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Thank god we open with Sayid, Charlie and Ana-Lucia finding Henry Gale's balloon, since ABC kind of blew that for us in the previews. But, as suspected, things aren't quite what they seem. We'll come back to that.
Henry continues to worm his way into Locke's good books by driving a wedge between him and Jack. And when a mysterious and garbled radio transmission is followed by the sealing up of the hatch (pinning Locke's legs underneath when he foolishly thinks a toolbox can hold up these massive steel doors) Locke needs a little help from the man who calls himself Henry Gale, who makes Locke promise to protect him from the avenging Lostaways, "no matter what." No, that's totally not suspicious or anything. Alarms sound, and the lights go out, and Locke sees a large black-light map of what looks like the island hatches on the steel door pinning him down, but just for a second.
Jack finally realizes that maybe it's not a good idea for the island con artist to hoard all the medical supplies, especially when the going rate for a tube of Neosporin is 10 loads of laundry. Luckily, the Texas Hold 'Em fad has somehow even permeated Craphole Island, and Jack acts like he's a master player, because skill is what gets you pocket kings. And he gets the medical supplies back.
At night, Jack and Kate see a flashing strobe light and find what appears to be a shipment of Dharma supplies (there's mac and cheese, at any rate). Big deal, since they still have lots of food, apparently, even after Hurley's big food orgy.
Back in the hatch, Locke now trusts Henry, except turns out that in the grave that Charlie found? Henry's wife wasn't buried there. A man named Henry Gale was.
The flashbacks? Oh, Locke's dad fakes his death, and he needs Locke's help to get some money he conned from these two thugs (we never get to that particular fireworks factory). Locke does it, for some reason, and Helen leaves him, engagement ring in hand, because he needs his dad's love more than he needs Helen's. It's not like we didn't know this. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Flashback. Locke's digging through his sock drawer. One of his socks looks a little more cubical than usual, and that's because Locke (he has hair!) has hidden a little jeweler's box with a diamond ring inside.
And now he's in the kitchen, packing up one of those fancy picnic baskets that accommodate wine glasses, while Helen putters around the kitchen happily asking what she's done to earn this, and Locke asks if her "fella" can't just take his "girl" out for a picnic, and maybe Locke wants to come back from the 1950s at some point, and he rolls the diamond ring up in a napkin and puts it in the basket. Helen asks if she can do anything to help, but he tells her he's got it under control, and he rather clunkily says, "Just read your obituaries and drink your coffee," and how obvious could it have been what was coming ? I know lots of people who enjoy reading the obits, but this was really awkward, and made worse by Helen going on about how it's the nicest part of the paper because no one says anything bad about people after they die, and I guess this was filmed before Milosevic kicked it. Meanwhile, you're thinking, "JUST TELL US JOHN'S FATHER DIED ALREADY," and Helen's reading and she suddenly looks concerned and asks Locke what his father's name is. He asks why. "Is it Anthony? Anthony Cooper?" Locke says it is. "He's dead," she says, looking stricken. She looks more emotional than Locke does about it; he just looks stunned.
And we cut to present-day Locke, sitting across from Henry, still chowing down on cereal, picking up right where we left off last time. Jack grabs a pen and tells Henry to draw his map again, but Henry says he was joking (about whether he's an Other). Jack and Locke are not laughing. "There's nothing out there besides my balloon. I was just frustrated. It was a stupid thing to say. I'm sorry," says Henry, looking quite contrite. Locke offers up that Ana's already long gone anyway. So yeah, no sense going after them if they're in trouble…? "So what's done is done?" says Jack, somewhat sarcastically. That's right, says Locke. Jack flat-out orders Locke to put Henry back in the armory, and he stomps off. Locke watches him go, and Henry does his little up-to-no-good eyes-widening thing, and says, "Why do you let him talk to you like that?" Locke doesn't answer, but he does seem sufficiently pissed off to grab Henry by his shirt and practically drag him back to the armoury. Hey, shit rolls downhill, Henry! Henry starts apologizing again, not that it does him any good.
