Special

Mercutio's wandering through the jungle, yelling, "Walt! Walt!" And Charlie's wandering through the jungle, yelling, "Claire's luggage! Claire's luggage!" Charlie seems to be just as concerned about finding Claire's bags as Mercutio is about finding Walt. But neither has seen the object of the other's quest. And Jack happens to be lugging wood, as he is wont to do. He hasn't seen Walt either. So the kid's officially missing, even though Mercutio told Walt not to wander off. So giant monsters, polar bears...and now children are disobeying their parents? Is there no end to the madness on this island? Mercutio asks Jack if he listened to his father when he was ten, and Jack wryly notes that he probably listened a little too much. Save it, Jack. No one cares. Hurley strolls by to see if they want to get in on some golf, since they're having a tournament for the last of the deodorant sticks. This is an item that I think they'd want to dole out to those who need it the most, but what do I know? Mercutio walks off, yelling for Walt. "Seems to hate it, doesn't he? Being a dad?" says Hurley. Jack says it's just a lot of hard work. Hurley watches Mercutio another moment. "Nah, he hates it," is his assessment.

Mercutio keeps walking, and yelling. And we flash back to a younger Mercutio (younger in this case signified by him wearing a hat, not unlike Christophuh Moltisanti wearing a baseball cap in Sopranos flashbacks) wandering through a department store with his pregnant girlfriend. An upscale store, apparently, judging from the crib Mercutio's got his eye on, which costs three months' rent. And Mercutio's babymama laughs and says they can't afford it, and Mercutio laughs and talks about how it'll be just the best for their baby. And they laugh and laugh and dream and shop and sigh and coo. Mercutio's going to get some construction work, but don't worry, baby! He's not giving up his art, he's just going to take a break until she finishes law school and gets hired at "fancy-ass high-paying law firm" and supports him and "Walt" in a manner to which they'll soon become accustomed. "Walt, huh?" says -- do we know her name yet? Walt's Mercutio's father's name, and Baby-Mama tries it out: "Walter Lloyd." O-ho, says Mercutio, so that's why you won't marry me! You want him to have your last name! He's laughing, by the way. And so's she. "Hey, you want me to agree to Walter or what?" she says. I take notes, as I expect the future Mrs. Daniel to put up a fight when (hopefully a few years yet down the road) we have to name a little bundle of joy; we haven't broached the subject, but I'm guessing she won't go for naming our first child Wayne Gretzky.

Back in the jungle, Sensei Locke is showing Walt how to throw knives at trees. Walt claims that he sucks (which he kind of does), and Locke talks a lot about visualization and Walt's mind's eye, and Boone tells him to go easier on the kid (Boone is quite obviously jealous of the attention Walt's getting). So Walt tries again, thinking for a moment, and then firing the knife dead on into the knot target on the tree. Boone's impressed, Locke's proud, and Walt's thrilled. But once you've seen a young student catch a fly with chopsticks, this ain't so impressive.

Mercutio stomps in, grabs the knife from Walt, and then proceeds to yell at everyone within earshot. I think knife skills could come in handy on this island, but I don't know that I'd leave my son in the care of crazy Locke and Locke's disciple to learn them. Mercutio orders Walt to head back to camp, and Walt protests but eventually stomps off. Once he's gone, Mercutio starts yelling at Locke, despite Locke almost hilariously trying to show Mercutio how well Walt was doing. Mercutio's waving the knife around as he yells, which prompts Boone to jump him and grab the knife from him. "You need to calm down," says Boone, on top of Mercutio. Mercutio's response? He punches Boone. It doesn't say a lot for your fighting skills, I have to say, when you're holding a knife, on top of some other guy, and he still kicks your ass. Locke suggests that he's bonding with Walt because he treats him like an adult, while Mercutio treats him like he's a kid. Hey, news flash for Locke: Walt is a kid. Walt likes you because you let him throw knives around. And treating children like they're adults is how we wound up with the North American Man-Boy Love Association, isn't it? Mercutio points out that Walt is, in fact, just ten years old, and Locke gives him some bullshit about Walt living through a lifetime already. "Maybe you haven't spent enough time with him to see it, but he's different," says Locke. This seems to touch a nerve with Mercutio, even as Locke prattles on about him being allowed to reach his potential as long as they're on the island. "You stay away from my son. And me," says Mercutio, wagging a finger in Locke's face. Commercials.

