What's in a name?

Well, the producers finally slipped up. They've given us absolute proof that Lost is centered on a time travel scenario.

What proof? That tie.

David Faraday's tie can only be explained by time travel. It somehow jumped from my wardrobe in 1987 to his neck in 2004.

I'll bet he has my mesh shoes too.

Lots to cover this week, so let's get to it!

The episode opens on what appears to be an underwater exploration of some sort. Two men lightly banter back and forth as they guide remote submersibles across the ocean floor. Within a few moments, they find something.

It's a sunken wreck, Flight 815.

Cut to the news. Apparently the expedition that found the plane was actually searching for sunken merchant ships (The Black Rock, anyone?) in the trench when they stumbled on the remains of the doomed Oceanic jet. Watching this, the man we saw parachute onto the island last week seems more than a bit disturbed by what he's seeing and he can't explain why.

In a vicious storm, several people, including our parachutist are struggling in the cockpit of a helicopter. They manage to get a chute on our guy and shove him out the door. When he lands, once he gets the chute off, he checks his gun and tucks it in his waistband.

Kate and Jack emerge from the jungle and we finally learn that his name is Daniel Faraday.

(*Holy interesting guy sidenote: Michael Faraday was a famous, mostly self educated scientist (natural philosopher in the parlance of the day) of the 19th century who experimented in chemistry, electricity and physics. He has a number of discoveries and effects named after him. The Faraday paradox deals with spinning magnets, the Faraday effect deals with magnetism, the Faraday filter is used in weather research, and the Faraday cage is a contrivance that (this on is interesting) blocks electromagnetic energy. Your microwave has a sort of Faraday cage inside to keep you from getting cooked and if you've ever lost a cell signal in an elevator, that's because elevators and certain metal framed buildings act as a type of Faraday cage.)

(*Recap slowness sidenote: The recap would have been up sooner, but I found reading about this guy just fascinating.)

They let him use their phone to call the freighter, but the glow of happiness they initially felt at the prospect of being rescued turns to suspicion when Minkowski tells Faraday to take him off speaker phone. Jack and Kate share a look while Faraday takes the call privately. When he comes back he explains that the phone will use GPS locator technology to help them find the other members of the team. Kate and Jack seem to be happy to help him search.

As they head out to find his team, he asks where the rest of the survivors are.

“Most of them are back at the beach.”

“Most of them?”

Elsewhere on the island, Locke is standing face up in the rain. Hurley is naturally curious just what the hell he’s up to.

“Storm’s about to pass, Hugo.”

“It’s a friggin’ monsoon, we gotta…” And thus ends the rain. Locke and his rain. I love that.

Locke gathers the gang to head out. Sawyer notices that they’re heading in the wrong direction. Locke tells him that they need to make a detour to a cabin that Locke has to go to. Hurley points back in another direction.

“I thought the cabin was back that way.”

“What’d you say, Hugo?”

When Hurley realizes that Locke is just a little too curious about Hurley and what he knows of the cabin, he lamely covers by saying he thought that Locke meant the airplane cabin. Neither Locke, nor Ben are fooled.

Oblivious to the weird vibe between Locke and Hurley, Sawyer presses the issue. When he demands to know why they should go to some shack in the woods, Locke tells him that it’s because they’re supposed to.

“Like you were supposed to throw a knife into that Naomi chick’s back?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You mind telling us who you’re getting your orders from, Colonel Kurtz?”

I love the smell of Apocalypse Now references in the morning.

“I got ‘em from Walt.”

Sawyer, who was there when Michael and Walt took off in Ben’s boat, way back at the end of season two, looks like he’s about to say something, but lets it go for the moment.

At the beach, Sayid and Juliet are discussing the warning that Ben offered the group about the purported rescuers. Sayid is puzzled that Ben would try to warn them of danger.

“Because he’s a liar. And he’s trying to scare us. That’s what Ben does. Or, because the people who are coming here intend to do us harm. How many guns do you have left?”

Whenever Ben speaks, it’s like one of those little Russian dolls. You never know if there’s another layer inside until you crack it open and check.

Back with Jack and Kate, the phone is leading them through the jungle to one of Faraday’s team when they stumble on a metal case. Jack opens it to find gas masks and hazmat suits. Jack, being the whip-smart guy he is, becomes a little more suspicious.

“What’s this for?”

“Um…I’m not in charge of packing…”

And we thought Hurley was the king of lame covers.

“Daniel. Why did you bring the gun?”

“As a precaution.”

“A precaution against what?”

“Uh…okay, see…um…rescuing you and your people? Can’t really say it’s our primary objective.”

“Then what is?”

Luckily for Faraday, the phone beeps, effectively interrupting the uncomfortable conversation. The three go charging off into the jungle in search of Miles.

Back with Locke's party, he and Sawyer are discussing Locke seeing Walt. Sawyer thinks maybe Locke was dreaming, but Locke is convinced it was Walt...only taller.

