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So this week is lots of set-up and not much payoff. First, let's deal with the flash-forward. We see the Oceanic Six land in Hawaii on a Coast Guard plane, where they are questioned by the press. They're already passing Aaron off as Kate's baby. Jack, Sun, and Hurley are all reunited with their families, and Nadia shows up for Sayid. Hurley's parents throw him a surprise party, but he freaks out when he comes face-to-face with the numbers. And then after the funeral for Jack's dad, Claire's mother introduces herself to Jack and tells him that Claire was his sister. Awkward.
In the present, Daniel uses the satellite phone to listen in on Keamy's communications -- they hear that the mercenaries are headed to the Orchid. Juliet claims not to know what that is, but Daniel thinks it's pretty bad news. Jack and Kate take the satellite phone and head off after the chopper. On the way, they run into Miles and Sawyer (and Aaron). Kate takes Miles and Aaron back to the beach, while Jack and Sawyer continue on the way to the chopper. When they get there, they find Frank, handcuffed to the chopper. He tells them that if they free him, he'll fly them the hell off the island before Keamy and his boys capture Ben and kill whoever is with him. Except that Sawyer knows that Hurley is with Ben, so he and Jack decide to head out and save him.
Sayid arrives on the beach to start ferrying people to the freighter. But then Kate gets there and tells him about Jack and Sawyer going after the chopper, so Sayid and Kate decide to take off into the jungle to find them. That leaves Daniel to ferry people (including Sun and Jin) back to the freighter. Things are a little tense when Jin is reunited with Michael. The engines are working again, but there's some kind of radio transmission coming from the boat that's interfering with navigation. So Desmond sets out to find it.
Meanwhile, Ben, Locke, and Hurley head to the Orchid, which is where they need to be in order to move the island. But they arrive too late -- the soldiers are already there. And just to wrap everything up we see the following: Kate and Sayid are captured by Richard Alpert and the Others; Jack and Sawyer trudge through the jungle to find Hurley; Desmond and Sawyer discover that a cabin on the ship is packed with explosives ready to go off; and Ben surrenders in order to distract the soldiers so Locke can get into the Orchid.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously, the mercenaries from the freighter planned to torch everyone and everything on the island, and Frank dropped a trail of breadcrumbs out of the chopper. And Christian told Ben to move the island.
Open sky. You think we're on the chopper, but we're actually on a plane, with a couple of Coast Guard pilots. One of the pilots is rubbing his rabbit's foot. (That's not a euphemism.) He thinks they need luck in light of the scary cargo they're carrying. One of the pilots turns to a civilian-type woman sitting behind them and tells her to let the passengers know they are going to land soon. The woman is played by Michelle Forbes, a.k.a. Ro Laren, a.k.a. Admiral Caine, a.k.a. some characters on other TWoP-covered shows. She gets around, is what I'm saying. She makes her way to the back of the cargo plane, where we find the Oceanic Six glumly sitting there. She tells them that they're about to land at a military base near Honolulu, where their families are already waiting for them. She also says that the press is there, but it's completely up to them whether they speak to the press or not -- Oceanic (which is who she works for) doesn't care one way or the other. Jack tells her that they've decided to talk to the reporters. And hey, the reporters are already calling them the Oceanic Six. She leaves, and we can barely see that there's some other dude sitting about ten feet away from the Losties.
Now that they have some privacy (except for the mostly unseen dude), Jack tells the others that they all know the story, and that they should just avoid answering any questions they don't like. He thinks the press will accept their silence, believing them to be in shock. Sun: "We are in shock, Jack."
The plane lands. They unbuckle their seat belts, and the entire back of the plane opens up. We can see a crowd of people waiting on the runway. None of the Losties look very happy. Until they hit the runway. Hurley sees his mother and father and runs to them. Sun's parents are also there -- she hugs her mother and kind of ignores her father. And there's Jack's mother. Sayid and Kate have nobody waiting for them. Hurley pulls Sayid over to his family, and Mama Hurley gives him a big hug. And Kate stands there, looking lonely and kind of scared.