Out in the pouring rain, Sayid and Ana-Lucia are arguing about the search for the balloon in question, since they haven't found it. Ana wonders if Henry made a mistake, and suggests searching the other side of the cliff, but Sayid thinks three hours of searching is more than enough, since he doesn't believe the balloon exists, and all Ana's done is given Henry two more days to think of a way to escape. Sayid starts yelling for Charlie, who yells, "Over here! This way!" all excited, like maybe he found some smack.
They run up to see that he's found a grave, complete with a stick cross at the head. Sayid and Ana squat down to have a closer look, and then Ana-Lucia notices that it doesn't seem to be raining where they are. They look up, and suspended in the trees above them is a giant bright orange and yellow balloon. Uh, you searched for three hours and didn't find that? Are you guys sure this is even an island, or could you have missed, like, a highway that'll lead you back to civilization?
Hurley's on the beach hanging up laundry or fiddling with his tent or something when Jack strides up and asks if he's seen Ana-Lucia lately. Hurley says she went into the jungle with Sayid and Charlie yesterday. Jack asks if he has any idea where they were going. "That would, like, assume that anyone actually tells me anything," says Hurley, who is Mr. Open Book. He says he might be more helpful if he were in the loop. "There's no loop," say Jack. Careful, Hurley. It wasn't all that long ago that Arse was complaining (to you, come to think of it) about this very thing. And then he got blown up. I'm just saying.
Fortunately, and I use the term loosely, Claire interrupts this to come running up to say that Aaron's being fussy or whatever, so I hope Sun has the afternoon free to look after him while Claire heads out across the island to cure some new "infection."
Jack checks Aaron out, says the fever's all gone, and Claire asks if Jack's just saying that, because he seems kind of distracted, and Jack chuckles and promises her that Aaron's fine, although is there anyone who wouldn't blame Jack for placating her just so we don't have to put up with sixty minutes of "mah BAY-by!"? He gets up to go, and Libby strolls up to ask if the doctor's still in. Apparently she got a boo-boo when she was reaching for mussels and grabbed a sea urchin instead, so let's all hope that Libby's not in charge of the cooking or anything. Jack says it's not infected, so it should be fine, and some Neosporin wouldn't hurt, like she just has to go down to the island Rite-Aid or something. She points out that the going rate for Neosporin is ten loads of laundry for a tube, and we see Sawyer playing cards with Kate and Hurley in the background. Jack looks like he's just now remembering that Sawyer has all the medicine.
In the armoury, Henry's being a good prisoner, reading quietly in his cell, while Locke works out on the exercise bike, and giving the record player a workout as well. Locke looks lost in thought. His reverie is broken, however, when he hears what sounds like radio static underneath the music. He gets off the bike and checks the record player, and then pulls the needle off. There's still static, with a little bit of feedback. He walks into the computer room, and checks the Appleocalypse II, which looks normal. The timer's at 47 minutes. The static seems to be getting louder, however, and Locke strolls out into the corridor, where he discovers the source of the noise: a loudspeaker mounted up near the ceiling.
He fetches a screwdriver from a drawer, and brings back a chair to stand on so he can fiddle with the loudspeaker. As soon as he starts tightening whatever it was he decided needed tightening, there's a loud feedback whine that startles him. Startles him? He practically fell off the chair. But now we can hear what sounds like a woman's voice, but what she's saying is inaudible.
In the armoury, Henry's heard it too, and yells, "What was that?" He calls John's name, but John's listening too intently to reply.
We flashback to Locke and Helen driving slowly through a cemetery. Know how many people are buried there? All of 'em! Locke stops the car, and they look over a few plots to where a coffin sits, ready for the service. Helen asks if she's sure he wants to do this. Locke thinks about it, and nods. "We could just…go on that picnic, you know." Good GOD, woman. It's his FATHER. I know the guy stole a kidney, and I know Locke had a hard time letting things go, but let the guy go to his father's funeral, if only for some closure. Maybe go on the picnic afterwards, what do you say? "Soon, I promise," says Locke. And then Helen makes some joke about maybe Cooper leaving Locke his kidney, and they have a good laugh. What else are you gonna do?
