Sweet Dreams Are Made of This

OK, we’re in the home stretch. Part 3 of what I have dubbed the “3 part season premiere” of Lost is here. This time we resolve the final cliffhangers of last season. What happened to Locke, Eko and Desmond in the hatch? Well, we find out, kind of. To be honest the entire episode was teh fiest disappointing show of the new season. It’s nothing but a lot of filler. A series of slow moving scenes, a pointless flashback and a long dream sequence. With 22 episodes to do every season you expect these every once and a while, so you just go with the flow. And even a filler episode of Lost is better than a lot of other crap they pass for TV these days

The show starts of with yet another huge eyeball. In a mirror image of Season 1′s opening shot, Locke is lying on the ground in the jungle with a bloody head. When he looks up he sees a buck naked Desmond running by in the jungle. When Locke tries to scream out “Desmond, I can totally see your bagpipes!” but nothing comes out. He has lost his voice in the explosion. Now I you’re like me thinking how can a huge explosion leave you with a small cut on your head and no voice, remember its more of a plot device than anything else. His larynx probably cushioned the fall to the jungle floor and saved his life. When Locke stands up he hears something and looks up. When he does he almost gets hit on the head with Eko’s priest whacking stick. Then he starts to walk towards the village but steps on the head of a rake and WHAM! It flies up and hits him in the face makes him fall over and he lands in a pile of mousetraps. Not his day.

Locke limps back to the camp but he is limping with a purpose. He goes right to his beach shack and starts taking it apart. As he is doing this Charlie and Claire see him. Claire asks Charlie if he knows how long he’s been back, Charlie just nods no. The shit eating grin on his face also leads me to believe that Charlie has now moved on to becoming a full fledged villain now, as opposed to just an annoying Scottish midget.

Locke takes everything he cut down and goes to the church structure that Eko began last season before abandoning it to worship at his new god, the numbers. Charlie comes by and asks him where he was, his voice dripping with sarcasm the whole time. Since Locke cant speak he simply pantomimes what he wants to do. After a few confused answers like “Ice cream in the sawmill with your uncle Bob?” Charlie figures it out “You need to talk to the island?”

After the commercial we come back and Locke is going up to Charlie and asking him for help. Well he doesnt ask him per se, he writes it out on a pad becuase he still has no voice. “You do know I detest you?” Charlie says, mentioning the fact that he beat him up and accused him of using heroin when he wasn’t. Of course the whole story is he beat him up because Charlie kidnapped Claire’s baby in the middle of the night, and when Locke accused him of using heroin, he was right. Locke says that he needs him to guard him at the “sweat lodge”. Since Charlie doesn’t know what the “sodding hell” a sweat lodge is, he is intrigued and follows him.

Cut to this weeks flash back and we see a highway at night. Locke is driving in his pickup truck in the rain and picks up a young hitchhiker named Eddie. As they are driving and chitchatting, Locke gets pulled over by a cop. From the decidedly dickish way the cop acts I am assuming it is a state cop. The officer says he pulled him over for a busted taillight but you can tell he’s just itching to get him for something else. When he asks him what’s in the back of the truck Locke says “Guns and groceries”. Ad he’s right, he’s got the back of his truck stocked with guns of all kinds. Pistols, shotguns, rifles, even a phaser. He also has the legal documents for all of them. This just annoys the cop even more as he’s itching for an arrest. When he threatens to arrest him for picking up a hitchhiker, Eddie says that Locke is his uncle. This leaves the cop with nothing to get him on and he drives off.

In the sweat lodge Locke is sitting shirtless in front of the fire. He sticks some mashed up heroin in his mouth and then pours water on the fire to steam it up. After a minute or so of this he is tapped on the shoulder by someone. It’s Boone! Wel, opium induced hallunigenic Boone at least. When Locke sees him he tries to mouth the words “I’m sorry” to which Boone answers “That’s OK. I was the sacrifice that the island demanded.” This is no surprise since this is Locke’s hallucination as opposed to the real Boone who I don think would have gone along with the whole “Sacrifice to the island” thing if given the choice.

