This may be the first time that I have enjoyed a 2nd show of a season more than the first show of the season.  I don't necessarily think that last week's season premiere episode "The Beginning of the End" was bad by any means, but in my mind the very first show of season 2 (Man of Science, Man of Faith) will go down as the absolute best Lost episode of all time.  It was by far the loudest I have ever said "Holy Shit, You have got to be kidding me" while watching Lost.  Since, Season 3's premier show wasn't bad either, it just didn't give me the same "Wow, didn't see that coming" in regards to Juliet and the book club as Season 2's Desmond Entrance did.  Last week's episode again was not bad, but there were not as many things that I was surprised at.  I think the biggest thing for me was Hurley (who I have always thought of as somewhat of a leading character, but as someone who the writers could kill off) playing such a large part and being one of the "Oceanic Six", although I really did like the way the writers played with the audience's mind just by playing with Hurley's.  Regardless, I really enjoyed tonight's episode and the introduction of the 4 new characters and the twist with Benjamin.

Here are some of my thoughts:

I don't know if it was a direct homage to the Ghostbusters or if Miles really needs it to talk to spirits (which I think he actually does talk to spirits) but the spinning vacuum was great.

I think that Dan's character is pretty cool.  For some reason I think that he is one of those people that is so brilliant but odd, he may have such a deep understanding of stuff that not even he understands it.  For example when he was crying at the TV screen I think that he intrinsically knew that the wreckage of the plane looked like it sat incorrect in the ocean.  I think his mind was able to wrap itself around the physics of the planes sinking to know that something didn't look correct and his mind was telling him this although he didn't understand it.  We could kind of see this also when he was saying that the light on the island bent a weird angle.  I think that he knows something that other people don't but doesn't know why.  Are they under some kind of bubble of some sort that causes the refraction?

I didn't like the intro of the Charlotte the Anthropologist chick.  She seems like a neat character but for the 60 or so seconds in which she was introduced it seemed very rushed and she almost took on a Lara Croft/Indy type archetype. 

The pilot seems like most pilots you take from many 80s movies, where the "hell no, I set her down gently" comment about the helicopter almost seems like second nature.

All 4 of the "newcomers" really seem like archetype's directly related to older 80s/90s movies:  Anthropologist = Indy-ish / Ghosttalker = Poltergiest-ish / Physicist = Jeff-Goldblum's-Mathematician character from Jurassic Park / Pilot - Any 80s Pilot.

Regardless I am eager to see how these characters interact with everyone else, and why they want Benji and his slick 70s suit so bad.

Good Episode.