I think some people, like Alpert and probably Widmore are connected to the Black Rock ship, and have become ageless and undying. Possibly Abbadon too (was he one of the slave captives?).

We did hear the whispers a couple times this season, though precisely where escapes me.

Cindy and the kids are at the “Temple” where Alpert and the rest of the Others went just before the end of last season. Also it’s where Rousseau, Karl and Alex were headed before they were killed/kidnapped/executed. So assuming Alpert isn’t time traveling, he’s still there with Cindy, the kids, and the rest of the Others biding their time. Wonder if that’s where the chopper was headed?

I’m thinking Keamy’s gun didn’t jam by accident. It was trying to kill Michael, and the island bwoke it. Can’t be killed and all that..

I’m assuming Keamy’s under Widmore’s orders still. I took “torch the island” to mean “kill everyone there”, not literally burn it to the…ocean. Until this point the captain, Farady and his friends, and most everyone on the boat outside of the mercenaries only believed their mission was to extract Ben. Now they know the truth of what Widmore’s directive to Keamy and his merry men really was. The “Secondary Protocol”, provided on a handy Dharma Initiative folder, to boot.

We saw Ben’s mother Emily earlier in the 1st season as a grown-up Swoosie Kurtz. Even though she claimed to Locke he was “immaculately conceived” since she eventually admitted that Anthony Cooper paid her to set him up to donate the kidney I don’t know if I agree with that. Is Emily his real mother? I assume so. Is Cooper his real father? I assume so, too, but I don’t know what his connection to the island might be or have been. But why else would Cooper have sought Locke out for a kidney if he wasn’t a biological match?

One thing I thought was odd was the look in young Emily’s mom’s eyes after the younger girl ran out of the nursery. Mom turned around to see Alpert watching through the window and claimed to not know who he was, but I wonder….