So, as if Ana-Lucia and Libby's funeral wasn't crappy enough already, it's completely forgotten now that there's a slow boat to Craphole Island making its way in on the surf. This has the effect of preventing people from speaking in complete sentences. "Rescued?" says Charlie. "Saved?" he adds, or maybe it was someone else, like a redshirt playing some weird word-association game, or just adlibbing a line to get him one step closer to his SAG card.
Jack, Sayid and Sawyer hit the water, with Sayid and Sawyer removing their shirts, all the better to make their way through the surf and onto the boat and also on desktop wallpapers everywhere. "Maybe it's a trap," says Charlie. Oh, sure -- after his "Rescued? Saved?" got everyone worked up, now he wonders about the wisdom of swimming out all willy-nilly? Well, I guess it's not his ass on the line.
Larry, Moe and Curly board the boat, and draw their guns. Armed men board a boat without invitation. Doesn't that make you guys pirates? They make their way over to the hatch that leads below deck, and they can hear through one of those periscopey pipe things some sort of aria. Suddenly, the door is being ventilated -- by rifle shots. The stooges take cover, until they hear the click-click of the un-ammoed gun-toter. "Dammit!" comes a thick Scottish brogue, which only means one thing. Sure enough, Jack kicks in the door, and the three of them all point their guns down the hole -- at Desmond, crying and lying on the floor, listening to music and clutching a rifle. He glances up at them, takes a swig from the well-used bottle of booze he's holding. "You," he says, and he begins to laugh. We're in for a comedy riot tonight.
Darkness has fallen on Craphole Beach, and a group of anxious Lostaway Extras are haranguing Kate, until she says she'll be right back, and she walks over to where Jack is, like the Lostaway Extras are not allowed to approach his eminence? And she says everybody needs to know what's going on. He tells her to calm down and relax until he finds out the rest. And then he makes up a cockamamie plan that will require the use of a boat that could potentially be their ticket off this deserted island.
He brings some food to Desmond, who declines it in favor of the liquid supper he's enjoying. Jack complains that when Desmond ran off, he didn't say anything about still having a sailboat. Well, maybe he was just waiting for it to come up in conversation! Jack wants to know why he came back. Desmond cracks up, and asks if Jack thinks this was intentional. This ain't intentional, this is supposed to be Fiji, explains Desmond. But it was just this island again. "And you know why? Because this is it. This is all there is left. This ocean and this place here. We are stuck in a bloody snow globe!" he yells, and rants about there being no outside world. He rejects the food Jack offers, because he just wants to drink. Trying to figure out this show lately, I don't blame him. Sayid strolls up, and Jack acknowledges him with a quick nod and stands up. Desmond asks if Jack's still pushing it. Jack laughs, and says they're still pushing it. P-push it real good! Awesomely, we just saw the name "Clancy Brown" in the credits.
We're in prison, a new-looking military prison, with a clean-shaven, short-haired, and consequently almost unrecognizable Desmond getting his personal effects: a set of keys, gold-plated pocketwatch, and a photograph. Desmond picks that last one up and looks at it for a moment -- it's of him and a woman, apparently from a less-incarcerated time. There's also a book: Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens. Given the hype surrounding the finale, I'm mildly surprised they didn't go with Great Expectations. The master sergeant asks why Desmond didn't bring that book in with during his sentence. Dude, do you know what they do to guys who read Dickens in prison? Desmond gives this sounds-profound-but-is-really-kinda-stupid speech about how he's read "every wonderful word" written by Dickens, except that book so he's saving it, because he wants it to be the last thing he reads before he dies. Ugh. I guess he figures he'll know when his death is coming, huh? The guard makes some sort of comment along those lines too, before formally dishonorably discharging "Lance Corporal Desmond David Hume" from the Royal Scots Regiment of Her Majesty's Armed Forces. "Long live the Queen. Enjoy your sodding book," he finishes. So...no hug, then? All right. But we had some good times, right? Remember that time you pulled that surprise cell inspection and found that shiv tucked into a bedpost and you beat me into concussed submission and then threw me in the hole for a week? And I don't think any of us will forget that time Jerry "The Bugger" Bugofsky hung himself. Good times.
Outside, it's pouring rain as Desmond leaves the prison. There's a black sedan waiting for him. The driver gets out, and the rear passenger window powers down as some old bastard menacingly asks Desmond if he needs a lift. "Not from you," sneers Desmond, but the old guy doesn't have time for this, and just orders him into the car.
Desmond complies, sliding into the passenger seat to the guy, played by Alan Dale, who is apparently on The O.C., which I suppose I'd know if I could be bothered to watch that show, but I know him a little better as Vice-President Jim Prescott from Season 3 of 24. If you don't know the type, just imagine Lost called up Wealthy Industrialist Central Casting and asked for a self-made man. There's a couple of boxes on the seat between them, and Desmond asks if Old Bastard brought him a present. Two presents, actually, says the guy. One box contains Desmond's past, the other his future. Desmond opens up the Past box, presumably. It's crammed with letters, in orderly rows and bunched with rubber bands. Desmond gives a snort, and picks up a bundle, rifling through them, and we see they're all addressed to a "Penny Widmore," with the return address bearing Desmond's name. Sounding not exactly shocked, he says, "You're a bastard, you know that?" That's what I said! Old Bastard says as far as Penelope is concerned, Desmond's forsaken her, and that's they way it's going to stay. O.B. says she's getting married. But hey, it's not so bad! Remember, I got you another present? Old Bastard lifts the lid on the other box, and it's full of cash. "This is for your new life, away from my daughter. The conditions are simple: no contact, no calls, no post. You just...run away, Desmond." Desmond wants to know why Old Bastard thinks he'd just run away. Old Bastard leans in close: "Because you're a coward," he says. Desmond stares at him, but doesn't say anything. Stand up for yourself, Poindexter!
Nighttime back on Craphole Island, with Sayid telling Jack that he's got a plan now to turn the tables on ol' compromised Michael. They'll use Desmond's boat. Sayid says the Others will set the trap for them in their camp. He knows this how? In fact, wouldn't it make more sense for the Others to ambush them along the way, and not run the risk of more Lostaways learning the way to their picturesque fishing village? Oh, wait -- there I go, pointlessly asking questions that start with "wouldn't it make more sense..." again. Sorry about that. Anyway, Sayid's saying, "While Mike leads you by land, I can approach far more quickly by sea. And I can go ashore undetected." His plan is scout their numbers, weapons, etc., and then go to the nearest beach to start a signal fire, so the Lostaways can meet up with them and go in together. I gather he'll be using those super-special leaves that burn black smoke only visible to the Lostaways, and NOT THE NEARBY OTHERS.
Jack still isn't sure that Michael has "turned," because he made sure to take his stupid pills this morning, but Sayid's sure. And Jack wants to fill in the rest of their party, but Sayid nixes that, pointing out they don't want to accidentally tip off Michael that they're onto him, as that would negate their advantage of surprise. Jack agrees, and is all, "Signal fire, huh?" Sayid nods. "This time, they will know that we are coming." What was that you were just saying about the ELEMENT OF SURPRISE?
Down in Swan station, Locke limps into the computer room, noting the timer at five minutes. Eko's at his post at the computer, and pleasantly asks him what he's doing there. Locke says that Eko's gonna let the timer run out this time. "But I am going to push the button. Why wouldn't I?" says Eko, genuinely puzzled. "Because you don't wanna be a slave," says Locke. Oh, not a wise move. Eko quietly says he's not a slave to anything. Locke insists Eko's a slave to the timer. Locke might have figured that his "don't be a slave" strategy would work better if he weren't a white man telling a black man what to do. Locke tells Eko again not to push the button. "Don't tell me what to do," says Eko. Sound familiar, Locke?
The beeping has started by this point, and Locke glances at the computer. He grabs Eko's Bible Thumper and tries to smash the computer with it, but he's blocked by Eko, who takes his stick back and effortlessly tosses Locke to the floor. He goes back to the computer, and enters the numbers, then returns to grab Locke and give him the bum's rush out of the hatch. "We're just puppets! Puppets on strings!" yells Locke. You mean marionettes? Those SCARE THE HELL OUT OF ME. Locke yells that if they don't stop pushing the button, they'll never be free. Throwing him outside the main gate, Eko points out that Locke's free now. "Do not come back," snaps Eko, and he slams the door in Locke's face. Eko's really made himself at home in Swan station, no?