The screen is filled with the face of what might be the most adorable baby boy ever. Little Walt is playing with his daddy, who's adamant that Walt's mother is not taking his son away, to some job in Amsterdam. He wants to know why she's no longer happy and doesn't consider the legal clinic a good fit. "This is a huge opportunity! You know I've always wanted to do international law!" she says. Somehow, arguing about the particular job she's working doesn't seem like the most important thing when the mother of your child wants to take him and leave you behind, does it? She gently reminds him that they talked about spending some time apart, and he reminds her that they talked about a lot of things, such as living on a boat, like she's going to say, oh yeah, we did talk about living on a boat, but we're not doing that, so I guess we won't spend time apart either. Man, I've been dumped before, but I hope I've never flailed as uselessly as Mercutio is here. He acknowledges that they have some problems, and suggests they go to counseling. Baby-Mama (please, please, PLEASE, let us know her name soon) casts her eyes downward. Mercutio quickly figures it out: "Oh, man. You already took it, didn't you? The job," he says. She says yes. She points out that Mercutio hasn't worked in months (he protests that construction is sometimes slow) and she says she'll be able to provide for Walt and give him everything he needs. "Except his father!" says Mercutio. But Baby-Mama's mind is made up, and she even drops a "who do you think the court's going to side with?" bomb on him. Mercutio just stares at Walt while Baby-Mama says this isn't goodbye forever. Because yeah, when you're taking your boyfriend's son all the way to Amsterdam with you, there's a chance you'll patch things up. "I just, I need some time," she says.

Walt's reading a comic book that's about the Flash, but it's in Spanish. El Flasho! And there's a giant polar bear on one page, and Walt tries sounding the words out. I'm not really following him, but I am able to deduce that "un oso polar" is Spanish for polar bear. Mercutio comes by and says he needs Walt's help doing something. Walt says he's busy doing stuff, and I have to say that "I'm reading comic books" has never excused a kid from helping his father with anything ever. Mercutio points out that Walt's reading comic books in Spanish, even though he doesn't speak the language. "I like the pictures," says Walt, which makes Mercutio smile, and he says that when he was Walt's age, maybe a little older, he used to trace comic books to teach himself perspective. Lucky Mercutio! I just had Mr. Schroeder, my cantankerous German seventh-grade art teacher, yelling at me every day, such that you learned technique basically just to keep Mr. Schroeder from screaming at you. I mean, my god, we were twelve. Of course, looking back on it, he taught us tons about the subject, especially considering our age. Naturally, I've long since forgotten all of it, except for the perspective bit, mainly because I drew this downtown city block being absolutely destroyed by bomber planes, stretching all the way to the horizon, that gave new meaning to the phrase "wicked awesome."

Anyway, Walt's stopped paying attention, much like I'm sure you have long since skipped ahead past Daniel's School Days Treasure Album. And Mercutio snatches up the comic book and says "let's go" to Walt, who wants to know why he has to come along. Mercutio points out his tendency to sneak off into the jungle to meet with strange men, only he doesn't say it quite like that.

And we flash back to Mercutio, who is for some reason that we're never told calling Amsterdam on a payphone, since making a transatlantic phone call from a busy street is always a great way to show what a good father you are. He just wants to talk to Walt, but Baby-Mama tells him now's not a good time, and she'll call him back tomorrow. Oh, so Mercutio does have a phone? Or does she mean he'll wait around by the payphone until she calls? Just wondering. Then we hear someone else's voice in the background saying "honey," and Mercutio's all, who's that? And Baby-Mama finally says that she's been seeing someone, and admits that it's Bryan Porter. "The guy who hired you?" says Mercutio, and Baby-Mama protests that it wasn't like that when she got hired. Mercutio, of course, isn't having it, and says he's coming to Amsterdam. "Mercutio, it's over between us," says Baby-Mama. And Mercutio shouts, "I'm not coming for you! I'm coming for Walt! I'm getting my son back!" And he hangs up angrily and starts crossing the street, without looking both ways, naturally. Someone crosses in front of the camera so we can get the stuntman in place, and whammo! Mercutio goes ass-over-teakettle on the hood of the car. I'm told that this is a J.J. Abrams staple, and I really should have seen it coming, but I didn't. ["Well, he sometimes uses a bus. It's tricky." -- Sars] Now, this explains -- for storytelling purposes, if not for logical ones -- why Mercutio was calling Amsterdam from a payphone. Not even J.J. Abrams has figured out how to run somebody over with a car in their living room. Then again, the Alias season is still young. Commercials.

