Previously on Lost: Locke was in a wheelchair, and he yelled a whole lot at people who tried to tell him what he couldn't do, although we don't get to see Dave Grohl again. And then the plane crashes, and he can walk! And his new leg-utilizing hobbies include digging out mysterious metal hatches in the middle of jungles, and serving as a mentor/father figure/sower of sexual-identity doubt for Boone.
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.
...aaaaand Locke's waking up, holding his head in his hands, wondering if this show, with only a few episodes left this season, is going to start answering some questions instead of just piling on more puzzles. Commercials.
Back from the break, Locke's waking up Boone in the early morning, and you have to think that by this point Boone's really regretting hanging out with Locke so much. Not that he questions Locke a whole lot when Locke says they have to go, and they strike out into the jungle.
"Emily Annabeth Locke, in ten thousand words or less," says the private investigator in the Wal-Mart break room, handing some papers over to Locke. Those of you think she's not really Locke's mother maybe could offer your thoughts on how fortunate it was that Locke hired a private investigator who was apparently in on it somehow. "So, she's my mother," says Locke. The P.I. says he lifted some hairs from her car and matched them with a DNA sample from Locke -- 99.9 per cent sure. There's also a hospital admissions record; the P.I. says she'd been institutionalized a few times, for schizophrenia. "Apparently if she stays on her meds, she's okay." Locke asks about his father. The P.I. hems and haws a little, before pointing out that while Locke's mom is fair game for seeking him out, it's possible Locke's father doesn't even know Locke exists. "I've done this enough times to know, this stuff isn't meant to be, even though it might feel that way. But this probably won't have a happy ending." He taps the red file folder in front of him. "So, do you want it or not?" Locke barely hesitates. "I want it," he says, and the P.I. slides it over.
Locke drives a cherry-red Volkswagen Beetle, which seems...off, somehow. He pulls up to the security gates of a massive house nestled in nature's splendor, and tells the guard there that he's Anthony Cooper's son. "Mr. Cooper doesn't have a son," says the guard. "Tell him I don't want anything," says Locke. Yeah, that's a line that surely lets all the strangers into the rich man's house. "My mother's Emily Locke," Locke tells the guard, adding, "please." The guard tells him to wait a minute, and gets on the phone, telling "Mr. Cooper" that a John Locke is there to see him. "He says he's your son," says the guard, who doesn't say anything about Emily Locke. "Yes sir," says the guard right away, who tells Locke he can go right up. Wow, Mr. Cooper sure took this surprising news well, didn't he? And quickly! Not suspicious at all!
Locke looks around the living room, featuring pictures of a man with a Hemingway complex. In walks Mr. Cooper himself, played by Kevin Tighe, a Hey! It's That Guy if I ever saw one. "Well, this is awkward," he says. Locke thanks Cooper for seeing him, then introduces himself. "Something tells me I'm going to need a drink for this," says Cooper. I like him already. He offers Scotch to Locke, who accepts. Cooper asks if Locke found his mother, or if it was the other way around, and Locke tells him. "How did she look?" asks Cooper, like that's the first thing this guy thinks to ask his long-lost son, how gross is that? Locke says she looked all right, he guesses, because it's not like he's got any basis of comparison. Cooper asks if Swoosie said anything about him, and Locke tells him about the "immaculate conception" thing, which cracks Cooper right up. "Well, I guess that makes me God, huh?" he says. Well, it makes you the father of Mary, mother of God, but since most people make that mistake, I figure Cooper would too. Doesn't mean the Lost writers don't know what the Immaculate Conception actually refers to.
Cooper says he didn't even know Locke existed until a year after he was born. Then Emily dropped off the face of the earth, until she resurfaced asking for money, saying she'd given John up for adoption. "You gonna drink that or what?" says Cooper suddenly, referring to Locke's Scotch. Locke obligingly gets to work on it. Cooper asks if Locke has a family of his own, and Locke answers in the negative. Cooper says, "Me neither," and adds that he tried a couple of times, but "it didn't take," which is quite the cavalier thing to say to the boy you fathered who grew up in foster homes because you preferred scuba diving, hunting, and drinking. I mean, this really ought to be Locke's cue to get the hell out right there. Cooper asks if Locke hunts. Locke says no, which makes Cooper worried that Locke's one of those "animal-rights nutjobs," which I guess to a guy like Cooper is everyone who isn't actually in the middle of killing animals or planning the trip to kill animals. Then he invites Locke hunting, which I guess we could have seen coming.
