We open up right where we left off (I think, anyway; maybe Adelphia could let me know for sure), with Sawyer, Michael and Jin on the beach panicking. And rightly so, I guess, since some guy walks up and starts beating the living crap out of them. And I must say, this is an interesting choice of an actor for this character. Are they doing some sort of noble savage thing? They get the darkest skinned guy they can find and take his shirt off and put armbands on him instead? Is he a warrior from Deepest Darkest Africa? Everyone else in his group was wearing western clothing, so why would he go all native? Also, he hardly has any, which makes him an “other” like the anthropologist Edward Said talked about occurring in books like “Heart of Darkness” – ooo, I think I just made up a new Lost theory. “The Others” as a manifestation of our fears and stereotypes of the unknown. I’m gonna pat myself on the back for remembering that from high school.

We can’t know for sure yet whether he’s a fellow passenger or one of The Others, but either way he’s obviously nutso and violent. But I know the people behind this show are too smart not to have thought about their casting choices, so I have to think they know what they’re doing…Or maybe I’m just overthinking it. Too many years on the West Coast.

Back down in the hatch, we get the same scene they’ve aired twice already, where Desmond threatens to kill Locke and Jack gets all pissy about it. I guess it’s a good way to segue into our first flashback – Locke with hair! He’s in a therapy group and some girl is complaining about her mom stealing her money for alcohol. Locke has no patience for everyone else’s sob stories, and really, he’s right – his long lost father steals his kidney and disappears again? Locke wins, hands down. His outburst here has a pleasing side effect, though. Katey Sagal wants to jump him now. Hi, Mrs. Bundy!

She pretty much lays it all out there, telling him that she can’t tell off people like he did because “once I get all hot and bothered there’s no stopping me.” Woo hoo! What would Al say? Looks like she wasn’t lying, either. In the next flashback, they’ve already bumped uglies. And oh yeah, her name is Helen, which is a sneaky trick the writers pulled on us, since Helen was also the name of the phone-sex operator Locke tried to go to Australia with last season. I watched that old episode again to listen to that Helen’s voice and compare. Definitely a different Helen. Did he happen to get two Helens in his life? Did he tell the phone sex chick that he wanted to call her Helen? Who knows.

So, back at the hatch, Kate is crawling around in vents and whatnot, and finally finds a cache of weapons, loads a gun, sneaks into the control room and points it at Desmond. She hits Desmond with the butt of the gun and manages to defuse the situation and disarm him. I was pretty bummed since it looks like she did something worthwhile, but then it turned out she screwed everything up! Yay! My hatred doesn’t have to end.

Desmond’s gun went off when Kate hit him and shot the computer. Desmond starts babbling about how they’re all gonna die now, and while I believe his fear, I bet he’s wrong. First of all, we’re only two episodes into the season. Second of all, I would guess that the government or whatever authority is in charge of this experiment is lying to him about his role. He keeps insisting that he has to fix it before the timer gets down to zero, then all of a sudden he’s fixated on whether or not he knows Jack. Weirdly, Jack won’t say that they’ve met. This makes Kate, and Locke especially, rather suspicious. And I can’t blame them. Why would Jack get all cagey about it if he didn’t have something to hide?

Now is the time on Sprockets when we flashback. Locke got some! Hurrah! Aw, but he’s ruining it - he won’t spend the night. He tells Helen that he can’t spend the night in strange beds, and she’s understandably upset. Of course, it’s not so much that he can’t sleep in strange beds, it more that he has to park outside his dad’s house at dawn. As you do.

This definitely has the feel of a longstanding ritual, so it’s a shock to us and Locke when his dad gets in the car. He basically tells Locke to piss off, he needs to get over it, he never wants to see him again, etc. He’s gratuitously mean, but it’s a good set up for Terry O’Quinn’s Emmy reel. The man gives good cry. However, I’m taken out of the scene just a tad by the fact that father and son are the exact same age.

Posted by Kat on October 6, 2005 12:35 PM