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Looks like Locke owes Jack a Coke.
Yep, the button is meaningless. Pushing the button does nothing, except that some Hanso douchebags in yet another hatch are going to be observing you. Locke and Eko, who are supposed to be chasing after Henry -- who, according to Michael, shot him and the late Ana-Lucia and the soon-to-be-late Libby and himself -- are instead led through incredibly helpful dream sequences to Pearl Station, which is an abandoned yet almost fully functional observation station. Locke takes it hard that nothing in his "pathetic" life (his word) means anything. But Eko says the proof of the experiment means more than ever. This makes no sense, until you consider Eko's Catholicism, and then you think, "Yeah -- following usually inconvenient and always futile rituals for the sake of simulating some sort of purpose for your existence would be right up Eko's alley."
Except in flashbacks it's confirmed that Eko didn't honour his dead brother by actually becoming a priest. But Eko's faked papers are good enough for the monsignor, who wants him to investigate an alleged miracle (Skeet's not available?). Supposedly some girl died but came back to life the day, a theory rejected by her father, Claire's psychic, who admits to being a fraud who gathers intelligence on people. Eko leaves the hoax alone (professional courtesy from one charlatan to another), but just before he boards Flight 815, the girl tracks him down at the airport to give him some message from his brother, beyond the grave, some nonsense about what a good priest Eko is, even for a phoney. Hey, remember when there was supposed to be all perfectly good explanations for the goings-on on Craphole Island? No supernatural nonsense?
Jack sends Kate with Sawyer to get some heroin to ease Libby's suffering, with the idea being he'll have to reveal where his stash is (since it also holds the guns). Turns out Sawyer's kept the guns with him the whole time, buried on the beach! Is that really all that surprising?
And then Libby dies, Hurley cries and apologizes for his FEMA-level incompetence at picnic planning, and Michael can stop pretending to be concerned about her condition, leaving him more time to hang out in the armoury and look around all evil. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Eko's chopping logs for his planned Our Lady of Perpetual Starvation. Suddenly, he notices Ana-Lucia just standing there. She asks him what he's building. "I'm building a church," he says, and she quizzes him about why, and he says he was told to. "I think it was in a dream," he says. "A dream like this one?" she says. And now there is blood on her chest and trickling out the side of her mouth. "You need to help John," says Ana, with some difficulty. We get a very quick slide show of images accompanied by the sound of an electric card shuffler, or, possibly, the hatch counter flipping around; it's like an Eko greatest-hits collection, with crosses on corpses, planes, soldiers, Charlie, Virgin Mary statues, the bible thumper, Yemi (not necessarily in that order). If the show really wanted you to see it, it would have been slower, and they most likely would have worked a Sprite ad in there somehow. And the This Week in God thingy finally settles on the Dharma Swan station plaque, as Eko cautiously makes his way into the computer room.Yemi's sitting at a computer, so we're still in a dream sequence. He turns toward Eko and stands up, and an overjoyed Eko starts blubbering that Yemi was right (presumably about how posing as a priest in order to smuggle heroin is bad? Well, duh) and he wants his brother's forgiveness, but Yemi interrupts him to say, "The work being done in this place is important, Eko. It is more important than anything. And it is in danger." Like Ana-Lucia, Yemi says Eko must help John: "He has lost his way. You must take him to the question mark."
The bunker beeping starts up again, and Yemi glances at the timer, which consists of five shuffling question marks. He quickly types in the numbers -- except that the keyboard consists of nothing but question marks. Having settled the timer down, he continues instructing Eko: "John will not want to show you. So you must make him." Eko turns to go, but Yemi grips his arm and says there will be many distractions, but Eko must look past them. Meanwhile, the whole bunker is shaking like a Sir Mixx-A-Lot video. "What is done is done," says Yemi, and he asks if Eko says he understands. Eko says he does, and Yemi smiles, but there's one more thing: "Bring the axe."
Eko wakes up, sitting straight up in the middle of the night, breathing heavily. Nearby, Charlie stirs, asks him if he's all right. Eko clutches his cross. Then he grabs his axe, and says, "I need to find John." Anything to say to that, Charlie? You're not concerned by this?