So Locke is explaining to Boone about the vision he saw after asking the island for a sign, but he sticks to the details about just the plane and doesn't say anything about bloody Boone. "I know where to go now," he says. Boone says, "Go for what?" "To find what we need to open this bastard up," says Locke. But even Boone has had enough of Locke's crazy jungle-man routine, so he asks, "Have you been using that wacky paste stuff that made me see my sister die?" he says, completely nonchalant about the whole thing, with that nonsensical completely contrived sentence. I think this is like one of those moments on 24 or Alias with plotlines that span several episodes, and a writer gets a dig in at another writer for some detail that wasn't explained properly or outright made no sense on another episode. Because yeah, that "wacky paste stuff" was really good times for you, Boone. He expresses a little more skepticism about Locke's signs and visions and symbols, so Locke interrupts him to ask who Theresa is. Boone's look goes hard. Locke says tells Boone that in his vision, he was repeating, "Theresa falls up the stairs, Theresa falls down the stairs." Boone asks how Locke would know about that. Locke's all, "See? My point!" and tells Boone that they're supposed to go to this place where he saw the plane go down, and asks Boone to come with him.
Mercutio and Jin are working on the raft together, as Jack makes his rounds, with that backpack that makes him look like he's on his way to school. He's really impressed with the progress they're making. Mercutio explains that they learned a few things while building the first raft, so there's not so much trial and error. "Now it's just...trial," he says, glancing Jin's way. To illustrate his point, Jin starts talking at him, and Mercutio's all, "yeah, man, I know, 'now,' 'now,'" and Jack's impressed that Mercutio seems to be picking up a little Korean. Mercutio says he's pretty sure he knows Korean for "faster" and "idiot." Does he also know Korean for "pointless scene" and "dropped storylines"?
Nearby, Sawyer is all drama queen putting a cold compress over his eyes and leaning against a tree, so Jack strolls over to ask about Sawyer's head, and Sawyer all snottily notes that Kate now has Jack making house calls. He takes off the cloth and squints at Jack, who notices that Sawyer also seems to be sensitive to light. "I'm sensitive to you," begins Sawyer, and speaking of sensitive, crybaby Jack's all, "Forget this," and stomps away. Sawyer, of course, holds him up a sec to ask if sensitivity to light is a bad thing. Depends, says Jack, on what's causing the headaches. "It's not like it's a brain tumour or something," says Sawyer, and Jack's all, hey, who said anything about a tumour? Sawyer scowls some more, and Jack turns to leave, like I'd love to see Jack back in the real world with difficult patients, stomping out of examination rooms all the time when patients have a difficult time articulating their problems, and Sawyer says his uncle died of a brain tumour. "That run in the family?" he asks. What type of tumour was it, Jack wants to know. "The type that kills you," says Sawyer all snotty, and normally I have no patience for the HoYay discussions on this site, as there's not a single scene involving men that doesn't have people squealing "HoYay!" at it, like how much more annoying would I be if every scene that involved Kate and Sun and Shannon and Claire prompted me to start talking about how badly they want each other and how they should just start making out, but I'm starting to get a sense that Jack and Sawyer are secretly boyfriends and they hide it under a thick veneer of hostility. Jack asks if Sawyer is smelling any phantom scents, because tumours will do that, but Sawyer says it's just headaches, so Jack figures Sawyer's fine. Jack offers to do a few tests on Sawyer, and Sawyer declines, even though it "sounds like fun," because his "insurance ran out" and Jack laughs and repeats the line, and they both say "IN-surance" instead of "in-SUR-ance," and they manage to end this scene without making out. Jack walks away.
