Exodus Part Two

Turniphead's crying, and Claire's trying to shush him, and she seems to be using cotton batting for diapers. I don't think that'll hold. We see a shot of the black smoke, and it looks the same as ever, that non-moving straight column of smoke, and how expensive could it have been to make an actual fire for the smoke shots? Especially if you're going to cheap out on the effects and have the smoke appear to be this motionless column that goes straight up? Somebody check the raft, because if the smoke is anything to go by, there's no wind, and that raft is probably just bobbing on the water right beside the island. Charlie strolls over to hustle Claire's ass up, because everybody's heading to the caves. Since the whole point of getting out of there is because the "others" are supposedly coming for the baby, I'm pretty sure Claire's not going to get left behind. But Claire freaks because no one ever told her how to change diapers or something, and she snaps at Charlie, who as much as he annoys me is only trying to help, and he tells her everything's going to be all right, and she screeches that everyone's telling her that, but they're not the ones with the baby. No, they're the ones with two babies, apparently.

Sayid's telling a bunch of lineless extras that they need to get to the caves before sundown. "The rest of us will be right behind you," he says. Then the troops are dismissed. Charlie comes running up, telling Sawyer that he wants a gun, and Sayid tells him, essentially, to piss off, and they reminisce about the last time Charlie had a gun, and Charlie says he killed a murderer and did everyone a favour, and maybe by that logic he can go and shoot Sawyer and Kate and be done with it. Sayid tells Charlie that he's "emotionally involved," which is apparently only allowed when Sayid's helping out Shannon to keep the Sayid Booty Train running, and says if Charlie wants to help, he should help Claire get packed and off to the caves. "Packed"? What "packed"? They're fleeing, not moving to a two-bedroom by the park. Charlie nods, but he doesn't look thrilled.

Back in the jungle, the Goonies are speechless in front of the Black Rock, which I imagine is the normal reaction to coming across old landlocked ocean-going vessels. "How exactly does something like this happen?" asks Hurley, and Rousseau asks him if he's on the same island she is. Heh. She's crazy, not stupid. Arse the science guy does his best to come up with an explanation, theorizing that a tsunami could have deposited the ship there. Sure, works for me. It doesn't appear to concern the others, though, as they're already headed for the ship. Except for Rousseau, who's headed back the way they came, telling them that the dynamite is in the hold. Jack tries to stop her, but she says she did what they asked. They need the dynamite, not her, and she leaves, and Locke is all, "Let her go, Jack," even though it doesn't look like Jack exactly has any say in the matter, so he mutters a "dammit" all tough guy afterwards, because people aren't listening to him. He starts giving Arse some instructions, but Arse says there ain't no way he's going into the ship. Hurley too: "I'm gonna stay out here and hang with Arse." Hang with Arse? I'd be in that ship so fast�

We get a little science lesson from Arse, who explains that dynamite is nitroglycerin stabilized by clay. He lifts out a stick, covered in crusty white stuff. He says it's the most dangerous and unstable explosive known to man, not to mention a handy boost on just about any car-racing videogame ever. He asks Kate for her shirt, which he needs to wrap the dynamite (not gratuitous cheesecake potential, although Kate is wearing a tank top; it seems to be because she's the only one wearing more than one layer). She obliges, and he soaks the shirt in muddy water as he lectures on about the man who invented nitroglycerin, who none of them have heard of because "he blew his frigging face off." Well, that could happen to anyone, Arse, who I can't believe isn't wearing a redshirt (and I can't believe I didn't peg him as a redshirt ages ago). He gingerly wraps the dynamite and continues the story about the inventor's assistant coming in to find his mentor detonated, and said, "I guess this stuff does work."

The dynamite's wrapped, and Arse says they're not going to take any more than they need, because nitro is extremely temperamental. And given that, and given him hectoring them on the danger, is Arse really going to start waving the dynamite around? I doubt it -- but I like it. The dynamite blows, so suddenly that no one even has time to yell, "Noooooooooo!" But the other Goonies are thrown backward. We get an extra-special belly-cam shot from Hurley, who sits up and says, "Man, I can't believe that Arse just blew himself up!" (Pronounced "dude.")

