Missed the second episode of the new season of Lost? You can read a synopsis of the episode on Yahoo! News. Of course, even better is watching the episode, and ABC will show it to you for free, online.

For those of you that have seen both of this new season’s episodes, the big question is: will Jack buy into Ben’s promise?

We should know better than to trust Ben, even though we did find out his “real” name. He and the rest of “the Others” clearly have some sort of agenda that drives them to use often ruthless means. Whatever that agenda is, the show will be hard-pressed to convince viewers (especially me!) that the end justifies the means. Of course, that begs the question of whether Sayid’s means can/should be justified. He tortured Sawyer and Ben, after all, and is clearly prepared to do it again.

All Jack has to do is “cooperate” — and likely forget about his friends and island-mates — and Ben will take him home. There could be a play on words there: Ben could mean “home” as several different things:

• where the heart is
• Jack’s tent on the beach
• back in the USA
• death (especially if there’s some wacky religious belief driving what the Others do)

If Jack does buy into Ben’s promise, he’ll most likely end up pitted against Kate, Sawyer, and the rest of the gang. Because Kate and Sawyer are not being included in the conversations with Jack, there’s no chance they’ll believe Ben’s story. Of course, Ben is the man behind all the television consoles, watching all of his “subjects”, so he surely is planning something that we don’t expect.

Of course, one big question is why Kate isn’t running yet. Sawyer seems to want to escape, though he also seems to enjoy picking at his captors, but Kate is the one who always runs. Why isn’t she running now? Surely it’s more than just the dress she is made to wear.