“The Hunting Party”
Michael isn’t going to stand by and let his son go quietly into the night. In the hatch, he knocks Locke out, shoves Jack into a closet with Locke and takes off with a gun to get Walt. Once they recover, Jack quickly organizes a rescue party. He’s got to “fix” this, too.
In a flashback, we see just how deep Jack’s obsession to fix things goes–and finally find out what happened to his marriage. After he fixed his wife Sarah’s crushed spinal cord, Jack is now considered a miracle worker. A man and his daughter travel around the world to have Jack operate on the man’s seemingly incurable spine. Much to Jack’s father’s dismay, Jack agrees to perform the surgery.
During the process, Jack and the man’s daughter, Gabriella, form a connection–a dangerous one because Jack is spending nights and weekends at the hospital, working overtime, while Gabriella is there at her father’s side. As expected, this is causing disharmony in Jack and Sarah’s marriage. But after seven hours of surgery, Jack loses the man on the table, due to a weak heart–and in a moment of grief, he shares a passionate kiss with Gabriella. But he can’t go through with it and returns home to come clean with Sarah, to tell her he’ll work on fixing things with her. It’s too late–Sarah says she’s leaving him.
Now on the island, Jack, Locke–and Sawyer, who’s looking for a little payback–head out to find Michael. Kate wants to come along too, of course, but Jack tells her she has to stay behind. Out on the trek, they hear gunshots and discover casings from Michael’s gun. But it’s getting dark and Locke wants to return to camp. Jack, however, wants to push forward, find Michael and convince him to come back with them. Their disagreement is interrupted by a stranger–yes, it’s one of the Others. In fact, it’s the same guy who shot Sawyer and took Walt. And he knows their names. He tells them it’s a good idea to turn around and go back.
Jack isn’t going to do that. He demands to know where Michael is and what happened to Walt. The man tells him that Walt is fine–“he’s a special boy”–and that Michael will never find them. But his main point is that if they continue their current course of action, they will die. This is Their island and the only reason our survivors are living on it is because They allow it. When Jack calls his bluff, 20-odd torches light up in he woods around them, revealing that this guy isn’t kidding. However, Jack still won’t back down–until the guy brings Kate out of the jungle, a gun to her head. After a brief stand-off, Jack finally relents. The guy releases Kate, the torches go out and he melts back into the jungle, bringing this encounter with the Others to an end. For now.
Walking back to their camp, Jack gives Kate the cold shoulder, despite her apologies. He actually has other things on his mind. He finds Ana Lucia on the beach–and asks her how long it would take to build an army.