We're back in the airport lounge with Jin and Sun, only this time we're apparently watching it from Jin's perspective, which includes some Sun sandwich-cutting that I don't remember from her flashback before she spilled the drink on Jin's lap, but I guess that's no biggie. Also, we get subtitles this time, which we didn't before. Not that they're very illuminating or anything, just Jin asking where the restroom is, and nothing about his sexy wife helping him out of his wet pants.

He strides off, and we see Sayid being escorted by a couple of airport security dudes, one of whom says they're sorry for the inconvenience, like please explain to me where this ridiculously apologetic airport is so I can take all my air travel out of there, please, and Sayid says, "I'm sure you are," not sincerely but not angrily either, and the airport security dude points out that Sayid's bag was left alone, and Sayid just asks if he's free to go, as he has a plane to catch.

Jin washes up in the bathroom. The man at the sink to him asks him for some paper towels, after finding his dispenser broken. Jin's at a loss, so the dude realizes he can't speak English, and he helps himself. And then says, "Here's a paper towel." In a nice little surprise, he says it in perfect Korean. (And since paper towel in Korean seems to be a phonetic approximation of "paper towel" in English, then I think that Jin might have figured out what the guy was asking for, especially as he was also pointing at the paper towel dispenser, but WHATEVER.) Jin's quite surprised, and the guy glances at him. "I work for Mr. Paik," he says. Jin's like, "Oh shit." I'm relatively certain that the guy doesn't need to tell Jin that Mr. Paik is Jin's father-in-law and employer, but that's what he does. "You've been following me?" says Jin, and the guy is like, "That's a big 10-4." He says he knows Jin was planning to run away, but he's going to take that watch to Mr. Paik's friend in California. "You do anything else, anything, you will lose her." Don't steal my Sun-shine, says Jin's face. "You are not free. You never have been, and you never will be," says the guy. Oddly enough, this is exactly what Sars said to me during our last contract "negotiation." Jin watches the guy leave the bathroom. Did he ever actually wash his hands? 'Cause that's just nasty.

The dynamite dingbats slowly trudge through the jungle, Kate gingerly making her way across a stream. Hurley makes conversation by asking Locke what he thinks is in the hatch, and Locke says, "What do you think is in it?" and Hurley goes off on TV dinners, like if you're going to fantasize about food, how sad to fantasize about TV dinners and Twinkies like Hurley does here. "Twinkies keep for like eight thousand years, man," and they chuckle, and Locke says he likes Twinkies too, only you have to guess that Hurley likes Twinkies a lot more than Locke does. So Hurley asks Locke what he really thinks is inside, and Locke says. "Hope. I think hope is inside." Hope? Who the hell is Hope?

Jack and Kate are leading the procession, and nobody's really saying much. Suddenly, there's a screech. It sounds like it's part of the soundtrack, but then we see this stock shot of a falcon or a hawk or something lifting up from a tree and flying away, which looks like it came from some totally other movie or television show. "Whoever named this place 'dark territory'? Genius," says Hurley. Onward, then. Jack and Kate pause for a moment, hearing some sort of rattle. Through the trees, a little black cloud of smoke zips by, like it's something's trail. Jack looks at Kate. "Yeah, I saw it. We gotta get out of here," she says. Jack and Kate start jogging, and Hurley follows. We hear another screech, and the flapping of wings -- and then Lostzilla's trademark tree uprooting begins, along with the metallic clank and roar, like maybe the island is being defended by Tom Waits records. Kate breaks into a full-on run, and you're yelling, "Put the knapsack down, remember?" and then you see Jack slip his off. Locke hasn't moved. He does take off his knapsack, and sets it down very carefully. And then he walks toward the noise. Jack glances back just in time to Locke, and he's all, "Locke! What are you doing?" and then he goes back after Locke, which to me is just as foolish.

