What I’m not really understanding though is how they can’t kill each other. Michael couldn’t die, and we’ve seen it happen that something protects them from dying but Farraday said that anyone could die, at any time. What happens at that moment is the present and it’s not the past or the future, anything can happen. What has happened has happened but if you’re in the moment, it’s happening now. So, why couldn’t Michael die? That was HIS present. And Widmore and Ben were in their present as well. Does not make any sense to me why they couldn’t kill each other. My head is spinning.

Since we have met Ben Linus, he has offered our heroes nothing but lies, manipulation, cons and violence. Remember, he kidnaps Claire’s baby; he cons Jack and Locke while being held captive and taunts them that he is smarter than they are; he holds Sawyer and Kate in cages; enslaves them in a work camp; beats Sawyer to a pulp, cons him into believing his heart will explode, he orders the killing of Jin, Bernard and Sayid; he orders the massacre of hundreds of people by chemical warfare; he shoots Locke and leaves him for dead, asks Mikhail to murder Bonnie and Greta, he sets up Goodwin to die because of his obsession with Juliet; he shoots Charlotte; he swears off his adoptive daughter and indirectly causes her violent death; he cons Sayid into becoming a hired gun for reasons that have still not been explained; he strangles John Locke to death; and we are led to believe that he has murdered Penny Widmore. I am certain there are other examples, but let’s face it – Ben Linus is one bad dude.

All we know of Widmore is indirect, second hand and mere suggestions and innuendo. Yes, he is quite the magnificent bastard to Desmond. However, presume that you are aware (as Ms. Hawking undoubtedly was) that Desmond’s destiny is to go to the Island, and push the button for three years before turning the fail-safe key, would that not be an incentive to treat Desmond so poorly? After all, Matthew Abbaddon explains that Widmore needs people to get to where they ‘need’ to go and enlisted Abbaddon in that effort. His interjection with Penny, both in his office when Desmond asks for her hand in marriage, and thereafter when Desmond is released from military prison, could be Widmore’s (albeit) harsh way of ensuring that Desmond gets to the Island. I always found it strange that Libby just appears to Desmond and offers him a boat. Fate? Perhaps, or more the work of Mr. Widmore, trying desperately to protect the Island and perhaps one day return.

Widmore’s interaction with Desmond aside, everything else we know is mere suspicion. The Kahana’s mission was to extract Benjamin Linus – by any means necessary. Widmore explains to Locke that Linus is that dangerous. Remember, throughout Season 4, there are many instances of Kahana members offering an alternative explanation to all things evil. Charlotte and Faraday went to the Tempest to shut off the poison gas. Their explanation was that as Ben Linus has used such barbaric warfare in the past, there was no doubt he could employ the method again. Tom tells Michael Dawson that Widmore dug up a Thai graveyard and faked the crash of Ocean 815. However, Captain Gault offers an alternative explanation that it was Ben Linus – and not Mr. Widmore – that faked the plane crash. Tom may not have even known his leader was so vicious. As for Martin Keamy and the mercenaries, they were told that Linus needed to be extracted by any means necessary and that those aiding Ben were dangerous. When Keamy & co. roll up to the Barracks, they see Sawyer, the red shirts, Locke and the others protecting Ben. Indeed, they were all barricaded in Ben’s own house! There is no doubt that Martin was a killer, but was he any less a killer than Ben? After all, Keamy warns Ben that he is wearing the dead man’s trigger, and that any attempt on his life would endanger all those on the Kahana (which, as for Ben’s knowledge included Michael Dawson, Jack, Kate, Sayid, Hurley, and Sawyer), and Ben killed Keamy anyway. To add insult to injury, when Locke pointed out to Ben how by killing Keamy, it meant certain death for the aforementioned heroes, Ben’s reply: “So?”

Finally, in this fantastic Season in progress, we have seen Widmore cooperate with Desmond and beg him to protect Penny as well as assist in Locke’s recovery and mission to return to the Island. When asked by Locke why Widmore ought to be trusted at all, Widmore’s response was convincingly simple. “I never tried to kill you John … can you say the same thing about him?”

There is, indeed, a war coming. And I, for one, cannot wait to see which side is which.