“Lost” Episode Guide

On the beach, Kate is playing with the toy plane she grabbed from the Marshal’s case, eyeing the raft builders down the beach. Seems Dr. Arzt, a survivor we haven’t met yet, is explaining that monsoon season is coming any day now and every day they wait to launch increases the chance that they will die out there. Michael decides that tomorrow will be the day to launch and he sets out to make the final arrangements. Kate comes up to him and says she wants on. But Michael explains that the raft is full. Kate still looks determined and gets Michael to consider bumping Sawyer off. We flashback to a hospital where Kate is trying to get to a room but a police officer sits guard in front of the door. She quickly exits. Later, a doctor climbs in his car in the parking structure and we hear a voice from the back seat: “Hi, Tom.” Tom recognizes Kate and asks her what she is doing there. She tells him Diane is dying of cancer and she thought she owed it to her to come and see her. But she needs his help. Later, at his house, we see from the pictures that Tom is happily married with a kid. He’s alone for the weekend, though, and has managed to get Kate some private time with Diane. They have three hours to kill, so Kate cryptically asks Tom, “Do you think it’s still there?” Soon, they are by a big tree, with shovels in hand, digging up a box. Inside are little treasures, including Tom’s beloved toy airplane. So that’s where it came from. They also find an audiocassette and as these two sit in the car and listen to themselves as children, we learn that they were more than just friends–they once loved each other. Back at the hospital, he wheels Diane into a room on a gurney, Kate is finally allowed to get close to her. “Mom? It’s me, Katie.” The woman regains consciousness and recognizes her daughter–and while Kate begins to tearfully apologize for putting her mother through “all this,” Kate’s mother starts calling for help. Is her mother afraid of her? Suddenly, Kate is on the run again. She finds Tom and asks for his car keys, but he ends up going with her. The two go racing through the garage only to see a police car has blocked the exit. Kate pleads for Tom to get out of the car, but he refuses. She GUNS the engine and the officer gets off several shots before is car is rammed out of the way. But just as it looks as if they might make it, another car slams into them. Kate recovers from the impact she reaches over to make sure that Tom is OK…but he isn’t. Tom’s been hit by one of the bullets and is dead. Kate barely has a moment to process the horror of what just happened. She catches a glance of Tom’s toy airplane in the backseat but realizes that she doesn’t have the time to get it. Quick as a flash, she is out of the car and running again, but something tells us no matter how fast she runs, she will never get away from this. Back on the island, Jin is making some last minute adjustments to the rigging when Sun approaches and asks him if he is going to be leaving on the raft. He admits that he is, causing Sun to turn and walk away. Meanwhile, Sayid is leading Jack through the jungle where they finally meet up with Locke, who leads him to the hatch. Jack is more than a little peeved he wasn’t told about it. But he asks, “So how do we open it,” Sayid jumps in to say he thinks that’s a big mistake. If the door was meant to be opened, why doesn’t it have a handle on the outside? Back at the raft, Michael is taking a much deserved water break. Suddenly, he keels over in pain. Something is very wrong. Walt runs through the jungle looking for help and finds Sun and Kate. He tells them what is wrong and Kate runs off to find Jack. Locating him, Jack rushes back to examine Michael and discovers, from some suspicious residue at the bottom of one of Michael’s water bottles, that Michael’s been poisoned. Kate catches up with Jack at the caves and asks if someone is going to be taking his place on the raft. This prompts Jack to ask her if she poisoned Michael. Kate asks Jack if he thinks she is capable of that. He answers, “I don’t know what you’re capable of.” Later, Walt approaches Locke to tell him he didn’t poison his father. He may have burned the first raft, but he had nothing to do with this. When Locke comes over to take his hand and tell him not to worry, something happens to Walt. “Don’t open it,” Walt says ominously to an incredulous Locke. “Don’t open that thing!” Later, Walt decides he’ll come clean with his father and tells him he was the one who burnt the first raft. Walt explains that he didn’t want to leave. Michael takes this in but seems to understand. He tells his son they can stay behind on the island if that is what Walt wants. “We don’t have to leave.” “Yes we do,” is Walt’s reply. On the beach, Sawyer delivers a bottle of antacid to Michael in the hopes that it will solidify his spot on the raft, but the idea backfires when Michael accuses Sawyer of poisoning him and kicks him off the raft. “You’re a liar and a criminal,” says Michael, but Sawyer shoots back, “Oh, I’m a criminal!” He then proceeds to out Kate to the entire camp telling them that she was the fugitive with the Marshal and that she