But before Walt catches up to them, Shannon intercepts Boone to ask if they're just going to keep coming back without any food. Boone, allegedly having let go of his Shannon-desire, doesn't say much. She wants to know what's going on, and he coldly points out that since she's been a "functioning bulimic" since junior high, he figured she'd be more than happy to drop a size or two. Shannon switches gears, and she apparently is now on board (pun intended) with Mercutio's raft project, and she's planning to help him. "Why don't you help me?" she says, in the way of pretty, pretty women everywhere who want something from a man befuddled by such prettiness (which is probably 90 percent of us. I myself started looking for tubing as soon as Shannon said she wanted help). Boone thinks about it for a moment, then just says "no thanks" and walks off, Shannon glaring after him.

Walt shows up by Locke's fire; Locke immediately tells him that Mercutio doesn't want them spending time together. "He's not the boss of me," says Walt. Locke doesn't point out that Mercutio is, in point of fact, the boss of Walt, but he does say, "But he's your father, and he cares about you, and you need to show him respect." He tells Walt not to come to him anymore. Just then, a furious Mercutio stomps up, yelling, "Dammit! What is wrong with you?" At first it sounds like he's yelling at Walt, but I think he's actually yelling at Locke. Locke tries the ridiculously lame excuse that he was just giving Walt a pencil to give to Mercutio, as a "peace offering," and we actually get a stupid close-up of the stupid pencil. Mercutio leans in really close to Locke and growls, "I catch you with my son again, I'll kill you." Locke ponders this and, I think wisely, decides not to keep pushing an angry father's buttons. He leaves. Shannon and Jack take this all in, as does Walt, who loudly calls his father a jerk. Mercutio argues that he's just looking out for Walt, and Walt complains that Mercutio doesn't care about him, and never did, and only came for him after his mom died. And when Walt tries the ol' "You ain't my father" routine, Mercutio's face gets really hard. "You want to hate me? You want to punish me for something I can't change? Fine. But you will listen to me." He throws Walt's comic book on the fire (bringing to my mind stories my dad would tell of his father throwing comic books in the furnace to settle sibling fights. To hear my dad tell it, my grandfather burned up hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of old comic books). The book's open to the picture of the giant polar bear, and Walt watches it burn for a moment before turning back to Mercutio, who says, "Now, you get over there, and you stay over there. Now!" ("There" being the caves' equivalent of Walt's room.) Walt does as he's told, and Mercutio stares at the burning comic book himself, and we go into flashback mode.

Mercutio's sketching a heavily bandaged man in a hospital bed. He's much more bandaged up than Mercutio himself, who's in a hospital, in a wheelchair with his leg in a cast -- although I supposed this could have been a rendition of Mercutio immediately after the accident. A nurse compliments the drawing, which Mercutio says is for his son, who's going to be two week (and thus we learn this is about three months after the accident, since Walt was 21 months old at that time). And the nurse grills Mercutio on whether he ever gets to visit Walt, and Mercutio points out that he had a little run-in with a car. When Mercutio says he never knows what to write, the wise nurse suggests a joke. "What kind of joke?" asks Mercutio suspiciously, as if maybe she's suggesting he send a few dirty limericks to his two-year-old son. She gives him "What's black and white and red all over? A penguin with a sunburn," which she promises will absolutely kill, and she should know because she's the mother of four kids. Now that she's finished her contribution to Mercutio's "I really wanted to be an excellent father" backstory, she leaves, and we hear, "Hello, Mercutio." It's Baby-Mama, looking nicely turned out in lawyer-wear. And we finally learn her name: Susan. She says she finally called Andy since she hadn't heard from Mercutio for three months, and she chastises him for not telling her about his accident. Uh, it took three months of not hearing from her son's father to wonder if something was wrong? Get bent, Susan. Mercutio says he was reluctant to call after the fun times of their last conversation (he's speaking here not of the accident but of finding out that Susan was seeing someone). She apologizes for that. And Mercutio's briefly excited at the thought that she brought Walt, but she left him back at home. "With Bryan," says Mercutio. Well, yeah.

As Susan pushes his wheelchair around the hospital, Mercutio wants to know what she's doing there, and she says she came to see him. He jokes about looking pretty good, and with a little exposition we learn that he'll recover completely after a year of physical therapy, which Mercutio is less than jazzed about. Susan says she's going to cover all his medical bills, which surprises him. But he figures out that something's up. She tells him that she and Bryan are getting married, and they're moving to Italy because Bryan's going to head up the firm's Rome office. "Sounds like Bryan is on a roll," says Mercutio sarcastically, and how Susan keeps from making a joke about Mercutio rolling in his wheelchair I'll never know. "And he wants to adopt Walt," says Susan. Mercutio puts the brake on his wheelchair. "I know this is hard," she says, circling around to face him, "but just think about it." Isn't thinking about that what's making it hard for Mercutio? He's upset, but she starts throwing left and right jabs of "what's best for Walt" at him, and asks him if he's holding on for Walt's sake or his own. Ouch. Getting a lecture from Susan on selfishness? That's painful.