Speaking of John, he's leading Kate, Jack, and Sawyer through the jungle back to the hatch, while Jack reams him out for leaving Ana-Lucia alone with a man who tried to kill her earlier. Kate tells Jack to leave him alone. You know, if they're really that worried about what Ana-Lucia's going to do, can you explain why the non-crutch users aren't running back to the hatch? Why are they letting Locke slow them down? Sawyer's on Jack's side, at least until Jack bitches that it's partly Sawyer's fault for letting Ana get his gun, which gives Sawyer the chance to bust out two nicknames he's undoubtedly been saving up: "Gimpy McCrutch over here covers up that The Artist Formerly Known As Henry tried to strangle your little amiga, and suddenly it's on me when she goes vigilante." I usually have to listen to Sawyer's sentences a couple of times because by the time his new nickname or nicknames have sunk in, he's finished talking. Jack suggests he go back to the beach, and they get up in each other's faces again, because puffing out their chests like this is really going to help matters back at Swan Station, and Kate has to separate them.
Well, at least they were almost there. Michael bursts out of the bunker door, yelling about a guy with a gun shooting people. He's quite convincing, but he's working with a pretty high base level of trust with the Lostaways anyway. Kate, Locke, and Sawyer head into the bunker while Jack tends to Michael. He goes to lift Michael up, and Eko's there, offering to help.
Down the hatch, Sawyer strides into the living area, and stares in shock at Ana slumped over on the couch. Kate goes to her, while Sawyer heads over to Libby, prone on the floor. Locke looks through the open door of the empty armoury, and then spins when Jack and Eko carry Michael in. Jack pauses a moment, surveying the carnage, and leaves Michael, whom Eko helps sit down at the table.
Kate, having checked Ana's pulse, says, "She's dead." Careful, Michael; don't look too interested, there. Maybe go for "horrified" instead of "crafty." Sawyer stares at them a moment, before returning his attention to Libby, who suddenly spits up blood on him and starts sputtering. Sawyer recoils, and Jack's instantly at her side. Oh, there you go, Michael. There's "horrified."
Goodbye, Ana-Lucia. You were outrageous and totally in my face, not unlike Poochie the Rockin' Dog; unfortunately, you were just as beloved. And now your planet needs you.
Eko performs the last rites over Ana's body, laid out in the conveniently empty armoury. Locke watches. Eko looks over at him, and their eyes lock for a moment. Staring contest. Go! Locke totally loses.
Over on the bed, Jack's makeshift operating table, Libby is crying out and gurgling while Jack works on her. Jack doesn't seem to be able to do anything for her, and he tells Kate to keep pressure on the wound. He walks back into the kitchen area, where Michael is still sitting at the table. "How is she? I ask strictly out of concern for her well-being and not my own, of course," says Michael. Jack just says he's doing the best he can. Then he asks Michael how long ago this happened. Maybe twenty minutes, half an hour, says Michael, who appears not to have thought of that detail when he was concocting his story.
But Jack figures they can track him, much to Sawyer's incredulity; he points out that Henry's got a head start and a gun. "He shot three of our people!" yells Jack, adding that one of them's dead, and one of them's…well, he gets cut off here by Sawyer. "Who's going to take care of Libby while you're off playing Daniel Boone?" he says. Not that he's volunteering to go or anything.
Eko steps up and says he'll go after Henry, and points out Locke has tracking skills. So does Kate, and Kate's NOT ON CRUTCHES WITH A MASSIVE LEG WOUND. But since it would make more sense for Eko and Kate to go, Jack agrees to Eko and Locke going, ordering them to come back if they find anything at all, so they can decide together what to do . "Let's go, John," says Eko, and Locke actually smiles, like he's all happy to be going on an outing.
Flashback to Eko sitting in a confessional booth, asking the penitent how long it's been since his last confession. Too many years for him to even remember, is the answer, in a thick Australian accent. He confesses to adultery, and wants to know what Father Eko's definition of "many times" is. Eko wearily tells him that to get God's forgiveness he must be truly penitent for his sins. Oh, in that case, I also forged ID papers for a guy pretending to be a priest! This makes "Father" Eko sit up and take notice.
And he decides to conduct his shady business with the dirtbag thug outside the church, I suppose. The dude hands over an Australian passport in Eko's name, and wryly asks what he did, skim money from the collection plate? Then he says he could get Eko in with some friends of his in Los Angeles. "Doing what?" asks Eko. "You know. Stuff."
Just then, the monsignor strolls up, interrupting Eko's curious way of honouring his dead brother, and says hello to "Father" "Tunde," who introduces the dirtbag as an associate who's helping arrange Father Eko-Tunde's trip to the United States. But the monsignor is all, "See, the thing about this is, there's been this miracle…" which is thank God not a reason that's ever been used to deny me time off. So whatcha got, Monsignor? Mary's face in a burrito? St. John the Baptist under a bridge overpass? The Edmonton Oilers scoring four goals in the third period to eliminate the Detroit Red Wings?