Boone and Locke are traipsing through the jungle, with Locke saying that maybe he mentioned Theresa's name one time by the hatch, and Locke's all, "Maybe, but you didn't." He stops to check his compass for a moment. I thought he gave that to Sayid because he's mystical jungle man who has no need of compasses? They continue on again, but Locke stumbles again, making Boone ask what's wrong with Locke's legs. Locke says "nothing," and struggles to his feet. Then he spies something on a tree behind Boone. There, looped on a branch, is a rosary, albeit one that looks a lot shorter than I remember from my days surviving Catholic school. He and Boone examine it. "Someone from camp hiked all the way out here?" says Boone. Locke's looking up in the trees. "Nope," he says. Boone asks where he thinks the rosary came from, and Locke yanks on a rope, causing a mouldy, mostly decomposed body to tumble down from the treetops. "Him," says Locke. Some cool, gross millipede-type thing crawls from the skull's mouth. Nice!
Locke pulls up to the gate and Cooper's place, and he's now on a first-name basis with the guard, Eddie, who asks if they're going to get some more birds today, and Locke excitedly says, "Sure hope so!" sounding for all the world like an eight-year-old excited at the prospect of hunting frogs at the pond.
Inside, Locke walks in on Cooper hooked up to a dialysis machine, being tended to by a nurse. Cooper says he wasn't expecting Locke until noon. "I thought you said eleven," says Locke, and Cooper pretends (oh come on, I'm giving nothing away. It was obvious) that he didn't want Locke to see this. Cooper's kidneys are failing. "Damn doctors say I need a transplant," says Cooper. Yeah, damn doctors, urging him to get a working kidney! Locke asks when he needs one. "Tomorrow, if it were up to me," says Cooper, who says he's on a waiting list, but he's an old man and it's a long list. He adds that dialysis is fine for a while, and he didn't want to put a downer on their day of shooting birds for sport. Locke looks distressed, and seems to be the only one who can't see what's coming down the pike.
Back on Craphole Island, Boone and Locke are looting the dead guy, who, judging from the white collar thingy around his neck -- which you'd think I'd know the name of, being a good Catholic and all -- was a priest. Fortunately Locke is an expert on how quickly clothes decay, but with the good quality polyester the priest is wearing, he could have died anywhere from two to ten years ago. Locke notes the priest's gold teeth. Must have been well off. And he pulls a wad of strange currency from the priest's pocket. Boone asks what kind of money it is, and, again fortunately, Locke is an expert on international money, and he says it's Nigerian naira. Boone wonders what the hell a Nigerian priest is doing on an island in the South Pacific, but Locke's discovery, a loaded automatic pistol, suggests that this guy wasn't a priest at all. I happen to think a gun would be a rather effective tool for a priest. Shit, I'd have confessed everything to a priest with a gun.
You know, with a whole friggin' uninhabited island to explore, with miles of pristine beach and jungle, I'm not sure why Sawyer can't go off and be by himself, especially if he's having such headaches. But he sits and scowls right by everybody, and then when some extras are banging on some sheet metal for some reason, he yells at them. And since the producers aren't shelling out for the poor extras to have lines, they just stand and stare at him instead of telling him to shove it. As usual, Kate is strolling by just waiting to stick her nose in, so she makes Sawyer get up and hustles him off to Jack in the caves.
Jack waves a pen in front of Sawyer's eyes, watching how his pupils react to changing stimuli. Kate's hanging out there for some reason, as Jack asks questions about the headaches. Sawyer even snarls at her, "Do you have to be here?" and even though the answer is "no," no one says that, like what kind of a joke doctor is Jack anyway? But it only gets worse, as Jack tells him to shut up and relax. And then he asks Sawyer more questions, about whether he's ever had a blood transfusion, or taken pills for malaria. And then, with Kate sitting right there, Jack asks if Sawyer's ever had sex with a prostitute. Kate's very keen to hear the answer to this one as well. Sawyer asks what the hell that has to do with anything, and Jack asks if that's a yes. Sawyer snarls a yes, and Kate gets all smirky, like ANY TIME YOU'D LIKE TO FUCK OFF WOULD BE FINE WITH EVERYONE, KATE. Jack asks if Sawyer's ever contracted an STD, and Sawyer doesn't answer, which Jack takes as another yes. Moving on, he asks when Sawyer's last outbreak was, and Sawyer finally stomps out of the cave. Kate, who I'm trying to figure out who she thinks she is, says, "I know he deserved it, but --" like maybe the double-crossing bank-robbing lover-killer here would like to expound a little bit more on what people "deserve," that'd be great, and Jack says Sawyer just needs glasses. Wow, from "hero" to "complex, conflicted, sympathetic human being" to "unlikable asshole" in less than a season. Well done, Jack.
