Still with me? Good.

Man, John Locke has really gotten the shaft. I knew confident answer-knowing Locke was too good to be true! The man has gotten so monumentally screwed in the course of this series that you just absolutely feel sorry for him.

Abandoned by his mother, his kidney conned from him by his father, his spine shattered & the ensuing paralysis, the death of Boone, his loss of faith in the hatch, Ben’s continuing undermining, the shattered leg from falling into the well, and ultimately his murder.

Really makes you not want to be a man of faith.

I have to say I also find it quite funny that at least two what’s-in-the-box reveals have been Locke’s corpse. Never has a corpse been a more integral plot point.

Also on the silly side: Juliet’s chains of death! I have really never seen somebody (fail to) die in quite such a silly way that wasn’t a Final Destination film. Looking back on it, Juliet’s been quite the recipient of the shaft too – Goodwin snuffing it, creepy Ben, never getting to see her sister again…

While I’m criticizing, the incident itself was kinda a let-down. Seriously, this is the event so terrible that the Dharma initiative has to push a button every 108 minutes for the next 24 years? Has to be said though, Radzinsky is such a prick I’m glad I know he kills himself down there.

Right; onto things a little less bad. The Jacob reveal! This is kinda a game-changer, because it means a lot of what we assumed about Jacob isn’t so. Was he ever in the cabin? If it wasn’t Jacob he was speaking for, where exactly was Christian Shepherd getting his instructions? Jacob’s enemy / faux-Locke? Who was in the chair for a second, if it wasn’t Jacob? Why did Richard Alpert grow his hair long in the early 70s? Why did Jacob visit all of the O6 at pivotal moments in their lives? Enquiring minds want to know!

I think the biggest question arising from all this is: Who’s the bad guy? I really just don’t know any more.

All in all, it was a good episode, and it was nice to see Rose and Bernard again, but in my opinion it felt too long, and the shocks just didn’t live up to some of the more epic mind-fucks they’ve pulled in the past.