(*Puberty sidenote: This is obviously the producers way of glossing over Malcolm David Kelley's growth in the last three years. My bet is that this is the one and only thing we'll hear about it from the cast. If and when we see Walt again, it will be noted that he is indeed taller, but unless it turns out that they're actually going to use a time dilation scenario as a plot device, Walt's abnormal (if only it had really happened over the few months “on island” time) growth spurt will be otherwise ignored by everyone.)

“Taller? What, like a giant?”

Now, that would have been great. Giant Walt. He could wrestle the smoke monster in a sort of Godzilla vs. Mothra thing...

Locke explains that Walt was the one who instructed him to stop Naomi from bringing her people to the island. Sawyer (who in this episode seems to be speaking for the fans) asks another great question.

“What, you didn't ask him follow up questions?” I've been screaming those same words at my television for three years.

It turns out that Locke took Walt at his word because he was busy trying not to die from the bullet wound inflicted by Ben. The look on Sawyer's face when Locke shows him the wound that would have killed him had he not had that kidney removed is perfectly priceless. You can actually hear a southern accented “WTF” in his eyes.

Back with Jack and Kate, Faraday is following the phone tracker when they spot a body still strapped into a parachute on the rocks at the island's edge. Dr. Jack takes the lead and promptly ends up with Miles' gun in his face.

“Back up, handsome.”

Ladies and gentlemen, I think Jack has a date to the first annual Otherville Ball.

While Faraday is trying to reassure Miles, Kate tries to sneak the gun out of Faraday's pants. Perhaps we have a double date brewing?

Miles notices and backs her up too. He then demands to know where Naomi is.

A car pulls up to a nondescript house, news of the discovery of Flight 815 playing on the radio. Miles is the driver. He listens long enough to hear that authorities have declared all the passengers dead.

He gets out of the car, knocks on the door of the house and is let in by a woman who appears to be in her late middle age. He asks which room is “it” and tells her that he is to be paid in advance, cash only. He asks for two hundred, rather than the previously agreed upon one hundred, because he has been informed that the woman's grandson was murdered. She pays and he opens the suitcase he has with him and assembles what looks like a handheld vacuum cleaner.

(*Ghostbusting sidenote: This device is apparently something that “real” ghostbusters actually use. It produces and blows cold air. Why ghosts would be affected by cold air is beyond me, but it seems to be standard in the ghostbusting trade.)

In the young man's room, he sets up the device and starts to talk to the “ghost” of the grandson. He tells him that he wants to be able to tell the grandmother that the “ghost” has gone, but before he can do that he needs to know where “it” is. A noise behind a cabinet catches his attention and he moves it to reveal a vent where drugs and cash are stashed. He takes the cash and leaves the heroin. I guess he knows that by the time he gets to the island, Charlie won't be around to party with...

As he leaves, he returns the extra hundred he charged, saying that the job wasn't as tricky as he had anticipated. The lady hugs him, which he endures with an uncomfortable expression on his face.

I must admit, Lost nearly lost me as a viewer here. Taller Ghost Walt is one thing. A “real life” ghostbuster is something else. As hard as they tried to make it seem “real” and serious, it just seemed really silly to me. I can suspend my disbelief only so far, and this scene really stretched it for me. I know, I know, Lost has a ton of other “stretches” but somehow this part just rang hollow for me. Actually, come to think of it, so do “real life” ghostbusters. Maybe that's the problem.

Back at the rocks, Faraday tries to calm Miles down, saying that these are good people, but Miles reminds him that Naomi used the “Tell my sister I love her,” code to warn them that she had been attacked.

Jack tries to explain that they didn't kill Naomi, as does Kate, but Miles wants to know for himself and demands to be taken to her body. When Kate tries to tell him that even seeing her body won't tell him what happened, ghostbuster Miles shouts that he'll know.

Back with Locke's group, Ben tries to talk to Alex, but Karl interrupts and warns him to stay quiet. Ben's “Karl! Now if you're going to sleep with my daughter, I insist you call me 'Ben'.” was one of the best delivered lines of the entire run of this show.

I've heard something like a few times before, but it ended...differently. Usually something about a foot and an ass or a shotgun and a priest.

Sawyer interrupts before Karl can go all bad cop on Ben. Ben shifts his attention to the con man.

“You're wasting your time, Yoda.” I love Star Wars references!

Ben wants to know why Sawyer left Kate behind. He pushes his buttons about Kate and Jack until Sawyer snaps and gives him a beating. I swear Ben enjoys getting whupped. He not only asks for it, but he doesn't stop asking until somebody puts a fist in his gut.

After the beating, Sawyer again speaks for the audience and asks another one of those questions that many of us have screamed at the television whenever Ben causes more trouble.

“Anyone want to tell me why we're keeping this guy alive?”