Inside the church, a woman tells Eko that her daughter drowned. He expresses condolences, but she says her daughter came back to life. Eko exchanges a glance with the skeptical monsignor, whose expression reads, "Resurrection? Does she really expect us to believe someone died and came back to life?" The woman says her daughter slipped and fell into the river, and she's not much of a swimmer. The day, she woke up. Isn't there a middle missing from that story? The woman starts going on about how the confirmation of faith needs to be shared with everybody, and Eko interrupts her rapidly loudening speech to ask where her daughter is now. "At home, with my husband," she says. Eko asks what her husband thinks about it. "The world needs to know about this! We need to tell the Vatican!" is her answer, which is quite telling. The monsignor interrupts her to tell her that before anyone can be told, the church needs to conduct its own investigation, and "Father Tunde" will start the process, if she'll allow him. She agrees. But Eko wants to speak to the monsignor privately.
Eko tells him he can't do what the monsignor is asking. "I do not believe what this woman says. Plus, about my trip to L.A.? I got tickets to see the Beastie Boys at the Hollywood Bowl, and I was on the phone for eight hours to get them, so you know?" "Why do you think I chose you?" says the monsignor. About Eko not believing, not about the Beastie Boys thing.
Back on Craphole Island, Eko's leading Locke through the jungle, and Locke stops him, and wants to know if Eko's seeing something that he's not, because he hasn't seen any kind of sign since they left the hatch. "Where is the question mark?" asks Eko. Locke says, "What?" Eko repeats his question. "You know what? You keep chasing after your own shadow. I'm going back," says Locke, who turns to do just that, but Eko stops him. "I know you do not want to show me. But you must," he says. Locke says he doesn't have to show Eko anything. "Then I'm sorry," says Eko, who screws up his face and then awesomely head-butts Locke, who topples like a beavered tree.
Eko's built a fire, beside which lies John, who slowly comes to. He asks why Eko hit him. "Because you were being difficult," says Eko, matter-of-factly. Hee. Locke asks him if he's insane (Eko says no), because his friend Ana-Lucia was just murdered, and -- Eko interrupts him: "Ana-Lucia wants me to help you, John," he says. So would you like to reconsider your answer to John's questioning your sanity? Eko says he's supposed to help John find the question mark, which isn't exactly right, but never mind. Locke rubs his face. "You don't even know what you're talking about, do you?" he says. Eko admits that he doesn't, but Locke did, and that's all that matters. So Locke gives up and hands over his scribbled memory map of the black-light diagram, which he calls "ten seconds of nothing." Coincidentally, that was a pet name an old girlfriend gave me, not long before she dumped me. Eko gets quite excited, and locates Swan station on it, and figures out they need to go "that way," pointing into the jungle. Locke gripes that they wouldn't even be out there if he'd told Jack that Henry attacked Ana-Lucia. But hey, what's done is done, right? And now, according to Eko, Ana-Lucia wants them to find the question mark, together. "She said this in my dream," says Eko, which isn't quite as convincing to Locke as maybe Eko hoped. "Tell me, John. Haven't you ever followed a dream?" "No, but one summer I followed Phish," says John, which technically isn't what he said.
In a flashback, Eko's meeting with the coroner, who nervously asks if the Vatican's really interested in this story. Eko says it depends on what he puts in his report. The coroner says he got a call around 1 AM about a dead woman who'd been in the woods for a couple of hours. Eko asks if he has much experience with this type of death, and he says, "Of course, I am an undertaker." Eko gives him a look, so the dude defensively says that the undertaking is his day job, but he's fully qualified to be a coroner, having gone to medical school and everything. Eko asks when he discovered the girl wasn't dead. "During the autopsy," is the answer. "During the autopsy?" asks Eko. The coroner says he didn't expect to be believed, so he's got the audiotape from the autopsy. He pushes play on the tape recorder, and gets up from his desk to pace.
On the tape, we hear the coroner recounting the date and the time, that sort of thing, and also flirting with the assistant. Nice. Eko looks slightly amused at that, but the coroner's not smiling. On the tape, we hear him call it a clear case of drowning, and he announces he's going to start with the thoracic incision, but then there's shrill screaming, and yelling, and clattering, at least for a few seconds, before the coroner ejects the tape and hands it to Eko, telling him to take it, as he's never going to listen to that tape again.
