We've never seen Ben so lost and confused as in the most recent episode. Are we seeing the end of the Ben who's always three steps ahead of everyone else?

Yeah, I wonder. He's certainly off his game. [But] he's still scrambling. The wheels are still turning. He's looking for breaks. He's looking for glimmers of opportunity. His spirit is low becuase of recent events, because of confrontations with demons from his past, both real and metaphorical. So I don't know. My guess is, he can't be kept down forever.

Because that's what Ben does. He bounces back every single time.

He's never so vulnerable to manipulation as he is now. That's the thing that i'm a little concerned about. My guess is, he can't be kept down forever.

I've been re-watching some of seasons three and four, and Ben is always battered and bruised.

I would venture to say he's the most beaten character in the history of television.

It must mean tons of time in the makeup chair.

Yes.

Are we witnessing the slow-motion martyrdom of Ben? Is Ben a martyr to the island?

That's interesting. I think Ben is a great sufferer, and I'm not sure if he doesn't sort of embrace his beatings. I don't know if it's a question of atonement, as you might be suggesting. But it certainly is a good psychological information-gathering tool. I do feel like it happens to him too often to be just accidental.

He puts himself in the way of it.

I think he puts himself in the way of it, because in the exchange, he always gains something.

Well, except maybe with Penny and Desmond. He did learn that Penny had a baby, I guess.

Yeah, hold onto that. Because it was the child that broke up that event.

So as you mentioned, Ben has faced his demons from the past now. Is he heading for some sort of redemption at the end of the series? Is it going to be like Darth Vader in Return Of The Jedi?

I never thought about a model like that. I don't know if he needs that much redemption, but yeah. I wonder. That's a good point. And because the ending of the [season] finale so upsets the landscape of the show, I think that almost anything new and strange is possible for next season.

What else can you tell us about the finale?

It's been set up now. We see that we have two companies of heroes. Both of them are on sort of desperate missions to uncharted, possibly cataclysmic territory, and if they both succeed in whatever their missions turn out to be, I think the result is so dramatically cataclysmic, that it's going to leave us with a couple of reactions. One is, "Can they do that?" And the second one is, "Then what is the show next season?" I mean, that's what I thought when I put down the script.

Wow. So I feel like Ben has been the voice of some of the more spiritual explanations for events on the show, while Faraday gave the scientific explanations. Now that Faraday is dead, will the spiritual be in ascendance?

I think the show still runs on science, but... Boy, that's a good question. What is ascendant now? I think ultimately spirit will be ascendant even in a world that runs on scientific principles.

Call me picky, but the "bob, bop blah, blah bip bip" stuttering, talking-over someone humor that Ben Stiller cranks out in every movie irritates the crap out of me. He's a wonderful straight man kind of actor and even better as a Tom Cruise stand in. But once he starts ripping his patented chripy bips and boops, I'm lost. There is a beyond perfect example of this in the Night Of The Museum 2 trailer, when the Lincoln Memorial comes to life and bip bops through a pretty spot on one-liner. It's sort of funny, but nails on the chalk board for me.

Despite the Stiller-isms, I still have high hopes for Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart, and the same goes for Bill Hader as General George Armstrong Custer. (Please start casting Hader in more things, he's hilarious). Adams commits to any character she's given, and no doubt will make this sequel as sweet as anything. If you haven't seen the original, I highly recommend it as a holiday rental that both you and the wee ones will enjoy. In spite of stammering Stiller.

Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian is out in May of 2009.

According to Lindelof, "Season 4 is about who gets off the island and the fact that they need to get back. Season 5 is about why they need to get back, and season 6 is about what happens when they get back." Meaning there's going to be a lot of sitting around on that island throughout the rest of this season. Sure we've had some flash-forwards, but it feels like you're going to see Locke cooking breakfast for some time to come. Plus they've run out of eggs, so I hope everyone enjoys pancakes. Although they must realize it's getting slow, because Cuse added, "There will be very significant mysteries answered in the seventh episode. The eighth episode is non-traditional and the start of something new."

Remember how bad Season Three got last year? People were proclaiming the death of Lost everywhere, and the ratings were plummeting. Then all of the sudden it got better right at the end, and everyone cheered and said it had regained the magic. Well, we're several shows in, and it's already showing signs of sputtering again. We're bored with the whole fate of those left behind, the new Freighties are sort of boring, with the slight exception of Jeremy Davies. We're mired in squabbling that seems to repeat from episode to episode, the Dharma Initiative remains a big unanswered mystery, and it's just the Jack, Kate, Locke and sometimes Hurley & Sawyer show. If you think it's boring now, just wait. Lost takes a month-long break in a two weeks, then returns with the wacky episode 8. We hope it's not just another empty hatch.

We meet four new characters this week, the team that's come to "rescue" the Losties—or kill them, depending on who you believe, not to mention the guns and gas masks the "rescuers" are carrying. Each of these seeming misfits comest with his or her own flashback, so those take up most of the hour. It's not that they aren't interesting, and we learn a lot about how the outside world has reacted to the downing of Flight 815, but it leaves the meat of the episode to the last ten minutes. In the interim, the viewer's head spins with new information, a sensation you either enjoy—or find annoying. TVGuide.com falls into the latter group this week, complaining that characters as "smart" as Jack and Kate should have found out the "answer to the $1 million question" earlier in the show. I've watched enough network TV to realize that's not the way it works, but I'm with Locke: I want answers!