At the service, the priest is blah-blah-ing about meeting in the air or whatever. Helen and Locke are the only two people there, so I guess it's a good thing they showed up. Would they have gone through the whole rigmarole if there was no one there? Who made the arrangements? Who put the obituary in the paper? Aren't these questions Locke should be asking? The priest is rambling, and Locke happens to glance to his right (and I stand corrected, there's someone else there -- some white-haired dude, I have no idea who) and sees a couple of ne'er-do-wells over at another gravesite. It's the classic thug combo of a short skinny dude and a tall stocky dude, and they're looking over Locke's way. They see him looking and go back to pretending they're visiting another person's grave. Locke frowns. He looks over to his left, and there's a white sedan on the cemetery road. Dark windows, we can't see who (if anyone) is inside.
The priest asks if Locke wants to say anything, so Locke stands up. "I forgive you," is all he says. Off to the side, the car starts its engine and drives off.
Down in Swan station, Locke's still listening intently to the garbled audio. In the armoury, Henry's still calling out, wondering what's going on. Locke asks him to be quiet, and Henry keeps asking what's happening, so Locke yells at him to shut up, which I can't believe more characters on this show don't say to each other all the time. Henry suggests that Locke should get Jack, which isn't going to win him any points with Locke. Sure enough, Locke goes running at the armoury like he's going to break down the door, but he just yells again for Henry to shut up. As he does so, an alarm starts going off, and steel doors -- presumably the blast doors first noticed by Michael (who? Yeah, no kidding) -- start descending from the ceiling. Thinking quickly (but not quickly enough, as I'll elaborate on in a moment), Locke grabs the handy-dandy crowbar from the handy-dandy toolbox, and demonstrates perfect base-stealing form as he slides head-first across the floor, and manages to get the crowbar between the floor and one of the doors. And Henry still won't shut up in there.
So now we're going to enjoy all the fun of watching poker, except without Shannon Elizabeth pretending she's still got a career. Hurley's demonstrating his complete ineptitude at the game, since he doesn't know when he's supposed to bet or call or raise. He looks beseechingly at Kate, who is unsurprisingly no help, and Jack strolls up and does the Matt-Damon-in-Rounders routine where he knows exactly what everybody has, telling Hurley that Sawyer has him beat. "You got a baby straight; he's got the flush." Hurley's silence indicates that Jack's right, so Kate asks him to do her, by which I mean tell her what she's holding. Jack says it's hard to say, but she's just in it for the fun anyway, and she says Jack should try having fun sometime, or something annoying like that, like how many times do we have to see the "why the hell is Jack so serious all the time" routine anyway? Jack starts to walk away, but Sawyer calls him "Amarillo Slim" and sarcastically asks if just because Jack watches poker on television, he thinks he can "tussle with the big boys," like a table with Kate and Hurley is a real high-rollers game. "How about you put your mangos where your mouth is?" says Sawyer, like Lost's actual writers are now writing slash themselves. Thanks for that. Jack pretends he needs to be convinced to play a hand or two.
Meanwhile, down the hatch, Locke's examining the blast doors. The lighting starts to flicker, which makes Henry start to freak out worse than anything has so far. Locke squats down and tries to use the crowbar as a lever to open the door. No dice. Henry's still yelling, wanting to know what the noises were and what's wrong. Locke yells that nothing's wrong.
We flash back to Locke, who's traded in his blue ShopMart vest for the grey coveralls of a home inspector's job with Welcome Home. He's just wrapping up inspecting the house of some woman, who turns out to be Nadia. Sayid, wherever he is at this point, would be pleased I'm sure to know that Nadia's house's seismic bolting is first-rate and that there's no visible mould or dry rot. Locke says he thinks she and her husband have a pretty nice house there, which is awfully presumptuous, since it turns out that Nadia has no husband (something I'm sure Sayid would have also been pleased, at the time, to know). Judging from the sign on the lawn, she's selling the house. At least, I hope she is, as having a home inspection after you buy the house would be rather foolish.
Locke strolls back to his brown company truck, and he notices that the same car from the cemetery is parked across the street. He walks over to the driver's side door, which rolls down, revealing his father. Not much of a surprise there, I have to say. For anyone but Locke, I guess. "Hello, son," says Cooper.