Back in the jungle, Locke's sort of busting on Eko for getting lost already, but Eko points out that the map is "inexact." Well, it's a drawn-from-memory doodle of a diagram Locke saw for about ten seconds. You ain't gonna find Chester Copperpot's gold with it. "I didn't draw it, I just transcribed it. I don't even know if it is a map," says Locke in his own defence. "Let's assume it is," says Eko, which is kind what they've been doing for the last few hours wandering around the jungle, isn't it? Locke asks Eko what the axe is for. "I don't know yet," is his answer, which is not that reassuring coming from an impulse head-butter.
They come out into the clearing where the Boone-killing, dead-brother-transporting, burned-out plane is lying belly-up on the ground. Good thing they needed a map to get to a place where many people have already been. Eko asks if Locke wasn't the person who found the plane. Locke says he was, only it was up on the cliff. Eko shines his flashlight up the vines and roots or whatever hanging down the face. "And what made it fall?" he asks. "Boone. Boone made it fall. And he died. The sacrifice that the island demanded," says Locke (which kind of glosses over his own involvement), the last bit almost to himself, but Eko hears him, so Locke is all, "Never mind." He ask Eko what they're going to do now. Eko says they're going to make camp, get some sleep, "and wait for further instructions."
Back at Swan Station, Jack's anxiously wondering where Eko and Locke are. Kate tells him that it'll be tough finding Henry's trail in the dark, but they'll be back. Michael asks if Libby's said anything. You know, just anything, not something crazy like that he's the one who shot her or anything. Jack says she's still unconscious. And the bleeding's stopped. "That's good, right?" says Kate. "No. That's not good," says Jack, without bothering to explain about low blood pressure. "So there's nothing you can…" begins Michael, who is just asking to be found out, but I'm willing to buy that his friendship with the Lostaways plus his own gunshot wound would mean none of them would even wonder about the questions. Jack says he can make her comfortable, but doesn't have what he needs, and he looks over at Sawyer. "I gave you all the damn meds two days ago," he growls. "The heroin, Sawyer," says Jack. Sawyer shakes his head, eyes closed -- not, I don't think, at the request for the heroin, but with the realization that Libby's gonna die. He gets up, saying, "Give me twenty minutes." Only Jack has another idea: Kate will go with him. Sawyer protests that it doesn't take two people to carry the heroin, but Jack sharply says, again, "Kate is going with you." Sawyer sighs, figuring it out, but Kate needs a little more help, so Sawyer spells it out: "Jack over here knows his heroin's in my stash with the guns. So I can either show you where it's at, or let poor Libby suffer. That pretty much it, Jack?" Jack's all, yep! "Let's go, Freckles," says Sawyer, and stomps off. Michael sneaks a quick glance at the unconscious Libby, hoping she kicks it before she says anything.
Kate and Sawyer stroll along the beach. Didn't Sawyer ask for twenty minutes to get the heroin? The beach is more than ten minutes away from the hatch, no? Sure -- after all, it was light out on the beach when Locke told the gang about Ana-Lucia having a gun, and pitch-black when they finally made it to the bunker, albeit they were slowed by Locke on crutches. And now it's morning, so I guess Jack was taking care of Libby for a while. But still, why would Sawyer say twenty minutes if he knew a mission of mercy would take a lot more than that? But that's not what concerns Kate; she wants to know how Ana-Lucia got his gun in the first place. Is this the first time he's been asked that? He growls that she must have lifted it off him, which is not an answer that satisfies Kate, who asks how she could have done that. "Well, if I knew how she did it, she wouldn't be able to do it, now would she?" he snaps.
They arrive at Sawyer's tent, and he says, "After you." "I thought you were taking me to your stash," she says. Not too quick on the uptake this episode, is she? Sawyer sighs and asks if she has to make everything so difficult. He tells her just to go inside, which she does, puzzled. Inside, under tarp and sand and what looks like a piece of Oceanic Flight 815 wreckage, is a stash of guns, ammo and Virgin Mary statues. Kate's shocked: "You kept the guns here. All this time, right under you," she says. Sawyer smirks. "Fooled you, didn't I?" In hindsight, it's really kind of an Occam's Razor thing, isn't it? I mean, how would one guy keep tabs on the guns? He'd have to sleep sometime, right? Anyway, they exit the tent, and Hurley approaches them. Oh, shit, right. Hurley. He asks if they've seen Libby around. Sawyer lowers his head, and even Kate's at a loss for words. But, for real: how long did Libby have to vanish for, on an island with polar bears, monsters, wild boars, and Others, before Hurley decided to ask all hangdog if anyone's seen her?
