Oh tell me something I didn't already know.

This was probably my least favorite of all. A complete snooze, I thought. Most of my indifference stems from the flashbacks that told us once again that Jack has a savior complex and a pathological need to fix people. OK, WE GET IT.

Yet despite my boredom, there ended up being quite a bit to discuss.

Most of the characters annoyed me, except for Hurley and Charlie and Sun and Jin – their scenes were good. That island hillbilly coming out of the jungle was a good shock, but I was really disappointed with the way they’ve characterized him. A hillbilly. It just seemed so clichéd. Even Sawyer called him Zeke. I heard from a friend that when Zeke asked for Kate to be brought out, he said, “Alex, bring her out here.” Alex is Rousseau’s daughter. That's kind of huge! I was so uninvolved in the story that I wasn’t even aware that Zeke had addressed anyone by name.

Did anyone else think that Zeke sounded like Jack’s father when he came out of the woods? No? There is speculation that he is actually Greg DeGroot, of the Hanso Foundation DeGroots (from the orientation film). I think that's a great theory and there is evidence to support it. If you recall, Zeke said something along the lines of "A smarter man than us said 'From the dawn of our species, Man has been blessed with curiosity.'" Go to this page and read the Alvar Hanso quote. Hmmm. Also, If you click on the photo of Hanso you get brief video with a clue.

These people with Zeke – are they the “Others”? They are, right? The Others took Alex, right? Or were Goodwin and Ethan part of some other faction and they're the Others? I take it Zeke's gang has been observing our group, since they know everyone by name. Are they close enough to hear everything or do have some other way of surveilling them? And why don't any of our castaways ask these kind of questions?? Sigh.

You know, half the season has gone by and we still don’t know why they took Walt. How much time has passed since they took him? It’s really only been about a week, right? Maybe two? The kid who plays Walt is going to be shaving the next time we see him and it will only suppose to be a few weeks that he was gone.

Michael looked batshit crazy when he was locking Locke up, huh? I presume he must have done some more chatting and gotten a location (north) to head to. I’m sure he’s being lured there and that he wasn’t actually talking to Walt. Lured by whom or what, I don’t know. A "mole" perhaps?

A few other items of interest despite this being what I thought was a lackluster outing:

> You want to train an “army”? Alright. Who do you go to? The trigger-happy, short-fused woman who killed one of your group? Or the trained military officer you’ve had in your midst all along?

> Sawyer's real name: James Ford. Good name.

> I was thinking “Hell YEAH” when Locke asked Jack “who are we to tell anyone what they can and can’t do?” I wonder that all the time about Jack. What makes him think he's the boss of everyone? And it fits nicely with Locke’s first backstory, when he told the walkabout guide guy that he couldn’t tell him what he can’t do.

> Maybe there was more about this episode that I liked than I thought. Like Sayid’s “this music is quite depressing”.

>Dumbest line (paraphrased): "You can't come with us, you're still on antibiotics!" Huh?

> Did anyone else think Zeke looked somewhat surprised when Jack mentioned Ethan? Was Ethan not a part of Zeke’s group or did he just go by another name?

> The other thing I thought was odd was Jack’s wife’s choice of words when she said she was leaving him. She said, “I’ve been seeing someone. (pause) Someone else.” What did she mean by that? That she had cheated before, Jack knew about it, but this time it was a different person?

> Maybe she was sneaking around with Desmond. Remember, he was living in the same city as Jack. And remember Jack’s odd expression when he looked at that photo (in the hatch) of Desmond and a woman together in front of a skyline? Could that have been Sarah? Here's the photo, lightened up a bit:



I don't know, I don't think that's Sarah.

And that was The Hunting Party. It's amazing that I can start off saying I didn't really like the episode and yet still write more about it than I write about anything else.

Next week: Aaron parts the Pacific Ocean and they all walk home.