“We're keeping him alive because he's been on the island a lot longer than any of us, because he has information we need and because apart from his mouth, he's completely harmless.”

“His mouth put that hole in your gut?”

“Ok, James, let's execute him right here, right now, in front of his daughter."

As Sawyer looks around the camp, the camera stops for a moment on Hurley, who gives a little disapproving head shake. Finally, Sawyer comes to his decision and spares Ben. But he warns Locke that it's the wrong move.

“It's only a matter of time before he gets us, Johnny. And I'll bet he's already figured out how he's gonna do it.”

In another part of the jungle, Miles is kneeling beside Naomi's body, apparently communicating with her, despite his lack of a dustbuster...er...ghostbuster rig.

While Miles does his thing, Faraday does his. He comments that the light in the jungle doesn't “scatter” quite right.

Using the tone of voice most people use to talk down a jumper or retrieve a loaded gun from a hyperactive child, Kate tries to convince Faraday to put the gun away, but he explains that Miles would kill him if he did.

Jack interrupts, telling her with a wink to let the scenario play out as it will.

Miles confirms what Kate told him, that “they” didn't kill her. As he explains this, the phone beeps again, telling them that another team member, Charlotte, is only three kilometers away. As he tries to gather the group to go after her, Jack tells him that he and Faraday need to put their guns down.

“Now why would I do that?”

“Because our friends are out in the jungle right now holding a gun to your head and his head. So I'm going to forget about the misunderstanding, just put the guns down.”

“C'mon, how stupid do you think I am?”

Never say this when you're on television and not the star of the show.

Shots ring out.

“I don't know, Miles. How stupid are you?”

In a desert in Tunisia, a jeep pulls in to a camp.

(*Star Wars geek sidenote: All the desert scenes in the Star Wars movies were filmed in Tunisia. This has nothing to do with Lost, but since Sawyer used “Yoda” in a sentence, I was on the track.)

Two women get out of the jeep and as they walk into the camp one finds a newspaper in French that declares Flight 815 found in the trench.

“How many different languages do you have to read that in before you believe that it's true?”

“How many different languages are there?”

So...somebody other than the viewers thinks that an entire airplane crash has somehow been faked. Interesting.

This same woman bullies and bribes her way onto what appears to be an archaeological dig and proceeds to dig a collar with a familiar symbol on it out of the ground. It seems that not only was this collar around the neck of an Ursus maritimus, or polar bear, but she also seems to have known what she was looking for.

It's fair to say that most archaeological digs don't usually produce relics in the first place someone looks or in their first thirty seconds of digging.

(*Biology sidenote: Ursus maritmus is Latin for polar bear (duh!) but the “maritmus” part refers not to their predilection for cold temperatures but for their affinity for water. To find the remains of a polar bear in a desert is doubly strange for this reason.)

Speaking of water, this same woman finds herself hanging upside down over a bunch of it. With little hesitation, she pulls the emergency release on her parachute rig and falls into the murky water below. When she comes up for air, she see's Locke's band of merry men...er...people.

Out in the jungle, Juliet explains why she and Sayid came looking for Jack and Kate. Kate must be slipping, because she didn't catch Jack's fairly obvious wink that was meant to let her know that the cavalry had arrived. Juliet can't hide her little smirk when she hears that.

As always, Sayid remains the practical one and pays little attention to the brewing love triangle. He is more interested in their would be rescuers.

He gets Daniel to tell him his name and even Miles' first name before the dustbuster...er, ghostbuster warns him not to give them his last name. Faraday further shares his occupation and it turns out that he, like his namesake, is a physicist, although he, like his namesake, doesn't like being pigeon holed into a single job description.

(*Possibly important sidenote: The revelation that Faraday is a physicist makes his comment about the way the light scatters more interesting. As a physicist, he might be seeing an effect that the laymen on the island fail to observe, an effect that might relate to the reason that the island is so hard to find or get to. Or, he could just be a wacko.)

When Sayid asks Miles what he does, Miles answers with a snarky “I collect soil samples.”

He IS a dustbuster!

Not letting up his casual interrogation, Sayid notes that these two men don't seem surprised that there are survivors of Flight 815, despite the fact that the world at large believes that the plane went down and killed everyone.

“Oh, my God. You guys were on Oceanic Flight 815, wow. Better?” A smart ass dustbuster.

Back with Locke's group, their new arrival is professing amazement that the group is alive. She asks how many of them there are, but even Hurley is suspicious of her and asks why she wants to know. Despite his suspicions, he shares there numbers but is interrupted by Locke before he can give out too much information.

She asks about Claire's baby and then wisely decides to leave off the questions until the group gets back to the freighter.

Locke takes up where she left off, asking about her team, the freighter and the helicopter. She reminds him that they need to stay in one place so the team can find them.

“See, there's your problem. We don't want to be found.”

Sayid is fiddling with the phone as they walk, but Miles warns him not to mess around with the device.