Then we cut to a bullshit dialogue-free long shot, where Kate puts her arm on Hurley's shoulder, and it looks like he's reacting slightly to the news. Kind of like what they did when Shannon was told about Boone's death. It's not as bad as a 7th Heaven's skipping-the-actual-wedding thing, but the more they do it, the bigger a cop-out it is. ["I was fine with it, given that I found the profoundly sad reactions to Libby's death somewhat out of line with how long they'd known her, namely about ten minutes. Earn it, show." -- Sars]
Eko and Locke are in the jungle, with Eko poking at the coals of the fire while Locke is asleep, like no wonder they can't find this damn thing, with Locke sleeping all the time. Anyway, Yemi's in the bushes, so we know this is another dream sequence. Eko's thrilled to see him, but Yemi shushes him, telling him he'll wake John. Fat chance of that. Yemi tells Eko to follow him, which he does. Interestingly, Eko is limping, clearly favouring one leg over another, for reasons that will become clear in a moment.
Yemi starts climbing up the cliff, using the roots. After a moment's hesitation, Eko follows, using the axe to help pull himself up. He reaches the top, where he sees Yemi smiling, sitting in a wheelchair. "Wake up, John," says Yemi. Yes, "John." Eko yells, and then falls backwards down the cliff. You know, there really ought to be a law against using dream sequences in the previews the week before an episode airs.
So anyway, it was Locke's dream, and he's fantasizing about being Eko, hey? He wakes up suddenly, with Eko asking him if he's okay. Eko's guessed by Locke's discombobulation that Locke had a dream, and asks if there was a priest in it. Locke nods. "The man that you saw was my brother," says Eko, pleased, but Locke is naturally even more puzzled, so Eko says, "This is why we needed to come together. This is how we are going to be led, and how we will know where to go ." You know, if I were Yemi, I'd be leading the man responsible for my death directly to his doom, but whatever, Eko. Eko presses Locke for information on what Yemi was saying. Locke says he didn't really say anything, and it wasn't even Locke in the dream; it was Eko, and Yemi wanted Eko to follow him. "Follow him where?" asks Eko. Locke thinks for a moment, then looks up the cliff. Eko tells him to wait there, and purposefully heads for the cliff face, with Locke weakly protesting that it was just a dream, and that it's not safe. Locke, say it after me: "Eko, in the dream, you fell off the cliff and probably died. So hang on a second." Is that really that hard to say? You trying to pull another Boone? You're not going to be able to carry Eko back to the camp, you know.
We flashback to "Father Tunde" getting out of a car at a house with a young woman sitting on a porch, staring into the middle distance. Eko approaches, and Mrs. Malkin comes running out of the house, anxiously telling Eko that it's not a very good time, and he'll have to come back later. Eko says he needs to speak to her daughter, and Mrs. Malkin urgently tells him again that "right this minute is not a very good time."
And here's why: the presumed husband comes stomping out onto the porch, telling his wife (Joyce) to take their daughter back in the house. She pleads with him, briefly, but he orders her inside, and she goes, dragging her spaced-out daughter with her. And what you need to know right now is that this is the psychic Claire saw, the one who filled her head with all the stuff about how she has to raise the baby, and then reversed that and told her there was a couple in L.A. who wanted to adopt, and put her on the doomed Flight 815.
"I know why you're here, friend," says Malkin. His psychic powers are amazing! But he wants to save Eko the trouble, and says what happened wasn't a miracle. "The doctor that treated your daughter seems to feel differently," says Eko. Malkin angrily says the doctor tried to cut her open, and is trying to "cover up his own negligence." Malkin says when his daughter fell into the mountain river, she went into hypothermia and just seemed dead. "And why is your wife so convinced otherwise?" asks Eko. "Because she's a zealot. All of this -- everything she's doing -- is to spite me," says Malkin. Eko, quite reasonably, wants to know why she'd do that. "Because she knows I'm a fraud. Because I make my living as a psychic," he says, explaining that he gathers intelligence on people and then exploits it. "Every day I meet people looking for a miracle, desperate to find one. But there are none to be had. Not in this world, anyway."
Eko says he'll tell the monsignor that there is no miracle. "Your daughter is alive. This is all that matters," he says. He turns and goes to get back in his car, but looks back and sees Charlotte staring at him through a window. "Hmm," he thinks. "I've confirmed that this isn't a miracle, but that was before she creepily stared at me. There must be more to this story."
Eko's climbing up the cliff, with Locke helpfully yelling "be careful!" like maybe this is what could be put on the tombstones of everyone Locke gets killed: "I told him to be careful." To make the climb more dramatic, Eko does the requisite loses-his-grip-and-almost-falls bit, and then keeps going. Locke keeps yelling "Eko!" at him, like shut up and let him climb, Locke.
