LOST Rewatch: Lockdown

Oh man. Who would have ever guessed that I was going to bring this cul de sac of an idea back to life? For that you can thank my co-worker Jennifer who foolishly chose to ignore my advice (while taking Dean's advice) to watch "Deadwood" before beginning her exploration of LOST. I am so energized by trying to convince her otherwise, that I need to spend some time getting back into my pointless recapping of a show that was off the air just after the Affordable Care Act became law and was (probably . . . to most people) last relevant to people when George W. Bush was the most embarrassing president in living memory.

(And now that I've driven away half of my audience . . . let's get back into it.)

Credit: tle1lost.wordpress.com

We ended our previous journey mid-way through Season 2, with the episode "The Whole Truth." Now we are going to learn more about Hurley in the strangely titled episode "Lockdown". (No . . . I'm kidding. In case you missed that ACME anvil of a title, this episode devotes itself to our favorite true believer John Locke.)

Now . . . this episode was one of the most pivotal of the entire series, so it is really great that I took about a decade off before getting to this recap. In summary, we'll say that Henry Gale begins the episode munching on the same bowl of cereal where we left him, smirking at the worried Locke and Jack (who are now very worried that they have let Gale lead Sayid's search party into a Other booby trap where Henry's hot air balloon is supposed to be).

But don't worry! Henry was totally kidding with his buddy jailors down underground. He consents to being locked back in his Hatch closet, while Locke frets that he's been duped again.

Again, you say? When has our Jungle Man John been tricked before? That wooshing noise and facial closeup means we're headed for a . . .

FLASHBACK!

Here we see functional-legged John getting ready to propose to Helen (once again played by Katey Sagal). But when Helen notes that John's father has died, the secret plans he has are put on hold to attend the funeral. We later learn that Locke's dad has faked his death to avoid being caught in a con and The Man from Tallahassee wants his gullible son to get some cash for dad from a safety deposit box that is surely being watched by the angry people who were conned. Locke is prepared to do this to win his dad's love . . . but Helen wants John to keep away from this criminal. Which John won't do . . . and Helen gets so mad that she breaks up with John and he is left alone--with no girlfriend and once more estranged from his absentee grifter of a dad.

So . . . back in the Hatch, John is riding Desmond's stationary bike when he hears some mysterious static from the "stereo-system." There are still plenty of minutes on the Button's countdown clock, so this is a weird development. As he's investigating . . . a claxon begins to blare and John sees some blast doors begin to descend in the living areas of the Hatch. He quickly wedges a tool box to stop one of the doors from shutting him out completely. He tries to shimmy under the gap, but the metal buckles and the door comes down on his leg, shattering some bones. Stuck and injured, Locke has no choice but to shout through the vent system to Henry to crawl through the ducts, get into the computer room and input The Numbers (4 8 15 16 23 42 . . . remember?) before the timer completely reaches zeroes.

Henry thinks this is all a bit nuts, but he agrees to it--as long as he knows Locke will owe him a favor. But! While Henry is negotiating the ducts and punching in the numbers, the countdown warning begins to blare and John gets worried that time will run out. And then . . .

the lights shut off/blacklights switch on/ and John sees THIS on the wall:

And THIS is the reason this episode is so important! A brand new mystery is revealed and the world of the Hatch expands even further! What could this mean?!!

Oh . . . and back on Lostaway Beach, Kate sees a beeping light in the jungle and she and Jack head off to investigate. Turns out. . . somehow a big pallet of food was parachuted into the jungle and isn't THAT an odd development?

Quick!

Somebody tell Hurley that there are Apollo bars and peanut butter! There will be a feast on the beach to tide everyone over until I sit down to write a new recap for Season 2, episode 18--"Dave".