OK, I’m bugging out like Ben’s eyes right now!

Just when you think “Lost� can’t get any wilder, the show blows right over the bar set from last week. There’s just no way, no how, that the person we think might be dead is actually DEAD – is there?

(ABSOLUTELY DO NOT READ MORE IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THIS EPISODE YET!)

Because please, please, please tell me that the island magic is going to heal Locke’s gunshot wound, because “Lost� would not be the same without him. How can the show survive without its resident man of faith? Locke has seemed like such an intrinsic part of the series mythology, there’s no way he’d be killed off.

But as is always the case on “Lost,� who knows?

Besides that stunning cliffhanger of an ending, this episode had a whole lot of other jaw-dropping moments.

First, good ol’ lying Ben wasn’t actually born on the island. No surprise there. He was born in Portland – remember, that’s where Juliet was brought pre-island when she was recruited by the Others.

And Ben’s mom died giving birth to him: She’d gone into premature labor during a hike with Ben’s dad.

(And this is nitpicking here, but the “Lost� writers are relying way too much this season on cutesey switcheroos in location when an episode opens: You’re meant to think that Ben’s parents are on the island, but no, really they’re in the Oregon woods! People, please, the show is so awesome, we don’t need these little oopsie moments anymore.)

Anyway, turns out that the couple that stops to help Ben’s parents on the highway are “Horace Goodspeed”:http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Horace_Goodspeed and (his wife?) Olivia, part of the Dharma Initiative. They recruit Ben’s dad, “Roger Linus”:http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Roger_Linus, as a janitor on the island when he becomes an unemployed drunk who blames his son for his wife’s death.

(P.S. Seriously couldn’t get over the fact that Roger—who’s also Roger Work Man, the body Hurley found in the VW van – was Uncle Rico in “Napoleon Dynamite.â€? Hmm, dynamite came up last week with Rousseau, and it’s apparently popping up again next week…maybe it’s not so coincidental! That’s how much my brain has been warped by this show.)

So yet again, the bad dad syndrome strikes again on this show. Maybe now we know why Ben told Locke he had to kill his father to free himself. However, Ben doesn’t get someone else to do the dirty work for him. After seeing his mom (in a vision?) – much like Jack saw his father after crashing on the island – Ben races into the jungle and encounters Richard, one of the “Hostiles� who aren’t happy about Dharma setting up residence.

Richard tells Ben he can join them, maybe, but he’ll have to be patient. Little Ben grows up to betray Dharma, killing his dad with gas and allowing the Hostiles/Others invade the Dharma camp to murder the rest. (Did Ben’s little friend, Annie, die, too? That would make Ben even more evil, if possible.)

Here’s one question about that part of the plot: Obviously Ben aged, so why didn’t Richard? He looks as fresh-faced and eye-shadowed as he does now. Come to think of it, Horace Goodspeed didn’t look like he’d gotten any crow’s feet, either.

We didn’t get too much time with the beach dwellers, except for Sawyer bringing news of Juliet’s double-dealing back with him. But apparently Juliet had already clued him in on Ben’s plan to invade: He hadn’t told everyone “because I hadn’t decided what to do about it yet.�

Wow, good way to plan a defense, Jack. Alienate everyone and be a pretentious jerk.

Back in the jungle, Locke forces Ben to take him to Jacob, who Locke thinks is a fictional “Wizard of Oz� who Ben made up to manipulate the Others. Makes sense: After all, Henry did adopt the name Henry Gale, Dorothy’s uncle, when the crash survivors captured him.

Then the show goes from “The Wizard of Oz� to “The Blair Witch Project.�

Ben brings Locke to yet another decrepit shack, which is apparently Jacob’s headquarters. There’s some icky jars filled with red liquid, a weird painting of a dog, and a filthy rocking chair.

Huh, what, you can’t see Jacob, Ben asks Locke. He’s sitting right here, in this empty chair.

Here’s when you start to think that both Ben and Locke are correct. There’s a Jacob all right, except he exists only in koo-koo Ben’s head.

Perfectly good explanation, right? Uh, no, because then the shack starts shaking Poltergeist-style, the “ghostsâ€? start “whispering again”:http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Whispers, and Ben gets thrown across the room.

And Locke hears a creepy voice say, “Help me.�

(Psst, sharp-eyed viewers have already posted “screen grabs”:http://losteastereggs.blogspot.com/ showing a fleeting glimpse of a graying, long-haired guy in the chair…)

Ben seems shaken up by the fact that Locke heard Jacob say something, when he didn’t. So on the way back to the Others camp, Ben tells Locke how he helped kill the Dharma Initiative – and shows him a mass grave of their bodies.

And how he was smart enough to throw down with the Hostiles, and not end up dead in that ditch. But Locke’s apparently not as smart as he is.

BLAMMO! Ben grabs Locke’s gun, blasts him in the gut, and Locke goes tumbling on top of the Dharma dead.

And here’s where my ears started bleeding like Mikhail’s. “Lost� may not have had the pylons turned to lethal last night, but they came pretty darn close.

Is Ben somehow controlling Jacob, which is a manifestation of all the parapsychology and electromagnetic tests that Dharma was doing on the island? Was Dharma even on the island long enough to affect the island’s chemistry?

Did Ben want Locke dead because he feared he was the “chosen one,� the one who’d replace Ben as the Others’ leader and Jacob’s right hand man?
Is Locke REALLY DEAD?!?

I don’t know what to think right now. But one thing I know for sure.

I’m SO looking forward to the rumble in the jungle that’s gearing up for the season finale…