Eko gets to the top, stands up and looks around, and manages not to fulfill Locke's dream, at least not yet. The camera circles around the landscape. Eko's climb has been brought to you by Tourism Hawaii. Locke yells up, asking him if he sees anything. "I don't see nothing," says Eko, a double negative that turns out to be accurate when he looks at the field in front of the cliff, and indeed does see something: a brown semi-circle of dirt where nothing seems to be growing. On first viewing, it looked to me like the top half of a question mark, because on my television (one of the old non-definition models) it looks like the circle doesn't complete itself, and indeed on the right-hand side it looks like the circle breaks downward, putting the crashed plane over where the dot would be. Others are arguing that it's a circle, based on the logo of the hatch we're going to find. Reasons to consider this hypothesis: Locke's crappy map, which could mean that they went off course and haven't found the question mark at all, just another station in the octagon. But if the ground has been salted, as we'll find out it has been, to mark this hatch, why doesn't it actually, you know, mark the hatch? Why mark a hatch with a big circle, if the entrance is actually outside the circle? Wouldn't the middle of the circle be the location you're trying to point out? Then again, why mark something with a big question mark if you know what it is? An exclamation mark would work just as well, and be easier, not to mention easier on the salt supply. I guess it doesn't matter, but the fact I'm wondering about this so much must mean I'm enjoying this episode more than most lately. So, in the end, weighing everything I've looked at, and considering the fact that it doesn't actually matter, I'm deciding it's a question mark. It's the name of the episode, after all.
Eko's checking out the salted earth in the ring of the question mark, and says it's been salted so nothing can grow. Locke asks why anyone would want to do that, since there's nothing there. Well, they're not going to settle by salted earth! "I believe they made a circle," says Eko (screw you, Eko; get your own recap. It's a question mark!), "a target, so that this place can be seen from up above." Locke wants to know which "they" and "what place" that would be. "The place that this plane fell upon, John!" says Eko, and starts looking underneath the plane. Which, I mean, this is my point. If it's a circle, then isn't the thinking process, "We want to mark the location of this hatch, so we'll salt the earth to make a big circle off to the side, and eventually a plane will probably crash, come to rest on a cliff, and then when the lead singer of the Verve climbs up and into it, it'll fall off onto the spot we want someone else to find"? Writing Lost must pay well enough to keep you in a lot of drugs, I have to say.
Eko taps around with his axe, while Locke shuffles the dirt around with his feet, and Eko finds something clunking in the dirt under the plane's fuselage, so he gets Locke to help him swing the plane's tail away. They brush away the dirt, and find a large set of double doors. Locke tries to open them, but can't. Eko thinks of another use for his axe, this Swiss army axe of his, and uses it to bash at the latches to loosen them. Then he starts to open the door, so Locke excitedly asks if he may have the honours. "Please, be my guest," says Eko, Locke's thrilled like a little kid who wants to push the elevator button, and he and Eko lift the doors up together, opening up an eight-sided hole in the earth, stretching down into blackness, much like the first time the Lostaways opened a hatch. Fortunately, we're poised to learn a little more a lot sooner than we did that time.
In Swan Station, Jack smashes a Virgin Mary statue, while a stricken Sawyer and Kate look on, Kate stealing a glance over at a silent Libby. From behind them, Michael takes everything in, an absolutely unreadable expression on his face. And from behind him, we hear Hurley say, "We were going to have our first date."
Michael turns to look at him. "Date?" he says. "Yeah, a picnic on the beach," says Hurley. Michael says nothing, but it looks like this news certainly isn't making him feel any better about what he's done. And Hurley has to drop a little salt in the wound and say, "I'm glad you're okay, man."
Fortunately, the ladder in this new hatch isn't completely useless, and Eko and Locke carefully make their way down to the floor. Eko shines his flashlight around, finding the now-familiar Dharma logo, but instead of a swan, or an arrow, there's simply a blank circle. They found the island White Spot! Locke finds a light switch and flicks it on, but it's still not very bright in there. They keep going down the corridor and enter a room that's got a wall of nine television screens, one of which is on, displaying only static, with chairs in front. Locke hobbles over, past a table covered with cigarette butts and…rocks?…and tries turning on the other television screens. One does come on, displaying static as well, and then one more comes on, displaying a kitchen, dining area that looks a lot like Swan Station. Sure enough, Jack goes strolling by. So even on the island itself, Jack hogs all the screen time. Locke and Eko look at each other, stunned. A quick sweep with the flashlight reveals a camera, presumably closed-circuit, up in a corner.