will do anything to anyone in order to remain free. The camp visibly reacts, moving away from her. Jack finds Sun leaning against a tree and asks her if she wants Jin to stay. When she admits that she does, he asks if that is the reason she tried to poison him. It’s an easy enough mistake, Jin and Michael work together all day–it would be very easy to get the water bottles mixed up. Sun breaks down and admits that she doesn’t want him to die out on the raft, so she mixed just enough of the poison to make him sick. Jack promises not to tell anyone about it, but he offers Sun some advice. “He’s going. If I were you, I’d say goodbye.” And as Kate sits alone in her tent, reflecting on a very, very bad day, Sun arrives. She tells Kate that Jack knows about the poison and adds, “I didn’t tell him it was your idea.” Kate thanks her and Sun explains that there was no reason to punish her; she was only trying to help. She tells Kate that, when she was a little girl she believed that once she found the man she loved, she would be happy…forever. “Yeah,” Kate says…”Me too.” [PAGEBREAK]

Sayid watches as Shannon grieves over Boone’s death. He tries to comfort her but she’s shut herself off completely. Meanwhile, an over-exhausted Kate convinces Jack to stop his one-man mission to find Locke and come back to help bury Boone. Eeveryone is a little freaked out. He agrees. At Boone’s memorial, Locke finally shows up. He tells the group about the Beechcraft lodged in a tree canopy and how Boone went in and found the radio which he attempted to use before his weight shifted, causing the plane to fall. “It happened because he was trying to help us–he was a hero.” But Jack isn’t buying it, screaming at him for lying and leaving Boone to die. And all the exhaustion and emotion has caught up with Jack, who collapses. Kate and the others force him to go lie down. Michael and Hurley approach Sayid to find out what the heck is going on, worried that Jack might do something rash. Sayid wants nothing to do with the whole thing and asks, “Why come to me?” Which makes him flash back to when he is being questioned by a member of the CIA and a member of the ASIS in Sydney. The CIA agent explains that he was taken into custody, not because they thought he was a terrorist, but because he knows one of the members of the cell, Essam, his old roommate at Cairo University. But Sayid is still reluctant and asks why he should care. That’s when the CIA agent pulls out a photo of Nadia, the woman he risked his life for. If Sayid wants to know where she is, he’s going to have to help them. He goes along with plan, finding his ex-roommate, gaining his trust and infiltrating the small band of terrorists. Sayid finds out Essam is planning to be a martyr, strapping explosives to himself in a terrorist attack. Sayid tries to stop him but ends up agreeing to go along with Essam in his quest. When the time comes, Sayid reveals to Essam that he’s working with the CIA and offers him a ten minute head start before he calls them. Essam is shocked and hurt, unable to believe that his friend set him up. Sayid tells Essam about Nadia and the deal he made to find her. But Essam pulls a gun on Sayid–his eyes wild, unable to grasp that his friend would do this to him for a woman. And just as we think Essam is about to blow Sayid’s head off, he turns the gun on himself, puts it under his chin and pulls the trigger. Back on the island, Locke approaches Shannon with Boone’s bag. He tells her he knows what it feels like to loose family and gives a sincere apology. Shannon in turn, goes to Sayid and cashes in on the favor he offered her. “You asked if you could do anything for me? John Locke killed my brother. Will you do something about that?” He nods. Sayid asks Locke to lead him to the plane. When they get there, Locke asks Sayid why he doesn’t trust him, Sayid points out a few inconsistencies, including the concealed gun Locke has been carrying in his waistband. Locke reveals that he got the gun off the body of one of the smugglers from the plane, trying to gain his trust. Locke also tells Sayid he was the one who clocked Sayid over the head while he was trying to set off a transceiver, quickly defending his actions by pointing out that the source of the distress call isn’t really a place one would want to lead people. Locke argues that they need to focus their energy on surviving. Sayid demands to know about the hatch, but Locke says that Boone could have been referring to either the forward or aft hatch of the Beechcraft. Back at the camp, Sayid tells Shannon that he believes what happened to Boone was an accident and assures her that Locke didn’t mean to harm her brother. Not satisfied with the explanation, Shannon walks away from Sayid. Jack wakes up with Kate by his side, and on an impulse, reaches down for his neck, realizing the key to the Halliburton case is no longer around it. Rushing into the jungle, Sayid, Kate and Jack come upon Locke, kneeling on the ground, hands in the air. Shannon is standing a few feet away with one of the guns trained at Locke’s head. Shannon screams over the rain, demanding to know what really happened to her brother and then tells him that she hopes he suffers as much as her brother just as she pulls the trigger. In a split second, Sayid dives on top of Shannon, knocking the gun out of her hand. Locke is only grazed but he locks eyes with Jack, who never made a move to help him. Back on the island, Locke thanks Sayid for what he did, knowing full well what it cost him. Sayid tells Locke that he did it because he thinks that Locke may be their best hope at surviving on the island–though that doesn’t mean he trusts him. To gain that trust, Sayid asks Locke to take him to the hatch. And Locke finally relents. The episode ends as Sayid stares down in amazement at the hatch. [PAGEBREAK]

