“Lift up your eyes and look north”

I don’t really know if there’s some hidden meaning behind the abovementioned phrase that was sketched into Eko’s prayer stick, but by the look in Locke’s eyes, it seems that he’s found some kind of significance in it. Whatever the case, Mr. Eko is now dead. Let’s move on, shall we?

This week’s flashback was dedicated to Kate, which wasn’t a very big surprise seeing as how the show begins its three-month hiatus following this week’s episode. It seems that Jack isn’t the only survivor with some marital skeletons in his closet. Kate, too, was once married, oddly enough to a Miami cop named Kevin (Nathan Fillion). Unfortunately, she hasn’t exactly been honest with the guy from the start (he thinks her name is Monica), and though Kate really does love him (she even begs the FBI agent over the phone to stop chasing her so she can start a new life), she still decides to leave the poor guy. That is, of course, after informing him of her fugitive status and then drugging him. Um, okay.

Back on the island, Kate is asked to persuade Jack to operate on Ben. If she can convince him to perform surgery, Sawyer won’t be killed. Pretty simple, no? Jack, however, doesn’t buy her modest plea, and doesn’t agree to do the surgery until he’s given Ben’s word that he’ll have a ticket off the island once the operation is complete. What I’d like to know is if Ben means the island as a whole, or just the smaller one that everyone seems to believe they’re now on? Sawyer believes he’s on a different island, enough so that he’s told Kate of their situation.

So, are they really on another island, or has Sawyer truly been conned into believing so? I know this bleeds a lot into our discussion a few weeks back, but I’m still not completely sold on whether or not Ben was telling the truth. Whatever the case, Sawyer and Kate are going to have a hell of a time escaping, no matter what kind of leverage Jack has earned with his kidney-slicing diversion. There’s no way the Others are gonna let them get away that easy, and it’ll be interesting to see if they can pull it off.