Now, last week, the Templars told the Losties that they had to save Sayid, or they'd be in big trouble. This week, the Templars are telling Jack that a persistent darkness grows in Sayid and it will reach his heart and spread (the implication is that it will spread to everyone else) if it isn't stopped (i.e. if Sayid isn't killed). BUT...who says the Templars are all knowing? I can't help but think back to last season, when Sayid shot wee Benjamin Linus. Sawyer and Kate brought him to the Others. Richard said they could save wee Ben, but only at the price of his innocence. Based on what we know so far, it would seem they dipped wee Ben in the spring-fed pool. Based on what we know so far -- the pool was probably running clear at that time. But, when Sayid is brought in, the pool is brown and murky. It doesn't heal Sayid immediately, but eventually, he springs back to life. The Templars test him and assume that he's got this darkness growing in him. Even many of us think he's animated by Smokey. But what if he doesn't; what if he isn't? What if he actually has a negativity growing in him -- a photo negativity? What if Sayid -- whose soul was so tainted with sin that he fretted about his eternal destination with his final breath -- what if Sayid's sin was taken away by the dirty pool, when Ben's innocence was taken away by the clean pool? Just food for thought. I'm not ready to commit to it, yet.

And then there's Claire. Now, back in season 4, episode 9, "The Shape of Things to Come" -- Claire was in a Dharmaville house that got all blowed up and stuff. I thought for sure she was dead, and then Sawyer dragged her out of the wreckage, none too worse for the wear, unless you're the type to get concerned over delusions and headaches. (Okay, I do.) And then, in "Something Nice Back Home" Miles, the resident ghost whisperer, starts paying particular attention to Claire, and Claire can't frigging wait to get away from the dead bodies. Later, in that same episode, Claire decides to leave her baby, and go on a walk about with an apparition who is the spitting image of her dead father. She hasn't been seen since, except in the spooky-ass cabin that may or may not have been Jacob's at one point, and in Kate's dreams or 2007 reality -- specifically in Aaron's bedroom. So, did Claire die long ago and far away when her New Otherton house went all 'splodey? If so, how did she/her ghost carry Aaron around? How did Sawyer rescue her? Was she animated by Smokey -- or by something else? Did she leave with the ghost of her father, or something that resembled him? And why is she now appearing to us as Rousseau, the next wave? Was Rousseau sick, or do random band of Others diagnose anyone with "the sickness" if/when that anyone doesn't follow the same whatever it is that said random band of Others reveres? I mean, Ben took Alex from Rousseau, but we never saw Rousseau act sick. She killed her crew, and her baby-daddy, but that's because they were acting batshit insane (and were probably going to kill her). And here's Claire, acting just like Rousseau. And here's the Templars, telling Jack that Sayid is sick just like his (Jack's) sister was -- but what do these sickos consider sick? Again, this is just food for thought. I can't yet get where I want to go, but these are the thoughts I cannot leave behind.