Back on Craphole Island, Walt's still doing such a great job keeping an eye on Mercutio that Hurley has to come up to him and say, "Dude? Your kid's gone," and explains that Walt grabbed his dog and took off. Mercutio looks defeated. "I know where he's gone," he says. Commercials.

So if I'm a high-society wannabe, I should get a camera-phone to take pictures of crappy modern art for my "designer" and I'll also enjoy the side benefit of grabbing evidence for insurance purposes? I'm sold!

And speaking of absolutely terrified, Mercutio's tearing through the jungle, as Walt's screams and the sounds of the roaring grow. I can't help but think that everyone might calm down a little to the soothing sounds of a little Creedence, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. Walt's found that magic tight grove of trees that only humans are able to penetrate, and not the predators who are much larger and stronger than they are -- in this case, one of the Coca-Cola polar bears, who's really, really pissed off.

Flashback again, to Casa Porter. Mercutio finds Walt playing with Vincent by the pool on the magnificent patio. "Hey, Walt," he says. Walt looks up. "Who are you?" he says. It takes Mercutio a long while to introduce himself as Walt's father. Walt looks really confused. Mercutio forges ahead, expressing his sympathy for Walt's losing his mother. "You should know that we loved each other very much when we had you," says Mercutio, although I can't say we saw a lot of evidence that Susan loved Mercutio. Mercutio explains that he's come to take Walt home with him. "I'm not going anywhere with you," says Walt, which means at least he's been brought up right. Swallowing his pride, Mercutio lies and says Bryan loves Walt very much and wants him to stay, but it's not up to Bryan; Mercutio is Walt's legal guardian, he says. "It's not like he's going to disappear from your life. He'll still call you, write you, come to see you whenever he can." (I'm not quite sure that it's a good idea to lie to Walt about that, however.) And hey, says Mercutio, you'll still be able to have your dog. But this is Bryan's dog, says Walt. Mercutio barely misses a beat: "Bryan said you could have him," he says, doing his best not to smile. Heh.

Amazingly, the Coca-Cola polar bear has not actually eaten Walt yet. Walt's still yelling for his dad, and finally Walt hears his dad yell back. And where is dear ol' Dad? Well, he's with Locke, carefully walking along a tree that's helpfully collapsed so that people can rescue their wayward children. Isn't that lucky! Locke and Mercutio walk right over top of the Coca-Cola polar bear into the top of the magical grove of shelter. And oh, sure, now that Walt's being attacked by a polar bear, it's okay for him to use a knife! Mercutio gets Locke to toss him one of the big ones, and then he drops it down to Walt, telling him to use it if the polar bear gets near (thanks for the tip, Dad). Locke also tosses Mercutio a rope, and he climbs down, while Walt actually stabs the polar bear in the paw. Yeah, I'm buying this. While the bear's gone, presumably to put a little mercurochrome on that cut, Mercutio ties the rope around Walt, so Locke can haul him up. "What about you?" yells Walt, and Mercutio tells him not to worry about it. Locke hauls Walt up, but the polar bear's back, and there's gonna be trouble. Or so we're supposed to believe. Commercials.

So this turns out to be not such a big deal either, because Mercutio jabs at the polar bear and manages to get it, and it roars a bit and stomps off, probably to go tobogganing. Mercutio climbs the tree up to the top, where he and Walt hug, and Walt apologizes. Mercutio says everyone's okay, so he's just glad Walt's safe. Puss. My dad would still have torn a strip off me: "You see? This is why you listen to me! So we don't get eaten by polar bears!" (Note: I grew up in the Yukon and Northwest Territories, so this is actually true.) Walt says Vincent ran away, and Locke tells him not to worry, because Vincent's already found his way back to Walt once. Yeah, but what good is Vincent if he cuts and runs at the first sign of trouble? Walt was this close to being in the polar bear's belly, and Vincent is off somewhere licking himself? No thanks, Vincent. You suck. And Locke and Mercutio look at each other and give each other a Tight-Lipped Smile and Manly Nod of Truce.