Beach. It seems like it was moments ago that the chopper dropped a phone on them, and they're trying to figure out what it means. Rose thinks it must have been Desmond and Sayid on the chopper. Sun thinks that if they were on the chopper, they would have just landed. Jack thinks they're supposed to use the phone to follow the chopper. Sun thinks that since they have a phone, perhaps they should just try to call the chopper. Jack hands the phone to Daniel, who pushes some buttons on the phone -- the display reads "monitor only," and we can hear people speaking. Keamy is telling Frank to land the chopper, and then tells the soldiers that they're heading to the Orchid as soon as they land. Daniel and Charlotte exchange some of their patented "better keep a secret" glances, but for once nobody seems to notice. Jack asks Juliet if she knows what the Orchid is; she says she does not, and also notes that she didn't hear either Sayid or Desmond on the phone. Jack takes the phone and asks Kate if she'd like to take a walk. While Kate fetches guns, Juliet runs after Jack and tells him it's moronic for him to run off into the jungle while he's just recovering from surgery. Jack tells her that he has to run off into the jungle because he promised the Losties that he would get them off the island. Juliet leaves him to his own stupidity.
Elsewhere on the beach, Daniel pulls his journal out of his pack. Charlotte asks him what's wrong, and he tells her that if the chopper is going to the Orchid, they must be using the secondary protocol. She doesn't know what that means. He flips through his journal and comes to a page with a bunch of formulas, the words "spacelike factors," and a drawing of a Dharma symbol with the words "The Orchid" written to it. He tells her that they have to get off the island right away. Credits.
Daylight, in the jungle. Jack and Kate are trudging along, following the tracking on the satellite phone. He thinks that they're getting close, and she suggests they take a break. As she gets some water out of her pack, she notices blood on his shirt around his stitches. He tells her it's normal, and that he's not bleeding. I think it would actually be pretty normal for him to be bleeding. She tells him that she knows he's lying because he looks her dead in the eye. They hear a sound in the trees and pull their guns. It's Miles, followed closely by Sawyer and Aaron. Kate and Jack look shocked to see them, and Kate asks where Claire is. Sawyer: "We lost her." And it's kind of like one of those jokes about a doctor who always says the wrong thing (like, "your mother has gone to a better place," when he means that your mother has been sent to a better hospital), because what he means is that she wandered off into the jungle, not that she's dead. (That we know of.) Sawyer and Miles did spend a day looking for her. And yet somehow the baby is not starving. There's all kinds of mutual exposition -- Jack tells Sawyer about the chopper flying by, and Sawyer tells Jack about the mercenaries who killed a bunch of people. Sawyer thinks they should stay away from the chopper, but Jack thinks it's their only way off the island. They're arguing, and now the baby starts crying. So Kate takes him, because she's so maternal. Jack and his enormous ego think that he's responsible for Sayid and Desmond since he put them on the chopper, so he has to try to find them. Jack tries to send the other back to the beach, but Kate thinks it's stupid for him to go alone. Jack tells her to take care of the baby. Noble Sawyer tells Jack that he doesn't get to die alone, and follows him off into the trees.
Flash-forward. Press conference in a large hangar. Admiral Caine is briefing the press on what happened. The story is that the plane crashed, the ocean current swept the survivors to a tiny island called Membata. Eventually, a typhoon washed up the wreckage of a boat, and on day 108 the survivors set sail and made their way to a larger island called Sumba (all of this in the Indonesian archipelago). As she speaks, the Oceanic Six are sitting at a table on the stage. We see a photo of the six of them coming ashore on Sumba, with some local fisherman helping them out. The reporters ask some questions. Jack claims that when the plane crashed, some of them made it off before it went down, and they used seat cushions (which really can be used as a flotation device) to stay afloat while the current carried them to the island. It took a day for them to wash ashore, and by then there were only eight left. One reporter asks them how it is that they look so healthy. Hurley: "Is that directed at me, dude?" And then reporter asks him about his money; he tells her he doesn't want any of it back. Another reporter asks Sun a question in Korean. Sun translates for the crowd, noting that the reporter asked if Sun's husband died on the island. Sun says he didn't -- he never made it off the plane. A reporter asks Kate about her baby. Kate claims Aaron is just over five weeks old. The reporter puts it together that she would have been about six months pregnant when she was arrested in Australia. And really, this is where I expect their story to fall apart, because the Australian cops involved then have to know that she was not visibly pregnant when the Marshall took her away. Finally, a reporter asks Sayid if it's possible there are any other survivors. The survivors all exchange portentous looks. They seem to have learned some lessons on how to conspire from Daniel and Charlotte. Sayid says that there are no other survivors. By the way, except for the Korean reporter, only two reporters asked all of those questions. The other reporters in the room all suck.