On the beach, Jack's locking and loading. He hands Michael a pistol, and offers one to Hurley, who declines, on grounds of not wanting to kill anyone or something, or some other crybaby reason. He mumbles, it's hard to catch. "Ain't that the point?" snaps Sawyer. "Thought the point was to get Walt back," says Hurley, who...well, he isn't wrong. Kate takes a gun too, but since she's not bright and chipper about this journey, Jack asks her what's wrong. She reminds him of the stuff they found in Dr. Feelgood hatch: the costumes, fake beard, makeup -- what if the Others just want the Losties to think they're hillbillies? Michael not at all suspiciously butts in to yell that the Others are indeed hillbillies ("hillbillies" is a word that never fails to crack me up, for some reason). "They live in huts, they eat fish, they go to Rob Schneider movies, they're probably more scared than we are!" he yells. Then he adds, again, NOT AT ALL SUSPICIOUSLY, "and they have no idea we're on our way." If Jack wasn't convinced that Michael's been compromised, the look on his face tells us that's no longer the case. Like Mr. T, Sawyer ain't got time for the jibber-jabber. And much to my delight, he actually says "jibber-jabber." And also, "let's roll." Tribute to United Flight 93? Everybody stomps off down the beach. I love the way they all load up their guns in broad daylight and go marching off. Careful; you don't want to alarm the other Lostaways, guys.
So apparently, Desmond went back out to his boat, which we see on the bow is called "Elizabeth," from Newport Beach, and now he's rowing back in to shore in a rubber raft. Sayid meets him and helps him pull it in, and says he needs Desmond's boat. Desmond tells him not to waste his time, because there's nothing on it. I'm sure that the first thing someone stranded on a deserted island would want from a boat would be to loot it, Desmond. Sayid says he wants to get to the North Shore as quickly as possible. "Off to see the hostiles, are ya?" says Desmond, who doesn't actually want to hear any more, saying "ignorance is bliss." Also, drunkenness is bliss! Judging from the bottle he's got, Desmond's already working on that, and he tells Sayid the boat's all his. Sayid doesn't know how to sail, though; Desmond fails to see how that's his problem.
We flash back to a coffeeshop, apparently in the U.S., where Desmond is ordering whatever drink has the most caffeine from the nonplussed barista, only when he checks his wallet, he only has Scottish money. He apologizes, saying he only just arrived, and has spent all his American money on a taxi. He comes to the U.S., thinks ahead enough to get some U.S. currency, but only gets enough for a taxi? Whuh? He gets his four dollar coffee paid for him by none other than Libby, whose hair is some sort of shoulder-length strawberry-blond deal that made me say, "Holy shit! Special guest star Goldie Hawn!"
She shrugs off his refusal, saying it's only four dollars, and he "jokingly" asks if she's got $42,000 more. I think the last thing I'd want from some bounder whose coffee I'd paid for would be some sort of sob-story pitch, but Libby sits down with Desmond, and he tells her about the round-the-world sailing race he wants to take part in. It's not so much the prize as who he'd win it from: Charles Widmore, AKA Old Bastard. And he tells her about Widmore trying to buy Desmond off, and keep him away from the most important thing to him in the world, and Libby brilliantly deduces this is about a woman, and the $42,000 is because he doesn't have a boat just yet. But guess what? Libby has a boat, and Desmond can have it! Just like that! Yes, just that quickly. The boat was her husband's, who got sick and died just a month ago, and he named it after her, and she gives it to him! She gives the boat to a stranger who couldn't pay for his own coffee! "He'd want you to," she says, when a shocked Desmond protests. Okay, this is the first we've heard of Libby's husband, so I don't know anything about the guy? But I know HE WOULD NOT WANT HIS WIDOW TO GIVE A STRANGER THE BOAT HE NAMED AFTER HER. Desmond asks what her husband's name was. It was David. You can't tell me that it's a coincidence that Libby's former asylum-mate Hurley's hallucination is named Dave (although I'm guessing that at this time in the flashback Libby hasn't gone nuts yet). So anyway, Desmond accepts the boat. Can't say I blame him, because hey, free boat, right? Desmond says he's going to win this race "for love," and then I throw up in my mouth a little. On the other hand, knowing that the boat is named after Libby makes the on-board drinking a little more understandable.
On Craphole Island, Sayid's chatting with Sun, and Jin strolls up after checking on the little fire he's got going. Sun asks Sayid to excuse them, and then tells Jin Sayid's wants him to help sail the Elizabeth to the other side of the island to help Michael. I think that last part is supposed to help sell the loyal Jin on the idea, but he says no anyway, because he's not willing to leave his pregnant wife. This is because he's new at this. By the time she's seven or eight months along and angry at him for her new giant belly and waddle, he'll use any excuse to grab the car keys and run some errands. Trust me on this one.
Yeah, that's right. This July, coming to a maternity ward near me: Danielle or Daniel, Jr. I'm jumping the shark and going for the cheapest sweeps stunt of all: the new baby. And I think I've kept it quiet for about long enough. Once I'm done with this recap, I have to finish the nursery, and start practicing the diapering. Because the diaper I change will be the first one. And based on the new-parent videos I've been watching? That's some nasty shit I'm about to be working with.
What? Oh yeah, the show. Sun says Jin doesn't have to leave her, because she's coming with them. Jin looks like he didn't figure that when he became less controlling, Sun would actually start asserting her free will like this.
The Fab Five are trekking through the jungle. Sawyer sees a doll in the foliage, and goes to grab it, but is stopped by Kate, who tells him that it's a trap, one of many Rousseau's got set around the island. He asks her how she knows that, and she tells him about the net she and Jack were stuck in. Sawyer slows down and chuckles. "When the doc told me y'all got caught in a net, I thought he meant...something else." Because "caught in a net" is totally a euphemism for sex, Sawyer. Kate seems more irritated that Sawyer and Jack were talking about her. Whatever. She secretly wants them to fight each other; I don't know why she's lying.
Fortunately, this high-school drama is interrupted by a giant green bird that buzzes the Lostaways, who draw their guns. The bird screeches a couple of times and flies off. "Did that bird just say my name?" asks Hurley. I've listened to it a few times, and it's a very screechy cry that could sound like "Hurley," especially if you're trying to hear that. And the closed captioning says the bird does say "Hurley." But I hope it's not that. Because THAT WOULD BE STUPID. No one else seems to have heard that, however, and Sawyer makes a snide comment about the bird also crapping gold.
And meanwhile, Michael's examining his gun, because when he fired, the gun only went click, which would be decidedly non-helpful when firing at actual enemies, not fake-ass birds. Sure enough, when he checks the magazine, he discovers it's empty. Jack sees him looking and nonchalantly apologizes and says he must have forgotten to load that one. He unshoulders his backpack to get Michael a loaded magazine. Michael's clearly thinking, "Shit. Jack knows. He can read my thoughts!"
Charlie's strolling through the jungle, and he comes upon Locke, who's...oh, Locke, look what they done to ya...crying against a tree. He recovers as best he can when he realizes Charlie's there. Charlie seems almost genuinely concerned when he asks what happened to Locke's face, but then decides to be a dick, I suppose because of the beatdown Locke gave him a while ago. "If you're feeling sorry for yourself, you may want to have a drink with your mate from the hatch. I hear he's a little despondent as well." Locke's all, who in the what now? And Charlie decides to speak in riddles, and says the guy's pushed Locke's button too many times. "Desmond?" says Locke, and Charlie's all "yeppers!" and then says, as sinister as he can, "I'm sure you two have a lot to talk about." And he smirks and struts off, and why Charlie's acting like he just got in a really good burn off on Locke I have no idea.
Sayid's getting his stuff together on the beach when Sun and Jin stroll up. Sayid apologizes if he was confusing before, but he only wanted Jin to accompany him (as if Sayid doesn't speak the best English on the island). Sun points out that they need a translator, and at least two people who know how to sail. Sayid says Desmond managed to do it by himself. Yeah, "managed" so well that he crashed on Mystery Friggin' Island TWICE, is the gist of what Sun says, and she will brook no more argument. Jin looks at Sayid and gives him a, "believe me, dude, I already tried. Women -- whaddaya gonna go?" shrug, and they get into the raft to head out to the Elizabeth.
