Piano playing. Machine gun firing. Arabic speaking. Karate chopping. Horse riding. Lock picking.

Smokey summoning. Death threatening.

Is there anywhere that Benjamin Linus can’t go, or anything he can’t do?

From the looks of last night’s episode, it doesn’t look like it.

And if I were Charles Widmore, I’d be nervous.

Because we’ve all seen what Ben can do when he’s simply upset, and now that Widmore’s had Ben’s adopted daughter killed, Ben is really, really pissed.

And that means trouble for Penny.

Holy. Freaking. Smoke. Monster.

Last night’s Ben-centric outing, “The Shape of Things to Come,” was too wild for words, with our favorite bug-eyed bad guy tripping all over the globe.

(And seriously, if this episode doesn’t bring an Emmy home for Michael Emerson, I don’t know what else a brother can do. Emerson brought everything to his performance last night—and I’m guessing he had to learn a bunch o’ mad new skills, besides being one bad-ass actor. It’s absolutely criminal for him to be overlooked in the fall.)

Anyway, the action started with the island’s discovery of the body of Dr. Ray from the freighter. We started getting the “we’re not in Kansas anymore” time-travel feeling when Daniel called the ship, and after lying about what they really said (Bernard knows Morse code!), told the beach dwellers that the doctor is all hunky-dory back on the boat.

Also on the island, the war against Locke’s camp started with a bunch of Red Shirts getting shot and Claire’s house being blown up.

Our golden-haired girl, however, managed to emerge A-OK from a pile of rubble!

The episode really launched, though, with the unexpected murder of Alex by Keamy.

Ben tried to talk his way out of that one—disavowing her as his daughter because he stole her from Rousseau—but soon she was dead on the jungle floor.

Then, SWOOSH! Ben dives into his secret room, which had another secret door that looked like it was carved with Egyptian hieroglyphics—and comes out all sooty.

Next thing you know, Ol’ Smokey’s on the rampage, seizing soldiers by the ankles and allowing Ben, Locke and the gang to escape.

And that’s just what Ben was up to on the ISLAND.

Off in the future—about a year later in 2005, to be exact—Ben wakes up in the Sahara, after presumably time-tripping there. But where was he before that, a place where he needed a Dharma parka? (Say that 5 times fast…)

And did you notice the name on the jacket he was wearing? Halliwax. Easter Egg pop quiz! Who knows the answer to that one? (Go here to find out.)

Then Ben was off to Tunisia. (To check on Charlotte’s polar bear discovery, perhaps?)

After checking in at a hotel under an alias, Dean Moriarty (another Easter Egg!), he sees Sayid on a news report. He’s in Iraq, burying his wife, who turns out to be his long-lost love, Nadia.

Ben soon catches up with him, and that’s when we got the answer to a burning question from earlier this season: How Ben recruited Sayid to be his assassin.

Ben tells him that Widmore’s goons murdered Nadia, whom Sayid apparently tracked down after leaving the island and married.

We don’t know why she was killed yet—or if Ben’s telling the truth—but now Sayid wants revenge.

And judging from Ben’s little smile after walking away from Sayid, that was all part of his master plan.

There’s a whole lot else that happened last night—Sawyer’s sudden, sweet protectiveness of Claire and Hurley, Locke and Ben taking Hurley captive to find Jacob’s cabin, Jack getting strangely sick—but what the episode boiled down to was the stellar confrontation between Ben and Widmore.

That conversation was jam-packed with info, leading to more questions. (No suprise, right?) Here’s a checklist of what I caught:

• Ben and Widmore clearly have some sort of battle going on over control of the island, which Widmore once ruled, but Ben took away from him. Now Widmore can’t find the island, and he’s desperately looking.

• Ben can’t kill Widmore. (Is that connected to Michael not being able to commit suicide, because the island won’t let him die?)

• Widmore calls Ben “boy.” Does this mean something more than a snide insult?

• And ba-boom, Ben’s out to kill Penny as revenge for Alex’s death! Can’t wait for the inevitable Desmond/Ben showdown, can you?

Obviously, the line that had the most meaning last night was Ben saying, “He changed the rules.”

Unlike Hurley and Sawyer’s friendly board match, are Ben and Widmore engaged in just about the sickest game of Risk ever?

Is, as Hurley said, Australia somehow the key to everything?

I’m too tired to even attempt figuring this out at the moment. For right now, I’m just along for the ride.

And judging from last night’s installment, it’s going to be a wild, bumpy one straight to the May 29 finish!!!

(Photos courtesy of ABC)