'Dead is Dead' Initial Reactions

What an episode! Unlike last week's, this was almost a completely mythological episode. What's interesting to me is how small the cast was. Of the major characters only Sun, Ben, Desmond, and Locke appeared though we did get appearances of Ilana, Cesar, Penny, Widmore, and Frank among others. I've said it before and I'll say it again: this season presents our characters in more locations and farther spread apart than ever before. I'm not sure if I like it, but I do like most of the storylines. One thing I forgot to mention in the summary was one of the last scenes. Frank returns and Ilana asks him 'What's lies in the shadow of the statue.' When he doesn't know, she knocks him out. This makes me think Ilana has/is either A.) Been to the island before B.)Working for Widmore C.)An Island native D.) A relative of Richard Alpert (she kind of looks like him) E.) Working for someone who is NOT Widmore or Ben. Perhaps the Economist, on the off chance that he had nothing to do with Widmore (or wasn't Widmore himself). Also, I'm intrigued to see what's inside that crate. I don't think it's weapons but it could be. This definitely puts Ilana in a different position/light than we've seen her before which makes her probably the most unexplainable new character we've had in a long time. Also, the end of Cesar? I end that with a question mark because it's difficult to say. Is that all we're going to get of him? In some ways, he's perfectly disposable and in others he still has a lot to say. The temple was also referenced in this episode and I must say after Ben said they built the wall to keep people like Locke and Sun from ever seeing it I was immediately dying to see it. I'm guessing we'll get a late season six reveal. There was one thing that was disappointing to me about this episode and that was the lack of Eloise/Ellie. Is she with Faraday? Does she even know that Faraday is on the island? What was her exact relationship with Widmore? Some people say she's his sister and some people say they are romantically paired. All in all, I'd say this was probably one of the better episodes of the season; very fast-paced (so I never got bored), well-acted, and well-written.