Cooper and Locke have retired to a tavern. The bartender serves their drinks, and Locke asks what Cooper wants. He waited all the way until they got to the bar? Cooper starts in by acknowledging that what he did to Locke was wrong. "You stole my kidney!" says Locke for some reason, then adds, with some anguish, that Cooper could have just asked him. Wasn't it not so much the kidney as Cooper severing ties with Locke afterwards? Never mind; Cooper says he "killed" himself because there were two guys who were looking to take care of the job after Cooper took them for $700,000. "Retirement con," he says, and Cooper's con-artist business is doing an awful lot to convince an awful lot of people that Cooper is the dude who caused a bright-eyed James Ford to turn to a life of crime. Me, I'd like to know if these coincidences are ever going to turn into anything or just exist as a means to keep people inside with flow charts and notebooks filled with analysis. Cooper says the money's in a safe deposit box, but since the two goons are probably sitting on the bank, he needs Locke to pick the money up for him. So…these guys know Cooper's not actually dead? So he faked his death…why? Locke laughs, says Cooper must think he's stupid. Well, we'll see, won't we? Cooper says Locke can have $200,000 of the money, which won't make up for what he did, but it's the best he can do. Sounds to me like he could do at least a half million better than that. Cooper says he'll be at the Flight Line Motel out near the airport until the afternoon, and then he's gone, money or no money. Huh? "And John? If I don't see you again, I'll understand." John stares at the key on the bar.
Back in the bunker, Locke's looking around for a way out, before yelling to Henry that they're locked in. You'll pardon Henry if he's not too concerned about being locked in even more. Henry asks if Locke tried prying the doors open, which he did, and then Henry quickly asks if Locke wants help. Locke strolls over to the armoury door and, after thinking it over, says yes. "And if I do help you get these doors up, then you're just going to lock me back in here, aren't you?" says Henry. The lights flicker some more, and Locke, figuring honesty is probably the best policy, says, "That's right." So Henry asks for Locke's word that he won't let his "people" do anything to him. Locke says that if Henry's who he says he is, then he's got nothing to worry about, so Henry starts in again with how the Lostaways are just looking for someone to blame. "So I'm gonna need your word, that you'll protect me. No matter what." As though that "no matter what" isn't the most suspicious thing over, Locke starts opening the combination lock, and then swings open the door. He looks at Henry. "Who are you?" he asks. "My name is Henry Gale. I'm from Minnesota. And I crashed on this island, just like you." Locke considers this, then says, "All right. You have my word." He turns away, and Henry looks kind of surprised, like he can't be-leeeeve that worked!
Oh, yay. More poker! It's totally not tedious! Hurley and Kate fold, because of course the hand has to come down to Jack and Sawyer, who apparently has only three papayas left, and he slyly asks if Jack thinks he's in his head. And he calls him "Cool Hand." And of course the hand is one of those on television or in the movies where the first guy to flip over (Sawyer, with his "pocket queens") assumes he's won, only to have the other guy beat him (Jack's got "kings wired"). Sawyer gets all angry, while Jack thinks the game is over because he's got all the fruit: "It wouldn't be fair to make you go out and pick some more mangos." Sawyer snaps that he's got a lot more mangos, like maybe the scriptwriter wanted to see how many times he could use the word mangos in this episode, and Sawyer suggests raising the stakes. "It's a pile of fruit," says Jack, laughing, and Sawyer says he wants it back. Kate asks if she should just go get a ruler. Is she chastising them? Or does she just need some help making up her mind? And now Sawyer's booting Hurley and Kate off the table, even though Hurley for some god-only-knows reason wants to watch the deathly dull hand about to take place. "One more hand, Doc. What's it gonna take?" asks Sawyer. And Jack totally blows his poker face by saying he wants to play for the medicine Sawyer stole, all of it, which should have been Sawyer's first clue that Jack didn't just happen to stroll by the poker game. Sawyer just looks at him.