Elsewhere on the beach, Claire prepares to shoot her baby with the pneumatic injector containing the vaccine she KNOWS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT. Fortunately (somewhat), Desmond is drinking nearby, and he takes a break from his alcoholism long enough to tell her not to waste her time with the vaccine, as he shot himself with it every nine days for three years. Doesn't that require further explanation? Like proof that the vaccine didn't do anything? Because as far as I can tell, Desmond is actually alive, so wouldn't that maybe make Claire think even more that the vaccine is a good idea?
Even if she wanted to ask anything, she's preempted by Desmond staggering over and telling her that Aaron is "lovely" and then not-very-subtly asking if the father is on the island. Claire explains that the father walked off, and Desmond, playing devil's advocate for some reason for the absentee baby-daddy of the beautiful blond woman he's hitting on, suggests that maybe the guy knew he wouldn't be a good father and was doing what he thought best for her. "He was doing what was best for him," she snaps. Desmond thinks about this and hopefully is realizing that maybe his situation isn't really comparable to some skid cutting out on his girlfriend and their future child.
He flashes back to himself in a darkened sports stadium, changing into running shorts and tying up his shoes. Beside him, a dark sedan pulls up beside him, and Jack gets out. They don't make any eye contact or anything as Jack just starts running without doing any stretching or anything, so it is no wonder that in a moment he's going to trip and twist his ankle. Another car pulls up, and out gets a woman who looks remarkably like Ellen Pompeo. Which is to say she's pretty cute, but Desmond looks less than excited as they stare at each other. Penny, I presume. He asks how she found him, and she explains that she has a lot of money. Brag about it, why don't you? She says that with enough money and determination you can find anyone. Maybe that's true, but you apparently can't keep Daddy from intercepting your mail. She asks if he's read his "beloved book" yet, and he says he hasn't. She thinks about this, and says she thought he might have read it while he was "away," and he tells her he was in prison, not "away." Eyes shining, she asks why he never wrote her. Desmond just shakes his head, instead of explaining how he feels, and that her father is a dick, and all that, and a single tear rolls dramatically down her cheek, and he just harshly asks when she's getting married. Douchebag. Tell her you love her! She says they haven't set a date yet. He tells her he'll be back in a year, and she suggests he come back right now, and he says he's going to win the race and then come back, and he manfully wipes her tear away with his thumb and turns away to get into shape for the STUPID RACE. She asks him what he's running away from. "I have to get my honor back!" he says. For real, he actually says that. "That's what I'm running to!" And off he goes, up the steps. I have this alternative theory that he's running away from the beautiful woman he loves, who loves him, so he can try to win a race to impress her asshole father for some reason, and will prove such a terrible racer that he will crash his boat on the same island twice, and maybe he should ask himself if that's preferable to being with the woman he loves.
It's entirely possible he's realized all this now, after the fact, and that's why he's drinking so hard by the Craphole Island campfire. He polishes off one bottle and tosses the empty on the sand, almost hitting an approaching Locke. "So what did one snowman say to the other snowman?" asks Locke, and Desmond, pulling the cork on another bottle, like just how much booze does this guy have, says, "Smells like carrots!" And Locke smiles like it's really funny. Desmond passes over the bottle so Locke can take a swig. Desmond asks if Locke fixed the computer. "World's still here, isn't it?" says Locke, but Desmond ain't so sure, maybe because he CAN'T SEEM TO FIND IT AGAIN. Locke wants to know what Desmond would say if Locke told him that the three years he spent pushing the button, and all the years men before him did the same, was all for nothing. "I'd ask you, 'How the hell'd you know something like that?'" says Desmond, heavily slurring his words. Locke explains about the film he watched in Pearl station. Desmond stares at him. "You're lying," he says. Locke takes the Pearl station tape out of his backpack and gives it to him. "You want to take a walk? I'll make the popcorn." Aw, he finally got up the courage to ask Desmond out! Desmond angrily says that if Locke thinks it's not real, then he should stop pushing it. "Well, I have, except unfortunately, someone else decided to start." And he leans forward suddenly, and gets up in Desmond's business, and tells him to sober up, because they're going to get a good night's sleep and then go find out what happens if the button doesn't get pushed. Note: Desmond does not explain to Locke that HE ALREADY KNOWS what happens.
Elsewhere, by another fire, Sawyer offers Hurley a "Dharma Nutrabar." As appealing as that sounds, Hurley turns it down, saying he's not hungry. "You serious?" says Sawyer, who couldn't be nice for five seconds without making a crack about Hurley's weight.
Michael's over in the trees having another conscience attack, and Jack strolls up to ask if he's okay. Mike makes up a lie about getting more firewood, but not feelin' so hot. Jack says he shouldn't be out there on his own, and offers to help. Michael thanks him for coming out and risking his neck for Walt, I'm guessing to try to allay some of Jack's obvious suspicion. "Hey, live together, die alone," says Jack, who ought to put that on business cards by this point. Michael nods, and then stands around looking guilty.
Sayiiid's saaaaailing awaaaaayyyy...Set an open course, for the Oooothers' camp.... This Hawaiian tourism brochure is marred only by Sun tossing her cookies over the port bow or over the mainsail or boom jigger or whatever. Jin strolls up to remind her that he told her not to come. She smiles and tells him it isn't seasickness. He smiles and says he knows, and they bask in the proud parental glow of Sun's chunder. Believe me, you two: you'll get tired of the vomiting very soon. Anyway, there's something Jin wants Sun to see. She goes astern (if I'm getting the nautical terms wrongs, don't email, because I don't care) where Sayid's looking ashore with binoculars at some giant concrete-looking thing on a rocky promontory. She has a look, sees that it's a massive statue of half a leg, cut off somewhere under the knee. Oh, and there's something else, as Sayid makes sure to notice, because I didn't look the first time: the foot only has four toes. But Sayid's not sure if that's the most disquieting thing, or if it's the fact that the rest of the statue is missing. C'mon, Sayid. Toppled statues don't make you smile?
Eko's in the computer room, doing his button duty and carving more, presumably misspelled, things into his Bible Thumper. Suddenly there's the sound of power shorting out, and the room goes black. Momentarily, emergency lights come on, bathing the room in yellow. Eko looks around in alarm. The timer's at 101 minutes when he gets up to investigate. He strolls down the hall, and finds that the circuit box has been tampered with. He seems to be processing this when the countdown begins, the same one that came on just before the blast doors came down the last time. And when the gears start grinding again, he sprints towards the rapidly lowering doors. He reaches and tries to slide his Jesus stick underneath -- because a wooden staff might stop thick steel blast doors -- and Locke snatches it up inside the computer room, where he's with Desmond, who's fiddling with wires in some other control box. Desmond asks if he's sure about this, and Locke says he's more sure than he's ever been about anything in his life. Eko, meanwhile, is hammering on the doors and demanding to be let in. "All right then, box man. We wait," says Desmond.
Flashback to Desmond being tossed and turned aboard the Elizabeth on the high seas. Yeah, this is much better than being with the woman you love, I suppose. He lashes the wheel to the railing and fights the wind and the waves and the listing ship to head below deck. The first thing he grabs, naturally, is that defining object, the Dickens book. I thought for a second he might kick back and put his feet up. Instead, he wraps it in plastic and duct tape and stuffs it in his jacket. He grabs some other orange thing that is probably important for his ocean survival, but not nearly as important, storytelling-wise, as a trite plot device. Back on deck, he gets knocked out.
And we get a quick-cut montage, featuring overlays and quick zooms and washed-out views of Craphole Island with a guy in a yellow Hazmat suit (or maybe they're Ghostbusters in their summer colors) coming for a washed-up (literally) Desmond on the beach, and dragging him through the jungle.
More quick cuts and zooming as I develop a headache and also possibly epilepsy as Desmond recuperates in Swan station, and a yellow Ghostbuster discovers his book and throws it down in seeming anger. Maybe he's read that one. Or he prefers Zola.
The guy takes off his mask, and wouldn't you know it, it's Clancy Motherfucking Brown, otherwise known as Sayid's torture mentor. He notices Desmond groggily looking at him and crouches by the bed. "Are you him?" he asks. Desmond's all, whuh? "What did one snowman say to the other snowman?" tries Clancy. Desmond's all, zuh? Clancy looks disappointed. Nice one, Desmond, you fat barrel of monkey spunk. Clancy introduces himself as "Kelvin Inman." Desmond asks what happened to his boat. Clancy says he found Desmond washed up on the beach: "There was no boat."