“It can't hurt to try and call someone else.”

“Oh, it can hurt.”

That's another one of those statements that I really wish someone would ask a follow up question about.

Suddenly the phone starts beeping again. It's Charlotte and she's moving towards them fast.
Raise your hand if you didn't immediately shout “Vincent!” at your television. Those of you with your hands up are voted off the island.

Naturally, the fast moving blip is the puppy of doom, Vincent. Locke's nobody's fool and it's a really old trick.

A toy plane sinks slowly to the bottom of a fish tank. The television is showing pictures of the Oceanic wreckage, including a very long shot of the pilot, Captain Seth Norris. The guy watching the set sees the camera zoom in on Norris's hand and immediately picks up the phone and dials the hotline number.

He explains that he is certain that since the corpse on television isn't wearing a wedding ring, it can't be Seth Norris. A familiar voice takes over from the woman who answered the phone, but the guy refuses to back down, insisting that he is sure that the body is not that of the man he knows. When Abaddon asks him how he knows so much about Captain Norris, the mystery guy has an answer.

“Because I was supposed to be flying Oceanic 815 on that day.”

Mystery guy is grunting and huffing his way up an embankment. At the top, he pulls himself up and finds himself face to face with...a cow. He takes out his phone, which is damaged and then goes low tech with a flare gun.

Locke's party spots the flare and the new arrival tries to convince them to go and find the person who fired it. Locke's not buying though.

“She's lying. Whatever they came for, it isn't us. We keep moving forward as planned.”

Sawyer just can't resist. I probably couldn't either.

“Sure, who are we to argue with Taller Ghost Walt?”

When the new gal tries to leave on her own, Locke uses his words to try to keep her with the group. Ben uses a gun.

Ben wins.

Ben also gets another beating from Sawyer. I swear...masochist all the way.

It turns out that new gal is wearing a bulletproof vest. Not so much normal rescue castaway wear.

Back with Jack and company, Frank, the pilot, comes around. He doesn't know where Charlotte is, but when they ask where the chopper is, he has an answer.

“I saw a cow.”

Awesome.

“Lapidus, where's the chopper? Where did it crash?”

“Crash? What the hell kinda pilot do y'think I am? I put it down safe and sound, right over there.”

(*Google obsessive sidenote: Morris Lapidus was a well known architect. What that has to do with a drunken pilot is anyone's guess.)

Sure enough, the copter is in a clearing, apparently intact.

Finally, we come to our fifth flashback-ee, Naomi. She's going over the team roster with none other than Abaddon. A headcase, a ghostbuster, an anthropologist and a drunk. I was at a party like that once.

Naomi thinks that it's a mistake to take a bunch of untrained civilian types into “unstable territory” with only her for protection.

“What if we find survivors from 815?”

“There were no survivors.”

“Yes, I know, but what if there are survivors?”

“There were no survivors of Oceanic 815. Don't ask questions. Just do what you were hired for. Every member of this team was selected for a specific purpose.”

Abaddon wants her to get the job done without getting anyone killed and she finally agrees.
Back in the clearing, Sayid is confident that the copter will fly. Miles asks if he can use the phone and Jack tries to get him to tell them what they're doing here in exchange. Miles flips the deal around.

Jack gives him the phone and he gets a hold of Regina, presumably on the freighter. Minkowski can't come to the phone, so he tells her to have him call back as soon as he can.

That was weird and I'm certain that we were meant to take note of it, though why I can't imagine.

As he hangs up, Faraday and Kate walk up carrying Naomi's corpse. Miles objects to them taking the body, since it's not Naomi, just “meat.”

Frank agrees with Miles, but for reasons more practical. Taking unneccessary weight would be foolish with a copter low on fuel. He promises to take the corpse on his next run.

Juliet is treating Frank's wound and they have a little chat. He asks her name and when she tells him, he knows that she wasn't on Flight 815. This revelation cranks up the dustbuster and he runs over to the “native” Juliet, waving a picture in her face. It seems that the little band of diverse experts was gathered together in search of Benjamin Linus.

I'm betting when they find him, he'll provoke them into beating him up.

At that moment, Ben has other things on his mind. Sawyer has a gun to his head and he's not in a beating up bug-eyed villains mood.

Locke tries to apologize for new gal getting shot, but she notes that he seemed ready to shoot her himself. He has an answer for her.

“What good would you be to me dead?”

Walking over to Sawyer, Locke gets his comeuppance.

“I guess this is the part where I'm supposed to say 'I told you so'.”

“James, I stand corrected.”

Oddly, despite being unable to kill the bastard who took his kidney and ruined his life, Locke seems prepared to kill Ben without hesitation.

“It's my mess. I'll clean it up.”

Before he can pull the trigger, Ben has something to say. Yeah, that's a surprise.

“John, listen. I have information that you need. I have answers.”

