LOST Episode 24: Exodus (Parts 2 and 3)

  This week's opening eyeball (which hasn't been used in a while!) belongs to Claire's newborn baby- perhaps this means we will be getting the untold backstory of life in the womb!  Anyway, life is rough for Claire at the moment.  Charlie tells her that they have to follow their orders to get to the caves, but she insists that she can't go yet because the baby is fussing and she is too tired.  Charlie tries to comfort her, but she will hear none of it.  Elsewhere, with no main characters left to talk to, Sayid must remind some extras of what the plan is.  Charlie approaches and asks him for one of the guns, but Sayid refuses because of what happened the last time Charlie had a gun.  (He shot Ethan.)

  Over at the Black Rock, which you'll recall is actually a shipwreck in the middle of the jungle, Rousseau ditches her new friends and heads back into the jungle.  Jack is a little peeved, but Locke tells him to let her go.  He, Kate and Locke then head into the ghost ship for their next adventure, while Hurley and Arzt decide to wait outside.

  The interior of the ship is dark and scary and our heroes kill some time stumbling around looking at stuff.  Gotta stretch this baby to two hours, ya know.  I suppose it's mildly important that they find the skeletons of some slaves, but really, is there ever an episode of LOST where someone doesn't find a skeleton?  They eventually do get around to finding a crate marked 'Explosives'.

  Back outside, Arzt is complaining to Hurley about the little clique that gets to do all the important stuff.  "There were forty other survivors of this plane crash, and we are all people too."  Hurley doesn't think much of these complaints, but luckily for him, Arzt cuts himself off when he sees Jack and Locke carrying the crate of dynamite out of the ship.  This is, apparently, a very dangerous thing to do.  Arzt has everyone back away and proceeds with a history lesson about dynamite.  It sweats in heat and becomes very unstable.  It's pretty interesting, but even more interesting is that Arzt blows up in mid-sentence.  I said, HE BLOWS UP!  No mere recap can express the feelings I got at this moment- an odd combination of shock, horror, sadness, and all the while still laughing hysterically and feeling guilty about it.  And if anything can trigger our creepy LOST title screen, it was this.  ARZT JUST BLEW UP!

  We return from the break and in the LOST tradition of showing way too many reruns, we get a rerun of a flashback.  Well, kind of.  We are actually getting Jin's perspective of last week's coffee spill and get to follow him into the bathroom for the wildly entertaining wetting and dabbing process.  On the way he passes Sayid, who is a little perturbed that he was detained by security, but they are letting him go now.  In the bathroom, Jin encounters a friendly looking tourist guy, who turns out to be fluid in Korean.  This is because he and Jin work for the same man and the guy has been following him.  He gives the dire warning that if Jin goes through with his plan to run away, he will lose Sun forever.  He is told he will never be free.

  Cut to the raft voyage, where Jin actually kind of is free.  He's also kind of lost Sun forever, but that's beside the point!  The others ponder how a big island like this never got discovered.

  On the beach, Shannon is ready for the hike but is having a lot of trouble leading a dog and carrying all the luggage she and Boone had.  When Sayid offers to help, she breaks down and expresses her belief that the Others will find them even if they try to hide.  "It's too much," she says, which I take to mean the stress, but Sayid interprets as too much luggage, because he offers to help her carry it.  Unless he was being all metaphorical or something.

  At the Black Rock, Hurley is taking Arzt's death pretty hard.  He tells Kate that it happened because he is bad luck, but Kate assures him it was just an accident.  Meanwhile, Jack and Locke continue the plan by pulling out some of the better looking sticks of dynamite.  Jack wants to reconsider, but Locke insists there is no other way.

  At the beach, Charlie finally has Claire ready to go, but they are interrupted by a frantic Rousseau demanding to see Sayid.  Charlie takes off to get him, and as soon as he is gone, Roussaeu gets all creepy-like and insists on holding the baby.  As Claire tries to back away, she sees the scratches on Danielle's arms and has a flash of a memory of being attacked in the jungle.  "Why did I scratch you?" she asks, as the camera closes in on her terrified reaction to Rousseau's advances.

  In a flashback to a hotel room in Sydney, Charlie is frantically looking for his heroin stash.  It's not even under the semi-conscious girl lying in the bed.  He finds some in the bathroom, but when the girl wakes up and asks for one more hit for the road, he says he has no more.  She sees him clenching his fist and tries to beat the stash out of him, but Charlie wins the day by cowering into the fetal position as she wails on him.  The girl gets all mad and leaves, calling him pathetic.  But Charlie got to keep the drugs, so who's the pathetic one now?  (That was an aside by me- he didn't actually say that!)