So Boone and Locke are traipsing through the jungle, with Locke limping badly and Boone asking yet again what's wrong with Locke's leg. Locke says that it's just the shrapnel wound, but Boone points out that the shrapnel wound was (however improbably) in Locke's right leg, but he's now struggling with his left. And then Locke falls down again, and Boone wants to get him back to camp so he can see Jack. "Jack wouldn't know the first thing about what's wrong with me," says Locke. Which is probably true. What's more, Jack would likely be a real dick while diagnosing him, too. Locke tries to keep going, but finally flops onto his back. He comes clean with Boone and tells him that he was in a wheelchair for four years before the crash, right up until he got onto the plane. Boone wants to know what he was in a wheelchair for, and Locke says it's not important anymore. Translation: writers haven't figured it out yet. "This island, it changed me. It made me whole. Now it's trying to take it back, and I don't know why. But it wants me to follow what I saw." More jabbering about how Locke was meant to do this, that they're being led to a way to get into the hatch, but they just have to keep going. Boone caves, of course, and asks if Locke can keep going. Locke asks to be helped to his feet, which Boone does.
Locke and his daddy are hunting doves, which seems kind of mean. Cooper's wearing some stupid-looking beret, and telling Locke that the doves can move faster than you think, so you really have to lead them. And Locke seems to have gotten pretty good at hunting really quickly, if you can call picking off defenceless doves "hunting," as he pegs one right away. Cooper starts laying things on a little thick, saying that Locke's mother may have had her problems, but at least she brought them together, while they still have time. He gives Locke a long look. He might as well wince, clutch his back, and say, "Ow, my kidney!" he's being so obvious.
Boone's now got Locke's arms draped around his shoulders as he helps him through the jungle. Wow, the fun times never end when you hang out with Locke, do they? They take a break and flop down on the jungle floor. Boone explains that this Theresa was his nanny. He resented his mom for never being around, so he took it out on the nanny, by repeatedly calling her up the stairs to his bedroom. "One day she took a bad step, broke her neck. I was six." Okay then. Doesn't explain the "Theresa falls up the stairs," does it? Locke starts to laugh, which understandably ticks Boone off. He demands to know what's so funny. Locke just points over Boone's shoulder. There, behind them, is the plane, hanging off a cliff, suspended in the trees. Hilarious! Commercials.
Boone asks Locke if that's the plane he saw. Does that matter, Boone? If Locke says, "Nah, I saw a single-prop," are you going to go all nuts over the symbols and visions again? Boone wonders how long it's been there, and Locke says it doesn't matter, but what does matter is that they found it, and what's inside it. "What is inside it, Locke?" asks Boone, as if he thinks Locke knows the answer, which isn't unreasonable of him, I don't think. Locke tells him he's going to have to climb up there to find out.
I can't help but notice that Locke has yet to say anything to Boone about the part of his vision that included Boone all covered in blood. Of course, Boone seems skeptical enough about climbing up there, but he does it without a word. ["I got the feeling the writers forgot that part too." -- Sars]
Hospital (that, for the kidney-selling scam theory to work, has to be in on the whole thing -- it's called Occam's razor, people. Look into it). Locke and his dad are in separate beds, holding hands. Locke apparently can't hear every viewer yelling, "Don't do it!" Cooper says there's still time to change his mind, but Locke says it's too late because they've already shaved his back, like, thanks for that exquisite little mental image, and then Cooper says he's really thankful for Locke, who says that this was meant to be. The nurses wheel in a bed to transport them to the OR. "See you on the other side," says Cooper, "or perhaps you'll be in an ice bath in a seedy motel somewhere. Also, I wouldn't use the toothbrush I leave behind."