“What is the monster?”

“What?”

“The black smoke. The monster. What is it?”

“I don't know.”

All over the universe, a loud piercing scream cuts through the dark of the night as Lost fans are once again teased past all human reason.

Ben is about to die and he knows it. He plays a final card.

“Her name is Charlotte Lewis. Charlotte Staples Lewis.”

C.S. Lewis? You're kidding, right? I mean, if her name was Phillipa Pullman, maybe, since we already have polar bears...

Ben rattles off a resume for C.S. Lewis, up to and including who's on her team and what she had for breakfast.

“I know what they want.”

“What do they want?”

“Me, James. They want me.”

When Locke asks how he knows all this, Ben tells him, “Because I have a man on their boat.”

Hugo with him if you want to...

...and it's back.

My guess is that the producers and writers knew that after such a long time between episodes, viewers were looking forward to slipping into Lost like a warm bath after a long day at work. A Hurley-centric episode was the perfect way to ease viewers back into the show that time forgot. They basically fleshed out the storyline from the season finale and only hinted at the new elements that are bound to crop up in season 4.

The writers were also careful to give just about every major character an important scene. After the hue and cry about not getting to see the beach enough during the first part of season 3, I'm not surprised. What they didn't do was put any sort of big WTF moment in the episode to throw viewers a curve-ball. Nope, last night was all batting practice pitches. After a long off season, it's just as well.

And to be fair, the season did start with a bang! Nuthin' says “Lost is back” like exploding fruit...


Just before we get into the recap proper, I think we need to take a quick look at ABC's hiatus bridge, the 13 “mobisodes” that they teased out over the last little while. Most of them just barely rose to the level of filler, but one or two seemed somewhat significant. For those that missed the mobisodes (worst manufactured word, ever, by the way) they are available at ABC.com although for the most part only die hard fans need to spend the time downloading and viewing them. The one with Jack and Ben playing chess is about the most interesting, highlighting a power struggle played out metaphorically on the chess board.

(*Chess geek side note - It appears that Ben cheats by castling, despite the fact that his king is sitting on its own colour which means that it has moved at some point. This makes castling an illegal move, but since Jack's king is also on its own coloured square I would bet that the prop guys simply don't play chess and accidentally set up the board with the kings on their respective colours rather than the queens as is proper.)

The other really interesting mobisode involves Christian Sheppard and Vincent. I won't spoil it for those that have yet to see it, but for those who have, it raises some very interesting possibilities and questions about the island that may have a direct impact on the season premier.

As for the episode, like I said earlier, it starts with a bang! A pile of lemons and limes sits in front of a tranquil ocean. Why are the lemons and limes piled like that? Was someone gathering food? Perhaps a non-combustable version of a signal fire? Did Jack once again beat Sawyer at fruity poker? Party sized margarita?

Nope. They're piled like that, in front of a painted ocean on the side of the fruit truck, so they can provide a colourful and loud target for a familiar vintage red Camaro to plow through at the front end of a high speed chase.



Mixing a little vodka and O.J. (was it really necessary to juxtapose O.J. and a televised car chase?) for what I can only assume to be his breakfast, Jack watches the high speed chase and seems irritated by it.

The chase ends with the Camaro plowing into what looks like a roadside mirror sale. At this point veteran Lost fans have already jumped online and started googling “mirrors, through the looking glass, Alice in Wonderland, etc.... ” but I think the setting for the crash was a bit subtler than that.

When the driver is ordered out of the car, the ever so slow reveal gives us...Hurley! Obviously, Jack's reaction was prompted by his recognition of Hurley's car. Once we see that it is Hurley we see why. It's the same Camaro that Hugo and his dad were working on together when Hugo was a boy.

Despite a bunch of guns and some pretty pissed off cops, Hurley runs! Again, this has to do with that subtle set up I mentioned.

Naturally the cops have little trouble running Hurley down and pinning him to a wall. As they cuff him he starts bellowing “I'm one of the Oceanic Six!” In the first three minutes of the episode, we have been given a pretty strong indication that six people got off the island. Since we know that Jack and Kate are alive and living in the present, and Hurley obviously is too, we are left with three mystery survivors, one of whom is likely the anonymous corpse that Jack visited in the season finale.

Oh, and that set up I mentioned? Behind Hurley there's a sign for “MP3 Players”. I doubt it was accidental that they placed that right behind the guy who had the only CD player on the island. In 2004, MP3 players weren't very common and Hurley's Discman was just what a rich audiophile would have been carrying. Today, of course, MP3 players are the standard. It's a minor point, but it drives home the fact that this is a future scenario, not a flashback. Well, that and the fact that Hurley is screaming at the top of his lungs that he's one of the Oceanic Six.



