Hydra Island Make-Shift Sick Bay; 2007: Benjamin Linus awakes from his oar-induced coma. His eyes open slowly at first. When he realizes who is sitting at his bedside, his face spells out double-you-tee-eff. The camera pans to his guardian angel, who says, "Hello, Ben." It's Locke! Ben can't believe what he's seeing and Locke is enjoying that, which he totally should, seeing how Ben strangled him to death and all. "Welcome back to the... land of the living." Ben raises his head. Locke squints and smiles. DUN! Bad robot.

I fell so in love with Miles and Hurley's argument about the Time Warp rules (and so disturbed by Richard's comment that Ben would "lose his innocence") that I failed to digest that Richard (also) told Kate and Sawyer that Ben would forget everything. So I spent days thinking the Time Warp argument was just the writers just having fun, and missed the implicit confirmation that Daniel's (and Miles') theory: "Whatever happened, happened," is actually correct. Since it is, even though I find Jack's lack of concern rather appalling, I can't help but wonder if he isn't right. Maybe Sawyer, Kate, Juliet and all the people from the 2000s should have just stepped the heck off and let the island heal Ben. Of course, maybe if Jack told them how the island healed Locke of his paralysis, they would have been more inclined. If the island healed Ben, maybe Roger would have atoned for his abuse of the boy and Ben never would have convinced the Others to wipe out the entire Dharma Initiative. But who knows on this crazy show? At any rate, I need to thank my friends Sunil and T for gently clue-sticking me. Before I close, I want to share with you my current favorite Ben-related midrash, from a reader.