Locke carefully makes his way through the jungle, an eager look on his face. Mine too, as I start thinking, "Okay, now, finally --" The noisiness continues, but it's some distance from Locke. And then, quiet for a moment or two. Suddenly, a tree right to Locke is ripped right out of the ground, surprising him, and he falls over onto his back. Lying there, he looks up, and it looks to me like he's seeing something, and there's a sound like some sort of mechanical gears or tread or something. And Locke's face quickly goes from anticipation to terror. Commercials. But we're totally going to see Lostzilla when we come back, right?

This show Dancing With the Stars intrigues me. Because clearly ABC is trying to broadcast a show that no one will watch. If you love dancing, plus you're a big fan of the guy who played J. Peterman on Seinfeld, which went off the air SEVEN YEARS AGO, have we got a show for you!

Locke scrambles to his feet, and takes off running. And meanwhile Jack's running around looking for him, and finally Kate and Hurley seem to have noticed that Jack and Locke are no longer behind them, and Kate goes running back, still with the knapsack of dynamite on her back.

Locke's leg seems to have been caught in some sort of line, as he's upended and then starts getting dragged backward. My eyes start bleeding, I'm squinting so hard to try to see something on the screen. Jack finds the handy-dandy cleared trail of jungle that Locke is being dragged along, and starts chasing after Locke. There's what sounds like some sort of pulley system reeling Locke in, and I still can't for the life of me make out what exactly it is that has Locke by the leg, which is obviously the point. Jack finally makes a leap, and grabs Locke just as Locke gets pulled into a hole. Fortunately, Jack leapt forward yet managed to somehow land in a sitting position to brace his legs against the side of the hole. Locke looks absolutely terrified. Kate runs up, and she's all, "Oh my god!" and Jack tells her to get the dynamite, and she starts to take off her knapsack, and Jack says, "No, no, it's in my pack," and Locke isn't in too imminent danger I guess for Kate not to glare at Jack, and all I can say is it's a damn good thing the dynamite wasn't in your pack, Florence Griffith Joyner. Jack snaps at her to move, and she finally does. And she's back in a fraction of the time that Jack was actually running after Locke, but whatever. And Locke is telling Jack to let him go, and that it'll be all right, and when Kate gets back Jack tells her to throw the dynamite in the hole. There's much arguing, as Locke tells her not to do it, and Jack yells at her some more. Kate finally decides that even if she blows all three of them up, it would at least put an end to Locke and Jack spazzing out. She chucks the dynamite down the hole, and we hear an explosion deep within the hole. And this black smoke erupts out of the ground behind them, gathers for a moment, and then instantly dissipates. They look at it for only a moment, and then pull Locke out of the ground, as whatever had a hold of him no longer seems to. They catch their breath on the ground for a moment, with Jack looking at Locke like, "I can't believe you wanted me to let you go," and Locke looking back like, "You should have let me go."

We're back on the raft. Jin's working on the rudder, while Mercutio picks up Jin's notebook (Jin's watch is on top) and bring it over to him. "Your wife made this for you?" pointing at the notebook, and Jin grasps what he's saying and nods and says, "Sun." And Mercutio is talking about how amazing it is that she sounded this stuff out phonetically, and supposedly there's a secret scene on Good Morning America because they couldn't even cut scenes like this one where we get something explained that we already knew from watching LAST WEEK'S EPISODE. Jim demonstrates the English words he knows already: "starboard," "aft," "sail," and "eat," and they have a good laugh over this last one, and Mercutio says, "Hope you know how lucky you are, man," and I know they're best buds now but maybe Mercutio should be careful about his comments on Sun's perfection. Anyway, yay, the rudder's fixed, so maybe the pointless scene is over. Oh, no, wait, it's not. Mercutio hands Jin his watch, and then starts working on other stuff, and Jin stares at the watch for a long moment, and then brings it over to Mercutio. "You," he says, handing it to Mercutio. He puts it in Mercutio's hand, and closes his hands over it and says "you" again. And Mercutio looks like he's going to cry and he finally says "thank you" and Jin beams at him. Thanks for the watch, now that we're adrift on a raft and probably going to die.