Then, the beeping starts. Clancy sighs, and walks into the computer room, Hazmat suit half off. He wearily sits down on a chair, glides over to the computer and enters the numbers. Desmond, following him, sees the timer reset. He asks what this is all about. "Just saving the world," grumps Clancy. And that's the origin of that!
Desmond's watching the Orientation film, which even then, it should be noted, was missing the bit that Eko found. Clancy strolls in and asks how many times he's going to watch that. Well, you got any other movies, Clancy? I mean, Clancy's got lots, but Inman, not as many, I suppose. Desmond asks about the missing parts. "Radzinski made some edits," says Clancy, who's taping a seal over where his sleeve meets his gloves. He says Radzinski was his partner, but doesn't answer Desmond's follow-up question about what happened to him. He just tells Desmond to make sure to put the movie back behind Turn of the Screw when he's done with it.
Desmond asks about the suit, and Clancy says he wears it so he doesn't get infected. And oh! That reminds him! He goes to the vaccine cabinet, and tells Desmond to give himself a shot of the stuff every nine days. That is, if it's not too late, given Desmond seemed to have been out there a while when they found him.
Back in the present, Desmond asks who the huge angry dude pounding on the door is. "His name is Mistereko," says Locke, and Desmond wants to know why Mistereko carries around a stick covered in scripture. Locke tells him it's because Eko's a priest, as though that explains anything. "We locked out a priest?" says Desmond, seeming quite concerned about this.
Eko finally gives up on beating his fist bloody against the blast doors, and skedaddles out the hatch the old-fashioned way -- via rope up the shaft with the broken ladder. Must be his first time there, because he notices the underside of the hatch door -- placed cinematically just so on the surface -- with the stenciled QUARANTINE in black letters. And he runs off through the jungle.
He's so desperate that he's willing to turn to Charlie to help, even interrupting yet another audience-less Charlie Pace of Driveshaft solo concert on the beach. "Do you know how they got the hatch door open?" he frantically asks Charlie, who says he doesn't but if Eko hums a few bars, he could probably play it. Eko summons all of his willpower to not grab Charlie's guitar and smash it down on his hobbit head, and asks again. "They blew it up. Why?" says Charlie, as though it's self-evident. Well, maybe it is, given the state of the door. Eko says he needs Charlie's help, but Charlie snidely notes that he now appears to be back in Eko's good graces. Eko's got no time for Charlie's grudge, and just tells him about being Locked out of the hatch and how he's absolutely certain that if the timer runs out, everyone will die. "All right, I'm in," says Charlie, after considering it a moment. I'm thinking it's not so much because he believes everyone will die -- because if he does, way to TAKE YOUR TIME THINKING ABOUT HELPING, Charlie -- but because he wants to help thwart Locke.
Michael and the fantastic four are marching through the jungle, Sawyer annoying everyone with his theories about the Others. He wonders if they're left over from the Dharma crew. He theorizes that they're aliens, and that's why they need the fake beards for their heads made of "pathetic." Hurley corrects him to "prosthetic," like it makes any sense either way, and Sawyer rips on Hurley's spelling. Sawyer asks Kate's opinion, but she just quietly tells him that they're being followed. So just keep smiling and keep moving, she says. Naturally, he stops everything and starts looking around the jungle, scowling. No wonder Jack kicked his ass at poker. Kate stops to pretend to tie her shoe, and Sawyer's there too, which allows Jack, previously bringing up the rear, to pass them. Interestingly, Kate doesn't say anything to him. She tells Sawyer that there's two of them, across the river (and sure enough, we see two of the heretofore silent and invisible and in every other way undetectable Others), and in about five seconds, she says, she's going to "turn the tables" on them. Sawyer hisses at her to wait, but she's already cocking her gun -- well, it's not a revolver, so it's not actually cocking, but I forget what you call it when it's an automatic. "You in?" she says, and doesn't even wait for an answer before she starts throwing shots. Sawyer hastily unshoulders his rifle and the other three nimwits hit the deck, while Bonnie and Clyde back there fire away. Kate, despite showing decent proficiency with a gun in her flashbacks, is again "upstaged by a man's shooting prowess, as Sawyer hits one of the Others, who falls, while the other Other gets away.
The group crosses the stream over to the body. Dead. Kate yells that she's going after the other one, and Jack orders her not to. I mean actually orders, as in, "I said NO!" And Kate looks quite pissed about it. Sawyer's not having it either, as he says the Other is going to let the rest of them know the Lostaways are coming. "It doesn't matter if we catch him now!" yells Jack, who then looks over at Michael. "They've already been warned," he says. Michael doesn't make eye contact for a moment. Sawyer's all, what's that supposed to mean? Michael looks like he's wondering if busting out a "whatchoo talkin' bout, Jack?" would keep his cover intact. "Why don't you tell them, Michael," says Jack. Michael half-heartedly pretends not to know what Jack's talking about, to the point that Jack has to throw him against a tree and yell, all spittle, "Tell them!" The rest of the crew watches, looking somewhat horrified. "It was the only way," says Michael, finally. He says the Others gave him a list with their names on it. The shock on everyone's faces sinks in as Michael explains that he had to bring all four of them back, or he'd never see Walt again. Jack releases his hold on Michael and asks who the Others are. Michael says it's like he said: the Others live in huts, etc. At least that's true, as far as Michael knows, but I think Jack et al. might be forgiven for not believing him. Jack takes the gun tucked in Michael's waistband.
And now the dots start to get connected, as Kate says, "You let Henry go?" Michael's silence is her answer. And if that's the case, then...and you can almost see the light bulb go off over Hurley's head. A blood-spattered light bulb. He looks up at Michael. "You kill them? Ana-Lucia and Libby?" Hoping that the answer's no, that maybe Henry did it during his escape. Michael can't even look him in the eye, so Hurley asks again. "I had to. I...I couldn't find any other way!" he pleads, almost breaking down, and he says Libby was a mistake, that he didn't have any time to think. This hits Jack pretty hard -- I'm guessing that even suspecting Michael was leading them into a trap, it never occurred to him that Michael was lying about Henry shooting Libby and Ana. Sawyer looks particularly stunned by this revelation, too. And Hurley's gears are still turning: "But if you did have time, you still would have killed her, right?" Michael apologizes, over and over again, before finally saying, "My son!" But no one seems overly sympathetic right now.
Hurley says he's going back, but Jack tells him he can't. Hurley's not in the mood to listen to Jack right now, pointing out that Jack knew they were heading into a trap but kept his mouth shut. Jack says they've already caught a couple of Others following them, and if they don't keep up the trusting-Michael façade, they'll all be killed. I'd like to know why he's jumping to that conclusion, since it appears clear the Others could have killed them any time already. He apologizes for not saying anything. "But you have to know that I'd never bring you out here if I didn't have a plan!" he yells. Sawyer glares at him. "What plan?" he says. I'd like to know, too -- oh, here we go to commercial. Well, that saves the writers some trouble.
Back on the Elizabeth, Sayid's praying on a mat on the deck of the boat, finally confirming explicitly that he's Muslim. Up the deck, Jin and Sun watch him (and each other) smiling. I've got ten bucks that says Sun's about to say to Jin, "Honey, I just had kind of a wild thought. Maybe we could talk to Sayid about --" but she'd be interrupted anyway, by Jin spotting something on land. He runs over to hand the binoculars to Sayid. Sun takes the ship's wheel, regretting that she's missed her chance. Sayid looks through the binoculars, and sees the stone wall with the hole in it. "We're here," he says. Uh, how does he know about that wall? Did I miss something?
Charlie's leading an anxious Eko through the jungle to where the remainder of the dynamite has been hidden. Given that Charlie wasn't in on any of this, I'm wondering how he knows this. Oh, he says Hurley showed him. Oh, OKAY THEN. Charlie seems quite happy to help Eko. There are only a couple of sticks of dynamite left, and Charlie urges Eko to be careful as he unwraps the package, saying he doesn't want to wind up like Dr. Arse.
Charlie and Eko enter the hatch, with Charlie STILL saying "careful!" to Eko, so I imagined Charlie saying that the entire way back to Swan station, which sounds about right. If I were Charlie, though, I wouldn't be NEARLY so close to Eko.
