Lost Reactions - Some Like it Hoth

First of all, if you missed it, I am now totally convinced that the resurrected John Locke is the monster. Read it here.

I'm not going to bother with a recap, but it was great. I do love a good character-centric episode, and Miles had a big blank spot in his background to fill. I'm left with several revelations and mysteries. The big one is:

The Shadow of the Statue Gang:
Ok, these people were following Miles, just as Widmore was. They are opposing Widmore. Last week when we saw these people on the beach I assumed they were working for Widmore, but I'm wrong. I have to begrudgingly bring up my hubby's suggestion that they might be the descendants of the original inhabitants of the island, the people that built the temple, the well that Locke went into to get to the donkey wheel, the statue, and probably all of the hieroglyphics. I would amend that though, and say that I'm wondering if the original inhabitants might be ageless (some electromagnetic funky time thing?). Richard Alpert is still a mystery to us because he doesn't age and clearly is different than the "Hostiles" that he's hanging out with. What if he is in league with these guys?

If they are ageless and these are the same people that were originally on the island, they would know both the past and the present and the workings of the island. The question is, why did they leave and what is their goal?

The other possibility is that they are working for Eloise Hawking, but what if Eloise is also an original inhabitant?

Anyways, I'm totally intrigued by those questions. We know that the group of "Shadow" people that are on the beach are headed on some sort of mission and that they're trying to move a big box that Ilana said had "supplies" in it. That could be anything...

So - what do you all think?

Rezinsky/Pierre Chang's secret work project:
I am not at all surprised to see Rezinsky at work on the hatch and in league with Pierre Chang, but I do wonder why it's a big secret. Who are they hiding this from? Since a guy was killed by his own filling shooting through his head and towards an electromagnetic source (I just know some guy LOVED thinking that up), we know that they are building the hatch because of the electromagnetism. Chang works at the Orchid, where we know he was doing time travel experiments. How much do you want to bet that he needed the electromagnetism for the experiments? I bet it's all linked somehow.

Widmore's recruitment of Miles: So Widmore had Miles followed and recruited, supposedly for his skills with talking to dead people. However, Widmore's surveillance is so detailed that I bet he knows that Miles was born on the island and that that has everything to do with his recruitment. Charlotte, too, was born on the island. Widmore was taking people back - for what purpose? We also now have confirmed that Widmore set up the fake plane crash.

Daniel Farraday's return!: Daniel is back! I love it. I totally didn't expect him to remember Miles, but I'm glad that he's in the right time loop to interact as an equal with our Losties. Now we need to know how he got off the island. It may be simple - he may have joined Dharma with the rest of our gang and returned to the mainland, joined up as a scientist, and made his way back to the island with the credentials to join Pierre Chang's experiments.

OR.... he was left in the jungle with "Ellie", his mom, and proceeded to use the hostiles' method of travel to get off the island. Hmmm..

*Addition to the list - The Island filled with dead people: People on message boards are asking what this meant. If you don't remember, Naomi told Miles they needed his services because the island had an increasing number of dead people living on it. It seems an obscure reference unless you believe, like I do, that Smokey inhabits the bodies of dead people and makes them seem alive and interacting with others.

What do you all think?