Down at the station, Hurley is being interviewed by a detective. He wants to know what made Hurley bolt from a convenience store and lead ten squad cars on a high speed chase. The detective turns out to be Ana Lucia's old partner from her squad car days. When the detective tells Hurley about the “funny coincidence” that he knew someone from Hurley's apparently famous flight, Hurley lies that he never met her, an oddly out of character moment.

To give the big guy some time to watch the convenience store surveillance tape and perhaps jog his memory about what he was running from, the detective leaves Hurley alone for a moment. While he's gone, Hurley sees the mirror in the interview room change to an underwater window and watches in horror as Charlie swims up and destroys it, allowing the water to flood into the room. Written on Charlie's hand is “They need you.” Hurley pounds frantically on the door and the detective returns. Naturally there is no water.



The detective threatens Hurley with a trip to the nut-house. Hurley is bizarrely pleased with the threat and gives one of his patented sweaty Hurley hugs to the cop for offering to send him to a mental hospital. My spidey-sense tells me that all is not well in Hurley-town.

Back on the island, Hurley is doing a little better than his future self. He's got hold of Jack on the radio and the good Doctor tells him that they've got rescuers on the way.

The good Doctor has some problems on his end, but he doesn't burden Hurley with the fact that Locke killed the woman who is responsible for bringing them rescue and that the (amazingly fit for someone who was shot in the chest only a few hours ago) bald guy has disappeared.

Rose comes across Sun and Claire talking about Sun having her baby back in civilization. Rose congratulates Claire on “her man”s heroism, telling her that Claire better treat him “real good” when she sees him. I don't know what Rose's definition of “real good” is, but judging by her reaction, I'm betting I'd really like whatever popped into Claire's dirty little mind.

Still tied to his tree, Ben tries to convince Rousseau to take Alex as far from the group as possible, to protect her from whatever fate he thinks is in store for the survivors when the rescuers arrive. We would know what it is that he anticipates if only he hadn't called Alex his daughter, which prompts Rousseau to interrupt him with an elbow.

Hurley is ecstatic. He's actually so happy that he tells Bernard his lottery secret and how it was the worst thing that ever happened to him. He's not just happy to be rescued, but he figures that since everyone thinks he's dead, the money will be gone and his hard luck will be over. This merits celebration. A cannonball into the ocean is just what the doctor ordered. In slow motion, Hurley runs for the shore line. I think that it's in slow motion because this is the last moment of happiness that good-time Hurley is going to have from now until the end of the series.



When he comes up for air, he sees Desmond returning to the beach in the outrigger canoe, but Charlie isn't with him. The gang at the beach gathers around Desmond and starts peppering him with questions when he tells them that they have to stop Jack from contacting their would be rescuers. Sawyer calls Desmond “Scotty,” so I'm guessing that his no-nickname week is over...

The group doesn't understand why they should mistrust the people on the freighter, but Hurley has a more pressing question.

“Where's Charlie?”

That brings the conversation to a halt in a hurry as everyone realizes that Charlie has sacrificed himself for the group.

Back at the radio tower, the satellite phone rings. It's George Menkowski, calling to get the tracking settings on the phone changed. When he asks to speak to Naomi, Jack smoothly lies that she's gone to get firewood, but when he looks over to her body, he sees that the dead woman has indeed gone a walkin'.

On the beach, the gang are arguing the merits of using the walkie-talkie to contact Jack and warn him about the people on the freighter. Sayid is worried that their communications are being monitored, while Sawyer is more interested in getting the message to Jack quickly. An unusually decisive Hurley grabs the radio and flings it into the ocean. When Sawyer turns to challenge him, Hurley stares him down.

Jack rounds up Rousseau to follow Naomi into the jungle. While she's collecting Ben, Jack and Kate share a tender moment of disagreement. Kate wants to follow a second trail that she found, assuming that Naomi left a dummy trail to throw them off. She gives Jack a long, lingering hug that raises Ben's eyebrows as he watches.

Hurley rallies the group at the beach to saddle up and go find Jack to warn him. This is a very different Hurley than the one we've come to know over three seasons.

In the present, Hurley is playing Connect Four with a fellow patient at the mental health clinic when the nurse points out that he has a visitor. Sitting across the room, in front of a half played game of chess, sits Matthew Abaddon. He claims to be a lawyer for Oceanic Airlines. He offers Hurley an “upgrade” to a better facility than where Hurley is now, but when Hurley asks to see a business card, Abaddon is unable to produce one, raising Hurley's suspicions. As he turns to leave, Abaddon asks Hurley “Are they still alive?” which sends Hurley into a panic.

(*Finally something to sidenote about sidenote: Abaddon. In Biblical poetry (Job 26:6; Proverbs 15:11), it usually represents a place of destruction, or the land of the dead. It can mean an underworld abode of lost souls, or Hell.)

(*Two sidenotes in one scene sidenote: Behind the two men there's a chalkboard with a drawing of an island, water, a sail boat and what appears to be a shark. The shark seems to be jumping over the island or perhaps over the boat, but I wondered when I saw it if the writers or prop masters weren't giving a little “we haven't jumped the shark yet” nod to the audience.)