Yeah, I know. That's not the way network TV works—especially Lost.

All in all, I enjoyed the ride this week. Here's what we learned:

• Hurley can see Jacob/Christian's cabin, too, a fact which disturbs Ben and pleases Locke.
  
• Somebody went through a lot of expense and trouble to fake a wreck of Flight 815.
  
• In the past, there was at least one polar bear wandering the Tunisian desert in a Dharma Initiative collar. (A time travel experiment? Evidence of multiple Dharma locations?)
  
• Ben's smart mouth is going to get him killed.
  
• Sawyer, of course, has the best line of the night: "Taller? Like a giant?" I also loved his reference to Locke as Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now's Colonel Kurtz.
  
• TVGuide.com also complains that Claire isn't mourning enough. Just because she isn't sitting on the beach in a catatonic state for a days on end, a la Rose, doesn't mean she's not grieving. And I, for one, don't need a soap opera storyline about Claire's sorrow.
  
• Ah, Naomi. You understood Murphy's law but your boss didn't, and now there's a dysfunctional rescue team running around the island without your guidance (unless you turn out to be one of the undead).
  
• Ben's mole on the freighter? Odds are on Michael.

• Are the rescuers angry relatives of slaughtered members of the Dharma Initiative, unknowingly brought together by the creepy Mr. Abbadon for his own nefarious purpose?
  
• Where did the picture of Ben come from? Did he leave the island at some time as an adult—or did someone else carry the photo out?
  
• Is anybody watching Eli Stone? Is it as awful as it looks?
  

• "The Watch": This was the kickoff scene for these scenes, and it didn't bode well when there was some hammy acting and dialogue. Basically, Jack's father gives him a watch, which belonged to his father. And no, he hadn't been keeping it in his ass. The moral of the scene is "Don't be a crappy father like I was."

  

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• "The Adventures of Hurley and Frogurt": Remember Neil, the frozen yogurt salesman from Season One? The producers always promised he'd become "more interesting." Sadly, that doesn't happen in this clip when he tells Hurley to make a move on Libby or he'll step in.

  

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• "King of the Castle": Ben and Jack play a friendly game of chess, and Ben promises Jack he won't try to stop him from leaving the island... but the island might. He also tells Jack that one day he might look back and regret leaving, and that if he does he hopes that he'll remember this conversation. Ooooooh! This is probably the best acted of all of these, and written by comics scribe Brian K. Vaughan to boot.

  

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• "The Deal": Juliet visits Michael while he's held captive by the Others, and tells him that he can believe Ben's offer of freedom. She confesses that she's staying there to help save her sister, and wouldn't he do anything to save Walt? Michael sure isn't happy about it.

  

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• "Operation: Sleeper": Juliet wakes Jack up and tells him she's been working with Ben all along, and that the other survivors have been right not to trust her. Off all the mobisobes, this one felt the rip-offiest.

  

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• "Room 23": Alarms and panic around the Barracks! Juliet tells Ben they need to let Walt go, but Ben tells her he's special and that Jacob wants him there. She shows him a pile of dead birds around Walt's window and wants to know what's so special about that. Is Walt's power the ability to get birds to commit suicide? We've seen it before, and we'll probaby see it again.

  

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• "Arzt & Crafts": It's Arzt! He's in his pre-dynamite phase, and he's trying to convince everyone on the beach not to move to the caves. That is until they hear the smoke monster's crazy horn bellow, and he craps his pants.

  

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• "Buried Secrets": Michael stumbles across Sun burying her fake California driver's license in the woods, and she confesses that she was going to leave Jin. They almost kiss, but then Vincent cockblocks them. That's right, the dog makes 'em stop.

  

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• "Tropical Depression": Arzt confesses to Michael that he lied about the monsoon season, and that he just wants to get off the island. He also tells him that he'd flown to Sydney to meet a woman he'd been chatting with on the internet, but she left him at the restaurant. Boy, this guy really has a depressing life.

  

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• "Jack, Meet Ethan. Ethan? Jack.": Jack meets Ethan while looking for medicine, and Ethan whips up a few tears and tells Jack his wife and child died in childbirth. Then he creepily stares at Claire. After he leaves, Jack creepily stares at Ethan, like "Hey... I know something is weird about that dude."

  

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• "Jin Has a Temper-Tantrum On the Golf Course": Jin has a Happy Gilmore freakout on the golf course after he can't sink a putt. While Hurley and Michael look on, he sinks to his knees and curses the ball. Probably the best scene out of all of them.

  

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• "The Envelope": Juliet burns her hand on something in the oven, and then almost confesses to Amelia and shows her Ben's x-rays, but someone rings the doorbell. Another exercise in frustration, since this one is really just a deleted scene. Okay, maybe this one was the big ripoff.

  

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• "So It Begins": There's a POV shot of Vincent running through the forest until Jack's dad stops him and tells him to go wake Jack up on the beach, just moments after the crash. So is Jack's dad alive? This is the only real "What the hell?!" clip in the whole bunch.

  

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