LOST- Episode 25: Man of Science, Man of Faith

  Well, this extra step is going to be a pain.  My hand is kind of numb from writing 7 notebook pages.  And now to see if I can read my own shorthand.  Could be interesting...

  Previously on LOST: The Others were coming, and Hurley didn't think blowing open the hatch was such a good idea.

  We begin Season 2 (yay!) with an unidentified opening eyeball and a steady beeping coming from a computer screen.  The screen reads >:  The eyeball's owner jumps down from his top bunk, slides a chair over to the computer, rapidly enters something on the keyboard and hits 'Execute'.  He then goes about what seems to be his daily routine.  Other than the computer, his pad is very old-fashioned.  He walks by his lava lamp to make a selection from his vinyl record collection.  As the music begins to play, this man of mystery...does the dishes.  Riveting.

  Then it's work-out time.  Exercise bike, chin-ups, sit-ups, the works.  This is followed by a shower and all the while, we are not allowed to see the man's face.  What is going on here?  LOST did move to 9pm right?  I'm in the right place?  Yes, this is the right time and channel after all, because as the man is shooting himself up with some yellow drug, an explosion rocks the place, knocking the needle off the record player.

  The man takes swift action- getting dressed into his jumpsuit and workboots and arming himself with several types of gun.  Using a telescope and some well-placed mirrors, he is able to look down a long corridor- a long corridor that leads upward to a broken ladder- a broken ladder that leads to a freshly blown open hatch that our more familiar friends, Jack and Locke, are staring down.  This, of course, cues up the creepy LOST title screen.

  After the break, we are at the top of the hatch and Hurley has turned the dial on the crazy meter just a little more as he repeats his numbers quietly and mixes in some predictions such as 'we're doomed'.  Kate snaps him out of it...a little.

  I was just going to say that the sane people were still looking down the hatch, but you should see the freeze frame of Locke I just paused on.  Lest we forget that John Locke is probably also crazy and that Shatner robbed our man of an Emmy.  Anyway, Jackis pretty quick to dismiss the hatch as a feasible hiding place since the ladder is broken and they don't have time to lower everyone down one by one.  Locke is a lot more reluctant to leave his hatch-a-licious destiny so soon after their triumph, but Jack asserts himself and convinces him to pack it up...for now.  Locke stands and asks Jack why he doesn't want to go down there, which triggers our first flashback of the season.

  Our man Jack is in command of some frantic emergency room action and if one pays close attention to the details of the car accident and one has a good memory, one would realize that this is the scene where Jack meets his future bride.  You can feel the sexual tension as Jack removes the steering column from her chest and stops her bleeding.  Nah, just kidding.  She mumbles that she has to dance at her wedding, but only Jack heard her.

  At the caves, Charlie is trying to convince some extras with rare speaking parts that the French woman is crazy and there is no such thing as Others.  Sayid comes into focus in the background, not looking nearly as confident that this is true.  Meanwhile, Shannon has lost Vincent the dog so she grabs a torch and heads off into the jungle.  Sayid jumps up and goes after her.

  Back at the hatch, Locke defends his decision to light the fuse even though Hurley told him not to.  Jack somewhat mockingly adds that it was Locke's destiny.  Kate, meanwhile, has made a potentially disturbing discovery on the hatch door.  On the other side of it, it doesn't say 'Open Slowly' or 'Not an Exit', it says 'QUARANTINE'. 

  Elsewhere, Sayid tries to get Shannon to come back to camp but she is determined to find Vincent since watching him was the one thing that anyone ever asked her to do.  By the way, if you haven't done so already, you can add '1 drink every time the dog goes missing' to the LOST drinking game.  They see Vincent, who scurries off and Sayid chases after.  Shannon can't keep up and trips.  Alone in the dark, with a camera spinning over her head, she begins to hear whispers.  She then sees a soaking wet Walt telling her to SHHH.  He looks scared and tries to say something.  Before he can, Sayid returns and when Shannon turns back, Walt is gone.

  On the way home,Kate and Locke discuss why Locke wants to get in the hatch so badly.  Like he wasn't already my favorite character, he even corrects her grammar from 'bad' to 'badly'.  He admits he might be crazy, but then again, they all saw a smoke monster pull him down a hole, so maybe they all are.  Meanwhile, Jack questions Hurley about the numbers and Hugo is forced to dish his dirt to the good doctor.  Jack seems most interested in the fact that Hurley was in a psych ward, while Hurley is dismayed that Jack doesn't believe in the cursed numbers.  Hurley tells Jack that his bedside manner sucks which triggers a flashback to Jack telling his future bride that she basically has no chance to ever walk again.  In the hall, dear old doctor dad tells his son that you always have to give your patients hope.  Even flase hope is still hope.