Picking up from where we left off, Jack is feverishly working to save Boone, who, as we know, was crushed when the Beechcraft he was searching through crashed into the ground. Jack enlists Sun’s help, as they fix Boone’s collapsed lung. Jack also examines Boone’s fractured legs and sees he’s lost a lot of blood. Boone begins to come around, convinced he’s going to die, but Jack tells him he’s not going to die. Why? Because Jack is going to save him. Off of Jack, we flashback to a tuxedo shop, where Jack is being fitted for his wedding. That’s right, it looks like Jack is getting married. At the rehearsal dinner, his bride-to-be Sara tells the story of a car accident in which she almost died but how Jack promised to fix her and did just that. Jack, however, is having trouble writing his vows and when his father shows up, Jack relays his fears–of not being a good husband and father. Christian points out commitment has always been Jack’s strong point, but his weak point is he doesn’t know when to let go. Finally, on the big day and in front of everyone, Jack admits he couldn’t write any vows but tells Sara she is the one who fixed him. The happy couple kiss. Back at the camp, Jack works to sew up Boone’s chest and concludes he needs a blood transfusion. Sun rouses Boone long enough to tell her his blood type–A negative. He sends Sun to find Shannon and Charlie to find someone with the same blood type. Shannon, however, is nowhere to be found because she is out in the jungle with Sayid, who has set up a romantic picnic for the two of them. Unfortunately, Charlie can’t find anyone with the same blood type. Jack announces he’ll do it on himself since he’s universal O-negative. Meanwhile, Kate is rushing to find extra supplies for Jack when she comes across Claire in labor–and not ready for it. Kate calls for help, and Jin comes running. Kate sends Jin to the caves with the alcohol and tells him to return with Jack, while she stays with Claire. Jin arrives at the med tent to find Jack mid-transfusion. Luckily, Sun is there to translate to Jack and Charlie about Claire’s predicament. But Jack can’t leave–he’s made a commitment to save Boone. And with these two emergencies converging, Jack snaps into leader mode and instructs Charlie to wait until the contractions are sixty seconds apart before instructing Claire to push. Kate is going to have to deliver the baby on her own. In the med tent, Boone comes to momentarily and tells Jack all about the plane–that it fell on him. He also mentions the hatch and that Locke told him not to tell anyone about it. But Jack doesn’t understand. Besides, things are getting worse because the transfusion isn’t working, and Jack’s convinced Boone’s crushed leg is killing him. Jack wants to amputate it to save him and gets Michael to help him rig a guillotine. Sun pleads for him not to do it, feeling that Boone is beyond repair and would be better off left to die peacefully. But Jack has shut himself off to the emotion and continues to prep Boone for amputation. Boone calls Jack’s name, stopping him in the process and asking Jack to let him go. Jack final relents and moves him out of the guillotine. In another part of the jungle, Kate instructs Claire to push, but quickly realizes that she’s doing the exact opposite–Claire is holding the baby in because she’s scared. Kate tells her that she’s not alone. Everyone is going to be there for her. And with a newfound confidence, Claire begins to push…and gives birth to a healthy baby boy. And as a new life enters the island, another one leaves–Boone takes his last breath with Jack watching over him. Back on the beach, the survivors celebrate the birth. But the celebration is cut short for Jack, who has to face Shannon when she returns with Sayid, oblivious to the fact that her brother is dead. While Shannon mourns over Boone’s body, Kate goes to Jack to see if he’s okay. Jack is oddly cold, packing his backpack as she speaks. “Boone died, Jack.” Jack retorts, “Boone didn’t die, he was murdered.” And with that statement, Jack heads out. Kate asks where he’s going and Jack responds, “To find John Locke…” [PAGEBREAK]