Down the hatch, Locke takes the weights off a barbell. He and Henry strain on the crowbar to lift the blast door up slightly, so Locke can slide the longer barbell underneath. And the extra leverage and the arm strength of a wee, beaten, and tortured prisoner is just what Locke needs to pry the door up from the floor about a foot, foot and a bit, to which I call bullshit anyway. Nice crappy blast doors, Dharma. Using the barbell, Locke holds the door up while he orders Henry to slide the large metal toolbox under it. He does so, and the door crunches down slightly down on the toolbox but goes no further. John sees the space under the door is high enough for a man to slide through, and gets an incredibly stupid idea. He gets down on the floor and starts to slide under, feet first, despite Henry's warnings. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the toolbox isn't enough to hold the door, which edges down enough to pin Locke at his thighs. Locke screams in pain. He yells for Henry to stack some of the barbell's weights underneath the door, which in retrospect was a much better idea than the toolbox anyway, to "stop the pressure." Amazingly, Henry's barbell stacking must have lifted the door slightly, because otherwise how could the pressure already bearing down on Locke's leg be relieved? Nevertheless, that's what happens. Henry starts to pull Locke out from under the door, but that ain't gonna work, because one of the pegs on the underside of the door is digging into Locke's leg. So Henry lays Locke down on his back instead, and says they'll wait for someone to come down, which is just a matter of time, which Locke says they don't have. Maybe if people other than just the inner circle were allowed in the hatch, they wouldn't have to wait as long?
Flashback to Locke opening up Cooper's safe-deposit box, which, naturally, is number 1516. The helpful bank lady puts it on a table for him, and then leaves Locke, so he can open it up, see the bundles of money inside, and perhaps ponder how his kidney-stealing dad is screwing him this time. At least he has the good sense to riffle through one of the stacks to make sure it's all money. He's brought a small bag with him to put it in. Fortunately, it looks like he had a good idea just how much space $700,000 in cash would take up.
Back at Casa de Locke y Helen, an elated John strolls in and bellows for Helen to put on her Sunday best, because he is taking her out. He's in the midst of bending down to kiss her, when a clearly distraught Helen points out that somehow Locke has managed not to notice the two dudes in the kitchen with her. They are, naturally, the thugs from the cemetery. "These men say they knew your father," she says. The smaller one, black hair with goatee and ponytail, steps forward and amiably introduces himself as Jimmy Payne. "Pain," get it? More subtle character-naming from a television show that introduced us to a leader named Shephard. Jimmy Pain for some reason does not introduce his associate, Tommy Brokenbones. Locke looks surprised for a moment, before composing himself and saying Helen must have told them that he didn't know his father that well. Pain knows this, but still wanted to ask him: "You seen your father since he died, Mr. Locke?" Locke turns up the surprise factor in his face and sputters a little bit. Pain figures that maybe, possibly, Cooper ain't dead, and maybe, possibly, Locke knows this. He says, "For his son, you didn't look too shook up at his funeral." At least Locke has a perfectly good reason for this -- ungrateful kidney recipients are probably easy to sever familial ties with -- but Helen answers for him, with a little more outrage than Locke might have, referring to Cooper as a son of a bitch. "We were there to get past him. To get on with our lives. To let him go," she snaps, and then tells Pain and Brokenbones to get out. Pain says okay, but then all Columbo says there's just one more thing, and asks Locke what's in the bag. Locke pauses a moment before saying it's papers and stuff for his home-inspecting job. Pain clearly doesn't believe him. "Mind if I take a look?" he says. John waits a moment before unshouldering the bag and giving it to Pain, who hands it off to Brokenbones, who opens it, and instead of looking in it, shakes it out onto the kitchen table. Sure enough, it's just work-related stuff. Pain has a look on his face like, "All right, Locke. You've won this round," but he just thanks Helen for the coffee, and he and Brokenbones show themselves out.
John asks Helen if she's okay. She is, but she pensively asks him if he was lying to Pain and Brokenbones. Locke says he was just scared, that's all. Helen looks like she's not sure she entirely believes him, but she hugs him.
And, upon checking IMDb, turns out Pain's name is actually Bane. Same difference. Besides, we're not going to see him again, at least not in this episode.