The survivors leave the press conference, walking through a curtain. Jack tells Kate that she did good. Then Admiral Caine tells Sayid that there's a woman there to see him. She wasn't on the list of family members, but Sayid definitely knows her name. Sayid exits the hangar (and again, what kind of crappy reporters wouldn't follow him to ask more questions?), where he finds Nadia waiting for him. They embrace. It's a very moving reunion. Too bad we already know she's going to die.
Cut to Sayid in the Zodiac, heading back to the island. He looks very heroic flying over the waves, and the music is incredibly gorgeous. He pulls the boat up on the beach, and some Losties (including Sun, Jin, and Juliet) run up to him. Sun asks where Desmond is; as we know, he's on the boat. Sayid tells them he's got to get them back to the boat before the chopper returns. Juliet asks why that's so important; Sayid tells her it's because the chopper dudes plan to kill them all. And that's when Juliet tells Sayid that Jack and Kate went out looking for the chopper. Commercials.
Ben, Locke, and Hurley climb a hill. Hurley asks where they're going. Ben tells him they're going to the Orchid, which is a greenhouse. And also the place where they store the really long lever they used to move the island. Hurley makes the sensible suggestion that they should have moved the island before the "psychos with guns" showed up. Ben tells him that moving the island is dangerous -- it's a measure of last resort. Ben notices a small pile of rocks and stops to dig through it. He finds a small suitcase. Locke finally remembers that he's nominally in charge, and insists on opening the case. The first thing he pulls out is a tin of Dharma crackers, which he immediately tosses to Hurley. Who just as immediately starts cramming them in his piehole. The thing is a mirror, which Ben asks for. Ben tells Hurley, "You know, those are fifteen years old." Heh. Ben holds the mirror up and starts flashing some signals to a nearby mountain. Locke has pulled some binoculars out of the case, and he trains them on the mountain. A message is flashed from the mountaintop in response, and Ben says they can go. Locke asks him what just happened. Ben: "None of your business, John." You know, I don't think it's so much that Ben is an evil genius as it is that Locke is a moron.
On the beach, people are still clustered around the boat. They're loading it with supplies, or something. Daniel tells Sayid that if he wants to head off after Jack and Kate, that's great, but that they still need to start getting people to the freighter. Daniel offers to start ferrying people back. Juliet nods her assent, and Sayid hands Daniel the compass. Daniel calls for the first six passengers. Juliet interrupts to make sure that Sun (who is pregnant) is in the first load. And then Kate and Miles emerge from the jungle. She and Sayid exchange exposition, and she offers to go with him since she can track Jack and Sawyer. And then without explaining where Claire is, Kate shoves Aaron into Sun's arms and asks her to get him on the boat. Kate and Sayid run off, and Daniel, Sun, Jin, Aaron, and three other Losties head off in the boat. There are only about six people (including Charlotte) left standing on the beach -- I know there are still half a dozen or so Losties scattered around the island, but it's kind of disturbing to see how much their numbers have dwindled. On the Zodiac, Jin reminds Sun that he promised to get her off the island.
A visibly pregnant Sun, with a very sleek hairstyle, climbs some stairs in a Paik Heavy Industries office building. She overhears her father yelling at a couple of flunkies, who are giving him bad news about something that somebody did using five different banks. Mr. Paik sends the flunkies scurrying. Sun greets him, and innocently asks if something is wrong. Mr. Paik tells her not to worry her pretty little head over it. He asks how the pregnancy is going. She turns cold, and tells him not to bother feigning interest, since they both know he hated Jin. He gets red, and demands that she shut up and show him some respect. So she tells him that she used her Oceanic settlement money to buy a controlling interest in his company (presumably using five different banks to do it). Either Paik Heavy Industries is a much smaller company than I ever imagined, or Oceanic was throwing around some kind of billion-dollar settlement money. As the new controlling owner of the company, Sun demands that Mr. Paik show her some respect. He's shocked, and demands to know why she did this. She accuses him of ruining Jin's life, and of being one of two people responsible for his death. He collapses into his chair. She tells him that she's going to have her baby, and then they can discuss the future of their company. Sun's kind of a hard-ass. Commercials.
Hurley pulls up to the McMansion he bought when he won the lottery. He's driving a rustheap of a car, and as he gets out we can see that he's clutching a bag from Mr. Cluck's. The front door of the house is ominously open, and Hurley hesitantly calls out for his mother as he enters. And then he sees a coconut sitting on the floor of the foyer. And then... whispers! Island-type whispers. Taking his cue from the music, Hurley gets all tense and creeps into the... bedroom? That's right off the foyer? That's an interesting design choice. The whispers are louder in the bedroom. Hurley puts down the chicken and picks up a gilt-covered religious statue and approaches a set of French doors that lead out of the bedroom. There's a curtain across the doors, so we can't see what's on the other side. Asking himself why he's doing this, Hurley raises the statue in one hand and throws the door open with the other. Surprise! It's a birthday party! Hurley's mother asks him why he's holding the statue like a club, and he tells her he thought there might be a prowler. Mama Hurley: "Jesus Christ is not a weapon." She takes the statue away from him and tells him to enjoy the party.