Then Locke tells him to follow him, but he must do it in a wheelchair. This leads us to the overlong time filler that is Locke’s “vision”. Locke is in the Sydney airport being led around in the wheelchair by Boone with his shirt off and his oiled up man boobs in full effect. Looking around the airport he sees everyone from the island. There’s Ben as an airport security guard, Hurley as a checkout clerk. And Uncle Henry, and Zeke. Oh Auntie Em, they were all there! Boone tells Locke someone in here needs his help. Locke points at all of the people he recognizes but Boone keeps telling him no. Then Locke is at the bottom of an escalator with Boone at the top telling him to follow him. Locke climbs up the escalator and when he gets to the top a now bloodied Boone tells him to “Clean up his own mess”. Locke sees Eko’s priest whacking stick on the ground covered in blood. Then Locke is startled awake and inside the sweat lodge. when he gets up to go out a vision of a giant polar bear lunges at him and he dives outside of the tent to an astonished Charlie. When Charlie asks him of he’s OK, Locke just goes and gets his big Crocodile Dundee knife and pulls it out of its sheath. “What are you going to do?” Charlie asks. “I am going to save Mr. Eko’s life” Locke says. Ugh, how maddening was this? A long overly involved dream sequence? Like this show doesn’t have enough time wasting flashbacks to deal with. They could have at least made it interesting and thrown in a backwards talking midget or maybe even have Kate in her island underwear. This totally turns me off form ever getting high on heroin. Here I thought it as all cool and stuff, but you just have a vision of people in an airport. Christ, I can see that for free. I’m even afraid to do pot now as I might end up hallucinating myself in a Greyhound terminal.

Back on the island Locke is traipsing through the jungle on his drug induced rescue mission (seriously, doesn’t it take a while for a big mouthful of heroin to wear off?). For some reason Charlie is following him. He can probably taste the heroin on Locke’s breath and is just jonesing for a hit. Locke finds Eko’s cross on the ground. “he was dragged this way” Locke croaks in his hoarse voice. “By what?” asks Charlie. “By the Polar Bear” Locke answers. When Charlie says that Sayid killed the polar Bear Locke just says that he killed a polar bear, and walks further into the jungle.

Soon he finds a patch of fresh blood on the ground. He tells Charlie to go back to the camp so he can continue on alone. When Charlie resists Locke says that “Bad things happen to people who hang around me.” And then we cut right to our flashback. Locke is driving up to what looks like a big ranch with the guns and mysterious hitchhiker Eddie in tow. Only we soon find out it’s not so much a ranch as a big hippie commune. Locke brings Eddie around to introduce everyone and they invite him to eat at their giant hippie dinner table, and eat their hippie food with their hippie utensils. Eddie is wearing a Geronimo Jackson t-shirt, the fake band that has been hinted at throughout the run of the show and Mike, the leader of the hippies (Hiipie Grand Poo-Bah?) notices it and talks about how he is a fan as well. Whether this means something or is just another throwaway inside reference is impossible to tell. Locke then gets up to say grace and he talks about how he is thankful that he has been able to learn to let go of his hatred and not give in to the dark side of the Force. And most of all he thanks god for giving him a new family. Sure they smell like Patchouli oil, but at least they ain’t gonna con him out of any major organs.

In the jungle Locke and Charlie stumble across the remains of the hatch. From the look of it Locke says it must have imploded. Also from the looks of it it seems the entire island is now a giant goatse man joke (For those who know what I’m talking about, don’t worry, that was a safe link). OK, so Eko, Locke and Desmond were all in the hatch when it blew up, only it didn’t blow up, it imploded, but it still launched them into the air where Locke landed safely on the ground and lost his voice and Desmond who was at the lowest part of the hatch at the fail-safe got blown out to and took his clothes with him. Does that make any sense at all? My first instinct would be to just chalk all this up to bad writing but this is Lost. A lot of times weird things that you cant explain do have purpose, they just don’t get around to telling you what it is for a while. So as to what happened in the explosion and how the three of them made it out a live I will let slide for now, hoping that it becomes a plot point at some point. And knowing this show they will probably do a whole flashback episode explaining the whole thing . Gotta burn up that screen time.