We open in a flashback to a much younger Locke, with a head full of hair, working in a toy store. He notices a woman standing off to the side who is staring at him–and it’s disconcerting. Later, he sees her in the parking lot and asks her want she wants, to which she responds, “I’m your mother.” The two sit at a diner over tea, where her eccentricities become evident. She tells him she thinks their meeting was a sign of great things and speaks about destiny. When Locke asks about his father, she tells him that he doesn’t have a father; that he was “immaculately conceived.” Hmmm… On the island, Locke and Boone put the final touches on a device to crack open the hatch, but the trebuchet doesn’t even dent the hatch, it just collapses under the force. Boone notices Locke seems oblivious to a piece of shrapnel embedded in his leg. That night, Locke bandages his wound and tests his reflexes, searing the bottom of his foot with a burning ember but feels nothing. He stares down at his legs, wondering if his paralysis is returning. Out in the jungle, Boone is getting fed up working everyday without results–he doesn’t think they can open the hatch. But Locke insists they were meant to find and open it (“The island will send us a sign,” he insists). And just as Boone is about to write Locke off as a complete nutcase, a plane buzzes overhead. When Locke looks down, he finds Boone covered in blood, chanting the phrase, “Teresa falls up the stairs, Teresa falls down the stairs…” Confused, Locke looks down to find himself paralyzed, back in his wheelchair. He bolts awake in a cold sweat–it was just a nightmare. Flashing back to Locke’s past, we see he has hired a private investigator and finds out the woman is who she claims she is; the DNA was a positive match. The P.I. also tells Locke the woman was institutionalized several times for schizophrenia. When Locke inquires about his father, the investigator reluctantly slides his father’s dossier across the table. Later, Locke pulls up to a gated estate and asks the guard to see a Mr. Cooper–he’s his son. The guard finally lets him in and when Locke meets Cooper, there’s an immediate connection. Cooper admits to being his father and even asks Locke to go hunting with him the following weekend. Following up on his father’s invitation, he arrives only to find his father being tended to by a nurse. His father explains that his kidney is failing and that while he’s on a donor list, his age has put him at the very bottom. He didn’t tell Locke because he didn’t want to spoil their time together. Of course, as they bond, Locke offers his kidney. But after the procedure is done, Locke wakes to find his father has left the hospital with no explanation. Suddenly, his mother appears in the doorway and tells him that she needed money and went to Cooper. It seems Locke was tricked into donating his kidney to a father he never knew. In denial, an ailing Locke drives to the estate, but the once friendly guard is now completely cold and turns Locke away. He stares into the security camera, completely shell-shocked. The guard tells him again he has to go, so Locke gets into the car and drives away. But he only makes it a few blocks before he pulls over and breaks down in tears. Back at the hatch, Locke relays his dream to Boone–he thinks that the plane is the sign they have been hoping for. Boone isn’t too sure about his state of mind until Locke asks him who Teresa is. Boone registers shock, as he clearly recognizes the name. It was the babysitter Boone used to torture by calling her up and down the stairs on the intercom. But one day, Teresa apparently took a bad step and fell. As Locke and Boone move through jungle to find the plane, Locke’s legs begin to fail him. Boone wonders what’s wrong, but Locke claims he’s fine. They stop to rest when Locke looks up past Boone, who follows his gaze toward–a yellow Beechcraft, propped up in a tree canopy. Knowing his legs won’t let him climb, Locke tells Boone he’s going to have to go up and find out what’s inside. Boone climbs the massive tree into the Beechcraft and finds a map, a decaying body–and a big stash of heroin. Angry, Boone calls down to Locke this wasn’t a sign after all–the plane was obviously a drug smuggling plane. But then Boone spots a radio on the dash. He runs to turn it on and actually hears some static. He makes frantic mayday calls and hears a muffled voice, but the chance of making contact is cut off when the plane lurches in the tree and starts to slip. Locke calls to Boone and tells him to get out, but it’s too late and the plane begins to slide through the canopy to the ground in a horrible, bone crushing crash. Locke scrambles toward the plane, legs starting to come back to him. He finds Boone wounded inside, pulls him out, slings his body over his shoulder and powers back to camp. At the caves, Locke comes barreling in with Boone. He tells Jack that it was an accident–that Boone fell off a cliff while hunting. Jack does a quick exam to see that Boone’s wounds are life threatening and sends Kate for towels and water. Jack turns his back for some supplies, all the while trying to get details out of Locke. But when he turns back around, Locke is gone. He is back at the hatch, crying and screaming for some kind of sign. Suddenly, a light within the hatch comes on. [PAGEBREAK]