Yaaaaawn. We're back in the caves again. Claire's sitting by herself all mopey. Sun comes over with some tea, and Claire declines at first but then takes it, thanking her. "Aaron is a beautiful name," says Sun, and she asks what it means. Claire -- eventually -- says she doesn't know what Aaron means. Sun tells her that Charlie will bring her baby back, and Claire tells her not to say it, and Sun INSISTS on pinning Claire's hopes on the island's vigilante junkie, simply because Charlie said he'd bring back Aaron. Wow. Talk about your pointless scenes. Since we're past the hour mark, I think this is an exposition scene for when the show is split in two for reruns.

Sayid and Charlie, run run run. At the base of a tree, Charlie sees a motionless lump wrapped in a blanket. Naturally, he thinks it's the baby, and he grabs it despite Sayid yelling a warning, and it turns out to be a block of wood. Charlie's pulled a tripwire, and a netting full of rocks opens up from the top of the tree. The shot does its best to make it look like Charlie got conked, but you can still tell he was about fifteen feet away. Still, let's pretend Charlie get hit. Sayid tends to Charlie's very bloody face. He puts a rag on Charlie's face and tells Charlie to keep up the pressure, while Charlie screams about what an animal this woman is, and Sayid says, "She's been here sixteen years. She's learned how to set traps quickly." Oh, god. Yeah, and she apparently learned MAGICAL POWERS, too, to set up a trap that required that kind of physical exertion and precision. Give me a break. Sayid tells Charlie that he's bleeding too much and has to get back to camp. Charlie says that's bollocks, and asks Sayid what soldiers do when they get wounded. "I'm not going back without that baby, Sayid," says Charlie. Sayid looks at him hard for a long while. Then, from his backpack, he takes out a bullet and twists the point off with pliers. "Remove the towel and tilt your head back," he says calmly. Charlie just looks at him, having figured out what's going to happen, so Sayid repeats the instructions. "This is because I hit you, isn't it," says Charlie, as he does what he's told. Sayid tips the bullet over Charlie's wound, covering it in gunpowder. Charlie winces and grunts, but he might want to save his expressions of pain a moment. Sayid pulls a box of matches out his pack. "This is not going to be pleasant," he says. No kidding. It's going to be almost as painful to watch. Charlie steels himself, and Sayid counts to three, and lights the match, and all I can say is that if Charlie's anguished screams are anything to go by, I'm quite grateful that we cut to a long shot. Commercials.

Commander In Chief? Can we just go ahead and call it The Breast Wing?

Hurley's sleeping. In a bed, so this must be a flashback. He picks up his alarm clock, but the LCD screen is blank. He tries the lamp; it won't turn on. He gets up, pulls the curtains, sees that it's daylight, and notices the scorch marks around the electrical outlet where he's plugged in his portable CD player and its speakers. "Oh man," he says. Did you ever hear of a wakeup call, Hurley? He's on the phone, telling someone that needs his car, and is upset to find out that it's going to take twenty minutes. "I can't miss my flight, my mom's birthday's tomorrow!" he says, and we get some jaunty music that's going to drive me nuts in about three seconds, but we're going to have to listen to this through the entire scene of Hurley Rushes to Make His Plane. He hustles out of his hotel room with two bags, down the hall, and presses the elevator button. Because this is television and not real life, the elevator arrives instantly. Problem is, it's full. See, this is what happens when you're nothing but bad luck (at least once every twelve episodes, on average, anyway). But the elevator is full, so Hurley looks around frantically for the stairs, and heads off back down the hall. Panning back to the elevator, we see Charlie against the wall, yelling, "Some of us have a bloody flight to catch, you know!"

And Jack's thinking the same thing that I was, because he leans in and says, "You talk with Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity, about destiny?" Locke calmly says, "Boone was a sacrifice that the island demanded." Although he does look as though he's sorry Boone died. He says that Boone's death was part of chain of events that has led them here, blah blah, to this moment. Jack wants to know where the path ends. It ends just as soon as you two SHUT UP AND KEEP MOVING. Locke says the path ends at the hatch, and everything has been leading up to the opening of the hatch. Jack shakes his head. "No, we're opening the hatch so we can survive." "Survival's all relative, Jack," says Locke, and Jack decides to keep walking, saying he doesn't believe in destiny. "Yes you do. You just don't know it yet," says Locke. Man, are you guys as thrilled as I am that they stretched a one-hour episode to two hours by adding a lot of talking and long pointless scenes like Hurley running, instead of answering questions and wall-to-wall action? That's what I figured.

