Deus Ex Machina

We start already in the flashback this time around, in a scene that provides another reason why Locke maybe isn't in such a big hurry to get off the island. Before working at Dave Grohl's Box, Belittlement & Beyond, he worked at a Costco/Wal-Mart/Wall-Mart/Sprawl-Mart-type store. We know it's before, because Locke has the use of his legs, and apparently one of his old hobbies was wearing hilarious toupees -- although I suppose it's possible that the toupee actually looks really good, and it's just us being used to Locke's baldness. Locke's one of the lucky white guys who can go entirely bald and not look like a giant thumb, as is my father-in-law. I suspect I fall on the "giant thumb" side of that particular balance sheet, which is why I'm glad that I haven't had to do the male-pattern-baldness preemptive-strike shaving-my-head thing. When I was in college, and I started seeing a few more hairs on my pillow than normal, I thought I was going to George Constanza-fy inside of five years. I'm happy to report that hasn't happened; still got full coverage up there, even if my high-school hairline was a little stronger.

Sorry for digressing. I'm out of practice with this whole "recapping" thing. I even tried recapping my wedding video, but after too many complaints about the soundtrack, the supporting cast, and the lighting, I'm no longer married.

Anyway, Locke's working at the store, setting up a game of Mousetrap. This game attracts the attention of a boy who wanders over and wants to know what it is, and Locke explains how to play the game, which is his favourite game, one that he used to play with his brother. All the pieces start off the board, and bit by bit it all comes together, until bang! You're hit by an anvil!

Locke notices that he's being watched by Swoosie Kurtz, which I note with immediate indifference. She'd totally be a Hey! It's That Guy, if her name wasn't so annoyingly memorable. Did you know her dad was an air force colonel? It's true. Colonel Kurtz, I swear to god. The horror, the horror!

So Locke shows the boy how to set the Rube Goldberg-esque mousetrap in action, and goes over to Swoosie to find out what she wants. She's caught off-guard before asking where the footballs are. Locke tells her aisle eight for regulation, fifteen for Nerf. 815, notice? (And I would expect the separate aisles to represent a sporting goods section for the real ones versus the toy department for the Nerf ones. Then again, the episode guide on ABC.com says he works in a toy store, in which case separating the footballs makes no sense.) Swoosie looks much happier than you'd expect someone to be based simply on finding out where the footballs are. She thanks Locke and takes off, and the mousetrap does its work. This motif works on so many levels this episode!

Back on the island, Locke standing on top of the hatch, which has been dug out to the extent that we can see it's on top of a structure about eight feet in diameter. Boone says, "You want my opinion..." and then thankfully never offers it, although there's apparently some discrepancy with the closed captioning, which I totally meant to check except for zzzzzzz. He's clearly skeptical of Locke's plan, which turns out to use a trebuchet to hammer half a ton of force on the glass in the hatch, and then they'll be in. Boone wants to know why the thing is called a trebuchet when it looks like a catapult, and Locke explains that it's not called a catapult because it isn't a catapult. This seems to be a conversation that Boone would have initiated long before the damn thing was completed, but what do I know? So they prime or load or whatever the hell the trebuchet, and Boone says, "One minute you're quoting Nietzsche, now all of a sudden you're an engineer." Boone clearly missed the flashback, in which we learned that Locke's contraption expertise is a result of his having played Mousetrap as a kid. Jack presumably played Operation, and Kate played, um, violent video games. Annoying, nosy, violent video games. Boone says that they've been coming out here for two weeks, and Locke never says anything about himself, even though "everybody's got a story," the first of many meta-statements this week. Locke says that his story would bore Boone, and all I can say is Boone knows from boring stories. They wind up the trebuchet, to which they've attached what seems to be a jagged piece of scrap metal, presumably from the plane. They built this thing in two weeks? Colour me impressed/skeptical! The music ratchets higher as the trebuchet does likewise. Then Locke holds the rope or trigger or whatever and does a countdown, even though Boone doesn't have to do anything. He releases the trebuchet, which slams down ineffectually on the hatch. And then the trebuchet falls apart. Lousy American-made goods. If the trebuchet is anything like Mousetrap, they'll now lose a piece and never be able to build it properly again.

Locke inspects the glass, in vain. "This was supposed to work," he says, then gets up and stomps, and yells it again. Yeah, this'll work. Boone yells over for Locke to look at his leg. Locke looks down, and sees a six-inch shard of metal buried halfway into his leg, which came from I know not where. I mean, I know it's supposed to have come from the metal thing on the trebuchet, but it's buried in his right leg, and Locke was standing to the right of the trebuchet, so the shard must have boomeranged around before shooting straight into his leg. Locke seems as surprised as I am about the shard, and reaches down to pull it out, not displaying any pain. "You okay?" asks Boone. Again, Locke seems mildly surprised, and says he's fine.

That night, alone by a fire, Locke's got his leg bandaged up. He takes a safety pin and jabs it in various places. Nothing. He tries the other leg. Nada. He looks distressed, and takes up a burning stick from the fire, and holds it to his sole. We hear the flesh sizzle, but it doesn't affect him at all. John Turturro shows up, and stabs Locke's foot with a fire poker. Still nothing! I'd be thinking, "Cool!" only I imagine Locke's kinda worried he's going to lose the use of his legs again.