Locke finds a dial that turns on more overhead lights within the room itself, and he and Eko continue looking around. Locke spies a computer, just like the one back at Swan station, only this one's screen reads, "Print Log? Y/N" Locke presses Y, and then hits the good ol' Execute button. The old-school printer nearby starts up with the skrit skrit skrit noise those printers made, running off pages filled with lines of numbers -- not the numbers, more like a counter, as it looks like the number goes up by one each time -- followed by the word "accepted."
Meanwhile, Eko's opened a cabinet, filled with old, dusty notebooks. He flips through the pages, which are empty. Locke's found a pneumatic tube by the wall; he slides it open and puts the piece of paper with the scribbled map inside it. The map is whisked upwards, through the ceiling. Locke looks moderately surprised, as if he didn't expect it to work.
And Eko's found a three-quarter videocassette. "John," he says, softly, and shows him the case, which is labeled with the Dharma White Spot logo, with "Orientation" printed underneath.
Naturally, the old tape player works perfectly. We get a couple of title screens, identifying this as The Dharma Initiative/5 of 6/Orientation, and then we learn that this is Pearl Station. And here's Dr. Marvin Candle again, only he's wearing a turtleneck and sport jacket instead of his scientitian's jacket. And he's calling himself "Dr. Mark Wickman" this time. Wax off. "Station Five, or the Pearl, is a monitoring station where the activities of participants in Dharma Initiative projects can be observed and recorded, not only for posterity, but for the ongoing refinement of the initiative as a whole." We see a shot of people doing calisthenics while the DeGroots watch and take notes, with "Wickman" babbling about "careful observation" and "complete awareness." He tells Locke and Eko that their tour of duty will last three weeks, and they ("you and your partner") will observe a psychological experiment in progress. "Your duty is to observe team members at another station on the island," continues Wickman/Candle. "These team members are not aware that they are under surveillance, or that they are the subjects of an experiment." Locke glances over at the screen showing the goings-on at Swan Station. He looks less than impressed. Wickman says they'll record everything in the provided notebooks. Oh, and what's the nature of the experiment? We don't need to know. What do the subjects think they're accomplishing? Don't need to know. "All you need to know is the subjects believe their job is of the utmost importance," says Wickman, adding that everything that happens, however seemingly trivial, must be recorded, and when a notebook is filled, it gets rolled up, stuffed into a container, and loaded up in the pneumatic tube. "And presto, it will be transported directly to us." "Presto"? Like it's magic? Wickman says at the end of their eight-hour shift, they're to head to the Pala (?) ferry, which will take them back to the barracks, and then something about preparing for their shift. There's been a few staticky spots, so maybe there's an upcoming episode where they find a head cleaner in yet another bunker, and we'll be able to see the whole Pearl orientation video. Blah blah blah, behalf of the DeGroots, Hanso, blah blah blah, thank you, namasté, good luck. The end screen says the movie is copyright 1980, the Hanso Foundation.
"Would you like to watch that again?" asks Eko. Heh. Locke, looking thoughtful, says he's seen enough.
After coming back from commercial, Eko's gathering stuff up, to Locke's befuddlement, because he's taking it back in case it's important. "'Important'? I'm sorry, weren't you just watching the same thing I was?" says Locke, who's all crabby now and rubbing his bald head for extra irritation signification. Eko says he thinks the work John has been doing -- you know, pushing a button -- is more important now than ever. "That's not work. That's a joke. Rats in a maze with no cheese," Locke grouches. No kidding. Well, at least I get paid to recap it. Eko says they are being tested. "The reason to do it, push the button, is not because we are told to do so in a film." No, it was because you were told to do it by a crazy Scotsman. Same difference. Eko says they do it because they believe they are meant to, and isn't that the reason Locke pushed it? "I was never meant to do anything!" yells Locke. "Every single second of my pathetic little life is as useless as that button! You think it's necessary? It's nothing. It's nothing. It's meaningless. And who are you to tell me that it's not?" Eko doesn't answer, like most priests can't when the stock "we're being tested" response fails to satisfy someone asking why bad things happen to good people. At least priests get to hold out the hope of heaven. What's the big reward here? More Dharma goldfish crackers?