Out on the raft, Walt's managed to get to sleep. Mercutio covers him with another blanket, and goes over to where Sawyer is fiddling with the radar. Mercutio tells him he just had it on a little while ago, and Sawyer says Sayid told them to try it every hour. Well, what he told them was no more than once per hour, and Mercutio points out that they're only fifteen miles out and could be sailing for weeks so they don't want to drain the battery. "Man said every hour," said Sawyer, who always does what he's told, as we all know. They flick it on. "Nothing," says Sawyer, and Mercutio says five minutes, no more, holding his new watch. Show-off. Sawyer says he likes that Mercutio has the patience of a saint, ad Mercutio wonders what makes Sawyer say that. "I've seen the way he talks to you," says Sawyer, who goes on about Walt running around all over the place. The whuh? The kid's what, twelve? He seems generally pretty well-behaved to me, but Sawyer says, "I would have shown him the back of my hand a long time ago." Yeah, thanks for the parenting tips, Sawyer. Mercutio asks if that was Sawyer's dad's parenting style, but Sawyer says his dad never got a chance to beat him, shooting himself when Sawyer was eight years old. And the good vibes from the shared Bob Marley appreciation are completely gone now, as Mercutio asks if that's why Sawyer wants to die. Sawyer doesn't know what Mercutio's talking about, but Mercutio said he was wondering why a guy who only cares about himself wanted to risk his life so bad to save everyone else. "The way I see it, there's only two choices. You're either a hero, or you want to die," he says. Did Mercutio just call himself a hero? Sawyer gives him a long glare, before finally saying, "Well, I ain't no hero, Mercutio." This searing moment of self-awareness is suddenly interrupted by the slow boop! boop! boop! of the radar. They look at it, surprised, and sure enough see a blip on the screen. "Is that what I think it is?" says Sawyer. Either that, or PlayStation 3 really sucks. Jin takes an interest, and they all start scanning the waters, with Mercutio saying, "Something's out there," in case we don't know how radar works. Commercials.

I love, love, love the cheap-ass seatbelt campaign commercial, with the guy complaining that he got a $65 ticket. "Man, I gotta work all day to make sixty-five bucks," he says. What? Yeah, that's a lot of tacos, dude. You're what, thirty years old? Get a real job!

Locke's sitting all by himself at the airport, waiting to board. An attendant comes over and apologizes, saying that they don't know where the special wheelchair is that they use to load disabled passengers. Huge airport like this only has one of those, I'm so sure. Nice half-assed attempt to make Locke "almost" miss the flight like everybody else, guys. "There's not another flight until tomorrow," says Locke (which may explain why Hurley was so keen to get on, but I still say he could have come up with something when he has $160 million at his disposal). And fortunately there's a burly flight attendant who suggests Locke suffer the indignity of being carried on. They do so, and she tells him if he needs anything, to press the call button. He says okay, but it's clear this is killing him. I love Terry O'Quinn. He reaches for a pamphlet in the seat pouch in front of him, and it slips out of his fingers onto the floor, out of his grasp. Frustrated, he leans back in his seat.

Reminded of this, we cut back to the fully able-bodied Locke, and I guess it's not such a surprise that Locke has such faith in the island. The group has arrived at the hatch, so it looks like we're going to find out what's inside this season after all, right, guys? Right? Locke carefully takes his pack off by the hatch, and he tells Hurley to take Jack's extra dynamite a ways away. Only he calls Hurley "Hugo," and Hurley looks surprised, because nobody knows his real name -- or do they? He says okay, but asks for a flashlight instead of a torch, what with the possibility of being blown to smithereens and everything. Jack gives him the flashlight and manages not to get blown up. Jack, Kate, and Locke get to work running the fuse and rigging the charges.

