Well that was ok, I guess...

So I suppose we can surmise that things that shouldnt be there but occasionally show up like Jack's Dad, Sawyer's boar, Kate's horse, Hurley's imaginary friend, and possibly even Locke's Boone (and Eme?) and Shannon's Walt visions, are in fact manifestations of the black smoke monster. Still no clue what it is, how it got there, and why sometimes it seems helpful and other times it just kills. The common "kill's" have both been to people who were physically injured or dead (perhaps it weeds out the sick and dying for the good of the other survivors???). Remember they kept hearing the monster in the woods while the Marshall was dying on the beach, once he died, they didnt really see the thing again until after the annoying teacher guy, (Artz?) got blown up. Just a thought.

I suppose the Ecko story was done, but it seems like not anymore than a lot of other peoples stories as well. Sayid for instance should probably watch out. Sad to see him go, and is it just me or does it seem like the producers decided that the whole tail section storyline was just not as compelling as the Others/hatch guy, and so they systematically killed off anyone associated with that plotline so they didnt have to ever go back to it.

The tumor and Juliet plotline is getting interesting. Is the tumor really on Ben? Will Jack willingly go along with the Juliet plot? what is Juliet's relationship with Ben anyway (former lover?/sibling?/cult follower?/rival?), and is she really trying to kill Ben off or is she working with Ben to continue to break Jack and force him to do the things they want him to. It is very hard to trust the Others, because they have been very untrustworthy, especially Ben and Juliet because they clearly are the most manipulative of the lot. Somehow I expect that the tumor really is Ben's and that the Juliet "movie" was simply designed to test Jack to see if he would in fact purposely kill him instead of trying to save him. I suspect Jack wont take Juliet's bait, but instead try to pit the two of them against one another to his advantage (since they are working together though, I suspect it wont work out the way he plans).

-ICB

PS: As far as the new people go, it seems like they reverse gendered the bickering Shannon/Boone "couple" and brought them back as Paulo/Nikki... may they have the same fate, sooner rather than later.