Back on the island, Dr. Jackass strolls up to Sawyer, who's still reading A Wrinkle In Time, but I suppose that if he needs glasses, it might take him a little longer. Jack points out that Sawyer's been reading a lot since they landed, and Sawyer's all, "So?" which I can identify with, since I have a stack of about thirty books that I have yet to read, and having a deserted island with plentiful food and water isn't exactly the worst thing I can think of. Of course, while I generally have an Ian Rankin with me on any given flight, Sawyer's library of books pilfered from the plane consists of, from what we know so far, A Wrinkle In Time and Watership Down. He's probably making those books last as long as possible, thought, because I imagine the only other books he managed to salvage are probably fifty copies of The Da Vinci Code. He growls at Jack, something about providing a stool sample. Jack tells him he's got "hyperopia." This freaks Sawyer out a little bit, which I'm sure was Jack's intention, at least until Jack tells him he's farsighted, a condition that develops later in life, especially when one strains them. ["If anyone cares, the farsightedness specific to aging is actually called presbyopia. In fact, it's still called that even if no one cares." -- Sars] (Farsighted is when you have difficulty seeing things up close, but can see clearly at a distance. When you see someone in a restaurant move the menu farther away from his face to read it, he's farsighted.) Sawyer seems rather chagrined, although you'd think he'd be glad that it's only farsightedness and not, you know, a tumour. Jack's got a bag of dead people's glasses with him, so he gets Sawyer to try them on one at a time, doing the ophthalmologist "Better? Or worse?" thing.
Then we see Sayid, who apparently got most of the week off, as this is his only appearance. He splits up a couple of pairs of glasses on the bridge, then welds two halves back together. For those of you blessed with perfect vision, that's because while all perfect eyeballs resemble each other, each imperfect eyeball is imperfect in its own way.
Anyway, the pair of glasses that's produced appears to have been Frankensteined together from models seen in '50s Secretary and '90s Record-Store Clerk catalogs. Hurley, happening by for his one line this week, says Sawyer looks like someone "steamrolled Harry Potter," which causes Kate to bust up laughing, like THERE SHE IS AGAIN, and how nice that all these perfect-sighted individuals think it's so hilarious that someone needs corrective lenses, and can I just say that as someone who's worn glasses or contact lenses since he was six years old that laughing at someone is exactly the way to get him to NOT wear the glasses he needs, and Dr. Jackass all smugly pats Sawyer on the back and says, "You're welcome," after humiliating him.
Boone climbs and climbs, and takes like a million years to get up onto the plane, and then carefully crawls in through the side emergency door, which he pries off and drops to the ground. He climbs inside and looks around. He finds a map of Nigeria, which I'm not sure is the biggest surprise after the discovery of the currency. Then the plane creaks and shifts somewhat, which might indicate to Boone that now's a good time to get out of the plane. Eventually the plane stops moving and Boone stops shouting. Down below, Locke struggles to his feet, and yells at Boone, asking what he sees. Boone's found a box of statues and baggies broken open. "You know what's in your damn plane, Locke?" He sticks his head out the window, holding up a foot-long statue of the Virgin Mary, of which there are several. "Here's your sign," he says, and throws it to the ground, where it breaks open and it spills its contents. "They're drug smugglers," says Boone, back inside to see what else he can find. "That's all that's in here." This would explain why so much of the regular cast is absent or appeared only briefly; they're required to keep Charlie off the set. Locke's dismayed. He sits down again, muttering that he doesn't understand.
Boone, meanwhile, has made his way up to the cockpit, where he, clearly not expecting any results, flicks on the radio. It crackles to life, surprising him. Also surprising him, apparently not knowing anything about balance or fulcrums, is the plane shifting even more, what with him now being in the cockpit. Locke yells for Boone to get out, but Boone's intent on trying the radio. He sends out a message, and is elated to hear someone respond. I agree that the person who responds sounds somewhat like Boone, but it's not like Boone's got some kind of distinctive voice or anything. The plane continues to lurch downward, as Boone yells, "We're the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815," and I know it's caused a lot of debate on the boards, but it sounds to me like the response is, "We're the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815," but I don't know how much stock we're supposed to place in that. Maybe it's just Boone's line re-looped with static added, and all we're really supposed to hear is someone else's voice on the radio? Because this would be quite a plot twist, and you'd think they'd make that revelation a lot clearer. Or...who knows. Forget it. I give up.
