Okay, I admit it. I'm a LOST addict. And I just watched the season 5 premier. I just want to make sure I've got it all straightened out in my mind (relatively). Here's what I think:

When Ben turned that wheel thing, he released that pocket of special energy that the Dharma guy was talking about at the beginning. That unstuck the island in time. It's like when Desmond was unstuck in time and kept going back and forth. The island is going back and forth, but it's not necessarily going back and forth to the same times, like Desmond was. It's going back and forth to random times in the past and then the future. The only way to get Desmond back was for him to find a "constant," in his case, Penny. I think maybe that's why Jack and everyone else has to go back - they are the "constant" for the island, or the other people on the island.

I don't know why Desmond has to go to Oxford and find Daniel Faraday's mother, but I suppose it has to do something with Desmond being Daniel's constant or with Charlotte's strange malady. And that headache has something to do with the nosebleed, which I'm sure has something to do with being unstuck in time.

I don't know who the strange people were at the "safe house," I don't know who is trying to establish Kate's maternal link to Aaron (or lack thereof), and I don't know why that woman at the end - the one talking to Ben about only having 70 hours - looks so familiar. I can't place it. Is she the woman who talked Desmond into breaking up with Penny that one time? Or is she from the island? I also find myself distrusting Sun. I pretty sure she holds her father and Benjamin Linus responsible for the death of her husband because of what she said to Charles Widmore in that room at the airport. I just don't know who she's working for, and I can't figure out how to interpret her meeting with Kate.

I'm sure it'll all come clear in due time. I'm just not a very patient person. . . .