Ben Linus is the best character on television. I can’t imagine anything on television that is more interesting, intriguing, and compelling than the character that Michael Emerson plays on “Lost”. I can’t imagine a better way to kick off the second half of season four of “Lost” than with “The Shape Of Things To Come”. Since this episode was focused on Ben but in a flash-forward, I am going to tackle this episode chronologically. I do this because it’s probably easier to read and, well, I won’t get confused.

We started out with the now-boring group of people on the beach with Jack. While fishing or building another uber-gay S.O.S. sign, Bernard and Vincent the dog found a body washed on shore. Jack and The Gang run over to see what the problem is and that problem would be that Doctor Ray from the freighter is dead on their beach. Apparently, somebody threw him over the side of the boat in an attempt to drown him and just in case the drowning didn’t work, somebody cut his throat. Needless to say, the trust meter with our 815ers and the two freighter folk there, Daniel and Charlotte, goes to an all time low.

Let’s turn our attention to Camp Awesome. Alex, now a prisoner of the freighter peeps, is forced to turn off the dog/smoke monster fence so the freighter people can go and get their hands on Ben. Since Ben is a sly devil, he has the fence rigged to call him on his Batphone. Locke picks up the phone, hears the phrase “14J” repeated, and goes to ask Ben about it. Locke and Sawyer go to see Ben, who is happy as a clam playing piano. Actually, the smile he throws them when they walk in the house was completely priceless. Sure, Ben is quite possibly a murderous madman but dammit if he isn’t sociable. Once Locke tells Ben “14J”, oh it’s on. Ben pulls a shotgun out of the piano bench, which is coincidentally where Dick Cheney keeps his. Ben lets us know that a war is coming and then my “Lost” pants flew off. Once we hit commercial, honest to goodness, I stood up and hopped up and down like a 12-year old girl who just got a pony on her birthday.

This is about when all hell breaks loose. The Others village gets completely trashed. Sawyer saves Claire from a blown up Other house. In a laugh out loud moment, Liles rings the doorbell of the house that our gang is holed up in. I am beginning to think that Miles isn’t interested in catching Ben at all and the guy is really, really into cash.

Then, in a move that not even Ben would pull, the scumbags from the freighter put a gun to Alex’s head. Ben does his best to try and manipulate the situation but these jerks prove Ben right and actually kill Alex. How did they prove Ben right? The freighter people are in fact more dangerous than he is. Alex’s death completely floored me. What about you?

Ben is pissed. I mean really, really pissed. In fact, he is so pissed that he apparently unleashes the smoke monster on these Rambo-ish mercenaries. He went into his secret room, then into another secret room, picked up his Wii Remote, and whipped out old smokie who then kicked some serious ass. Once again, Ben proves that he is only into telling the truth when he really needs to. He knows what the smoke monster is, he just doesn’t want to tell us.

Once they get away from the Other village, Sawyer decides that he, Claire, and Aaron are better off back at the beach. Locke and Ben are not interested in that and, since they have a hankering for some banjo, they set off to find that rednecky cabin with Jakob and his freaky eye in it. However, they have to take Hurley with them since he knows where the cabin is. So Sawyer, Claire, Aaron, and Miles are off to the beach, while Locke, Ben, and Hurley are on the hunt for a magical cabin with a creepy dude in it who only shows his eyeball.

Meanwhile, on Loser Beach, Jack gets Daniel to turn their satellite phone into a makeshift morse code device. To make a long story short, Jack finally gets the answer to his favorite question: Is the freighter there to rescue them? Of course, like we all have known for quite some time, Daniel tells Jack they are not. Then, I stood up and screamed “Locke totally faced you” to Jack. Well, I thought about doing it…then I did it.

Okay, let’s get down to the flash-forwards with Benjamin Linus. First off, when Ben woke up in the Sahara, I don’t think we were seeing him wake up or anything like that. I think we were looking at the exact moment that Ben either left the Island willingly or was forced to escape. Don’t ask me how or anything, but I think that there is some kind of time warp or Star Trek-like transport deal on the Island. Why do I think that? I don’t know.

Ben eventually gets to Tunisia, which of course has polar bears in a desert somewhere and sees Sayid on television because he is famous for being one of the Oceanic Six. Ben tracks Sayid down and we learn that Sayid did find Nadia and she was murdered. Ben tells Sayid that the murder was orchestrated by Charles Widmore, the now number one douchebag on “Lost”. Ben convinces Sayid to kill a man that he claims is responsible for killing Nadia. Eventually, Sayid does kill the man, with Ben’s help. The question is this: Was that man really responsible for Nadia’s death? Ben knows the best way to manipulate Sayid is through women that he loves. So now, Ben and Sayid are going to go all Charles Bronson on Widmore’s gang. It’s just like “West Side Story” except there isn’t any gay singing, finger snapping, or Italians playing Hispanic people.

Then, Ben goes to London. He breaks into Charles Widmore’s apartment and wakes him up in the middle of the night. Widmore assumes Ben is there to kill him but, for some reason, Ben tells Widmore that he can’t kill him. Hmmm…I wonder why? Maybe it was his sexy p.j.’s. Instead, Ben is going to find and kill Penny Widmore to exact revenge for Alex’s murder. Widmore arrogantly tells Ben that the Island is his and now, it is a race to see who can find the Island and take it back. So now, the show is just like “West Side Story” and that show “The Amazing Race”…except “Lost” is awesome.

So where does that leave us? I really don’t know. There is no doubt that Ben has the upper hand knowledge-wise in his own personal WWIII with the Widmore crew. Of course, Widmore apparently has an unseen amount or resources and will no doubt stop at nothing to get the Island under his control. Is there any doubt that Ben really is one of the good guys? Yes, he makes decisions that are pretty sleazy but there is no doubt that Ben wants the Island in order to protect it and Widmore wants the Island to exploit it. Well, I think that’s the case. It could be the other way around. Whatever. Ben is the f’ing man and you know it.

So, now that we know Ben has some kind of handle on old Smokie, does this explain the visions that our 815ers have had? Is there a chance that Ben sent Smokie to visit Hurley in the mental ward but appear as Charlie? We saw what Smokie did to Mr. Eko so we know it can change into people. Also, do you think Ben, in some way, shape, or form, will contact the rest of the Oceanic Six and convince them, as he did with Sayid, to join him in his war against Widmore? I think that is what is going to happen. The Oceanic Six are going to all realize that they were wrong when they left the Island and Ben is going to be their ticket to right those wrongs. In a way, Ben will end up being one of the good guys.