As they go further into the jungle Locke finds a dead boar. It has been recently kill and Locke says it is an “active kill” meaning whatever did it will be back for more. And right on cue the polar bear appears. Well it doesn’t exactly appear. CGI is expensive stuff so we just get a few quick shots of white fur as Charlie and Locke run as fast as they can. When they get a good distance away they stop but then Locke hears something coming. He takes out his bowie knife and hurls it. When he goes to look Hurley is standing there with his canteen held up to his chest, and a huge knife sticking out of it. Thank god Hurley was running holding his canteen chest high or who knows what would’ve happened.

After the commercial break we see Hurley telling Locke and Charlie what happened. How Kate, Jack and Sawyer were captured, how they let Michael leave on the boat because he was a murdering scumbag and how Ben, who they still know as Henry Gale, is their leader and they were told to never go back to that part of the island. When Hurley asks Locke what they are going to do about it, Locke says he is doing something. He is too focused on getting Eko to deal with it and leaves Hurley behind as he continues his Eko quest. After they trek on and they end up outside a small cave.

But first a flashback. Locke and Eddie are at the hippie commune getting ready to pick peaches. From their discussion it’s been over a month since Eddie has been there. As they are walking Eddie notices an indoor greenhouse where people are unloading supplies of fertilizer. When Eddie tries to go over and help him, Locke grabs him and says that they are OK and need to get to their orchard duty. This gets Eddie curious. He says anytime he goes near it people tell him to leave. Locke says that “these things take time”. But Eddie is insistent. He says he “wants in”. When Locke asks him what exactly he wants in on, Eddie says “Whatever you plan on blowing up.” This just makes Locke laugh and he tells Eddie that he’ll “talk to Mike and Jan”.

At the cave entrance Locke is getting ready to go inside. When he tells Charlie that he can’t go in there Charlie resists. Locke asks him why he wants to go in there when Charlie doesn’t have an answer he tells him to go back. Locke says he is going to go in there because he has to go in there. Its an island thing you see. He makes a torch and pulls out a can of Dharma hairspray. He then heads into the cave, all Indiana Jones like, although with the hairspray I’m guessing he’s also part MacGyver.

As Hurley is walking along the jungle he hears something. When he looks over he sees a naked Desmond emerging, if ya know what I mean. He asks Hurley if he has any clothes. Luckily Hurley has a sweaty oversized tie dye shirt just for the occasion.

Back in the cave Locke is walking along slowly until he steps on something. when he looks down and sees what it is. It s a toy truck. The polar bear has been genetically enhanced to enjoy playing with toys. My god, it’s worse than we imagined.

In the flashback Locke is going up to the mystery shed. When he gets inside we finally se what all the mystery really was. Mary Jane, reefer, Some good old Mary do you wanna? Mike and JAN are in the back of the tent and are not mellow at all, man. Locke is totally sensing the negative vibes. It’s like, killing his buzz. When he asks what’s going on they are livid at him. Jan shows him why. Eddie is an undercover cop. Scooby Doo and Hong Kong Phooey all in one. Locke is flabbergasted by this. He got played for a sucker, again. Locke says that he can still fix this. Mike just looks at him and says “You do that John”.

In the cave Locke finally stumbles across Eko lying wounded on the ground. He is surrounded by a bunch of human bones with tattered Dharma garb all over it. The clothes look old but its hard to say. Are they from the original Dharma experiment from years ago, or the remains of various Others? Eko looks up and sees Locke but before he can say much the Polar bear grabs him and start dragging him deeper in the cave. Locke then springs into action. He grabs his hair spray and uses it with the torch to create a blowtorch and fires it into the polar bears face. Then he grabs Eko and carries him outside of the cave where he collapses unconscious.