Sawyer's shuffling, so we'll be in for some thrilling card-playing action in a moment. He asks Jack where he learned to play cards. "Phuket," says Jack, after thinking a moment, like either he's lying or he considered lying. "What the hell were you doing in Thailand?" says Sawyer, and Jack's all surprised that Sawyer knows where Phuket is, I guess, because he doesn't respond right away. "Just because I dropped out in ninth grade don't make me an idiot," says Sawyer. Although it gave you a bit of a chip on your shoulder, apparently. As he deals out the cards, Sawyer chats up Jack about being a world traveler and asks if that's where he got his tattoo. Jack ignores this to ask Sawyer to deal again. "This time from the top of the deck," says Jack. Sawyer's momentarily surprised to have been caught, despite his chatty misdirection, and then just says he had to try.
Down in the hatch, Locke's explaining to Henry about the alarm that goes off every 108 minutes. Because despite having been down there a few days now, HENRY HAS APPARENTLY NOT HEARD THE ALARM. Locke's saying that it's going to go off soon, so Henry has to go up through the grate and into the vents. Henry says, "Grate's bolted shut. I tried it." What Henry does not say is, "So you know of another way out of this room, and yet you tried to slide underneath a heavy blast door being propped open by a flimsy toolbox?" So anyway, Locke gives him the numbers, and Henry's able to rattle 'em off after only hearing them once. So either he's good with numbers, or he already knows these numbers. And if he already knows these numbers, he's kind of stupid for appearing to get them down suspiciously easily.
So in the pantry, Henry climbs up on one of the shelves and has to reach to push at the grate. Locke needlessly tells him to be careful, which is the cue for the shelf Henry's stepping on to collapse, pitching him to the floor, hitting his head on the way down and losing consciousness. Locke yells Henry's name, but he's out. And the timer starts to beep as we go to commercial, so it's almost like watching 24, but without the action.
Is there anything more pointless than watching poker instead of playing it? Have you tried, like I have, to figure out why exactly it's being broadcast on a so-called sports channel? I used to have a theory that if you can smoke while you're doing it, it's not a sport, but -- I mean, let's be honest here: baseball. So I modify that slightly: maybe your ability to light up while doing it doesn't disqualify it, but if smoking doesn't make you worse at it, then it's not a sport.
Oh, here's something more pointless than watching poker: watching, through binoculars, Jack and Sawyer playing poker for mangos, when you can't even see the cards or anything. Thanks for coming out, Hurley. So Jack bets 10 mangos, and Sawyer calls with the aspirin and a bottle of amoxicillin. "Do you even know what amoxicillin is?" says Jack. Look, if it's in an Eminem lyric, you probably don't need a medical degree, Jack. Sawyer says that Jack may have been to Phuket, but he's been to Tallahassee: "Let's just say something was burning and it wasn't from the sunshine." Wow. This show hates Tallahassee, huh? Although I'm going to theorize that this episode's mention is a big ol' middle finger to complaints about the first time Tallahassee was referenced. Not that I wouldn't love to sit around with Sawyer while he's joking about his various drips and discharges or anything. Fun guy. Anyway, Jack seems to consider his play, and then says he's all in. "Well, that's the move of a man who wants me to lay it down," says Sawyer, but Jack says Sawyer's not going to do that. "I'm not, huh? Why's that?" Jack points out the crowd of people who I can't believe, even on Craphole Island, have nothing better to do than long-distance poker-watching, and says, "Because there's a bunch of people watching us right now and you don't want them to see you lose. Again." Sufficiently goaded, Sawyer calls. Jack shows his cards. "Pair a nines? You pushed in with a pair of nines?" he says, indignantly. You'd think that a poker player who knows how to bottom-deal would have encountered some bluffing before now, but there you have it. Smiling, Jack asks to see Sawyer's cards. He's got a pair of fives. That's not Jack's fault, but Sawyer calls him a son of a bitch. Jack gets up to leave, and says he'll be back for the meds later. Sawyer asks him why he didn't play for the guns instead, and Jack, instead of just pointing out that he's a doctor, has to say, "When I need the guns, I'll get the guns."
Back in Swan station, Locke has decided that swearing at Henry will make him wake up. Which it does! Henry comes to, and he's all groggy, but Locke's got no time for him to be dazed and contused, and orders him back up into the vents. He keeps yelling at Henry, who's no longer responding, and the more-urgent one-minute alarm starts sounding.
