[Hordriss]

It was interesting to see the "games" theme revived again, played for (slightly cheesy) laughs in the Risk scene, then applied to the series mythology as we learn that Ben and Widmore have - to this point - been abiding by a mysterious rulebook. Thus it would seem, by implication, that they have been playing Risk / Backgammon / Chess ("She's a pawn") with the lives of everybody else (and I think we are now faced with the distinct possibility that they mutually arranged the fake plane crash, which seems a lot more likely than either one of them doing it alone). Mind you, the writers are so in love with playing with our sympathies - especially with walking mountains of moral ambiguity like Ben - that this is still all very speculative. Nonetheless, it seems certain that at some level, everything up until this point has been a game of sorts for Ben, and only this personal loss has caused him to get serious (hence the use of the "ultimate weapon", I assume, which at least finally explains why he has never shown any fear of Old Smokey).

Yes, an exciting and suspenseful episode, but it sacrificed a lot of plausibility with Sawyer dodging any number of bullets and anti-tank rockets and Claire surviving a house collapsing on her, while the nameless extras were dropping like ninepins. Exactly how many background Losties are left alive, now?