Hurley and Desmond meanwhile are walking in the jungle as Hurley is asking Desmond questions about what happened in the hatch. He wants to know why Desmond didn’t use the “fail safe” key before. Desmond says he didn’t know exactly what would happen if he did. Hurley asks what exactly did happen when he used it. Desmond says it detonated the electromagnetic anomaly and made the hatch implode, took of his clothes and laid him down gently in the jungle. Duh. Hurley asks cautiously if that means Desmond is going to turn into the Hulk, and if you pay attention you’ll notice Desmond smiles, but doesn’t answer the question. Dun! Du! Dunnnn! Hurley then says Kate jack and sawyer saw the purple sky too before they had bags over their head and were taken away. To that Desmond just says It’s OK because “Locke’s gonna go after them., He said so in his speech.” Hurley looks at him confused and tells him Locke only talked about Eko and some bear. Desmond just looks at Hurley confused and says “Right. I’m sorry I am just a bit shook up.”

Over in the other part of the jungle Charlie and Locke are carrying Eko back to the camp. As they are walking Charlie asks him what he saw in his “vision”. Locke tells him the whole thing. He saw Boone who told him he had to “clean up his own mess” meaning Eko, since he didn’t believe him about the button he feels he is responsible that a polar bear was going to eat him (this shows wacky as hell). Then Charlie says that it sounds like he’s had a few messes to clean up in his day, and we cut to flashback.

Locke is taking Eddie hunting in the woods. They both have rifles. Eddie asks Locke if he talked to Mike and Jan to which he says he did, and he will bring him by the greenhouse tonight and explain it all. Then Locke acts as if he hears a noise to which Eddie turns around. Then Locke points the gun right at his head as he turns back around.

“Did you know it would be me?” he says. At first Eddie plays dumb but he can tell when the jig is up. Yes, they chose him. “Why?” asks Locke. “Because you hadn’t been here long. Had no criminal record, and you re psych profile said you’d be amendable to coercion”. Damn Locke, played again, and this time by a punk cop kid.

When Locke pulls the gun up and points it to his head, we get movie cliché 1,984 as Eddie says “You not gonna shoot me. You’re not a killer” Speaking for myself, if someone has a gun pointed at my head, IM not going to do the “You wont do it” line and walk away. I’d piss my pants and beg him not to shoot. Then I’d pull some badass karate shit and totally kick his ass. Eddie tells Locke that he’s a farmer, not a hunter, to which a now crying Locke says he is too totally a hunter! But hes a pussy hunter as he lets Eddie walk away scott free. Wow, even Sun is a bigger badass than Locke.

In the jungle Charlie and Locke stop to rest. When Charlie walks off to get some water Locke apologizes to an unconscious Eko. “I’m sorry I ever doubted you. Sorry I gave up on my faith in the island. I messed up. Now our people are captured. If I just listened to you. Just let you keep pushing the button, I could’ve protected em. I could have saved them” Then Eko answers him. “You can still protect them. You can still save them.” He says. When Locke says he doesn’t even know where they are, Eko says “You will find them. After all, you are a hunter john”. Before he can say anything else Charlie comes back with the water. When Locke turns around again Eko is unconscious. Was the whole thing another hallucination? The island speaking through Eko?

When they finally get him to the camp some no name others (To me they are like the nameless ensigns on the away missions in Star Trek. Marked for death) ask for Jack to help but Hurley then tells them the bad news. The Others took him and Kate And Sawyer. As everyone starts to panic, Locke interrupts everyone to give a speech. He is going to find them all and save them. He promises he will bring them all back.

Who are these people?

As Locke is giving his speech eh gets a pained look on his face. It’s the same speech Desmond said he would make, before he made it. When Charlie asks him why he looks so strange, Hurley just says he has déjà vu, and looks over at Desmond, skipping stones into the water in his giant shirt. A deliberate nod to John the Baptist if you ask me.

So waht did everyone else think? Were they as bored with this episode as I was? I mean it was still Lost, but just one of those throwaway ones with nothing really “wow” worthy, unless you count Locke’s titties.