Night has fallen in the jungle and the group is heading for Jack by torchlight. Sawyer falls back to chat with Hurley. In an odd moment of compassion, Sawyer asks if the big guy wants to talk about Charlie's death.

“We'll probably get to Jack faster if we don't talk.”

Sawyer offers to have the group slow down to let Hurley catch up, but Hurley doesn't want any help keeping up. Is it just me or has someone medicated Sawyer?

No sooner has Hurley claimed he can keep up than he falls behind far enough that his calls for the group aren't heard. In fifteen or twenty seconds, the whole group is far enough ahead that they can't hear him yelling. That is one soundproof jungle.

Panicking, Hurley tears off into the jungle, yelling for the group. Instead of the group, he finds Jacob's cabin as the jungle comes alive with whispers. (Man, I missed the whispers!) In a flash of the Hurley of old, he sums up the situation nicely.

“Uh-oh.”

By torchlight, Danielle comes to the end of Naomi's blood trail. It seems that Kate was right after all and despite having Rambo's best flatware sticking out of her back, she managed to create a false trail to throw off pursuit. At last, Ben gets the last laugh after being dragged like a dog through the brush.

“Better call the boat. Tell them she's getting a really big bundle of firewood.”

This makes Jack think of the phone, which is...gone. He asks Ben where the phone is and Ben gets another smug shot in when he tells him that he saw Kate take the phone when she hugged him.

“She found the right trail too, but you wouldn't listen to her, so I guess she's taken matters into her own hands. But, look on the bright side. At least somebody around here knows what the hell they're doing.”

Jack isn't nearly as impressed with Ben's statement as I was. Talk about hitting the nail squarely on the head.

In the jungle, Kate is following the real trail when the phone she lifted rings. As George starts to get more demanding about talking to Naomi, Kate hangs up on him. At the same time, she feels blood drip onto her arm and Naomi launches herself from the tree onto her, putting the knife to her throat. Kate manages to convince her that Locke acted alone and she gives George a line about a tree branch impaling her gut (which actually did happen and she healed amazingly quickly from) as she parachuted in. After resetting the tracking signal on the phone, she tells George to tell her sister that she loves her and then she dies. At least, she seems to die, but she's died before so I am not counting her out just yet.

At the cabin, Hurley approaches with caution. Creepy music. A figure in the rocking chair. An eye at the window. Hurley's gonna need some of those leaves he doesn't use for eating.

Once again, he's off at a run, only this time, despite running away from the cabin, he winds up with it right in front of him. He closes his eyes and repeats the same phrase while backing away.

“There's nothing here.”
“There's nothing here.”
“There's nothing here.”
“There's nothing here.”

On what would be the fifth repetition, he opens his eyes and the cabin is gone. His next backward step misses and he falls flat on his back with his eyes closed. When he opens them, what he sees startles him into yelling again, but it's only Locke.

(*Psyched out side note: This repetitive mantra reminded me of Jack's five seconds of fear speech from the first season, where he explains to Kate that when he was afraid he would let the fear have its way for five seconds and then banished it. Kate used it in a similar situation, which I think involved the smoke monster in season 3.)

The two men sit by the light of Locke's torch and talk. Locke uses a phrase I don't ever recall hearing during the show.

“You got yourself good and lost out here.”

I don't think that the writers have ever had anyone else get “lost” during the show, even when Walt has wandered off or when characters have gotten turned around in the jungle. I have to wonder if it's significant that they actually had a character use the word. Of course, it's just a single word so I might have missed it being used once or twice in three seasons.

When they discuss Charlie and what his final message to their group might have meant, Locke clearly manipulated Hurley further to his side by invoking his dead friend's last deed saying that if they can't convince Jack that the impending “rescue” is a danger to the survivors then Charlie died for nothing.

Hurley and Locke find the group in the jungle, waiting by a large piece of the fuselage. When Sawyer asks where he's been, Hurley too uses the “L” word. I still feel this is significant.

Sayid wants to know what Locke is doing rejoining the group. He wants to know why Locke destroyed the submarine, but before Locke can answer, the rest of the survivors show up and join the party.

Tearful reunions all around, but none for Claire as Hurley gives her the news about Charlie.

Cut to Hurley on the hospital grounds, sitting under a tree painting an Inuit figure in front of an igloo.



Yeah, that's not a clue.

As he paints, another patient points out someone who's staring at Hurley from across the lawn. When he looks to see who it is, he gets a serious shock.

Charlie.

It seems that Charlie was who Hurley saw in the convenience store “Over by the Ho-Ho's” and that was what led to his whig-out on the freeway.

“I may be in a mental hospital, but I know you're dead and I'm not having an imaginary conversation with you.

“I am dead. But I'm also here.”