Hurley is helping Michael and Jin build the raft. Things are going well, but Michael tells them their chances of being rescued by a ship would be much better if they could rig some sort of transmitter to send out a distress call. Hurley remembers Sayid told them the French Lady had batteries. But Sayid is less than enthusiastic about going back to see her again. Besides, he can’t remember how to get back to her. Hurley asks about the maps Sayid took from her, hoping they could be of some help. When Sayid resignedly hands them over, Hurley begins leafing through them but stops suddenly, the color draining from his face. From his POV we see the page contains a series of numbers listed over and over again: 4,8,15,16,23,42. We flashback to Hurley sitting on the sofa in his mother’s house, eating from a bucket of chicken that bears the same logo as his work shirt. He is paying attention to the Mega-Lotto drawing on television. As the winning numbers are called out we can hardly believe our eyes. 4,8,15,16,23 and the mega number…42. Hurley checks his ticket and sees it is an exact match. Lucky break? Maybe not. Bad things soon start happening to Hurley, one after another. Hurley decides to investigate further. He goes to a mental institution, a place, it seems, Hurley knows very well. He finds a former “friend,” Leonard, and asks him “What do the numbers mean?” as we hear Leonard repeating the same series of numbers over and over again. Hurley tells him he thinks the numbers did something to him after he used them to win the Lottery. Leonard stops on a dime. “You’ve opened the box,” he says, “It won’t stop. You’ve got to get away from them or it won’t stop!” When Hurley asks Leonard where he got the numbers, he tells him that someone named, “Sam Toomey” heard them when they were working one year in Kalgoorlia–Australia. Hurley travels there and finds Toomey’s small house in the middle of nowhere. Toomey is now dead but Hurley asks his widow about the numbers. Seems Sam heard a voice repeating those numbers, over and over again while in the Navy, 16 years ago, and later, used the numbers to win a contest at a local fair. That’s when things started to go wrong for him and his family. Toomey soon thought the numbers were cursed. Hurley admits that he thinks he is under the same curse, but Mrs. Toomey doesn’t want to hear it. “You make your own luck, Mr. Reyes,” she says. “You’re looking for an excuse that doesn’t exist.” Back on the island, Hurley has just got to find out the connection between the French Lady and the numbers and heads off to find her, alone. But Jack, Sayid and Charlie realize what Hurley is trying to do and go after him. After a near miss with a booby trap, they meet up but quickly get separated again. Jack and Sayid continue through the jungle, and Sayid begins to feel like he recognizes something. Suddenly, Jack trips another wire and a huge explosion rips through the brush in front of them. When the dust settles, it looks like Rousseau has booby-trapped her former lair and moved on. But moved on where? Meanwhile Charlie and Hurley are trying to work their way toward the sound of the explosion to see if Jack and Sayid are hurt. Charlie demands to know why Hurley has been acting so strange, and, finally, Hurley is ready to tell him. But just as he begins, a shot rings out, shattering a tree-branch next to them. They scatter, running for their lives in opposite directions. Hurley is charging through the jungle and falls flat on his face. When he rises, he finds himself staring down the barrel of a rifle–with Rousseau on the other end. He’s scared, sure, but he is also desperate to find out about the numbers. Rousseau tells him her team picked up the transmission repeating those numbers from their ship. They changed course to investigate and wrecked on the island as a result. They continued to search for the transmission source and, weeks later, discovered the radio tower on the island, by the black rock. But then the sickness came and destroyed her team. After they were gone, Rousseau went to the tower and changed the transmission to the one that we heard in the pilot episode. She tells Hurley that the numbers are what brought her here–just as they brought Hurley here, too. And ever since then, she has lost everything she ever loved. So yes, she agrees that the numbers must be cursed. That’s all Hurley wanted to hear. Confirmation he wasn’t totally losing his mind. Jack and Sayid are still trying to salvage what little they can from the wreckage when Charlie appears and tells them about being shot at. And just as we wonder what happened with Hurley, he shows up. Just walks into the scene as calm as can be and hands a battery to Jack. And there’s one more thing too. He makes eye contact with Sayid… “She says hey.” Back at the beach, Charlie still wants to know why Hurley has been acting so strangely. “Okay,” Hurley says, “back home…I’m worth one hundred and fifty-six million dollars.” Charlie is dead silent for a beat. Then… “Fine, don’t tell me. I bear my soul and all I get is bloody jokes.” And as we leave the beach for the evening we make one last stop deep in the jungle at the hatch. We get closer and closer and we begin to notice something etched into the concrete surrounding the hatch itself. It looks like a series of numbers. And as we get still closer we can read exactly which numbers they are: 4,8.15,16,23,42… [PAGEBREAK]