Charlie and Sayid have finally arrived at the source of the black smoke, which is a fire on a corner of beach, with no one around. But it's not a bonfire, exactly; it's a flaming stone or cauldron or something like that, held in the air by crossed logs. They approach it carefully, and Sayid notices the lack of footprints around the fire. "This is the black smoke? Where are they?" says Charlie. Sayid says he doesn't know. Then, they hear crying from the bushes. "Danielle?" says Sawyer, and Charlie's practically charging the bushes at Rousseau right now, and Sayid tells him to cool it. "I can hear you, come out. Please. He needs his mother," says Sayid. The bushes rustle, and Rousseau comes out, carefully cradling Turniphead in her arms (yeah, like I was really going to stop calling him that). "They were not here," she says. Sayid says she has to give them the baby. "I just wanted my Alex back," she says, and she starts to cry, but she keeps coming forward. Sayid speaks soothingly to her, and despite her anguish, she hands Turniphead over to Sayid. Turniphead seems to be just fine, if a little bit of a crybaby. Maybe he started crying when he saw Charlie was here? Charlie starts yelling at Rousseau. "There never were any 'others.' You started the fires yourself!" he accuses, and she denies it. "I heard them whispering," she says. "You're a nutjob. You heard nothing," he says. Uh, dude, she still has a rifle, and you're right, she's a nutjob, so maybe you could lay off the confrontational tone and just get Turniphead back to his mother, okay? "I heard them say they were coming for the child. They said they were coming for the boy," she says. Uh-oh. She walks past them, racked with grief, but Charlie STILL has to spit out a "you're pathetic" at her, like how much would you love to see Rousseau blow his head off?

Back at the hatch, Jack and Locke carefully put the dynamite in place. Locke asks for the fuse, and Jack gets it, but when Locke holds out his hand for it, Jack just says, "I'll do it," and I guess Locke decides that whatever skills he learned at Sprawl-Mart and the box company, he'd be well-advised to leave this task to the guy with the surgeon's hands. The fuse set, they amble over to where Kate has unwound the fuse as far as it will go. Locke says it's plenty long, and they should take cover. He'll light the fuse, and there'll be plenty of burn time for him to take cover as well. They yell for Hurley, who yells back that he's coming or whatever. Or they could just tell him to stay where he is for a moment.

As Jack and Kate take cover, she goes off on him for taking the dynamite in his pack, which you know she's been waiting to do for hours. Come to think of it, I'd like to know just how it was that Jack pulled off that little bit of sleight of hand anyway. "I made a judgment call," he says, and she points out that they drew straws, and he points out, completely correctly, that this was too important to be decided by drawing straws. He might also want to point out that since she went running willy-nilly all over the place when she thought she had dynamite in her pack, he made exactly the right call. She tries to tell him that he had no right, and he snaps that everybody wants him to be the leader until he makes a decision that they don't like. Which is true, but, um, duh, Jack, because that kind of is how a democratic society WORKS, after all. If you don't like the decisions your leader makes, you try to make him NOT YOUR LEADER anymore. "You wanna keep second-guessing me, Kate? That's your call." Oh, get over yourself. He tells her that there's something she needs to know: "We survive this, we survive tonight? We're going to have a Locke problem." They both look at Locke, standing at the end of the fuse. "And I have to know that you got my back." Without hesitation, she says, "I got your back." So they like each other now, in case you're keeping score at home.

Locke yells, "Are we ready?" and then Hurley's telling them to hold on a sec, and he comes back into the clearing. He stumbles slightly (thank God he was a little more graceful while carrying the dynamite) and drops his flashlight by the side of the hatch. Picking it up, he notices the engraved numbers -- 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42. Naturally, he freaks, yelling that they can't do this, that they have to stop, that the numbers are bad, that sort of thing. Locke looks kind of pissed, and looks at Jack, and Jack doesn't know what the hell's going on. And Hurley's running at Locke, who finally is just all "fuck it" and lights the fuse. "Why'd you do that?" yells Hurley, who goes chasing the burning fuse like he's Wile E. Coyote and has just figured out that the dynamite he set for the Road Runner is going to blow himself up instead. Jack chases Hurley down, who's less than successful in his attempt to stamp out the fuse. Locke runs for cover and Jack tackles Hurley, and the two of them hit the deck as the dynamite explodes.