Locke pulls up at the Flight Line motel and gets out of his company truck. The motel seems to be aptly named, judging by the CGI plane flying directly overhead. And judging by the size of that plane, it's landing in the parking lot. Carrying his little duffel bag, he knocks on one of the doors. No peepholes on the doors, though, because Cooper needs to ask who it is before he opens the door. He smiles when he sees it's Locke.
Locke sets the bag of money down on the coffee table and opens it up, showing him the money. Cooper doesn't even say thanks or anything, just asks if there were any problems as he starts loading the money into his own bag. Then he asks if Locke's "date" at his funeral has a name. "Helen," says Locke. "That's a nice name. Pretty girl, too," says Cooper, like he's all proud of his son scoring a babe. Locke seems to have sufficiently forgiven his dad to say that tonight he's going to ask Helen to marry him. Cooper can barely look up from his bag o' money to say, "Congratulations." And he puts a couple of stacks of money on the table: "Your share. Should buy you a nice honeymoon." Locke says he didn't do this for the money. Cooper can't conceive of any other reason why he'd do it, and Locke just looks at him. And even Cooper is sick of this show's daddy issues, as he just stammers out that he has a cab waiting. Really? You didn't know when or if Locke was showing up, and you have a cab waiting? "If you don't want the cash, the maid's going to get a hell of tip," he says, adding, "Bye, John."
Cooper opens the door, and instead of Pain and Brokenbones standing there, which I was expecting, and, to be honest, kind of hoping for, it's Helen, surprising the hell out of Cooper, especially when she slaps him across the face. "How could you? How could you do this to him? We were moving past this!" She looks at Locke, who sort of starts to gesture towards the money on the table, but isn't able to say anything, and it's not like "I wanted my share of the $700,000 that Dad conned those thugs out of" would at any rate be anything she was interested in hearing. She stomps off, and Cooper looks at Locke all shocked.
He chases her down in the parking lot, claiming he was going to tell her everything. "You looked me right in the eye, and you lied to me. You made your choice, John. You need his love more than mine!" she says. He starts in with the I choo-choo-choose you, and says, "I was going to --" and then halts himself, like he doesn't want to spoil the big proposal moment. She's opening the car door, and he just completely goes for broke: "Please, Helen. I love you and I want to spend my life with you and, and I can't live without you, Helen, so…" He gets down one knee, takes out the ring. "Will you marry me?"
Fighting back tears, all Helen can do is shake her head, climb in her car (and I'm momentarily distracted by her seatbelt, which is one of those ones that automatically slides on the chest strap when you close the door -- I love those!), and drive off.
Across the parking lot, Cooper's watching the whole thing with an expression on his face like, "Damn, dude." Not that he comes over or anything. He just gets in his cab on retainer and drives off. Something tells me that the $200,000 is no longer up in the motel room.
And then another plane lands on Locke's head.
Back in the hatch, the alarm is going nuts. Locke's yelling for Henry, but there's still no answer. Then the alarm stops, and we hear what sounds like the timer numbers resetting. Out of the woods? Nope. The lights go out. "Please say something," says Locke, in the dark. Nothing. And on come black lights -- and right in front of Locke, on the blast door currently pinning him to the floor, is what looks like a hand-drawn map of the island's hatches in glowing ink. All over is squiggly writing and arrows and such. Great. Something else I won't be able to fully appreciate because I won't buy a television that costs more than my first car, and I don't have Adobe Photoshop at home.
The black lights are on for about 30 seconds; then they flicker and go out, and the regular lights come on again. And all the blast doors come up (giving Locke some pain when the bar at the bottom of the door pinning him pulls out of his leg).
Locke yells for Henry, and crawls into the computer room. "Henry? Anybody here?" He sees the timer is at 107 minutes. He calls again for Henry, who strolls up all nonchalantly from behind. "You came back," says Locke. "What, did you think I was going to leave you here?" says Henry. Pretty clearly, yes. Henry asks if Locke can stand, and he hesitates and then says he thinks so. With Henry's help, he gets up and leans against a wall. "Thank you, Henry. Thank you for not leaving me." "You're welcome, John," says Henry. Remember, Locke, you owe him now -- no matter what.