As Jin’s eye open, he sweeps across the now familiar landscape of our island shore, looking for something. We flashback to Jin asking Sun’s father, Mr. Paik, for his permission to marry his daughter–and agreeing to work for him. Later, we see Jin being promoted, as he is asked to deliver a message of displeasure to the Secretary of Environment on Mr. Paik’s behalf. Jin is confused and doesn’t handle it the way Mr. Paik had intended. But Jin is soon made aware of his error and is sent back to the Secretary’s house–this time with an accomplice, who is set to carry out the right orders. But Jin stops the assassin before he can do his job. Jin instead beats the Secretary to a pulp, in front of his family…thereby saving his life. When Jin returns home we see a scene we saw once before in episode four, but this time from the opposite perspective. Jin rushes into the bathroom, desperate to wash the blood from his hands, literally and figuratively. As he and Sun quarrel, he is left to stare at himself in the mirror, trying desperately to recognize the man he used to be he finally lowers his guard…and the tears start to fall. Back on the island, Jin finds what he was looking for. He sees his wife, Sun by the water’s edge, wearing a bikini. He immediately goes to her and demands that she cover herself with her towel. As she refuses, we can see everyone watching the argument. When Jin starts to get rough, Michael decides to intercede. But he gets slapped in the face by Sun for his trouble. Later, she apologizes to Michael and explains that she slapped him to protect him from Jin. Whatever. Not his problem. All he is interested in is finishing that raft, so he can take his son and get OFF this island. That night Kate and Sun are talking next to the fire. But just as Kate asks why Sun allows her husband to treat her so poorly, Michael storms over, demanding to know where Jin is. Michael is furious because someone has burned the raft–and Michael thinks Jin is the culprit. Sun runs off to find Jin at the caves, searching through Jack’s makeshift “medicine cabinet.” He has burned his hands. As Sun looks on, devastated at this discovery she tries to explain to her husband that Michael was only trying to get them off this island. Disgusted, he goes off into the jungle. The next morning, as Jin walks down to the stream to try and cool his burned hands, Sawyer comes out of nowhere and knocks him out from behind. Sawyer delivers his prize to the crowd as he pushes Jin to the sand and unties his hands. Michael rushes over and decks Jin, who refuses to fight back. He gets back up and says something in Korean, but Michael isn’t stopping. Finally, we hear “STOP IT!” and see Sun pleading…in English. She tells the group that Jin didn’t set fire to the raft. He burned his hands trying to put the fire OUT. But people don’t believe her and they argue back and forth–who else would want to destroy their only chance of escape. It’s Locke who finally answers that question. He tells them that they aren’t the only people on this island. Later, Sun finds Jin at the caves packing his things. She knows he will be stunned by the fact she can speak English, but she tries to explain. All she wants is a chance to start over with him. But it’s too late for that now. And Jin simply walks away, leaving his wife in tears. Back at the caves, Locke sits down to play backgammon with Walt and the two share an easy conversation. Locke asks Walt a very simple question: “Walt, why did you burn the raft?” Walt doesn’t deny it, he looks right in Locke’s eyes and answers honestly–he’s been moving around all his life. He doesn’t want to move again. Locke promises him he won’t tell. After things have quieted down, Michael resigns himself to build another raft–a better one. And it looks like he’s going to have some unexpected help because, out of the forest comes Jin with a load of freshly cut bamboo. “Boat,” he says. And together, they begin again.

On the island, Sawyer wakes up from a nightmare he obviously has often. In it, he relives the horror of hiding under his bed as a small boy and hearing his mother being shot to death by his irate father and then seeing his father kill himself. But this night as he wakes up on the beach in a cold sweat, he finds a wild boar destroying his stuff. We flashback to a hotel room. Sawyer comes in, tangled in a kiss with another attractive woman but is interrupted by Hibbs, whose been waiting from him. Sawyer is still pretty peeved at the guy for screwing him out of his share of a con they ran years ago, but Hibbs has come to make it right. Hibbs tells him he knows the whereabouts of the man who killed Sawyer’s parents–the con man Sawyer has been chasing his whole life. The guy is in Sydney. Sawyer goes there and finds the man, now running a shrimp wagon on a loading dock. Sawyer has the gun cocked and is ready to kill him but can’t bring himself to do it. Sawyer goes into a bar in Sydney bar to drink away some of the pain. He ends up downing shots with the only other patron in the place, an American who turns out to be Jack’s dad, Christian Shepard. Shepard pours his heart out to Sawyer, telling him he doesn’t hate Jack for what he did to him; he loves him for it and is proud