  Back on the island, Charlie catches up to Sayid and they both run back to the sound of Sun's screaming.  Claire has been knocked over the head and the baby is missing.  Charlie punches Sayid for ever bringing Rousseau to camp (which he didn't actually do).  Sayid shrugs off the girly punch and tells him not to waste time assigning blame.  They will be able to catch Rousseau because he knows where she is going.

  At the Black Rock, Locke suggests they take six sticks of dynamite, three extra to be carried by a second person as a fail-safe against any Arzt-like accidents.  Kate very badly wants to carry some, but Jack tells her no.  They argue until Locke suggests drawing straws.  And wouldn't you know it, Jack loses.  Mr. Control Freak has no control. 

  On the raft, Walt catches Sawyer reading all the personal messages in the bottle.  Sawyer ignores the scolding of a young boy to express shock that someone named Hugo has 160 million dollars to leave to his mother.  Walt asks how Sawyer would like it if he read his note.  Sawyer then tells him the only letter he ever wrote was to the man he is going to kill.  And if you're trying to get someone to stop asking you questions, that is not a great final word on the subject.

  With the black smoke of the Others still looming ominously in the distance, Sayid goes to the gun case and arms both he and Charlie.  Claire decides she wants to come too, but she is an emotional wreck and besides, Kate is the only girl that gets to do anything on this island.  Claire tells Charlie to get Aaron back.  Empowered by the baby finally having a name, Charlie promises to bring him back.

  Michael flashes back to the airport where he excuses himself from Walt to make a phone call.  It seems he doesn't have any babysitting options when it comes to Walt and he was wondering if Grandma could maybe take him for good.  He does not appear to be successful in this suggestion.  When he hangs up the phone, he sees that Walt has been standing behind him.  But did he hear that his father doesn't want him?  That would be awkward!

  On the raft, Michael and Walt's relationship has improved since the airport and Michael shows his son how to steer the boat.  Walt asks why he never got to see his father and Michael is forced to tell him that his mother didn't want him to and was doing what she thought was best.  Walt says his mother was wrong, which brings a smile to Mike's face.  But this moment doesn't last long because the rudder breaks off.  Perhaps a certain special boy was thinking bad thoughts about his mother and accidentally made this happen?  Nah.  Sawyer disrobes from the waist up and jumps in to save the day.  This is really a time-killing false crisis and the only thing worth mentioning is that Michael hands Sawyer's shirt back to him afterwards and sees the concealed gun.

  Having safely arrived at the caves despite losing her luggage carrier to a baby rescue mission, Shannon sits down for a well deserved rest.  Sun approaches and tells her that Boone died bravely.  Sun asks if she thinks they are all being punished by fate for lies and secrets from their past.  Claire overhears them and says there is no such thing as fate. 

  Elsewhere, Sayid is racing toward the black smoke on the theory that Rousseau is going to try and trade Claire's baby for her own, but Charlie is having trouble keeping up.  Sayid decides they should rest and they just happen to stop at the crashsite where Boone lost his life.  Sayid, of course, does not know about Charlie's battle with addiction and therefore is very casual about the plane's contents- that is, a large supply of heroin.  When Sayid takes off again, Charlie spends a long time lingering, staring down at the temptation of statuettes filled with his drug of choice.

  As Team Dynamite carefully heads for home, Hurley and Locke discuss what might be in the hatch.  Hurley thinks it's TV dinners and socks, while Locke believes it is hope.  Different personalities those guys are.  Still in the heart of the "dark territory", our heroes see some interesting looking sputtering black smoke fly nearby.  Jack, Kate and Hurley instinctively run and their instincts are good, because just then, some trees become seriously uprooted at the hands of the "security system".  Locke, meanwhile, drops his dynamite pack and moves toward the monster for a better look.  Suddenly, he gets knocked over and the camera, perhaps taking the form of a monster, is looking down on him.  Locke looks much more afraid than the last time this happened.  He gets up and begins to run with the others but he is snagged by the unseen force and dragged back through the brush.  Jack gives chase and catches Locke's hands just as he is about to be sucked into a big hole in the ground.  Jack tells Kate to grab some of the dynamite out of his pack.  She looks confused but does as she is told.  Locke practically begs Jack to let him fall in the hole, but Jack refuses.  Gotta save everyone, you know.  Kate comes back with the explosive, but Locke tells her not to throw it in the hole.  Jack says she should, and Kate ends up listening to him.  The three heroes brace for impact and after the rumble there are more monster noises and more bad CGI smoke until finally all is quiet and they are safe. 

  On the raft, Jin is fixing the rescued rudder while Michael asks him about the translation guide Sun made.  Michael tells him how lucky he is to have someone like Sun to do that for him.  This is such a bonding moment, that when Mike tries to give Jin back that all-important watch, Jin puts it in Mike's palm and says "you".  Michael is touched and can barely squeeze out a thanks.