  Continuing tonight's 'crazy' theme, Shannon has every one freaked out by ranting about how she saw Walt.  Just then Team Dynamite finally returns and Jack admits to everyone that the hatch plan failed.  Remembering the advice he just remembered, he tells everyone that they are all going to be fine.  They will station guards and just stay there for the night.  He sees Locke collecting some cable and asks what's up.  Locke admits that he is going to go down the hatch.  Yes, it's probably safer to stay there, but he is just tired of waiting.

  Later, Kate finds Jack and tells him that he did a good thing for his people.  She also tells him that she is going to the hatch in case something bad happens to Locke.  As Kate takes off, Jack flashes back to when he told Sarah's fiance about her prognosis.  He doesn't seem too thrilled that she might not be able to go to the bathroom by herself ever again.  Later, in the operating room, Jack shares a pre-surgery face to face with his patient.  She tells him it's okay if she can't dance at her wedding and he promises to fix her.

  At the hatch, Locke is just ready to descend when Kate gets there, which changes the plan to her going down because she is lighter.  Gotta wonder if Locke believes the island might be demanding another sacrifice.  There's a tense moment as the trees supporting Locke's pulley begin to give.  Kate gets dropped faster than planned and loses her flashlight when Locke catches the rope and jerks her to a stop.  Undeterred by Kate's fears and second thoughts, Locke continues to lower her down.  Closer to the bottom, Kate hears some movement and noises and shouts that there's something down there.  And that's when a shockingly bright light comes on.  Locke struggles to hold on to the rope but whatever is on the other end is very strong.  He falls back when the resistance abruptly stops.  The light goes off and Kate is no longer answering his calls.

  Perhaps seeing the light and mistaking it for the Jack-signal, Jack realizes that a hero is needed and takes off for the hatch.  He finds the cable tied to the ladder and no sign of Locke or Kate.  And so he does what any hero would do- he heads down the hatch. 

  For whatever reason, this makes him think of that time when he was running up and down the steps of an empty stadium.  He tries to keep up with another man doing the same thing, but he trips and hurts his ankle.  The stranger comes to his aid and they strike up a conversation about why they are putting themselves through such a strenuous form of excercise.  The man is training for a race around the world and speculates that Jack is having girl trouble.  He's somewhat correct- Jack is upset that he made a promise he couldn't keep when he told Sarah he would fix her but couldn't.  The man suggests that he might have but Jack scoffs because that would take a miracle.  The man seems surprised that Jack doesn't believe in miracles.  He tells Jack to keep his injured ankle elevated and introduces himself as Desmond before they part ways.  "See you in another life, then."

  At the bottom of the hatch, Jack finds Kate's flashlight which will come in handy since he dropped his torch down the hatch earlier and it was extinguished by a puddle.  Jack arms himself and makes his way down the corridor where he finds a pair of shoes and some strange artwork painted on the wall.  There's even some kind of magnet tugging at the key around his neck.  Things get even creepier when the telescope mirrors overhead start shifting and the music from the beginning of the episode starts playing again.  A bright light comes on and Jack ducks out of its way.  He finds himself in an oddly shaped room filled with the ticking and beeping of an old-school mainframe computer.  It is then that he sees the screen with the >: on it.  Jack is about to touch the keyboard when Locke warns him not to do it from the doorway.  Jack draws his weapon and wants to know where Kate is, but the only answer he gets is a gun pointed at Locke's neck.

  It's only natural that Jack would want to escape this tense and bizarre situation, so he takes a minute or two to think back to happier times.  At her hospital bedside, Jack tells Sarah that he failed and she will never walk again, only to discover that she can wiggle her toes and feel her legs.  They both cry tears of joy. 

  If only that moment could have lasted forever, but alas, we have to get back to the reality of the stand-off in the hatch.  Locke's captor orders Jack to drop his gun, but the doctor is defiant and again demands to know where Kate is.  Locke says she is fine and asks for compliance, while the impatient bad guy fires a warning shot over Jack's head.  Again, Jack mockingly asks Locke about destiny.  The bad guy steps out to take a position directly behind Locke.  It is then that his accent and use of the word 'brother' triggers a connection in Jack's mind.  He stares at the man and says, "You."  To his shock and amazement, the man with the gun is someone he has met before- years earlier in the empty stadium- Desmond.  What a freakin' memory that doctor has!  

  Next week on LOST: "The fate of all the survivors will be revealed", but as my wife pointed out, if someone didn't survive, we won't find out what happened to them.  Aw, nuts!