Back from commercial, Boone and Locke are building another, hopefully stronger trebuchet, despite Boone's skepticism that the glass will break. Locke says everything breaks if you apply enough force. Boone's all, well, what if it doesn't? "Then the island will tell us what to do," says Locke, prompting an "exsqueeze me?" from Boone. Locke doesn't repeat it, and says instead that Boone should salvage the other pieces from the first trebuchet. He struggles to get to his feet, prompting another "Are you okay?" from Boone, and Locke tells him he's fine. At this point, can I just point out how odd it is that no one else on the island has stumbled upon this thing? No one's followed them, to nose around? Not even Kate?

Walking Toupeed Locke is moseying to his car after work and removing a Lost Dog flyer from under his windshield wiper, when he spies Swoosie Kurtz watching him again. So he runs after her, and she takes off, and I can't help but think that the only thing that this show has really needed up to this point is a footrace between Terry O'Quinn and Swoosie Kurtz in a giant fur coat. Before he can catch her, though, he goes ass-over-teakettle over the trunk of a car that's backing out, in the first of a few "oh, here's where he loses the use of his legs" fake-outs this episode. Nope, he's fine, and he gets up and looks around for Swoosie. Can't see her, can't see her, can't see her...there she is! Get the feeling she's not trying super-hard to get away? "Why are you following me?" he asks, and she apologizes, and he asks who she is. Say it with her, now: "I'm your mother." She had Locke when she was what, six years old? Seven?

Over coffee, Locke tells Swoosie that he's not sure why she thinks he's her son or how she found him, and she brightly asks if he wasn't adopted. No, actually, says Locke, quietly telling her that he grew up in a succession of foster homes. She seems genuinely surprised and dismayed by this. "Look, I don't mean to be rude. What do you want from me?" She says that she wanted to tell him that he's special. Very special. Echoes of Walt. "You're part of a design. You do realize that, don't you?" She tells him that their meeting is a sign of great things to come. Man, I can't imagine being given up for adoption and being found by my birth mom many years later, only to find out she's batshit crazy. ["There's a 'some of our batshit-crazy birth moms just up and kept us' joke here, but I'm tired, so y'all can sort it out yourselves." -- Sars] Locke asks about his father. "Is he still alive?" "Still alive?" asks Swoosie, confused. "Don't you understand? You don't have a father! You were immaculately conceived!" Locke's quiet, pondering delicate ways to inquire about the hereditary likelihood of batshit craziness.

Back on the island, Sawyer stomps up to Sun, who's tending her garden. He's holding two varieties of leaf. "Which one?" he yells. How nice that, even after everyone knows she speaks English, Sawyer still feels the need to shout at the Asian woman to make himself understood. She points at one of the leaves, and he asks if she's sure, because that's the one he's using and he's getting no results. Try rolling them a little tighter, Sawyer. "I'm sorry it's not helping," says Sun. "What's not helping?" says the island's nosiest bank robber, Kate. Sawyer gruffly says that nothing's the matter, then thanks Sun anyway, compliments her garden, and stalks off. Having already been told once that it's none of her business, Kate decides to try again, this time asking Sun what Sawyer's deal is. Sun, perhaps thrilled that she can babble away in English whenever she wants now, shoots her mouth off and says that Sawyer's having headaches. Kate asks if Sawyer doesn't have a truckload of aspirin stashed somewhere. "He says aspirin didn't help," says Sun. Kate thinks about how she can use this to her best meddling advantage.

She goes to see Jack (big surprise) in the bathroom section of his cave, where Jack is shaving. "Say you're having really bad headaches, every day," says Kate, and Jack, assuming she's doing that "my friend" routine that people use with doctors sometimes, asks if she's all right. So who are we talking about, asks Jack. Kate, who smiles all the time when she's delivering her lines for some reason, says it's Sawyer. "I just think there might be something really wrong with him," she says. Something more wrong than normal, I guess she means. Jack asks what Sawyer thinks. "He says he's fine, but..." says Kate, and Jack interrupts to say that then Sawyer is fine. Kate says she thinks Sawyer's playing it down. Jack says he'd like nothing more than to check Sawyer out and see if he's not got a screw or two loose somewhere, but all he's going to get for his trouble is a "snappy one-liner" and, if he's lucky, maybe a new nickname. Shit, what a crybaby. My GP, Dr. Crustyface, never complains about that, as far as I know. "I'm just over it," says Jack.

Back at the trebuchet factory, Locke's working his ass off when Boone comes strolling up. "You're late," says Locke, like maybe Boone took a longer lunch hour than Locke allows. How nice that Locke is becoming the Dave Grohl of the island. Boone says he thinks he's done working. "This is useless. You can't open this thing. You say you can, but you can't," says Boone, and as we know, Locke hates to be told what he can't do, and he says that he and Boone were supposed to find the hatch, and blah blah blah, and Boone wants to know, if the two of them were "supposed" to find the hatch, why haven't they been able to open it. Locke can't answer, so he says, "The island will send us a sign." Not surprisingly, Boone ain't buyin' that. And since he's showing a backbone, how much do you want to bet this is a dream sequence? "All that's happening now is our faith is being tested, our commitment. But we will open it! The island will show us how!" Boone wants to know what kind of sign the island's going to send. And we hear the sound of a propeller engine. Locke looks up and sees a low-flying plane, black smoke trailing behind it, cross the sky. He points at it, and asks if Boone saw that. Boone doesn't respond; he's looking to the sky, but in a different direction. And we see a quick flash of Boone, still looking to the sky, only now he's covered with blood, then back to normal. And then there's Swoosie, fur coat and all, standing in the jungle, pointing to the sky. And Bloody Boone again, repeating over and over, in a deep voice, "Theresa falls up the stairs, Theresa falls down the stairs." Locke's back in his wheelchair now, and he struggles to get out, saying, "Don't take it back now!" and pitches forward, out of the chair.