The scene with the non-detonating "joke" bomb was a great metaphor for the way Lost sometimes treats its viewers. There you are, primed for an episode where something big happens in a splashy way, ready to hold your breath and peek through your fingers, and what you get is an hour of Juliet. "Not yet," indeed. Don't get me wrong — in context last night the bomb was simultaneously hilarious and yet again indicative of the depths of Ben's mindeffing ways, but I also think it's the writers' way of saying, yes, we're toying with you, too, audience.

My biggest question from the evening, however, is just exactly how does the island decide who lives and who dies? Michael can't kill himself, Tom tells him, because the island won't let him. Maybe the island has a special rule pertaining to suicide — because up until now I would have said that some people on the island actually are dead. I thought Ana Lucia and Libby were dead ... though of course the latter shows up as a nurse in Michael's post-crash dream. (Confession: I would not have recognized her had I not been spoilered on this point, though of course Michael's reaction would have tipped me off.)

Speaking of which, does this mean that Tom himself is not dead? At first I thought the flashback occurred prior to Sawyer's hot lead payback on the beach, but now I wonder if like Mikhail, Tom's got, if not nine lives, definitely more than one. (Great to see him out of the closet, by the way.) Perhaps the dead who come back to life need to be useful to Ben or Jacob. There has to be some distinction, otherwise the writers have lost the dramatic impact of killing off characters — Karl and Rousseau, for example. Of course, she only got it in the backpack, so I believe that viewers like myself will still have a role model of middle-aged female awesomeness to root for when the show comes back on April 24. But immediately thinking "she's not really dead" after watching her get shot negates any cliffhanger aspect to the end of "Meet Kevin Johnson" — but we've gotten to a point where the loyal viewer knows that not every death is what it seems, and that takes away the punch.

A few more observations:

• Here's what my friend Skip had to say about Ben's way of dealing with Alex's relationship with Karl:

  Man, Ben's idea of birth control is really skewed, huh?
  Option A: He locks your BF in a room and makes him have his own personal rave
  Option B: He gives you a map to a den of snipers that will shoot your BFF after he utters the ultimate Scooby Doo/Star Wars-ism "I've got a baaaad feeling about this..."
  Well... maybe Ben didn't know the snipers would be there. Maybe.

  And after Alex got all gussied up, too.
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• I'm losing my Locke love. He's gone from the knife-tossing shaman to Ben's self-important shadow. Boo.
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• Frank Lapidus is an Oceanic 815 conspiracy theorist, just like the rest of us! Like Frank, I'm hungry for details, so I love that we're learning more about how the outside world reacted to the crash. Last night we had a personal take (Michael's mom's righteous indignation at Michael's refusal to explain why he and Walt showed up alive and have to be referred to by new names) and a public one (the newscast announcing the plane had been found).
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• I'm sure you all caught the shout-out to Kurt Vonnegut (whose Slaughterhouse Five protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, becomes unstuck in time) as an answer to a question on the game show playing in the backgrond when Michael tries to shoot himself the second time.
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• When Minkowski finds Kevin/Michael bouncing a tennis ball in his room, he references Jack Nicholson in The Shining, but I immediately thought of Steve McQueen in The Great Escape.
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• Sayid, Sayid, Sayid. You are a brilliant strategist and soldier, but turning Michael in may yet prove to be the act that sets in motion your ultimate indenture to Ben.
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• Remember, there's no new episode of Lost until April 24—and that the timeslot will have moved back an hour. See you back here for a recap on the 25th!

• "Ji Yeon" is the first time the writers have given us simultaneous flashbacks and flashforwards, and while I'm not sure they'll be able to get away with this structure again, I think it worked here. It may have teetered on gimmicky, but ultimately everything that happened was within the boundaries of the Sun/Jin story and characters. (Just talking about the back/forward scenes here; I'm not sure I buy Jin's immediate about-face after Bernard's rather cheesy "karma" talk.) Again, for me, Lost's most successful episodes are the ones with an unforeseen twist. Jin's obsessive pursuit of the toy panda reminded us of the way he used to be, necessary to set up his "new self's" forgiveness of Sun; discovering that this storyline was a flashback was fresh and surprising.
• On the other hand, Michael's return had to be one of the most anticlimactic reveals in the history of Lost — not least because they've been spoilering us with Harold Perrineau's name in the credits for the past six weeks. Excellent poker faces on Des and Sayid during their introduction to "Kevin Johnson." Note to writers: You've got one African-American man on the show and you turn him into a janitor? I know, it'll all be explained next week when we "Meet Kevin Johnson."
• Lima beans, cockroaches, and blood—Captain Gault really knows how to make his guests feel welcome. At first I thought his name was a shout out to Ayn Rand's John Galt—which made me happy because I'm a big fan of AMC's Mad Men, where ad agency head Bert Cooper hands out copies of Atlas Shrugged to favored employees—but apparently it's a reference to fictional salty dog John Gault. Michael/Kevin's note (assuming it came from him) said not to trust the captain, but he's the only one answering questions and providing information — which, even if it turns out to be lies, lies, and damned lies, is nonetheless satisfying. Wonder what's on the black box from the staged crash, and, like Gault said, where do you get 324 bodies?
• I think we can safely assume that there will be more of Zoe Bell than her chain-wrapped jump into the sea. Yes, there's a Dickens reference (the ghost of Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol), but it also reminded me of Houdini's underwater escapes.
• Who will win the battle for hearts and minds between Juliet and Kate? I'm not liking either one of them too much right now.
• As of last night, the Oceanic 6 = Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid, Sun, and who? Aaron? Is Jin one of the eight who made it off the island only to die later? Then why is his death date listed as 9/22/04, the date of the crash? Some suspect that Jin is alive back at the island, but why would he stay behind?
• Loved Hurley in a suit and his obvious relief that nobody else was coming. I'm leaning towards this trip to visit Sun and baby taking place before he breaks down and ends up in the institution again.
• Anybody else wonder if the toy store owner was going to offer Jin a dragon dressed in a panda suit a la the scene in Best in Show where a hysterical Parker Posey tries to buy a replacement stuffed bee?