Flashback to Eko at the airport, getting his boarding pass for Flight 815. He thanks the woman at the counter, and turns to go, and then sees the non-drowned Charlotte standing there. "What are you doing here?" he asks. She says she had to see him. Funny she says that, since there's something disconcerting about her eyes, and it's hard to tell just what it is she's looking at. Eko tries to interject something about Charlotte's father's objections; Charlotte says she knows Eko will probably think she's crazy, but she has a message for him and she promised to deliver it. "He says you were a good priest," she says. Who says that, Eko wants to know. "Yemi," says Charlotte. Eko's completely shocked, and then his face gets hard. "Speaking about my brother is not a joke, so you should be very careful what you say ," he tells her. Charlotte says she saw Yemi when she was "between places" and he said Eko would come to see her. "He said that even though you were pretending, you're a good man." Eko asks if her father put her up to this, but Charlotte continues. "He wants you to know that he will see you soon. He said that even though you don't have faith in yourself, that he has faith in you." Eko still ain't buying it; he demands to know what Charlotte wants from him, why she's doing this to him. He's angry to the point that a passing busybody -- Libby, as it turns out -- asks if everything's all right. Charlotte nods that it is, and Libby strolls away. A last-second presence in someone else's flashback? She's totally dead soon. Charlotte repeats that Yemi has faith in Eko. "One day you'll believe me," she says, and walks away.
Back at Pearl Station, Eko is holding out his cross, like maybe Locke turned into a vampire during the flashback, and telling Locke the story of his brother, and how Eko betrayed him and so he got shot and died, and then they both crashed on this island, Yemi in the plane that landed right over top of this new hatch, and blah blah blah. At least Triple-A is able to sell it, and I guess it beats Eko saying he believe his brother is sending him messages through "pennies from heaven" or some damn thing. "I believe the work being done in the hatch is more important than anything. If you will not continue to push the button, John, I will." Locke reflects on this as Eko silently gathers up some hatch crap and stuffs it in his bag, wondering if that means Eko's going to cover the rest of his button shifts.
And they're both missing a pretty moving episode of Swan Station, in which the doctor is injecting Libby with the heroin. She's breathing very shallowly. Jack notices Hurley standing in the doorway. He asks to talk to her. Jack says sure, and leaves.
Hurley crouches by the bedside, and tries not to cry as he says, "Hey, it's Hurley. Hugo." He tries to not cry some more. She's already noticeably more relaxed. "I'm sorry I forgot the blankets! I'm sorry I forgot the blankets!" he sobs. Oh, dear. You know, I shed a tear when Donny bit it in The Big Lebowski. And Emma Thompson holding it together (and then later privately breaking down) after receiving a Joni Mitchell CD for Christmas from her husband instead of jewelry that apparently went to her husband's mistress in Love, Actually choked me up quite hard. Hell, I bawled like a baby when Paul Walker was reunited with the huskies in Eight Below, for God's sake. So I'm not the most hard-hearted guy in the world. Having said that, "I'm sorry I forgot the blankets!" cracked my shit up. I'm sorry about that. I don't think Hurley's the best actor on this show, and he normally doesn't really get much to work with, and I guess he's okay here. But damn, "I'm sorry I forgot the blankets"? Oh, great, I'm giggling again. Even Jack is looking around like he's thinking, "'Blankets'? The fuck?"
So anyway, Libby opens her eyes, and starts trying to say something. Jack comes back over. "Michael!" she gasps. Jack tells her that Michael's okay: "He made it, Libby. It's okay. It's all right." Unfortunately, Libby doesn't have enough breath left in her to gasp, "No, you idiot! Michael shot me!" And come on. Put yourself in Jack's shoes. What would your initial reaction be? Would you assume that Libby was trying to tell you that Michael, who has worked his ass off to help people and to try to get off the island since they crashed, shot two people and himself? Or would you think that she was asking after someone who, as far as you know, is your friend? I'm way more irritated with the cheesy murderer's-name-as-death-rattle end to Libby here than Jack not guessing what she meant.
Jack does that palm thing that I hope I remember to do if someone ever dies in my arms, where you close a corpse's open eyes. Hurley breaks down sobbing. Jack, Mr. Bedside Manner himself, pats him on the shoulder and then fucks off, like he practically peels rubber getting out of there. It's possible he was heading for a bawling Kate, but Sawyer's got her in hand, literally. Now that's how you comfort someone, Jack. He goes for the classic doctor-who-lost-a-patient cooldown where he does his best not to get all emotional. He just needs someone there so he can say something soft yet steely, like, "It never gets any easier."
Eko and Locke walk and hobble, respectively, through the jungle. We hear the Swan Station timer beeping. And Michael's standing in the armoury, alibi now unassailable. He looks up, and he looks freaky, y'all. He stares, if the camera cut is any indication, at the Appleocalypse II, and its blinking prompt. On the outside, he looks serious. On the inside, he's typing "LOL" like mad.