Previously on Lost: The Life & Death of Jeremy Bentham

Last week on Lost we found out what happened to Locke after he "fixed" the Frozen Donkey Wheel and returned to Civilization and the episode did answer a lot of our questions, but in typical Lost fashion, it also raised a lot of questions as well...such as:

(1)Why did Ben talk Locke out of committing suicide, then proceed to strangle Locke? Was it the will of the Island that directed Ben to do this? Would a Locke death by suicide preclude him from being resurrected on the Island? Or, was Ben acting on his own impulses? Ben has already attempted to kill Locke, and it was Ben that disobeyed the Island's wishes and went ahead and moved the Island, instead of Locke as Jacob had directed...Is Ben a renegade?

(2)Why were Jack, Kate, Hurley, and probably Sayid whisked away by the white light on the Ajira flight and deposited on the Island sometime apparantly in the Dharma era of the 1970's, while Ben, Locke, Sun, pilot Frank and our new two "friends" Caesar and Ilana were not? Frank was apparently able to land the plane on the airstrip on Hydra Island and it appears that they are NOT in the same time period as the other four and it's alleged that they are in CURRENT/"Normal" time. Does this mean that the Island has special plans for Jack and Company and that Ben, Locke and Sun are out of favor?

(3)The Locke/Walt meet up was very...anti-climatic. All it seemed to establish was that Walt continues to have visions of Island life...still, it seems highly likely that we're not done with Walt...it seems ordained that at some point we have to have a big Walt/Island showdown, not to mention a tearful reunion with Vincent, the dog.

(4)Is Locke's long lost lady love, Helen (aka Peg Bundy/Leela/actress Katey Sagal) really dead? Or was that an Abbaddon/Widmore subterfuge to keep Locke on track?

(5)Kate was a real bitch to Locke in their confrontation scene, wasn't she? Her character really isn't that sympathetic.

(6)Meanwhile, Widmore seemed very sympathetic in his scene with Locke...in fact, Widmore has seemed suspiciously sympathetic in the majority of his scenes this season...are we being set up for a big twist? Is Widmore not so bad, or are we being led up to a confrontation where Widmore does something truly heinous and reveals his darkest colors? (This seems likely; the producers of the show have said that Widmore is the "Big Bad" of Lost). And, when the hell are we getting an entire Widmore flashback/backstory episode?!?!?! (Interesting note: we've never seen Widmore and his daughter Penny in a scene together.) And, if Widmore has contacts with Eloise Hawking, why doesn't she aid Widmore in getting back "his" Island? And, who the hell is Penny's mother and where was Penny born? If Widmore "had" the Island for 30 years, that would mean he would have been in control when Penny was born, which would have been circa 1970. Or, is Penny really his biological child?

So many questions...