Eko starts setting the dynamite in place against the door. For some reason, now is when Charlie starts wondering if this is a good idea at all, and asks Eko what if they hurt Locke and Desmond, or blow up the computer. "You can leave now, Charlie," says Eko, whose dismissiveness is really starting to bug me. Eko sets the fuse, as Charlie decides to spill the beans to Locke, yelling at him to open the door so they can work things out, and warns him that Eko's planning to blow open the blast door with dynamite. Inside the computer room, Locke looks quizzically at Desmond, who smiles confidently. "It would take an atom bomb, brother. Tell him not to bother." Locke asks if he's sure, and Desmond says he is. He looks over at a metal cart with a crumpled top that I don't remember ever seeing before. But I have a lousy memory, and I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. Besides, something tells me the upcoming flashback might give us some more insight into the blast doors.
Sure enough, in the flashback we see Desmond with the same cart, wheeling it into a doorway. He's now got on an official Dharma jumpsuit. In the kitchen, Clancy is pouring detergent into a measuring cup and stirring it with a paint brush. He asks if Desmond's ready. Desmond says maybe Clancy should do it, whatever "it" is. "Come on, Des. You've seen me do it a hundred times," says Clancy. So Desmond strolls back into the computer room, and touches a couple of bare wires on the control panel together, until there's a spark, and the now-familiar countdown comes on, preceding the alarm and the doors slamming shut, only one door slams neatly into the dent on the cart, and stops about waist-high. Desmond's quite pleased with himself. He doesn't know what Dharma's going to subtract the cost of that cart from his paycheque.
Desmond ducks under the door back into the kitchen, where Clancy has taken his concoction and paintbrush over to the lowered blast door where Locke saw the map. I guess it's too bad they never figured out how to turn on the black light, huh? I guess they're just assuming this ridiculous inviso-paint is working? Clancy explains that the map was Radzinski's idea; he had a photographic memory. Desmond seems to get all snitty of Radzinski, for some reason, like he's jealous of Clancy's former partner for some reason. "Yet for some reason, you never want to tell me what bloody well happened to him."
Clancy looks up at the ceiling and strolls over towards a dark spot on the concrete. "See that brown stain there? That's Radzinski." Radzinski ate a shotgun one night when Clancy was asleep. So I guess that shuts you up, Desmond. "The bitch of it was," continues Clancy, "I only had 108 minutes to bury the poor bastard." Hey, Clancy, ever hear of making more than one trip?
Desmond mulls this over, and then sensitively says, "Well, if you don't want me to go crazy, time let me go out." Clancy's gone back to painting his stupid map and asks if Desmond wants to go out there with the quarantine and the hostiles. Desmond says he hasn't been outside in two years (two years? He's not crazy already?), and implies he'll be able to handle himself because he was in the army. Clancy slags off "Her Majesty's Army" and asks why he left "that nice old lady's army" before pretending to just now remember that Desmond was kicked out because he couldn’t follow orders. Desmond angrily asks why Clancy left his army. "Because men followed my orders," he growls, painting again. Then he sarcastically pretends to be thrilled to have joined the Dharma Initiative, and mockingly says, "Namasté, thank you, and good luck!" and starts laughing. Can't wait until Candle sees that impression. Desmond tries pleading to be let outside, just once. Clancy looks at him hard. "Sorry, Des. You stay here. You push the button. That's an order." And now we all know how well Desmond follows those, huh?
Back in present-day Swan station, Charlie's still banging on the door, warning Locke that he's "about to be detonated." It's really too bad that neither Charlie nor Eko seem to have any idea WHY THEY'RE CALLED BLAST DOORS.
Getting no response from the computer room, Charlie instead tries reasoning with Eko, who's still setting the fuse for the dynamite, and asks him what if Locke's right. "What if it's just some colossal joke? You know, it's just some old computer connected to nothing? Maybe it's just a bunch of wire?" Finally too irritated to let Charlie continue living, I hope, Eko stands up, shoves Charlie against the wall and pulls Charlie's belt off. He turns and throws it down the hallway, where it's pulled to the magnetic wall and sticks like a fridge magnet. "Is that a joke?" yells Eko. "I'll see myself out," says Charlie, like his feelings are hurt. He strolls off down the hall and retrieves his belt, while Eko yells that this is Locke's last chance to end this: "Open the door and I will forgive you." Inside, Locke, not unreasonably, wants to know what he's to be forgiven for. So Eko strolls back to the fuse, which he lights with a match from a Dharma matchbook, ignoring Charlie's protests that they're in a confined area.
As the Mission: Impossible fuse burns, Eko ducks over by the wall with the mural, and Charlie says "bollocks" when he realizes that Eko didn't exactly set the longest fuse in the world, and he takes off running down the hall. And finally, finally we have someone being chased by a huge explosive fireball. They should do this every show! How hard could it be to come up with an excuse for that every show? Even if it's, like, Sawyer lighting farts or something!
We come back from commercial in flashback, with Desmond being awakened by the timer alarm going off. He yells Clancy's name, but there's no response, so he himself runs into the computer room and enters the numbers., and watches the timer reset. He hears some singing from behind him, and there's an open trap door or grate or something, an empty bottle of Dharma booze on the floor beside it.
He drops down into a crouch like he's a ninja into some sort of tunnel underneath the computer room. In front of him, a drunk Clancy is dangling a key from his hand, muttering that he couldn't do it. He's lying to some sort of lidded keyhole thing in an alcove, with Caution: System Termination printed on the underside of the lid. "This is the only other way out, partner," he says, explaining to a confused Desmond that this is the station's "failsafe. Turn this key and this all goes away."
Desmond asks what's behind the wall. "What was the 'incident'?" Oh, nothing, just geologically unique electromagnetism, stage-whispers Clancy: "The incident -- there was a leak. So now the charge builds up, and every time we push the button it discharges it before it gets too big." Desmond wants to know why they have to push the button at all, if the whole thing could have just been destroyed...I'm guessing that's the question he's asking, because Clancy interrupts him to laugh, and close the lid and say, "Here's the real question, Desmundo. Do you have the courage to take your finger out of the dam and blow the whole thing up, instead?" No, I think Desmond asked the real question, and there were probably others, like why not automate the system? Why leave it up to a couple of people, with no support? Especially people who are likely to go psycho bugnuts as they all apparently do?
Anyway, speaking of blowing things up, present-day Desmond is listening at the blast door, and tells Locke he thinks Locke's friends blew themselves up. "They're not my friends," says Locke. Cold, brother. Real cold. Desmond can't hear anything out there, so he wants to open the doors, but Locke says that could be a trick. Des says they could be hurt and asks Locke where the doctor is. Locke's all "God knows where" and anyway Jack "sure as hell doesn’t care anything going on down here."
And now is the time for the pseudo-philosophical discussion between a guy named Locke and a guy named Hume -- like we GET it, you writers are SMART PEOPLE, and you prove it with the names you give your characters. Desmond asks if the reason Locke is letting the timer run down is because he needs to look down the barrel of a gun to find out what he really believes, WHATEVER THAT MEANS. Locke says he already looked down the barrel of a gun, and he believed, and he thought it was his destiny to get in here, and Boone died because he was stupid enough to believe in Locke too, and then Locke had a big hissyfit on top of the hatch, and the light came on, and he thought it was a sign, but it was probably just Desmond going to the bathroom. Well, a religion based on a foundation of Desmond taking a dump probably wouldn't be the weirdest thing. Meanwhile, Desmond's looking stunned, like something Locke has said has twigged something in him.
Meanwhile, Sayid's hit the shore, and he's stealthily making his way along the rocks towards the Others' village. He spies a hut with an open door, and creeps in, and enters. There's no one, nothing. Same with the hut, and the one. There's no sign of life anywhere. You know, whether this is a phony village or not, is this supposed to surprise Sayid? It wouldn't be much of an ambush if the Others just hung around their huts waiting for the Lostaways to invade their camp, now would it?
Sayid sees the rectangle-hatch doors, and slowly approaches. He throws open the door and points his rifle in -- but there's nothing there, just the rock face that this hatch entrance façade has been built into. This is not quite what Sayid expected, clearly, and he looks around all concerned.