It's later, and everyone is chillaxing at the party on the patio. Hurley sure has lots of friends for a fat, depressed, crazy man. Also, the place is decorated with a total tropical island theme, right down to fake thatch on the umbrellas. Hurley sees Kate (holding Aaron), who tells him Jack is running late. And then a heavily accented voice wishes him a happy birthday. It's Nadia, there with Sayid. And Sayid's wedding ring. Sayid comments on the decorations, and Hurley tells him that his mother doesn't really get the whole "I'd be happy if I never saw another tropical island for the rest of my life" concept. Hurley's father interrupts (with a bad joke about how they must be talking about building fires or hunting boars) and takes Hurley away to show him his present. Hurley's dad seems to be taking his makeup tips from Richard Alpert, because he's wearing more eyeliner than an old French whore.
Cut to the two of them standing in the driveway. Hurley tells him that he doesn't want anything that was purchased with the lottery money, and his father tells him that the present was something he got before Hurley gave them the money. Dad opens the garage door, and we see the Camaro that Hurley was fixing up with his dad when he was a little boy (and that we saw him crash in another flash-forward. Hurley's dad tells him that he worked on fixing the car after the crash as a memorial to Hurley. He hands him the keys, and they get in to go for a drive. But Hurley happens to look at the dashboard, and he sees that the odometer reads .6 and the trip meter reads 234.2. And of course, those are the Numbers (4-8-15-16-23-42). Hurley accuses his dad of trying to punk him, but Cheech seems genuinely confused. Hugo freaks out and goes running down the street.
In the jungle, Hurley is asking Ben the question we all thought of after last week's episode. Namely, how does it help to move the island if the bad guys with guns are already there? Also, if they move the island, will Hurley still be able to get off the island somehow? I think I know the answer to that second one. But Ben doesn't answer either question. Ben stops suddenly and asks for the binoculars. He also tells them to get lower to the ground, because they've arrives. But he does all of this in a fairly loud tone, so I hope the soldiers are all listening to their iPods instead of being on guard. Locke asks why they're waiting, and Ben tells him that Widmore knows about the Orchid and will have told the soldiers to go there. Locke asks Ben, "I thought you said you had no idea why he was trying to find the island?" Ben: "I wasn't being entirely truthful." Really, show? You're going to write Locke as being so dumb that he keeps believing Ben and then have Ben make fun of him for it? Anyway, the soldiers are already there. Commercials.
The Zodiac launch, bearing Daniel, Sun, Jin, Aaron, and three no-names, approaches the freighter. Desmond and a crewman throw down a rope ladder and help people up to the deck. There's a little exposition about the fact that Sayid went into the jungle after Jack, and then Daniel takes off to get the group. There's what looks like a sizeable tank of fuel in the boat with him, in case you were wondering. On the deck, we hear a familiar voice tell someone that the engine is fixed. Sun and Jin turn towards the voice and look stunned. Because the voice belongs to Michael.
Desmond enters the... bridge? Control room? Whatever. And tells a crewman that the engine should be working. The guy starts it up, and tells Desmond that they can now bring the boat closer to the island. Desmond makes sure he's on the right heading. The crewman tells Des that there's some kind of RF (which means "radio frequency") interference with the fancy electronic thing that helps them avoid running to dangerous things in the water (like reefs, or rocks). Until the source of the interference is found, he's not going to move the boat. They decide, from the strength of the signal, that the interference must be coming from on board, so Desmond sets out to find it.
Sawyer and Jack are in the jungle. Sawyer notices Jack's bleeding stomach, and Jack tells him about the appendectomy. And then they arrive at the chopper. There are sounds coming from inside it, so they split up and circle around to approach both doors at once. What they find is Frank, handcuffed to a bench in the rear part of the helicopter. Frank tells them that he dropped the phone on them precisely so they could find him and he could fly them out of there. I like the way you think, Frank -- leave the crazy soldiers on the island where they can't hurt you or the people on the boat and then get everyone else onto the boat with you. That's some good planning. Frank asks Sawyer to fetch him a toolbox so he can find something to cut the handcuffs. Frank tells Jack that Desmond and Sayid stayed on the boat (which was true the last time he saw them). Frank tells them that the soldiers have gone to snatch Ben. In response to Sawyer's question, he tells them that he expects the soldiers to kill anyone who is with Ben. Sawyer tells Jack that Hurley is with Ben. Jack: "Son of a bitch!" I like that Sawyer didn't bother to tell Jack that Locke was with Ben, because that might have tempted him to go help the soldiers kill everyone himself.