of him. But he can’t tell his son that. Shepard has a theory: Some people are just meant to suffer–“That’s why the Red Sox will never win the series.” Sawyer decides he’s got to do what he came to do and heads back to the dock. But as the man lays dying from a gunshot wound to the chest, he tells Sawyer that he would have paid his debt to Hibbs. Suddenly, Sawyer realizes what he has done: It was a set up and he has just killed an innocent man. Back on the island, Jack and Kate return the Marshal’s guns to the Halliburton case but realize Sawyer still has one. Kate offers to get it back for Jack telling him that she “can speak his language,” and she finds him getting ready to hunt the boar down in what he now thinks is an all out war. She joins him on the trek and later that night around a campfire, Sawyer brings out several of the mini bottles of booze from the airplane. He and Kate decide to play a little game called “I never” where we learn an awful lot about the both of them: Kate has never been to Disneyland; Sawyer has never been in love; and both of them have killed a man. When they wake up in the morning, the boar has once attacked again but only Sawyer’s stuff. When he finally does come face to face with the animal, Sawyer can’t kill it. Maybe the boar is the spirit of someone who Sawyer pissed off back in the real world–and now they are even. Sawyer arrives back at the camp and sees Jack. After a few curt words, Jack says something that makes Sawyer stop: “That’s why the Red Sox will never win the series.” Sawyer asks him to repeat that last bit and Jack tells him that it’s something his father used to say to explain why he didn’t have to apologize for all the lousy things he did to people–he preferred to put the blame on fate. When Sawyer asks if his dad was a doctor, we know he knows–and could easily tell Jack everything he always wanted to hear from his father. When Jack asks why he wants to know about his father, Sawyer replies: “No reason.” [PAGEBREAK]

Claire has made it back to the camp, still pregnant, a bit bruised–and with no memory of what has happened to her since she boarded the plane in Sydney. Meaning, she doesn’t know about the crash and doesn’t know who anyone is. Charlie is ecstatic she is still alive and although she doesn’t know him, he tries to connect with her by telling her that Ethan kidnapped him as well and nearly killed him. Claire asks who Ethan is and Charlie tells her all she needs to know. “He’s a bad guy.” Charlie flashes back to a time in London. Driveshaft has broken up and he is getting high most of the time. But Charlie is also in dire need of some money and when his mate Tommy comes up with a plan to use Charlie’s celebrity to worm his way into a frumpy rich girl’s life, just so they can rob her blind, Charlie snaps up the chance. Thing is, Charlie starts to have feelings for the girl, Lucy. He even accepts a job from Lucy’s father. But it doesn’t work out, and when he finally gets caught stealing from her, she demands to know why he’d take a job if all he was going to do was rob her. Charlie tells her he wanted to show her that he could be respectable…that he could take care of her. What she says in return has obviously stayed with Charlie a long, long time: “You’ll never take care of anyone.” Meanwhile, back on the island, Charlie and Jin head back from the caves to the beach when Jin is knocked out by a flying rock. Suddenly, Charlie is face to face with Ethan, who demands that Claire be brought to this spot before sundown–or Ethan will kill one of them every day until he does. Charlie immediately tells Jack, Locke and Sayid, who decide to set up a defense perimeter around the camp. But it doesn’t work. Someone is found drowned the next day. Kate reminds Jack about the Marshal’s guns but Jack doesn’t want to put firearms in untrained hands. Now Claire is starting to wonder why everyone is skittish around her, staring at her. She even asks Charlie, who says nothing’s wrong. Finally she can’t take it anymore and asks Shannon, who says, shocked, “You mean nobody has told you?” Claire then confronts Charlie, furious that he lied to her when she asked him what was going on earlier. Charlie says that he just wanted to take care of her, but she isn’t interested. Jack and Locke know they can’t keep waiting around for Ethan to kill them one by one, so along with Sayid, Kate and Sawyer, they devise a plan to arm themselves with the Marshal’s guns to capture Ethan, using the compliant Claire as bait. Charlie is desperate to go with them, but he simply isn’t qualified. As Jack, Kate, Sayid, Locke and Sawyer lie in wait, Ethan makes his move to grab Claire, when Jack pounces on Ethan, losing his gun in the tussle. Jack finally beats Ethan into submission as the others arrive with their guns to ensure he doesn’t get away. Now, they can get some answers from the mysterious Ethan–but suddenly, he is shot several times from off screen. It’s Charlie, who followed the team anyway and picked up Jack’s gun. As Ethan dies all hopes of an interrogation are lost. Jack asks Charlie why he did it. Charlie says he wasn’t going to let that animal get near Claire ever again. Plus, “He deserved it.”