• Shout out to Philip K. Dick! I haven't read Valis but I'm sure some of you have. Care to share your thoughts on its significance?
• Still on the subject of books, Sawyer was reading The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Cesares, about which its publisher says: "Set on a mysterious island, Bioy's novella is a story of suspense and exploration, as well as a wonderfully unlikely romance, in which every detail is at once crystal clear and deeply mysterious." And then Kate smacked him upside the head and went back to the beach.
• Locke is slowly turning into Colonel Kurtz. He believes he's responsible for the island's wellbeing, but he's becoming corrupted by the power he believes it confers on him. It's not a democracy, he tells Kate, whom he later banishes for disobedience and gross insubordination. Nor, according to Locke, is it a dictatorship — yet he expects absolute compliance from the group who followed him. But he's uncertain enough to ask Sawyer, "Do you think I know what I'm doing? Do you regret following me?" Bad things are brewing.
• Speaking of which, loved Locke shoving a grenade in trussed-up Miles's mouth.
• Also loved Miles's distinction between blackmail and extortion, as well as his emphatically specific request of $3.2 million from Ben.
• Future Kate is acting as Aaron's mother, which means that something happened to Claire — she's either dead or still on the island. Either way, didn't the psychic in Claire's past tell her not to let anybody else raise her baby?
• Claire was downright chirpy this week, flouncing off with a smile when Sawyer came to visit Kate, then happily suggesting Kate might like being a mom, too. I scoffed at TVGuide.com's complaint that Claire wasn't grieving enough a couple weeks ago, but now it seems kind of valid. (Still don't want a big grieving Claire storyline, but shouldn't she — or anyone — at least mention Charlie once in a while?)
• Future Kate says she's heard Future Jack tell the cover story (only eight survived the crash, but two died, Kate was a hero) so many times she almost believes it herself. Why this scenario? I mean, why not just say six survived? Unless Claire (and someone else) did survive, only to die and that's why Kate has Aaron.
• Finally, regarding tonight's Kate is/is not pregnant storyline, why no Dharma-brand condoms on the island? I know Ben and the gang are trying to reproduce, but given that women who get pregnant on the island die, shouldn't there be some readily available birth control amid those great stockpiles of food and supplies? (Likewise, free Dharmette tampons might be a big upside to life on the island for women.)

You'll play Eliott, a character who (surprise!) we haven't seen before. He's suffering from amnesia, and will be sent all over the island solving mini-games, deciphering clues, and yes, even punching the sacred numbers into the hatch computer. You'll find out a bit more about stuff like the mysterious black smoke and the Black Rock ship that's been marooned on the island for years. You'll also interact with the main characters, although they've used soundalikes for most of them, which is fairly lame.

Since we've been wasting far too much time on the Lost viral marketing games, this game looks even more promising. Check out the trailer for it here. However, we wonder if automatonic versions of Jack, Kate, and Sawyer can tide us over. Will we be playing all of our favorite shows as video games in a few months? Come to think of it, we'd welcome the chance to play a cool Doctor Who or Battlestar Galactica game. Keyword being cool.

'Lost' Video Game Preview — Writer Taunts Me With Knowledge Of Black Smoke And Four-Toed Statue [MTV Multiplayer]

Although the acting by "Sam," whose significant other was one of the flight attendants on the vanished flight, is more than a bit hammy, the site creators have built a lot of clues and games into his conspiracy website. You'll be visiting other sites, doing research, zooming in on photos for clues, calling phone numbers and generally driving yourself bonkers until Lost returns to the airwaves on January 31st.

Cheesy as it may be, this is as close to Lost as we've come in a long, long time, and it is successfully making us drool for new episodes. Chances are that the writer's strike might make alternate reality games and viral marketing like this the only teat we'll have to suck from until they start filming new episodes. Here's to hoping I'm not trying to track down Cylon DNA by visiting different websites in three months time if Battlestar Galactica doesn't come back soon.

Well, if you haven't seen the show, then we doubt you'll "get it", but for the uninitiated out there, 815 was also the flight number of the Oceanic flight that crashed onto the island. We'd also forgotten about the four-toed giant statue... what the hell does that thing mean? Plus we love how they say Mr. Friendly throws like a girl because he most certainly does.

In the future, we wouldn't mind having all television shows and movies given to us this way. They've compressed 69 hours of Lost down to 8 minutes, and kept most of the pertinent facts that you need to know intact. At this rate, we could also watch every episode of Heroes, Battlestar Galactica, and the entire run of Planet of the Apes (both the movies and the television show) in an hour. Our brain might not survive the onslaught, but think of all the time we'd save. Plus it would make commercials entirely subliminal, which would thrill the advertisers. How can you skip past what you don't even know what you've seen?

Capsulized television. Bring it on.