So Jack, what was that plan of yours? Are we ever going to hear it? No? Thought not. Well, let's hope it works out for you. The five of them are traipsing by a clearing, and clearly not being too observant, because only Kate notices the GIANT PILE OF PLASTIC CANISTERS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CLEARING. There's also the pneumatic tubing from Pearl station sticking out of the ground, which is where the canisters came from. And naturally, neither Locke nor Eko told anybody else about what they found, or else this might make a little more sense to them. And geez, how far does the tubing run from Pearl station anyway? I mean, I realize it couldn't just run straight up to the surface, because that'd kind of blow the secret for the poor bastards filling the notebooks, but damn. And where exactly are the pneumatics?
Kate opens one of the canisters, and flips through the notebook inside. "It's handwritten. It's all filled, the whole book. They're journal entries." Sawyer finds, folded on top, the map that Locke scribbled and put in the tub, and it didn't blow away or anything. He doesn't know what it is or anything, but still feels the need to show it to Jack. Meanwhile, Kate reads from one of the notebooks: "0400: S.R. moves ping-pong table again. 0415: Takes a shower." What is this?" Early morning hatch redecoration and 4 AM showers? What kind of madness was going on in Swan station?
Meanwhile, Sawyer's looking off in the distance, and he asks Jack what he said Sayid's signal would be "when the coast is clear to hit that beach party," like Sawyer can't ever talk normally not even once. We see, somewhere beyond some hills, the column of black smoke that would totally give the Lostaways away. And does this mean that Sawyer couldn't remember "black smoke" as a signal? Remind me never to go to war with Sawyer. "That's miles from here," grumps Jack, and he stomps over to Michael and asks, "Where were you taking us?" Michael pretends to have no idea what Jack's talking about, and Jack says, "Sayid said that he'd light the signal so that we could meet him at the shore. Why aren't we going to the beach?" Michael says they are. "We're nowhere near the beach!" yells Jack. "Look, I had to," says Michael, and Jack is all outraged that Michael apparently tricked them again, but Jesus, how goddamn stupid is Jack anyway?
So let's see if I can piece together this "plan": Sayid goes ahead to see how many people are in the village, and if the coast is clear, then he fires up some black smoke into the air, so the Lostaways can meet him in the...empty village? Which won't be empty for long because the black smoke will COMPLETELY GIVE THEM AWAY? And Jack's end of the plan was to: not tell Sawyer, Hurley and Kate about Michael leading them into a trap. And then, when the cat's out of the bag, the plan was TO LET MICHAEL LEAD THEM INTO THE TRAP? I just...I mean, come ON! You guys completely deserve what's about to happen to you, after the Others do that annoying whispers thing that gives the Lostaways all a chance to point their guns into the jungle, even though they can't see anything.
And then, Sawyer gets a dart in the neck and immediately begins convulsing. After the initial shock, Kate and Jack decide their silly pistols are no match for invisible blowguns and start running for the woods. See ya, Sawyer! Hurley completely turtles, but I guess, spry or not, if the Others can snipe Sawyer like that, Hurley ain't gonna be the hardest target to hit. Kate gets a dart in the shoulder, so Jack grimaces and just fires his gun blindly into the jungle ahead of them, before picking Kate up and throwing her over his shoulders. And he gets it in the leg. He struggles forward as best he can before collapsing on the ground. And the last thing he sees are the Others coming for them with ropes and hoods. Hey, Jack, maybe you should explain your plan to them. Your plan is so fucking simple, I'm sure they'd fucking understand it. That's the beauty of it, Jack.
The timer's down to 21 minutes. Desmond wants Locke to tell him about the Pearl station. Locke fills him in, about the monitors and the viewing chairs and the notebooks and pneumatic tubes. A perplexed Desmond wonders if maybe Locke has it backwards: "What if the experiment wasn't on the two men in here, but on the two men in there?" He wants to see the tape, but he can't, because Pearl station has a region 2 DVD player, and Swan's is a region 1, or something. Desmond asks if there was a computer in that station, and what it did. "Nothing! It didn't do anything! It printed out numbers, lots and lots of numbers." And fortunately, despite not believing in what's going on and thinking the numbers are worthless, Locke's kept the printout, and he throws it at Desmond and calls it "reading material for the 19 minutes." Desmond starts looking at the printout. And, I might be crazy -- and I also have a terrible memory -- but I don't remember the numbers having colons before the last two digits in each number last time.
Flashback to Desmond shaving, and Clancy making fun of him for doing it for some reason. "You've been shaving every day for the last three years. You need to live a little, let go," says Clancy, whatever that means, like growing a beard is the most fun you can have in Swan station, even though you probably can't get the NHL playoffs down there (the Oilers' playoff run is distinctly due to my now-bushy Zeke-esque but not fake beard that has had my wife praying for the Oilers to be swept every series). Desmond says he's never going to let go, and glances at a picture he has tucked into the mirror, of him and Penelope, the loving woman waiting for him while he sails around the world. He misses her so much! His mind drifts back to the good times they had -- dinner, dancing, walking their dog Telemachus.
Anyway, Clancy says "goodbye," which apparently sounds a little more final than Desmond seems to be used to, and he repeats it, questioningly. "Yeah, goodbye. See you in a couple of hours," says Clancy, unconvincingly. Seems to satisfy Desmond, though, who turns away, except he happens to notice a four-inch tear below the knee in the right leg of Clancy's Hazmat suit. He doesn't say anything, though, and Clancy leaves, with Desmond putting on his jumpsuit and following along. He watches Clancy put on his gas mask.
Clancy heads out the Swan station doors, and moments later, Desmond follows, scarf wrapped around his face. Hey, why not just hold your breath? Not far from the hatch, Desmond watches Clancy pause and remove his mask. Desmond pulls his scarf down and takes a big sniff of the air.
Desmond trails Clancy, who has stripped down to his Dharma jumpsuit, across a rocky shore. Desmond loses sight of Clancy, but has found something else: the Elizabeth, floating in a lagoon. He stares at it a moment, like he can't believe it's there. Behind him, Clancy says, "Well, gosh. I didn't think you had the stones to come after me." Desmond turns to see Clancy holding a rifle. Clancy adds that he was a "spook" for ten years, so he knows when he's being followed. "What are you doing with my boat?" yells Desmond. Fixing it, says Clancy. I'm almost done, too! Another week, and then I'm Audi. Wanna come with? "Come where? What about the button?" asks Desmond, like he can't believe what he's hearing (I feel that way sometimes too, Des). "Screw the button, man. Who knows if it's even real?" says Clancy. Desmond's incensed, and asks about the dams and the electromagnetics and the fail-safes. Clancy's all, "Dude! I was totally hammered!" Naturally, this doesn't satisfy Desmond, nor does Clancy's casual "I lied to you because I needed a sucker to save the world after I left." Desmond completely loses his shit and attacks Clancy, yelling about Clancy stealing his life. Fair point, if you ask me. Three years in a bunker? He also calls Clancy a "crazy old bastard." Clancy probably had that coming too. But it's not a very long fight, because Clancy hits his head against the rocks, and he's not moving. Also, the back of his head is covered in blood. This one's for Radzinski, you bastard. Desmond's horrified, but there's probably a part of him that's a little bit pleased with himself for taking down Clancy Motherfucking Brown, even if the guy turned out be a bit of a creampuff.
He pulls himself together enough to grab the failsafe key from around Clancy's neck and hightails it out of there. When he arrives back at Swan station, the alarm is going crazy, repeating "system failure" over and over again. He runs into the computer room, and the numbers of the timer have been replaced by the hieroglyphs. Desmond frantically tries to enter the numbers, but the words "System Failure" are also being printed again and again on the screen. And he glances over to the kitchen, where all the metallic objects are flying down the hall presumably to the magnetic wall. He tries again and again to get the numbers in, and hits the execute button on the computer (everything in this room appears to be made of PLASTIC) after (presumably) somehow getting the numbers in. And after a long moment, things start settling down, and the timer resets to 108 minutes. A very sweaty Desmond looks very relieved.
So okay. The electromagnawhatsis is real, and the button releases the charge so it doesn't build up. But given how apeshit things go instantly after 108 minutes, should they maybe have shortened the intervals at which the charge is released? Like make it every hour or so? And what's the deal with the hieroglyphs anyway? Is that ever going to be explained?