Cut to a picture of Christian, propped on an easel to a podium. Jack is speaking, telling a group of people, "About ten months ago, I wrote what I wanted to say at my father's funeral on the back of a cocktail napkin at the Sydney airport." He tells them that his father was a big alcoholic who only went to wakes for the free booze... but in a nice way. And then he notes that he won't even be able to bury his father. Which leads me to wonder why he's having this funeral ten months after the crash? I could see doing it right after getting back to L.A., and I could maybe see having some kind of memorial on the anniversary of his death. But just around six months after getting back home? Anyway, Jack finishes speaking, and you can see that he's actually maybe made some kind of peace with his memories of his father, telling the assembled mourners that he loved and misses his father.
Jack and his mother shake people's hands as they leave the church. And then she goes home, leaving Jack alone with Kate and Aaron. And a blonde Australian woman who looks vaguely familiar. Jack asks her how she knew Christian, and she tells him that she's the reason Christian was in Australia when he died. He wasn't there to see her, but to see her daughter... who was also Christian's daughter. And Jack's half-sister. And whose name is Claire. DUN DUN! Except it's more of a "eh, eh," since we already knew that. On the way out of the church, Claire's mom stops and admires the beauty that is Aaron, without realizing she's looking at her own grandson. Commercials.
Freighter. Michael is telling Sun about how he made his way back to the U.S. after leaving the island. Sun asks him if it's true that he works for Ben. Michael denies it, claiming he was trying to save everyone on the island. Michael asks Sun to translate what he said for Jin, but Jin tells him that he understood it. And then Desmond sticks his head out a door and screams for Michael to come help him. Michael follows him, with Sun and Jin hot on his trail. They enter a cabin, where they find a huge pile of parcels wrapped in brown paper, each labeled "C-4 explosive!" I think if you're going to put punctuation on your package of explosives, this is one time you could go ahead and use multiple exclamation points. There are lots of wires attached to the explosives. Jin says something to Sun in Korean, and when she hesitates, shouts "now!" in English. She leaves.
Sayid and Kate are in the jungle. Kate's tracking, and then realizes that the tracks she's found don't belong to Jack or Sawyer and that they're doubling back behind them. She pulls out her gun, and Sayid shouts for whoever it is to come out at once. Richard Alpert comes out of the trees with both hands held high. He asks them to drop their guns and keeps walking towards them. Kate shouts at him to stop, but he doesn't. And then about a million Others step out of the jungle, all pointing guns as Kate and Sayid. They decide that this would be a good time to surrender. Also, the Others are once again dressed in their old-timey frontier outfits instead of the Land's End clothes they wore at New Otherton.
Orchid. Locke can see two soldiers through the binoculars, but not Keamy. Ben is certain he must be there. Ben pulls his baton of death out of his pocket and hands it to Locke for safekeeping. Ben, very terse, tells Locke to pay attention, and then gives him instructions on how to find an elevator in the Orchid station that will take him down to where he actually needs to be in order to move the island. (But he doesn't actually tell him what to do when he gets there.) Locke's more curious about how he's supposed to get past the soldiers, but Ben tells him that he'll take care of that. Locke asks how he's going to do that, and Ben turns to him with a hurt look on his face: "How many times do I have to tell you John? I always have a plan." And then Ben walks away from Locke.
We now get a slow-motion montage set to some lovely music. Ben walks toward the soldier. Sun, still holding Aaron, emerges onto the deck of the freighter and looks back to where her husband is staring down a pile of explosives. Jack and Sawyer walk away from the chopper. Kate and Sayid march with the Others through the jungle. And then Ben walks up to the soldiers and surrenders. He tells Keamy, "My name is Benjamin Linus. I believe you're looking for me?" Keamy points his gun at Ben's forehead, but settles for knocking him out. Credits. See you in two weeks for the finale.
LTG is a pension and benefits attorney in Washington, D.C., which explains why he's so mean and bitter. You can reach him at ltg.jon@gmail.com