Back on the raft, the blip is closer to them, and the boop boop boop wakes up Walt. "It's closer," says Sawyer, and he asks for the flare gun. Mercutio says he's only got one flare. Jin jabbers away and points at his eyes to indicate that he can't see anything, and Sawyer's all, "No shit, it's night," and then there's some language-barrier confusion as Mercutio and Jin try to figure out whether they should be looking starboard or port, and Sawyer says, "Hey Han, you and Chewie want to slow down a second and talk to me here?" which I can't believe I missed the first time I watched, but which rules. Mercutio doesn't want to fire the flare because they don't know what the blip is. It might be a piece of floating junk, or maybe the radar doesn't even work. Sawyer asks if Mercutio knows of anything Sayid's made that doesn't work, like what is the deal with Sawyer's suddenly unshakeable faith in Sayid? Walt, watching the screen, says the blip's moving away. "Floating junk knows how to steer, does it?" and Mercutio points out that they're the ones moving. Sawyer asks if Mercutio's going to give him the flare gun or if he'll have to take it. "What are you going to do, shoot me?" asks Mercutio, and Sawyer glares at him. "It's almost gone," says Walt. Jin and Mercutio and Sawyer stand there looking at each other. It's Walt's urging, though, that seems to convince Mercutio. "Please, God," he says, taking out the flare gun, and firing it off the side.

The flare goes up, but there's silence as the blip leaves the screen. And then -- it comes back. And there is much celebration and shouting. Jin keeps looking and then shushes everyone so they can listen. There's nothing at first, but then the steady sound of a small craft breaking the waves. Then a huge spotlight suddenly shines on them, and they start shouting and waving excitedly and hugging. That's some happy music that's playing right now.

The boat draws closer, while the raftaways make happy noises and say things like "Are we glad to see you!" "What's going on?" shouts the burly bearded man behind the spotlight. Man, there is something so off about this boat. There are no other lights on it other than the spotlight. There's two other dudes on the deck, just sitting there, and somebody in the engine room. "What are you folks doing this far out here?" And Mercutio babbles out this barely coherent story about the plane crash and the island and all the other people out there, and none of the raftaways seem at all weirded out by the biker gang boat party. Because I guess spotlight guy sounds nice when he says, "It's a good thing we found you!" But everybody watching this scene is holding their breath, waiting for the rug to be pulled out, and if you figured it out during that last scene with Charlie, Sayid, and Rousseau, you had some idea what was coming, too. But I don't think that made it any less chilling when Beardo says, "Only the thing is, we're going to have to take the boy." Mercutio says, "What'd you say?" Genuinely confused, not angered. "The boy. We're going to have to take him," says Beardo, with enough menace that some of my hair turned white, and then my stomach turned to water with the bass-note thwang on the soundtrack. Sawyer glares at the boat, and the two crews are silent for a moment. "Hey, what the hell's going on here? Who are you people?" says Mercutio, and you can hear the fear, and the hoping to God that maybe they just mean they'll take the boy to safety. "Just give us the boy," says Beardo, and the two other guys on the deck stand up. "I'm not giving you anybody!" says Mercutio, a little stronger this time. Sawyer reaches around back for the gun, tucked in his pants. "Well, all right then," says Beardo, and shuts off the spotlight.

Sawyer draws his gun, but one of the Deck Dudes has one already out and shoots him. Sawyer spins around, and falls in the water. Jin dives in after him. Meanwhile, the Millennium Falkon-Tiki is boarded, with someone grabbing Walt while Mercutio gets beat up and thrown in the water. Walt's screaming, and -- my god, I had a hard time watching this scene. I can't even fathom what this would be like for Mercutio. I'd freak out if someone kidnapped my dog this way, so I can only imagine it being a million times worse if it were my son. If I had one. Walt screams for his dad as Mercutio thrashes in the water. The person in the engine room (a woman, as it turns out, but from the brief glance appears to be too old to be Rousseau's lost child) tosses what seems to be a Molotov cocktail onto the deck of the raft, and sure enough, it explodes. A terrified Walt rips my insides out screaming for his dad, and a helpless, anguished Mercutio can't do anything but watch the boat take his son away. Awesome scene. Commercials.

