Oh, I get it. Ethan was with Dharma.

The other night, prominent members of the Bloc gathered to watch Lost.

A suggestion was raised that Lost waits 45 minutes to provide any meaningful info, and we did have a really long scene of Jin running through foliage.

But this episode gave us the biggest payout in the middle, even though I didn't really catch the importance of it at first.

We've been wondering for a few episodes who the baby was. Turns out it's Ethan. Bwa bwa bwa! Far more shocking once you think about what this means...

* Ben didn't kill The Dharma Initiative, merely a part of The Dharma Initiative, integrating the others with Richard's group.
* Maybe these survivors from Dharma replaced the ousted members of Richard's tribe, people like Widmore.
* Ben wanted to get more kids born on the island, Ethan was born on the island. What's the Ben-Ethan situation? Is Ethan "special" in some way? It seemed to me like he was just a runner, and often a failure.
* If Ben went back in time, following Sun, what would he do? Would he kill the Dharma Initiative more viciously? Kill young Ben and subsequently destroy all of time?

As time travel stories go, there's a really great primer on how to approach them philosophically over at Crooked Timber. For this season of TV, the award for the most philosophically consistent approach to time travel goes to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The award for the worst bungling of time related issues on TV is permanently reserved for Heroes. Lost seems stuck somewhere in the middle, hinting that they will allow some inconsistencies, but be conscious of it whenever it happens. We're yet to get the full list "rules" of time travel on Lost (if there are any), so who knows. Let's hope they don't blow it.