On last night's mystery machine we were focused on a touching Hurley story, but in the end it was another character who came out of the background and shocked us all.

Well, shocked me anyway! The writers did such a good job of setting Desmond up to look like a benevolent hero, the mysterious Scot who travels around the flash sideways world and reunites the gang with their island memories. But his mission isn't entirely peaceful, as it turns out. No, his mission also involves running a crippled man right the fuck over with his car. Yikes!

I'm wondering if Desmond is fully integrated, simultaneously conscious of both island life and purple-sunglasses life. If that's the case, then his nasty treatment of one John Q. Locke would make sense. Dude throws me down a well on the island? Well I'm gonna run him over in this reality then. That way there's some semblance of balance, right?

And if he's not dually conscious, then I have questions about how Desmond knows that Locke is functioning as a baddie on the island. Or maybe he doesn't know! Maybe he's just very, very prejudiced against the differently abled.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the other shocking moment of carnage last night. Ilana the Brave, we hardly knew ye. I guess Ben sort of explained her death by saying that the island was "done with her," but did it not feel like yet another one of the show's premature deaths? I don't mind folks dying on the show — I might even encourage it — but at least give them their due diligence before you blow them up in a hail of water bottles and nasty old dynamite. We saw Ilana hanging with Jacob in a flashback! You don't have a character hang out with Jacob and then blow her up unceremoniously a few episodes later. It was a strangely undignified death for such a tough cookie, wasn't it? Ah well. May you soon be joined by Tina Fey the Widmore assistant. Someone blow her up, please.

Libby! Yay Libby! I think Cynthia Watros is an appealing actress and — hey, talk about premature deaths! — didn't get her fair shake on the show. So it was nice to see her revisit Hawaii and finally film that beach picnic scene she and Jorge Garcia planned on filming all those many years ago. I'm curious about her double knowledge, and suppose it must have something to do with Charlie's similar condition. Both have stared down the barrel of a gun, be it a druggy death gun or a crazy gun, so I guess now they're imbued with magic juju that enables them to see through the veil. Do you guys think we'll see Libby again? I don't think we're quite done with her yet.

Lastly, ghosts. Hurley said "Oh, I know what those whispers are," and then, yep, sure, Michael the Ghost was all "Exactly! Why didn't someone ask us that five years ago? We ghosts here what live in the jungle would have answered you plainly in the affirmative." I hate harshing on this show, but guys... Wasn't that sort of a completely unsatisfying answer to a seasons-long mystery? The Whispers are... meddlesome ghosts. Restless frigging ghosts whisperin' at ya. That's all. They're not you in another conscious life trying to tell yourself what to do (as I thought the whispers might be). Nope. Just The Others (which features Mrs. Hawking, in fact) set on an island. Ah well.

OK. Now you talk.