Back in the present day, Desmond's going over Locke's printout, and asks Locke how long ago the Lostaways came here. "Sixty, sixty-five days," says Locke, but Desmond means the date. "September 22nd," says Locke. And Desmond finds it: the number :16, which isn't followed by the usual "accepted," but by SYSTEM FAILURE over and over again. Desmond doesn't say anything for a moment, because he needs the camera to finish its rotation around his amazed face, so Locke says the date again. "I think I crashed your plane," he says. Locke says, "You sank my battleship!" Maybe when we come back from commercial, Locke will ask Desmond why he was letting Locke let the timer run out when he knows the shit that will go down. And also, if he knew that there wasn't anything to quarantine himself from, why was he still injecting himself when the Lostaways finally made it into the hatch?
The Others are leading Kate, Jack, Hurley and Sawyer down a long pier. Zeke cracks me up whenever I see him. That beard rules. He's either cheering for the Oilers, Sabres, or Hurricanes. Michael is not bound, gagged, or hooded. At the end of the pier, the Lostaways are forced to kneel, and their hoods are taken off. Despite his gag, Sawyer manages to make his "son of a bitch!" understood perfectly, so Wilson Pickett knees him in the stomach. Zeke orders everyone to calm down. Jack looks at Michael, who can't hold his gaze. A gagged Kate says, "It's fake. We know that your beard is fake." Zeke says he couldn't quite make that out. Miss Hint says, "She says she knows your beard's fake, Tom." So Zeke thanks Kate for pointing that out, as he removes the beard and moustache, because it really itches. Then he turns to Miss Information: "And thanks for telling them my name, Bea," like real mature to do the exact same thing.
Then the boat we first saw a year ago pulls up to the pier, and everybody watches (we also see Alex among the Others), and getting out is the Other who's been conspicuous by his absence this episode: Henry Gale. He strides down the pier like a colonel arriving by helicopter to inspect the troops. He gives Michael a good, long look as he passes by, and stops in front of Jack. He smiles and nods. "Hello again," he says. And they call Zeke "Mr. Friendly"? Speaking of Zeke, Henry looks at him and asks where his beard is. "I think they know," says a sheepish and clearly deferential Zeke. So Henry's "him," is he? Henry looks at Michael. "All right, let's take care of business, shall we?" Michael looks like he wants to throw up. Kate looks like she's about to cry. Nobody says anything for a good long moment.
In the hatch, an unconscious Charlie slowly wakes up among the rubble and the sparking wires. The sound is muffled with a little bit of ringing. I guess we're hearing through Charlie's ears. The question is, is this because of the blast or because of Driveshaft? He makes his way down the hall, yelling Eko's name, and finds him, lying unconscious and bloody under a beam, that Charlie moves, and yells at Eko to wake up.
Inside the computer room, there's less than four minutes left, and Desmond's saying they need to push the button, and Locke's arguing. "Do you not hear me, brother? I crashed your bloody plane!" he says, and fills Locke in on the flashback we just saw, and Desmond JUST REMEMBERED FOR THE FIRST TIME, apparently, and shows Locke the date of the system failure. "It's real! It's all bloody real! Now push the damn button!" he yells. Locke's still sticking to his Pearl station story. He believes in Pearl station as much as he used to believe in Swan station, apparently. Desmond decides that if Locke won't do it, he will, but Locke picks up the computer and smashes it on the floor. Desmond's absolutely horrified: "Now I'll never wrap Karateka!" He also (or maybe only) says, "You killed us. You killed us all." Locke says he just saved them all. The natural response would be for Desmond to say, "You killed us all, infinity," but Desmond just runs to the control panel and sparks the wires so the blast doors go back up, and when they do, he runs out of the computer room over to the bookcase. Charlie's still trying to revive Eko, and asks if Desmond can help him. "I'm trying, brother," says Desmond. But you're late for your book club? Desmond finds what he's looking for: his copy of Dickens' Our Mutual Friend.
We flash back to a despondent Desmond in the hatch, sitting at the table, with a gun, and a bottle of booze, which he's in the process of polishing off. He's also got Our Mutual Friend. Ready to read, ready to die. He opens it, and an envelope falls out, simply labeled :"Desmond." He opens it and unfolds the letter, which is one of those special talking letters that record the writer's voice so you can hear it as you read it. The letter's from Penelope, which she says she's writing as Desmond's leaving for prison, and she's hiding it in the one place he'll turn to in a "moment of great desperation." In prison? I don't imagine it would have been so easy for Desmond to read while bent over, so whatever, Penelope. She says she knows he's going away "with the weight of what happened" on his shoulders, and he's the only one who can take it off. "Please don't give up, Des. Because all we really need to survive is one person who truly loves us. And you have her. I will wait for you. Despite the many suitors who keep coming around. Always. I love you. Pen."
Desmond starts crying, like a little baby. He folds up the letter, and sobs. He grabs the bottle and throws it. "It's all gone!" he screams. Then he goes over to the bookshelf, yelling and screaming and pulling the books off. And then the records. Not the records! He stops for a moment, to cry some more, and hears banging coming from somewhere above him, as well as Locke's muffled voice (not that he knows who Locke is yet). He runs down to the bottom of the shaft, and sees movement through the tiny window up top, and we hear Locke yelling, "I've done everything you wanted me to do? Why did you do this? Why?" So it's the night Boone died. And Desmond turns the light on, which we watch Locke's reaction to again. Well, at least it wasn't Desmond taking a dump. And I do think it's kind of cool that that night provided as important a sign to Desmond as it did for Locke. And Desmond starts to laugh.
Back to the present: Desmond opens the Dickens book, which is where he's hidden the failsafe key. He runs back into the computer room, where the timer is at 29 seconds. He shoves aside a cabinet, much to Locke's surprise when he sees Desmond open the grate underneath it. "Three days before you came down here, before we met, I heard a banging on the hatch door, shouting. But it was you, John, wasn't it? You said there isn't any purpose. There's no such thing as fate. But you saved my life, brother, so that I could save yours." Locke's sticking to his "none of this is real" story, and tells Desmond things are going to be okay. There's five seconds left. Desmond says he's gotta hustle, and Locke likewise needs to get as far away as possible. Locke wants to know where he's going. "I'm going to blow the dam, John," says Desmond, as the timer hits zero and starts flipping to the hieroglyphs. "I'm sorry for whatever happened that made you stop believing. But it's all real. And now I've got to go and make it all go away." Locke tells him to wait, but Desmond gives him his catchphrase: "I'll see you in another life, brother," and disappears down the tunnel.
Locke looks up at the timer, and the last hieroglyph flips into place. "System failure!" announces the loudspeaker, over and over again, as everything begins shaking and rattling. Charlie's still preoccupied trying to help Eko, and the metallic objects are starting to their little dances of attraction. Eko finally comes to, and none too soon, as several of the metallic objects, like knives and darts, could do non-metallic things, like people, severe damage as they fly down the hall towards the magnetic wall. Charlie helps Eko walk, which is quite a sight, and they barely avoid getting hit by a heavy garbage bin. Dumbbells are rolling, and stationary bikes and fire extinguishers are flying through the air. Eko pushes Charlie away so he can run back to the computer room, which Charlie doesn't seem to think is such a good idea, but then Charlie gets distracted by the washer and dryer, which are trundling down the hallway towards him.
Eko's staggered back to the computer room, where a disoriented Locke is standing amidst the general non-chaos of the computer room. But now things are starting to happen here -- the metallic timer box crunches in on itself. "I was wrong," says Locke. "Looks like I owe you a Coke." He and Eko stare at each other. There will be plenty of time for mea culpas later, so if I may offer a suggestion, boys: MOVE YOUR ASSES.
Below them, Desmond's made it to the failsafe. He lifts the lid, which flies away. He stares at the keyhole, and makes the sign of the cross before inserting the key, which I guess isn't made of metal. We see a couple of quick cuts to Penelope and her dramatic tear-stained cheek, as we hear her voice repeat the most salient part of her contribution to Desmond's defining object: "All we really need to survive is one person who truly loves us. And you have her. I will wait for you. Always. I love you." Desmond says, "I love you, Penny," and he turns the key.
The screen goes white.
