LOST Redux

This is a spoiler, so read at your own risk.

The episode opened with Echo having a dream in which Ana-Lucia comes to him on the beach and tells him that he must help John. As she tells him this, blood appears trickling from her mouth and on her chest. Still dreaming, Echo enters the hatch where he finds his brother, Yemi. Yemi tells Echo that good work is happening in the hatch that is more important than Echo knows. Yemi tells Echo that he must help John find the question mark, and that if John refuses, Echo must force him. John has lost his way, and Echo should bring his axe.

Back at the hatch in real time, Sawyer, Jack, Kate, and John discover Michael just outside of the hatch. Michael claims that he heard gunshots, and then a man (Imposter Henry Gale) shot him in the arm. They find Ana-Lucia dead, but Libby, as predicted, is alive. Libby coughs up blood, but remains unconscious. John and Echo, who arrived at the hatch after his dream, go off into the woods to find Henry Gale's trail.

Jack, glaring at Sawyer, says, regarding Libby, that it doesn't look good and that all he can do is make her comfortable. When Sawyer asks Jack why he's glaring at him, Jack says, "the heroine." Sawyer gets up to get the heroine from his stash and Jack tells Kate to go with him to discover the location of the guns. As the only other option is to let Libby suffer, Sawyer stalks off and says, "Let's go Freckles." Sawyer leads Kate to the hut where he sleeps. All this time, Sawyer's stash has been hidden in a hole underneath his bedding. Sawyer gives Kate one of the Madonna statues filled with heroine. As they turn to go back to the hatch, Hurley approaches them and asks if they have seen Libby. Kate sadly tells him what has happened.

Off in the woods, Echo tells John that he must take Echo to the question mark. Locke refuses, and Echo head butts him so that he falls to the ground unconscious. Later, when John wakes up, Echo tells him again that he must take him to the question mark. John shows Echo the drawing he made of the map that he saw on the hatch door during the time when John's leg was trapped under the door. He gives it to Echo and tells him that he can have it. Together, they go off into the woods in search of the question mark.

After some time, they come across the place where Locke and Boone found the plane used by the heroine smugglers, and the site of Boone's untimely death. About that, Locke says that it was a "sacrifice" demanded by the island. When Echo questions him, Locke says it was nothing. Echo says they will make camp and wait for the next sign.

They make camp, and that night Locke has a dream. In the dream, Locke is Echo, and Echo wakes to Yemi speaking to him in the jungle. Yemi tells Echo (who is actually Locke dreaming) that he must follow him, and he leads Echo to climb up a large tree on the edge of Echo and Locke's camp. Just as Echo gets to the top of the tree, he finds himself staring face to face with Yemi in a wheelchair. Yemi says, "wake up Locke," as Echo falls to the ground.

Suddenly, in real time, Locke wakes with a gasp, and Echo asks him what happened. He says, you had dream didn't you, and asks whether there was a man in it. Echo tells John that the man in his dream was his brother, and that this is the way they are going to find the question mark.

Echo asks whether Yemi told John anything, and John tells Echo that Yemi told him to follow him and looks up at the tree standing on the edge of their campsite. Just as it was depicted in John's dream, Echo uses his axe to climb to the top of the tree. On the top, he looks out at the jungle and then down at the camp. He sees Locke standing next to the plane, which looks like a large arrow, and just past the plane he sees a large half circle etched into the ground. He realizes the plane is lying on top of another hatch: the site of Locke's question mark.

Locke and Echo push aside the plane and find underneath it another hatch. With the help of Echo's axe, they pull open the door to the hatch and expose another dark hole boring down into the earth. They climb down and find themselves in a different type of hatch, a monitoring station that looks like it has been long since abandoned. The lights work, as do several TV monitors that Locke flicks on. Some show a field of white TV fuzz, but one shows the Castaway's hatch, and Jack moving around inside it. In the monitoring hatch, Echo finds an Orientation Manual and Tape 5 (of 6).

On the tape is the same man we saw on the first tape. The man explains that the viewers will stay for 3 weeks within the monitoring hatch. During that time they will observe the inhabitants of another hatch and they will record every single detail, however slight, of the inhabitants' movements. The viewers are told that the inhabitants of the other hatch believe that they are doing something of the utmost importance, but no further details are given. The viewers are supposed to record the details in the notebooks that have been provided. Once a notebook is completed, the viewers are supposed to roll up the notebook and place it into a shoot where it is whisked away to the Dharma people. The man ends the video by saying, "Namaste," which in Hindi means, "I honor the Spirit in you which is also in me." Incidentally, while Locke and Echo are down in the hatch exploring, Locke places the piece of paper with his sketch on it into the shoot and it is immediately whisked away.

Echo gathers the papers together, and Lockes looks at him and asks why he is bothering to take the papers. Echo replies that the papers could be important to the work going on in the hatch, to which Locke replies that pushing the button in the hatch is just as meaningless as his whole life has been. Echo responds by telling Locke how he betrayed his brother Yemi, how Yemi's body was loaded onto a smuggler's plane that crashed on the island, how Echo's plane crashed on the very same island, and how Echo was reunited with his dead brother on the very site of this hatch. He asks how Locke can say there is no meaning in all of that, and says that if Locke is not going to push the button anymore, Echo will do it because he believes it is of the utmost importance. They set off back for the hatch.

Back at the hatch, Hurley sits mournfully as Libby lies unconscious. Hurley says to Michael that he and Libby were going to go on their first date. He also tells Michael that he's happy Michael's ok. Michael looked a little surprised, and perhaps a touch guilty. Later, Hurely goes to Libby's bedside to talk with her. He tells her twice that he's so sorry he forgot the blanket, which was rather heartbreaking. Suddenly, Libby's eyes open and Hurley and Jack move to her side. Libby tries to speak, and finally manages to say, "Michael." Jack attempts to reassure her by telling her that Michael made it, and Libby starts twisting and moaning and looks terrified, although I'm not sure that Jack and Hurley notice her terror. Then she dies.

Kate sits in a corner crying and Sawyer comes over to her and takes her in his arms. That, incidentally is why we all love Sawyer. He's a tough guy who we all suspect is good underneath, he is strong, and he comes through when he is needed. Same with Sayid. Sayid's even better because Sayid has shown the capacity to love and even to cry. But I digress.

As Sawyer comforts Kate, we see Michael standing in the shadows of Henry Gale's abandoned cell holding his wounded arm. He looks evil. Where is the loving father we once knew?

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Scenes From look awesome. Sawyer has a shot gun, Michael seems to have been captured by the others, and Clair is involved somehow. Sayid tells Jack that he thinks Michael has been "compromised." Sayid is so smart. It looks like mayhem is breaking out. OMG.

Questions and Comments:

1) WTF is going on with Michael? What is wrong with him. I am still leaning towards the idea that he was brainwashed by the Others.

2) Poor Ana-Lucia! I'm so sad. She was totally bad-ass, and now she is gone, and right after having sex with Sawyer! Hello!?

3) Libby's dead too? Perhaps the producers of Lost were really pissed about the two drunk driving incidents. Does this mean we never find out Libby's story?

4) What the hell is going on in the hatch? Why would that so-called "work" be important, and how could the island have pulled all these people together and why? We still have no answers.

5) Namaste? Another clue?

6) I tried to get onto the website that they showed in the commercial but was unable to. I'm not sure I got the correct spelling. Was it www.syblymonal.com. Subliminal what? Another clue.

7) Non-Lost question: Does anyone know how to make sure spaces between paragraphs pop up in posts? I've had problems lately with this, hence all the space-saving periods.

Kick-ass episode!