“Okay, prove it.”

So Charlie slaps him.

“Okay.”

The two men, one crazy, one dead, sit down to have a nice chat.

Hurley asks if Charlie knew he was going to die, which we know he did. Charlie tells him, yes, he knew and he didn't tell Hurley to spare him “All the drama.” Then comes the interesting part.

“But now you have to do something. But you're hiding from it. That's the real reason you ran when you saw me in the store. You knew I was here to tell you...

“I'm not listening to this. No, 'cuz you're not here.”

“I am here. You're being a baby.”

“I'm gonna close my eyes and count to five and when I open 'em you'll be gone.”

“I am here.”

“One.”

“Don't do this.”

“Two.”

“They need you.”

“Three”

“They need you, Hugo.”

“Four.”

“You know they need you.”

“Five.”

And he's gone. Another five count. No, that's not a clue.

Back in the jungle, Claire wants to know how, but all Hurley can tell her is that Charlie died trying to help them.

At that moment, Rousseau and Ben emerge from the jungle. Locke looks around but doesn't see Jack with them until the Doctor knocks him on his ass with a solid right. A brief struggle ensues and Jack comes up holding the gun. He points it at Locke's head. Locke tries the old “You're not going to shoot me, Jack,” on him, but amazingly, the Doc pulls the trigger!

Fortunately for Locke, the gun wasn't loaded. That actually makes sense, considering he threw a knife at Naomi rather than shooting her. I suppose Locke went for the gun in hopes of holding Jack off with it, rather than using it on him, but we'll never know.

Once the struggle is over and Jack is restrained, Locke has his moment to explain.

“All I did, all I have ever done has been in the best interests of all of us.”

Jack voices a perfectly reasonable question here.

“Are you insane?”

Really, that's a fair question. He has blown up two chances of rescue and knifed one in the back. Dude's a menace.

“All you ever did was blow up every chance we had of getting off this island. You killed Naomi...”

“Well, technically, he didn't kill her...yet,” comes Ben's voice from the darkness.

As Kate emerges from the jungle, she informs the group that Naomi has actually died (I'm still not giving up on her. It's just a knife wound. Locke was shot in the chest for cryin' out loud.) but didn't rat John out to her people.

Locke's not impressed though. He figures that she wanted “rescuers” to get to the island for whatever reason and he figures that they're dangerous enough to avoid at all costs. He plans to go to the abandoned barracks where the Others were living when they first met them and he wants to take anyone who wants to live with him.

Hurley speaks up for Locke. He figures that Charile's sacrifice should be honoured and that they should listen to his last words and not trust Naomi's people. Locke's manipulation works flawlessly, although to be fair, Hurley was already pretty much convinced to begin with. Hurely's words move several of the group to go with Locke, including Ben who asks Jack's permission to follow John away from the would be rescuers, taking Rousseau, Alex and her boyfriend Karl with him. Bernard worries about Rose leaving the island and having her illness return, so he suggests that if it's her choice, he will follow her to the barracks.

“I'm not going anywhere with that man.” I guess seeing Locke put a knife in someone's back overrides the sense of shared destiny that she felt when the island healed them both. Can't say I can blame her.

Even Sawyer is convinced, but Sawyer is the man most likely to save his own skin, so that's not a big surprise either.

As the group gets ready to separate, it starts to rain. Veteran Lost fans will recognize that with the rain (or the Vincent) comes the bad things. Nothing good ever happens in the rain on Lost.

At the hospital, Jack drops in to see Hurley and the two men start a game of HORSE.

Hurley makes his first shot as they talk about Jack returning to surgical practice.

Jack misses. That's “H”. “H” happens to be the 8th letter of the alphabet.

Hurley makes his next shot as they talk about Jack having to sign autographs when he goes out for coffee. Apparently being one of the Oceanic Six has some celebrity to it after all. Jack's thinking about growing a beard. Everyone watching knows that's not a good idea.

Even Hurley recognizes the ugly that will be a Jack beard. Jack misses his shot.

“You'd look weird with a beard, dude. That's 'HO'.” “O” happens to be the 15th letter of the alphabet. Could it be? The ever so season two numbers?

Nope.

At this point, Hurley asks what Jack is really doing checking on him. Hurley wonders if Jack is there to see if Hurley was going to tell. Of course, he doesn't elaborate. This is Lost! We don't elaborate around here.

As Jack leaves, Hurley calls out that he's sorry that he went with Locke instead of Jack. Jack doesn't seem too worried about that. He does seem worried when Hurley says “I don't think we did the right thing, Jack. I think it wants us to come back. It's going to do everything it can...”

“We're never going back!”

“Never say never, dude.”

Back on the island, in the evil, evil rain, Jack and Kate are talking about Charlie when they hear the helicopter overhead. It drops a parachute and the two survivors run to meet it.

It's a man. “Are you Jack?.”