Back at the pier, everybody's just standing around still, and there's a loud vibrating noise, and the ground seems to be shaking. Henry looks pissed, almost like he has some idea what's happening, and everyone covers his ears and the screen gets bright and high-contrasty. On the boat, Sun and Jin and Sayid -- guess he lit his signal fire and fucked off, hey? -- do the same thing. The noise keeps getting higher and higher pitched, as we see the Lostaways on the beach reacting the same way, dropping to their knees and covering their ears, and Aaron screaming in his crib because he can't cover his ears. Claire picks him up and tries to calm him, even though she's freaking out too. A quick shot of the sky reveals it to be purple, not blue.
Eventually, the noise fades, and Henry stops glaring at the sky as everyone around him recovers, and the light goes back to normal. Everyone, everywhere -- Jack, Sawyer, Bernard, Claire -- look around fearfully. Then Bernard and Claire look up in the sky, and see a large object spinning, falling towards them. Bernard hustles Claire out of the way, and the object crashes into the sand directly behind them. They look over their shoulders, at the quarantine door from Swan station.
After the commercial, the Lostaways have decidedly not fallen apart without the presence of most of the main cast. They're cleaning things up -- the beach pantry has food scattered all over the place. Maybe Bernard's organized things? Nah, there's no mutiny. A dazed Charlie comes out of the jungle, and Bernard asks if he's okay. "It's hard to tell, exactly. But, my ears, you know?" is the non-answer. Bernard asks where Locke and Eko are. Because Bernard knew they were all at the hatch? Don't think so! Charlie's just surprised to find out Eko and Locke aren't "back" yet. Then he sees Claire looking at him whilst rocking Aaron, and she smiles slightly, looking inexplicably relieved that Charlie's all right. Charlie smiles, because yeeeeeeaaaaaahhhh. The yummy mummy likes him again.
Back at the pier, Henry's walking Michael over to the boat and bitching that the arrangement that was made with him isn't to Henry's liking, but "we got more than we bargained for when Walt joined us, so I suppose this is what's best." Michael lived up to his word, and the Others live up to their word too, says Henry, who asks if Michael knows how to drive a boat. Michael says he does. "Good. Then you're going to take this boat and follow a compass bearing of three-two-five, and if you do that exactly, you and your son will find rescue." Michael's understandably skeptical and asks how Henry knows Michael won't tell people where he was. "Maybe you will, maybe you won't. But it won't matter. Once you leave, you'll never be able to get back here," says Henry. Oh, and then there's the fact that you murdered two people to get your son back, so I don't think you'll be talking to anybody about what's gone on here. I'm paraphrasing. Michael glances back at the four Lostaways tied up and kneeling. They must be getting really sore by now. "My friends -- I was promised you wouldn't hurt them," he says. "A deal's a deal," says Henry, not too convincingly, but almost daring Michael to make an issue of it. "Who are you people?" asks Michael. Henry stares at him, before breaking out in a creepy smile. "We're the good guys, Michael," he says, and then turns the boat over to Michael, who spazzes, wanting to know where his son is. Henry calmly tells him Walt's already on the boat. Michael hops on, and sure enough, there's Walt, just below deck. "Bon voyage, Michael," says Henry. I tell you what, I was thinking "boat bomb" right there. Walt and Michael have a happy reunion, with much hugging, and it looks like if you asked Michael right now, he'd tell you: totally worth it. He asks if Walt's okay, and Walt says yes, and Michael tells him that everything's going to be okay, that they're going home. Over a little ways, Hurley glances over at Jack, who slumps a little bit. I hope he's thinking "well, at least Walt's okay," and not "fucking little brat."
Henry strolls back over to where the fantastic four are being held, and motions to Miss Tipoff, who takes off Hurley's gag and cuts the rags binding his hands. "Hugo, you can go back to your camp," she says. Hurley's rather surprised, to say the least, and she tells him his job is to tell the rest of the Lostaways that they can never come here. "But...what about my friends?" asks Hurley. "Your friends are coming home with us!" says Henry brightly, like it's an exciting trip they've got planned. Hurley looks pretty downcast, not because he's leaving his friends, but because it turns out he's not really part of the A-Team. He looks at Jack, who nods for him to leave, and he does.
Meanwhile, Michael's started the boat and starts to pull away, passing his trussed-up friends, who all watch him. Michael and Jack lock eyes for a moment, and Michael seems to have an easier time doing so now, his face a mixture of "my son, Jack" and "oh yeah, all that stuff I did." The Others move to gather the Lostaways back up again, and Jack and Kate look at each other. He gives her a slight nod, and she slowly blinks her eyes at him. This REALLY seems to piss Sawyer off. Like he's been captured, tranquilized, tied up and kicked in the stomach, but he's most annoyed about Jack nodding at Kate (because he couldn't have seen her blinking at him). And he glares REALLY HARD at them, at least until the hood's put over his head again, and the same is done to Jack and Kate.
Nighttime, at the beach. Charlie and Claire sit by the fire, Charlie rubbing his ears. She watches him a moment, before saying, "What happened out there, Charlie?" Been waiting a while to ask that, haven't we, Claire? Charlie asks if she wants to hear the part about him nearly being killed by the flaming fireball or the flying fork. "I want you to be serious," she says. "Nothing happened," Charlie says, looking momentarily perplexed. Claire doesn't believe him, and reminds him about the noise, and says the sky turned "that weird violet color." "Did it?" asks Charlie, only this time it's like he's deliberately pretending to have no idea what she's talking about. She's slightly annoyed, but still can't resist smiling at his irrepressibility. Then she gets to play Florence Nightingale with a wound on Charlie's arm, and then there is shy smiling and hair stroking, and Claire leans in and plants a quick little kiss on Charlie's lips. There there, all better now, Charlie? They smile some more and get all cutesy by the fire, and the screen fades to black, and I couldn't BELIEVE that we were ending the season with Charlie and Claire by the fire.
And then we got what I thought was a beer commercial or a Smirnoff Ice commercial or some shit at first: it's a landscape of snowy mountains, and there appears to be a bit of a blizzard going on. The camera pulls back, and it turns out we're in some sort of shelter, the kind where scientists discover unusual weather patterns or hibernating alien colonies in crappy movies, with the abundance of odd equipment all over. There's two guys, and they're playing chess. So you know, I see snow and ice, and then chess, and I immediately think "Russian." This despite that as I watch it back you can plainly hear "amigo" and "por favor." And it turns out that they're speaking Portuguese, but their accents indicate they're not Portuguese, but, more likely -- and this is just my best guess, mind you -- that they're the children of a Brazilian man and an Estonian woman who spent their formative years in Spain, and then went to London, and then university in Germany and then spent a couple of years backpacking through the Himalayas.
They're wrapped up in their game of chess, when one glances over at a piece of equipment that has a blinking red light and a computer screen that reads "Electromagnetic Anomaly Detected." "How long has it been doing that?" he asks. The other guy runs over to the screen, and then starts frantically flipping through some binder looking for something, while the first guy starts spazzing: "That's it, isn't it? We missed it again..." Then an alarm starts beeping, and the second guy goes to another computer, where he starts typing. I swear to God, if he's typing a set of numbers and then hitting "Execute," I'm done. But he's not, and the first guy suddenly realizes that this is not a false alarm. "Just shut up and call!" yells his colleague. Man #1 grabs a yellow telephone and picks up the receiver.
We cut to a bedroom nightstand with a ringing black telephone. And probably more important, a picture in a frame, the same one Desmond had, of him and Penelope. But we don't see anyone's face yet; they're saving that because they think viewers are stupid. A hand gropes for the phone and picks it up. "Hello," says I-wonder-who-it-could-be. "Ms. Widmore?" says the guy. "Yes," she says. But we don't see her face yet; they're saving that because they think viewers are stupid. "It's us. I think we found it."
The camera pans over to "reveal" a stunned Penelope. She doesn't say anything. So the cliffhanger this summer is: just how does Penelope have such great hair even when she's woken up in the middle of the night?
Although I'm sure that'll be another mystery dropped season. Until then, thanks, everyone for reading and posting on the boards, thanks to Sars and Joe R for editing, thanks to ABC for turning the exercise of broadcasting a simple television show into as much of a cynical mindgame as anything Dharma could come up with -- what with the screwy schedule, four clip shows this season, few-minutes-past-the-hour running times, crass projects like books and websites that you like to call "interactive" but are really just excuses to try to grab more advertising revenue -- and most of all, my wife. Perhaps someday I'll solve the mystery of why she puts up with me.