"You stole my kidney!"

Lockdown

So yeah, like I said in my earlier map post, wow. This was a good one.

There were a few story threads going on but since this was well-written I didn't think it got bogged down. I'll just recap the 3 stories and one flashback and then throw out some random thoughts on what went on.

Locke and Henry - We pick up exactly where we left off at the end of the previous episode, with Henry telling Jack and Locke he was only kidding about laying a trap for Sayid, Ana Lucia and Charlie. Jack gets his panties in a twist and orders Locke to put Henry back in the armory. Henry pushes Locke's macho button and asks him why he lets Jack talk to him like that. Locke becomes furious with Henry and locks him back up. Locke hears a static-filled warning over the loudspeakers that turns into a countdown. This scene was very well-done. The countdown finishes and suddenly all of the blast doors come down. And we don't know why. Locke needs Henry to help him pry up one of the doors. Henry makes him promise to protect him from the rest of the group "no matter what happens", which will be significant later, I think. Locke promises. As they try to pry open the door, it falls on Locke's legs, pinning him. The computer alarm starts to beep, they can't wait for anyone to come down to the hatch, so Henry is given the code and instructed to crawl through an air vent to the computer room and enter the code. While he's gone, the lights go out and a black light comes on, revealing the much-talked-about map. Locke only gets a quick glimpse of the map before the lights come back on and the doors raise (ouch). Locke drags himself into the computer room, where Henry is NOT, and calls for him. Henry finally walks up behind him. He tells Locke that he did nothing to make the doors go up, he only entered the code like Locke asked him to. Yeah, right.

The Poker Game - So where was Jack during all of this? Winning every mango and banana left on the island in a poker game/pissing contest with Sawyer, that's where. Turns out Jack learned how to play poker in Phuket (okaaay) and he beats the pants off of Sawyer. I wish. Anyway, he wins all of the medicine that Sawyer has been hoarding.

The Flashback - Locke is living with Helen and things are going well. So well, he's planning on proposing to her. Until Helen reads his kidney-stealing no-good father's obituary in the paper. They go to the funeral (and they were the only ones there - hello!) but it turns out that Daddy dearest is not dead but is pulling another con. He stole $700,000 in a retirement plan scheme and has faked his death in order to escape the wrath of a couple of thugs. (who I totally thought were going to be responsible for Locke's paralysis) Locke is so desperate for his father to love him that he agrees to help him get the money out of a safe deposit box and lies to Helen in the process. He gets the money to his father, but Helen shows up and is not happy. She tells John that he needs his father's love more than hers and turns down his proposal. Poor John. It is unclear whether John takes the $200,000 his father promised him as retribution for the kidney stealing.

The Three Lostketeers - At the beginning of the episode, Sayid, Charlie and Ana Lucia find not only the balloon that Henry Gale drew his map to, but also what appears to be the grave of the wife Henry swears he buried near the balloon.

The Wrap-Up - Henry attends to Locke's injuries, helping him stand (yay!) and guiding him to the couch. Locke thanks Henry for his help. Meanwhile up on the surface, it's nighttime and Jack is heading back to the hatch. Kate catches up to him, flirts with him, asks if she can use the shower (she has to ASK?), Jack lies and says a pipe is broken (presumably because she doesn't know about Henry Gale), offers to walk her back to the beach and then they spot something. They explore the flashing strobe light and discover it is atop a palette of DHARMA food that appears to have been dropped by parachute. As they puzzle over this, Sayid, Charlie and AL show up with some news. They all enter the hatch and confront Henry Gale. Yes, they found the balloon where he said it would be. Yes, they found a grave. But it wasn't Henry's wife in the grave. It was the REAL Henry Gale, whose driver's license shows he was a black man from Minnesota.

Some thoughts:

~ My guess is that the blast doors close periodically for the food “drop”. A warning sounds and the doors come down, keeping the person inside while DHARMA (or whatever they call themselves) leaves the supplies. When all is clear, the doors open again. It was just coincidence that the doors closed and the alarm went off for the code entry at the same time. How did the supplies get "dropped?" If it was by airplane, surely someone would have heard it. I’m not sure how to explain that. Maybe it’s dropped from a balloon? Or it’s raised from under the ground and the parachute is a ruse?

~ It was so cool when they showed the drawing on the blast door! Who did it? How did they do it? Why use something that only shows up in black light? You know, I was just thinking about those few minutes where Locke (and we) lost track of Henry Gale and how that blast door had to have been lowered for much longer periods of time for someone to be able to scrawl as much as they did on it...HG told Locke that all he did was enter the #s into the computer and that he had nothing to do with the raising of the doors but maybe that’s exactly what he was doing when Locke was calling out for him – he went somewhere and did something that raised the door early in order to free Locke. And that under “normal” circumstances the door would have been down much longer? Maybe?

~ So Henry Gale is NOT Henry Gale! I knew he was lying, but I didn’t think they were going to find what they found in the grave. I love his character and I hope he’s going to be on for a long time, but I somehow think I won’t get my wish. Not if Sayid has anything to say about it. I’m not sure Henry didn’t already know those numbers – he seemed to remember them awfully well. And I’m not sure that his fall in the storeroom wasn’t on purpose, either.

~ Locke’s flashback was pretty good – kinda sad, actually. He really is a sort of pathetic character and I think we needed to be reminded of that. Aand I don’t mean “pathetic” in a mean way - he’s just had a really crappy life and crashing on the island was a good thing for him – a new start, filled with wonder and the miracle of his healing. But his true personality makes him the perfect sucker for whatever is going on on the island. When he said “You came back” to Henry Gale, I just felt so bad for him. He really wants to trust someone and he keeps getting let down.

~ Did anyone else recognize the woman whose new house Locke was inspecting? It was Nadia! Sayid’s girl.

~ I guess there’s a theory going around that Locke’s father (Anthony Cooper) is the Real Sawyer, the man who he chased to Australia to kill. It makes sense – both con-men, the appropriate age...and I believe that was an Oceanic flight going over Locke’s head. His dad was going to the airport. Maybe he caught a flight to Australia.

~ So Locke promised to protect Henry Gale from the rest of the group but will he still do that even though HG has pretty much proven to be untrustworthy? I think so, just like he kept his promise to his untrustworthy father and got the money from the safe deposit box for him. It’s as if Locke thinks that by virtue of being trusted by him, they then become trustworthy. His belief in them makes it so.

~ I’m not really diggin’ all the fat Hurley remarks that have been on the show lately – Sawyer’s “head over to the buffet” remark, and Hurley sneaking around and gorging himself on the (no longer) scarce food supply – but then I remember that they have to have some way of explaining why Hurley doesn’t lose weight. Speaking of food, have a question: remember that episode where Hurley was put in charge of distributing all the food and he let everyone just have one big pig out? Wasn’t the point of it that he didn’t want the responsibility of rationing out the food so they all just ate it in one sitting? Where does he get the food he’s sneaking? And where do Jack and Locke get their food? I suppose Hurley could have kept some aside for himself, but...(of course now that point is moot)

~ One final question: How many people actually know about the hatch? Just the leads? Because I would be royally pissed if there was a place with a bed and a shower and a toilet and food and books and music and only the cool people got to go in. I think they need to make that a little clearer.

Tomorrow night, believe it or not, brings us another new episode. And it looks like another doozy. (I hope!)