Aaaaand... Alpert and crew were militantly protective back in the 50s, right? So how did the Darma people not end up dead when they arrived years later and able to do all their work?
Aaaaand... Why did Marvin have 2 names? I was sure someone called him Dr Chen or some such, but he is also known as Marvin Candle? Why would this be?
I'm so bloody confused this season.
I think that Dharma and The Others may have had some sort of an uneasy, suspicious truce going on for decades? I do remember that Dharma had that "fence" thing up, where if you touched it the field surrounding it, it caused some sort of fatal reaction. Maybe that's how they maintained the peace? Until young Ben was recruited by The Others, of course, and then he was able to set up the purge that killed most of Dharma.
I think Candle essentially had a different name in each training video for each station. There must be some unknown reason for him needing a different alias for each one.
I was actually wondering just how alike they are, and will Widmore also be forced/end up somehow sacrificing his daughter, or calling a failed bluff just like Linus? As soon as he said to Desmond this was bigger than him or his daughter, I thought Penny's days may be numbered.
The failed bluff resulting in Alex's death, that can probably be explained by the time travel phenomenon that's being featured this season. There's speculation out there that the reason Ben had been willing to gamble with Alex's life is because he had been through that scene in the past, and Alex always made it out alive. That would also account for his statement to Widmore, that Widmore "changed the rules." Maybe the rules had indicated that Alex shouldn't have died.
I wouldn't be surprised if Widmore would sacrifice Penny if he absolutely had to. It's all very vague and mysterious at this point, but if I had to bet on someone having good motivations (serving the island), it would be Ben, and Widmore would be the selfish one, serving his own interests.
ETA - I have to admit that I don't get much of the time travel thing.
I have a very basic, superficial understanding about it - i.e.: they travel through time and end up in various periods of time. Daniel said in an earlier episode to imagine time "on a string." Okay, I think I've got that much. Then, I go reading message boards where they're having these in depth discussions about time travel within the parameters of what we've seen and been told on Lost, as well as other ways it's treated on various sci-fi pieces in popular culture. Things such as: is there a sequence you can time travel in? Can events be changed or not? Can someone die in the past if they're alive in the future? What about physical objects, can they time travel too?
The end result of all this reading is that what I thought I understood, I then realize that I really don't have a clue, all those big concepts make my head hurt, and then I curl up into a fetal position and cry, while attempting to comprehend it all.