  In the jungle, Charlie and Sayid find the baby's blanket.  Charlie picks it up and discovers that it is only a wrapped up log.  Before Sayid can even warn him, a trap falls onto poor Charlie's head, cutting him open pretty badly.  Sayid tells him the wound is too deep to do anything about and he must go back, but Charlie refuses.  He asks what a wounded soldier would do, but I have a feeling he might not like the answer.  Sayid pours gunpowder on the wound and cauterizes it with a match.  Charlie's scream could be heard for miles, and my people say that on some nights when the moon is aligned just right, you can still hear the screams of the bloody rock god.

  Now it's Hurley's turn for a flashback and it involves fate or perhaps magic numbers trying everything they can to keep him from making Flight 815.  He battles a short circuit keeping his alarm from going off, a car that dies on him, going to the wrong ticket counter, and lots and lots of other people in his way.  He finally arrives at the gate and begs to get on.  When he is granted entry to the flight at the last possible moment, he is so happy that he gives the woman at the gate a big, sweaty bear hug.

  In the jungle, it is nighttime now and Hurley is fighting his fear by muttering the cursed numbers to himself.  Kate overhears him say 23 and mentions how 23,000 is the amount of dollars the guy who turned her in was set to receive as a reward.  Meanwhile, Jack and Locke stop to discuss their philosophical differences.  Jack is a man of science and Locke is a man of faith.  Locke believes the island brought them all there for a reason, but Jack is having trouble buying into this crazy theory.  Jack doesn't believe in destiny.  Locke says Jack does, but just doesn't know it yet. 

  On the raft, Michael has figured out why Sawyer, the anti-hero, would want to be on a rescue mission.  It's because he thinks they will not succeed and he wants to die.  Sawyer says he is certainly not a hero.  Just then a blip appears on their radar. 

  Back at the airport again, Locke suffers a bit of humilation when the plane-loading wheelchair can not be located and two flight attendants have to physically carry him on board.  When he is seated, he cannot even reach the reading material he has dropped.  Poor guy.  I hope he gets to walk again someday.

  On the other end of the island, Sayid and Charlie have arrived at the source of the smoke signal and find no one at all.  Rousseau emerges from the jungle with a crying baby and says that the Others were not there.  She hands the baby to Sayid, who hands the baby to the more feminine Charlie.  With Aaron safe at last, Charlie scolds Danielle for being crazy.  There never were any Others, he says.  Rousseau cries, insisting that she heard them whispering about taking the boy. 

  Now at the hatch, Team Dynamite prepares to blow it open.  At a safe distance, Kate asks Jack why he switched out the dynamite packs.  Jack says everyone wants him to be a leader until he makes a decision they don't like.  He wants to make sure Kate has his back, because if they survive the night, they will have a Locke problem.  Cut to Locke at the fuse, looking creepy. Kate says she will have Jack's back.  As Locke is about to light the fuse, Hurley stumbles and drops his flashlight.  When he picks it up, he notices his numbers on the hatch and tries to call the whole thing off.  He races toward Locke, who gets that evil gleam in his eye and lights the fuse anyway.  Hurley turns around and tries to put the spark out, yelling, "The numbers are bad!" repeatedly, much like a certain mental patient he once came in contact with.  Jack gets to the big guy in time and pulls him down just as the dynamite goes off and the hatch is blown.

  After much arguing over what the blip on the radar is, Michael decides to use the flare.  To the joy of all, the flare works and the blip starts coming toward them.  A floodlight hits them and they see a speedboat.  They are saved!  ...But not really.  The creepy people on board let them think they were saved for a moment, until they revealed that they have to take the boy.  Michael objects and Sawyer pulls the gun out, but the Others kill the light, shoot Sawyer and assault Michael as Jin jumps in the ocean to try and save Sawyer.  Walt is abducted, the raft is torched and our heroes are mightily, mightily screwed as the speedboat pulls away.  Walt screams for his dad and dad screams for Walt, but all he can do is watch his son being sped away.

  We now get our last musical montage of the season and it is a flashback that shows everyone getting into their seats on the doomed flight.  Sayid is glanced at suspiciously, Charlie looks drugged out, Shannon can't find her inhaler so Boone hands it to her, Hurley gives a thumbs up to Walt, and then sits down to read his Spanish comic book with a polar bear in it.  Finally, Jack and Locke share a friendly nod, not knowing that someday their lives will be much more significant to one another.  Speaking of which, back on the island, the hatch is finally open.  Locke and Jack approach it and silently lift the lid off.  They peer down into the dark hole and see....a long, long ladder into darkness.  This, my friends, is THE END.   See you next season!