The plane finally shakes free from the cliff, landing nose-first, and flopping over upside down. Locke yells for Boone and struggles to his feet again, staggering over to the plane, where he crawls inside and shoves stuff out of the way until he gets to Boone's bloody body. See, if he'd told Boone about that part of his vision, now he'd be able to say, "See? Told you!" He puts Boone on his shoulders and carries him away. Commercials.
Back in the cave, Kate and Jack are still chortling over how they stuck it to Sawyer, with Kate asking Jack if he knew Sawyer needed glasses before or after he asked about Sawyer's latest outbreak. Jack says he can't tell her without violating doctor-patient confidentiality, which floored me, since it appeared that he'd never heard of that concept before. Kate thanks Jack for helping Sawyer: "I know it was probably the last thing you wanted to do." He responds, "I didn't do it for him." She smiles, and I have to say she's got a beautiful smile, and...what was I saying? Anyway, I guess Jack and Kate are getting thrown together again.
But this touching moment is interrupted by Locke bellowing for Jack and flopping Boone down in the cave. Doesn't someone normally run ahead to get Jack when someone's injured? That would be less dramatic here, I suppose. As Jack examines Boone's body, Locke is vague (deliberately, obviously) about what happened, saying only that Boone fell off a cliff while they were out hunting. Jack rips open Boone's clothes to reveal quite a lot of damage, and he tells Kate to get shirts and towels and whatever else will help him staunch the bleeding. He has to bark at her to snap her out of her daze, too. Then he asks Locke to tell him exactly what happened -- but Locke's already gone.
Back in the hospital, Locke's waking up after surgery. He turns his head to his father's bed, which is empty. The doctor or nurse examining him says, "I think what you did was so kind." He asks after his father. She says she didn't know they were related, and Locke says only that they have different last names. She says that Mr. Cooper checked out already and is back home in private care. "That doesn't make any sense," says Locke, and I have to agree that someone being allowed to leave a hospital right after a kidney transplant, private care or no, makes no sense. The rest of this, though? Not such a surprise. Locke asks if Cooper left a message for him. She says not that she knows of, then leaves to get him some juice. Locke tries to sit up a little more, which is painful. Then he hears, "It was his idea." He looks over, sees Mommie Dearest. "What are you doing here?" he says. She explains that she needed money, and that Locke's father has always been good that way, very generous. So generous that rather than give his baby-mama money, he forces her to help him SCAM HIS SON OUT OF A KIDNEY. Locke's surprised to hear her admit that he even has a father, and she says that it was part of the plan to make Locke willingly give up the kidney; it had to be his own idea. "I wanted to see you," she says. Locke starts muttering, "This can't happen, he wouldn't do this to me," things of that nature. Even though everybody saw this coming, this was still heartbreaking to watch. He looks over at his dad's empty bed. "He wouldn't do this to me!" he shouts, and struggles to his feet, despite the pain. His stupid psycho mom is still completely oblivious, as she beams at him. Locke gives her the stink-eye, and I can only assume that he beat her to death, even if they don't show that.
Instead, we go right to Locke pulling up at the security gates, yelling for his father. An embarrassed Eddie tells him that "Mr. Cooper's not seeing guests." Locke gets out of his car, and pleads with Eddie to open the gate. Eddie asks him to move his car, so Locke walks up to the gate (bloodstains visible on the back of his T-shirt), looks at the security camera. "I know you're watching me," he whispers. "You can't do this." Eddie asks him again to move his car. Locke gets back in, drives off, having a good yell and banging the rearview mirror and steering wheel, before collapsing in sobs on the steering wheel.
And it's dark on Craphole Island. An enraged Locke is crouched on top of the hatch, crying and banging. "I've done everything you wanted me to do!" he yells. "So why did you do this?" And then -- a light goes on. And the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I love it when that happens.