these talking bear-like creatures, and he's turning into one of them and ends up leaving with them. If the Others really do save Ben, it's a pretty straight parallel, no? By the way, I didn't look up any of that and I haven't read that book since about 1993. It was pretty creepy.)

Somehow no one sees Juliet and Kate put Ben in a van. Kate won't let Juliet go with her (but what is Juliet going to tell Sawyer, that she wasn't involved?). Then it's back to 2007, where Kate huffs off from the pier (the fifth time we've seen this scene this year, I think). Kate takes Aaron into the grocery store and as she checks her cell phone, he vanishes into thin air. Then she finds him at the front of the store with some woman who says she was about to make an announcement. Whatever. Back to 1977. "Tell my dad I'm sorry I stole his keys," Ben says as Kate stops in front of the sonic fence. (It kind of sounded like he said "Tell my dad he's a total skeeze," which was funny.) Sawyer gets there really fast, but he's not there to stop Kate, but rather to help her.

Back to 2007. Kate drops in on Cassidy again, then confesses to losing Aaron at the store. "As scared as I was, I wasn't surprised," Kate says. Cassidy tells her that she expects him to be taken because she took him. No, Kate says, Claire was gone - he needed me. "You needed him," Cassidy says. And really it's true - if not for Aaron, isn't it entirely likely that Kate's in jail right now? Back in 1977, Sawyer disables the fence. Kate asks why he's helping her. Sawyer says he asked himself the same question - why was Kate helping Ben? Juliet said it was wrong to let a kid die. "I'm doing it for her," Sawyer says. Kate looks like a dagger went through her heart.

Juliet confronts Jack about not helping Ben, then tells Jack that he didn't need to come back, and asks why he did. "Because I was supposed to," Jack says. "Supposed to what?" Juliet asks. Jack doesn't know. Juliet tells him to figure it out. Meanwhile, Kate tells Sawyer that she helped Clementine, and passes on Cassidy's theory regarding why he jumped from the chopper. Sawyer says he wasn't fit to be Kate's boyfriend, much less Clementine's father. Kate notes that he and Juliet are doing fine. Sawyer says he's grown up a lot over three years. The Others pop out of the woods and Sawyer tells them that Ben being shot is everyone's problem, and that they need to take him to Richard.

Back in 2007, Kate knocks on Claire's mother's door and tells her basically everything. Then she gives her Aaron and tells her she's going back to find Claire. (So she didn't go back for Sawyer. Assuming this was true.) 1977 again. Richard shows up. "Is that Benjamin Linus?" he asks. Kate asks if Richard can save Ben. Yes, says Richard, but he will always be an Other if this happens. (There you go!) He also says that Ben will forget that any of this ever happened. (Convenient much?) Richard descends into the Temple with Ben.

And then we're back to old Ben, and we finally see Locke again. Ben wakes up to find Locke staring him down. "Welcome back to the land of the living," Locke says. Ben looks more than a little surprised to see him.

Next week! Ben faces judgment from the island, apparently? How can this episode not rule?