So there's no time for your "secret scene," but there's enough room for a full minute-and-a-half commercial for your bogus Dancing with the Stars show? Because it can't be said enough, fuck you, ABC. No, I still haven't forgiven you for canceling Sports Night. ["I still haven't forgiven them for canceling My So-Called Life. Dance with this, Ted Harbert." -- Sars]

Montage time, complete with what sounds like that same music that they always use for here, and no dialogue! Yay! Claire's alone, at the caves, and Sayid and Charlie stroll in. Claire sees them, and practically knocks them over as she runs over to grab Turniphead. Charlie even gets a kiss out of the deal, so you know he's happy. Shannon strolls over, and is able to break out of her funk to be happy to see Turniphead. Then she starts looking for Sayid, who's over washing himself in the little waterfall, and she goes running to him, and they hug. Guess she was rather worried about him, but I guess there was "no time" to touch on that, hey? Claire examines Charlie's forehead owie, and we see in his backpack a statue of the Virgin Mary, and I can hardly believe that Charlie hasn't actually done all the heroin yet.

We switch to a slow motion scene of the passengers boarding the plane that I quite liked, although, as a portrait of the travelers before circumstances threw them together on the island, I think it'd be more effective after those CIRCUMSTANCES HAVE BEEN EXPLAINED, but it's still pretty good. There's Claire trying to squeeze past a big guy. There's Kate with a jacket over her handcuffed wrists, the marshal behind her. There's Sawyer strolling on, looking surly. There's Locke watching, and Jack in front of him stowing something in an overhead compartment. There's Charlie trying to stuff his damn guitar into a wardrobe of some type, and maybe someone can explain to me how it is that he wasn't made to check that. There's Sayid sitting down, with some guy a few seats over staring at him, I guess because Sayid's Iraqi, judging from the way the guy quickly averts his gaze when Sayid looks over. Sayid reacts like this isn't new to him, which I imagine it isn't.

Jin examines the watch that will cost him his wife if he doesn't deliver it. There's Walt, still playing his damn GameBoy, and Mercutio making sure Walt's seatbelt is fastened. There's the marshal making sure Kate's handcuffs are fastened, while she stares straight ahead. There's Sayid pulling out a picture of Nadia and staring at it. There's Shannon, pawing frantically through her bag, until Boone casually holds up her inhaler, and she smiles at him, the kind of smile that unfortunately gives a woman like Shannon the freedom to be as horrible as she wants for as long as she's able to smile like that. There's a very sweaty Hurley getting on. He passes by Walt, giving him a wink and a thumbs-up, with his tongue sticking out, and Walt smiles, and Mercutio's happy to see that. And Hurley's shirt has magically dried by the time he gets in his seat, and he puts on his headphones and pulls out a comic book, the one with the polar bear. And there's Claire being helped by Arse, who I guess wasn't all bad. There's Jack and Locke, making eye contact and smiling politely.

And back on Craphole Island, the smoke is clearing, and the four demolitioners approach the twisted metal of the hatch. Jack and Locke look at each other, then squat, and lift the hatch off. They peer inside, our POV from below them, and the camera pulls away, and away, and away, down, down, down, super-deep. With a decrepit and in some places completely broken ladder down the side. Well done dramatically, only it reveals absolutely jack-squat, no?

Oh, well. We all know we'll be back. season will feature more myth-making and suspense, and the levels of mystery will deepen and widen, until it's all too unwieldy and ratings start to drop, and an attempt to tie things up will explain some things and contradict others, and we'll start afresh, or at least try to, in a few seasons. If they get down that hatch and there's somebody at the bottom named Rambaldi, I'm done.