Nighttime. Jack's walking through the jungle. Kate comes racing up after him, since it now appears she's carrying a torch for Jack. Get it? "Carrying"? "Torch"? "Jack"? Oh, forget it. That's gold. She asks if he's heading to the hatch. He says yes, and she asks to tag along. "It's been a while since I had a shower, and I was just hoping that…" but he interrupts her to tell him that the plumbing's busted. He's clearly lying. Although you'd think he'd have a lot of practice making up excuses about why people can't come down to the hatch, since you figure everyone would be asking, what with the bathroom and laundry facilities and all. But we never see anyone other than a chosen few down there, do we? He promises to tell her when things are fixed. They both turn to go their separate ways, but then she turns back to smilingly tell him that she's glad he beat Sawyer. So Veronica's hot for Archie, not Reggie, this week, eh? I guess she was pissed at Sawyer for manipulating her like everybody else. Not that she can be bothered to act mad around Sawyer, though, I guess. She doesn't say why or anything, and Jack doesn't ask. But when Freckles turns on the charm, it's enough for Jack to say, "The hatch can wait," and offer to walk her back to the beach, like I still can't believe anyone's allowed to go anywhere on their own ANYWAY. And I hope Locke's not expecting you to show up to cover the night shift, Jack.
Then they notice a strobe light pulsating in the jungle a little ways away, and they decide to investigate, perhaps in hopes that after such successful ventures as the golf tournament and the feast, Hurley's organized a rave.
Instead, Kate find a parachute attached to a large boxy pile. Jack tells her to wait, but Kate grabs a box from the pile, of "Dharma Initiative Macaroni & Cheese Supper." Now less powdery! Mmmm, tantalizing. Either Hurley's secret stash is bigger than anyone of us has suspected, or someone or something has dropped off some supplies. "It's food," says Kate. Or a reasonable facsimile thereof, anyway.
There's a rustling in the bushes, and they spin around to see Charlie, Sayid, and Ana-Lucia walk up. Charlie says, "What the bloody hell is that?" but Kate and Jack hilariously ignore him, primarily because Jack sees the look on Sayid's face and asks what he found. Sayid makes a face like, "Wait until you get a load of this."
Down the hatch, Gale helps Locke get on the couch and put his feet up on the coffee table, causing him to wince. Then he asks Henry what he did to make the doors go back up. Gale says he didn't do anything other than what Locke told him to do; he punched in the code, and the timer reset. He was climbing back into the vent when the lights went out, and then seconds later the doors went up. He pours a glass of water for Locke, who asks, "You think it was all random?" "Don't look at me; it's your hatch," says Henry, which cracked me up.
Jack bursts in and orders Henry away from Locke. Henry's surprised, but a little more inclined to move when Sayid orders him to, especially as Sayid's pointing a gun at him. And despite Locke's protests that everything's okay, Jack grabs Henry and throws him up against a wall. Locke gives a half-assed explanation about letting him out during the lockdown. Gale looks terrified. "Couldn't you find my balloon?" he asks, looking at Ana, who shuffles her feet somewhat as she says that yes, they did find it.
"We did find your balloon, Henry Gale, exactly how you described it," says Sayid, with that perfect enunciation of his. He lowers the gun and gets right up into Henry's face as he explains that they also found his wife's grave, just as he described. "But still I did not believe it to be true. So I dug up that grave and found that there was not a woman inside. There was a man." Wow, good on ya, Sayid. I find a grave someone's described for me, I'm probably going to take them at their word.
Anyway, Sayid sounds more than a little pleased with himself, and he shows Henry the driver's licence he pulled out of the grave. "A man named Henry Gale," says Sayid. Sure enough, that's what the ID says: Henry Gale of Wayzata, Minnesota (represent!). And it's not like Henry can claim that he lost his ID while digging the grave; unless he's got the same skin-bleaching condition as a certain single-gloved pop star/acquitted child molester, he ain't Henry Gale. Right now it's a lot more likely that Henry's an Other than that he's a brother. Henry's face changes as he breaks Sayid's stare to look at Jack.
So again with the boring episode capped off with a compelling cliffhanger. You know, it's spring, and it's so nice outside and now that we've sprung forward it's light out a lot later; I think week I'll go over to the park and shoot hoops until about five minutes left, come back, and recap that. That cool with everybody?