Michael frantically searches the jungle, looking for Walt. It turns out the boy is with Locke, who is teaching him how to throw a knife. Michael comes upon the scene and is furious, but Locke explains that Walt is a special child who should be treated like an adult and allowed to realize his full potential. Michael orders Locke to stay away from his son. We flashback to Michael, who is shopping for cribs with his pregnant girlfriend Susan. Thrilled about becoming a father, Michael tells Susan he’s going to give up his dwindling art career for construction work so they can make ends meet while she finishes law school. But after their son Walt is born, Susan tells Michael she is going to move to Amsterdam for a huge job opportunity–and is taking Walt with her. She says she and Michael need some time apart. Michael refuses to let Walt go, at first, but realizes she can provide for him better than he and must let his son go. Back on the island, Michael and Walt’s relationship is clearly strained. Walt calls his father a jerk for not allowing him to be friends with Locke–and for not being around when he was growing up. “You only showed up when mom died. You’re not my father.” And as much as this stings, Michael tells Walt that he’s going to have to learn to listen to him. He orders Walt to stay put and tosses his comic book–with a fierce-looking polar bear on the cover–into the fire. Flashing back, we see 10-year-old Walt living in Australia with his mom and her husband, Brian, who is the only father the boy has ever known. As Susan and Brian discuss their day’s work, Walt interrupts them, saying he needs help with his report on birds of Australia. Susan suddenly feels sick, but Walt continues to call out for attention. Suddenly, a bird crashes into the sliding glass door that leads into their living room. Brian, a little freaked over this odd occurrence, looks down suspiciously at Walt. Cut to Michael’s apartment as he opens his front door to find Brian at his doorstep with bad news–Susan is dead. Brian also confesses he doesn’t want to be a father, that he adopted Walt because Susan wanted it. Brian claims he can’t take care of Walt and hints there is something “different” about the boy. He offers Michael plane tickets and money to fly to Australia to come and get his son. In the present, Hurley tells Michael that Walt and his dog, Vincent, have taken off. Michael heads straight for Locke, who insists he doesn’t know where Walt is. Feeling Michael’s concern, Locke volunteers to help find the boy. In the jungle, Walt and Vincent are startled by a noise–and the dog breaks free from his leash, giving Walt chase. Michael and Locke come across Vincent’s leash and hear Walt’s cries for help. They run and find the boy trapped in a Banyan tree, being attacked by a massive polar bear. Michael and Locke walk a tightrope of vines to reach Walt and manage to finally drive the bear away using Locke’s knife. But Walt is worried about Vincent. Locke reminds him Vincent returned once and assures him the dog will return again. Michael gives Locke a “thank you” look. Later, at a campfire, Michael shares with his son the cards and letters he had sent to Walt over the past 10 years. Walt is surprised to learn his father had written him and wonders why his mother never gave him the letters. Michael tells Walt she saved them because she must have wanted him to have them someday–and that someday is now. Meanwhile, out in the jungle, Locke and Boone are searching for Vincent when they see something rustling through the leaves. Too big to be the dog, Locke pulls his knife. But suddenly, Claire emerges from the bushes, dazed and confused, but still alive…

On the beach, Boone is closely watching Sayid enjoying a flirty conversation with Shannon. We flashback to Boone getting a phone call from his distraught stepsister. As he hears shouting in the background, Shannon begs Boone to come get her–in Sydney. When he finally gets there, Shannon’s boyfriend, Brian is at the house. She pretends she never called Boone but he can see she has a nasty-looking bruise on her face. Boone eventually confronts Brian and tells him to get out of Shannon’s life–for $50,000. But Boone soon finds it was all just a ploy so Shannon could get money from her wealthy stepmother, Boone’s mother. Dejected, Boone is packing in his hotel room to leave when Shannon shows up. Apparently, Brian made off with the money and now Shannon has no where to go. She tells Boone she knew he’d come for her because he’s in love with her. He denies it but as she moves in closer, they kiss passionately. The next morning, Shannon is cold to Boone, telling him she wants it to go back to the way they were, regardless of Boone’s feelings. Back on the island, Boone confronts Sayid and tells her to stay away from his sister. Sayid doesn’t seem the least bit intimidated, but Boone isn’t backing down either. Before push comes to shove Locke calls Boone away, they have work to do. The piece of metal they found in the ground is actually a hatch–and Locke is trying to figure out how to open it. Boone wants to tell the others about their discovery, especially Shannon, but Locke doesn’t think the time is right yet. Boone is determined anyway and starts down the trail. Locke has no choice but to hit Boone over the head with the handle of a knife, knocking him out cold. Boone wakes up to find he is tied to a tree, as Locke spreads a strange concoction over his open head wound. Locke walks away, telling Boone that he is on his own. But he leaves a knife…just out of Boone’s reach. “You can cut yourself free and make your way back to camp,” Locke says, “With the proper motivation.” Boone struggles to free himself when suddenly, he hears Shannon screaming from another part of the jungle. When he asks her for help, she tells him that she is tied up too. And there’s a bigger problem…the monster is back, headed their way. Now, armed with “proper motivation,” Boone manages to cut himself loose and reaches Shannon. They run down the path but can’t run fast enough, as Shannon is snatched up by the beast. Boone desperately searches for Shannon, but when he finds her bloody, crumpled body lying by the stream we all know he is too late. Boone makes his way back to the camp and goes immediately after Locke, blaming him for Shannon’s death. But Locke notices there isn’t any blood on Boone. Just as Boone tries to figure this out, Shannon comes into view, alive and well and chatting happily with Sayid. Locke tells Boone that the concoction he spread on his head wound was a hallucinogenic that allowed Boone to have his “vision.” When he asks Boone how he felt when Shannon died, Boone can’t help but give the honest answer: “I felt relieved.” Satisfied that Boone has finally learned to let go of Shannon, Locke tells Boone to “follow me.” After a final look at his sister, the disciple follows his master back into the woods.