LOST - Episode 18
DEUS EX MACHINA
?You?re special.?
This episode re-visits John Locke?s life. We see him as a much younger man, probably late thirties, or early forties. (Make-up on him was excellent, since Terry O?Quinn is probably in his fifties.) As always, I?ll cover his back-story completely and then the rest of the current troubles of the passengers on the island.
We meet John Locke at a Wal-Mart type store (he?s wear those darling blue jackets that the sales-people wear) and he?s demonstrating a toy called the mousetrap to a little boy. He glances up and sees a woman staring at him. She asks for footballs and he tells her isles 8 and 15. She leaves.
When he gets off work, he sees her in the parking lot. He runs after her, but she disappears just as a car hits him. Picking himself up, John sees her again and catches up to her. She tells him she is his mother, Emily Locke. They go to a coffee shop where she tells John about his background.
She says, ?You?re special. You?re part of a design.? She goes on to tell him he had no father. That he was an immaculate conception!
John goes to a detective who helps him learn more about his parents. The man tells him that his mother has been in and out of mental hospitals where she is being treated for schizophrenia. She is okay as long as she is on her meds. He warns John that he may not want to know about his father. John insists and he is given a folder. ?This problem won?t have a happy ending.?
Inside he finds out his father is a very wealthy man, Edward Cooper. He goes to his home and meets him. They get along very well and John is invited to go hunting the following Sunday. Obviously, they have hit it off and will see one another several more times.
One Sunday when he arrives, he finds his father undergoing dialysis. He needs a kidney and is not very high up on the waiting list. He says it?s okay that as soon as he?s finished, they?ll have lunch and then go hunting. The afternoon is a success. John decides to give his father something he needs, one of his kidneys.
In the hospital, they talk and his father wants to be sure that he?s willing to give it up. John says that he is. However, hours later, when he wakes up there is a nurse in the room checking his vitals. John glances over at the other bed and it is empty. Then the nurse tells him that the other patient (she doesn?t know his identity in relationship to John) has checked out and is going to recuperate under private care. His mother, Emily, comes to his room and tells him that it was all his father?s plan. That he wanted it to be John?s idea to give him the kidney. She did it for money. However, she is sorry.
?He wouldn?t do this to me,? he cries.
Locke gets out of bed and goes to see his father. The guard at the gate turns him away, demanding he remove himself and his car. John is devastated.
So that?s the Locke Centric?his recall. Still, it does not tell us how he ended up in a wheelchair?but I?m sure we?re going to find out.
Meanwhile, back on the island?in the present?
Locke has Boone helping him build his own island mousetrap, using bamboo, rope and their strength. Boone wants to know Locke?s story, but he declines, saying it would bore him. Locke wants to open the glass on the item they have dug around several feet down. It looks like a giant beehive. He sets off the device, which strikes the glass window with a resounding bang. However, to no avail. It does not break and the ?machine? breaks apart.
Boone calls his attention to the blood on his leg. It?s from a piece of shrapnel that penetrated it. Locke pulls it out and does not experience any pain. Oh, oh.
Back at the beach, Sawyer is experiencing headaches. He goes to Sun who has been planting herbs in a garden as well as vegetables. The herb she gave him hasn?t helped and neither does aspirin. Kate asks Jack to help, but he won?t until asked. He doesn?t want to play victim to Sawyer?s one-liners.
Later in the evening while Boone is sleeping, Locke tests his legs with pinpricks and fire. Neither one causes him any pain.
Boone and Locke walk along in the jungle, arguing about their attempt to get into the ?beehive?. Suddenly Locke sees an old Beechcraft plane, tail on fire, cross in the sky obviously heading for a crash landing. He asks Boone if he saw it. He looks back then has several flashes. He turns to see Boone babbling something about ?Theresa falls up stairs. Theresa falls down the stairs.? Even worse, Boone is covered with blood. In the distance, we see what looks to be a prophet-like figure, but it?s his mother pointing up into the sky. Then Locke wakes up, pensive and perhaps a bit frightened. Next morning they leave to hunt for the plane. Back in the jungle, Locke tells the young man about the part of his dream about Theresa thus getting Boone?s attention.
At the beach, Jack watches Michael and Jin re-building the boat. Michael says it?s a better one because of what he learned the first time.
Jack goes to Sawyer to ask him about his headaches, but Sawyer waves him off with his zingers. Jack asks him if he?s sensitive to light. Sawyer finally admits it. Jack tells him that sometimes it indicates a brain tumor and then wants to know if Sawyer had anyone in his family who died of one. He admits his uncle did. However, he doesn?t want any treatment.
?My insurance ran out.? (Very funny line.)
Locke stumbles, nearly falling. He previously tested his legs and had no feeling in them. He is scared the island is taking away its gift. Finally, he falls, when he picks himself up, he finds a rosary. He looks up and there?s something in one of the ugly tree. He pulls on a vine and a body falls. Boone wants to know how long it?s been there. Clothes usually rot in this weather, but Locke says the clothes were a high-grade polyester. They would not deteriorate.
They examine the body and see that the man was possibly a priest from Nigeria. However, Locke thinks not, finding a gun in the clothes and a large roll of Nigerian currency.
Unable to stand the pain any longer Sawyer is snapping at anyone making a noise. Kate takes him to see Jack. Jack examines his eyes and then wants to know if he ever had a blood transfusion, sex with a prostitute; did he ever suffer from any sexually transmitted disease. Sawyer grudgingly indicates he has. He gets mad when Jack asks when the last outbreak occurred. Kate has been near by during the exchange and when Sawyer goes off in a huff, she asks if that was necessary.
Jack grins, saying, ?Needs glasses.?
On the trail with Locke and Boone, Locke finally cannot make his legs work anymore and he falls. He tells Boone that he was the one who needed the wheelchair and had for the last four years. The island gave him back his legs, now he doesn?t know why it?s taking that back. He wants to find the plane. At first, Boone has scoffed at him, but now he tells Locke that when he was six he had a nanny named Theresa. He pestered her to come up the stairs to wait on him, one day she fell down the stairs, breaking her neck. Locke stares past him and points. The plane that Locke saw in his dream is up on the edge of a jungle-covered tree/cliff.
Locke tells Boone he has to go up to the plane. They have to know what?s inside. Boone makes it up to the plane, which is not stable. It rocks a little when Boone forces his way inside.
Meanwhile Jack is at the beach with his backpack. He tells Sawyer he has hyperopia, He is farsighted. He begins to fit him with glasses recovered from the wreck. None of them works until Sayeed fits two lenses together. When Sawyer puts them on, he sees clearly. Hurley tells him he looks like Harry Potter. He almost throws them away, but realizes that would stupid.
Kate thanks Jack for helping Sawyer, but Jack says, ?I didn?t do it for him.?
Back at the plane, Boone is inside and a body falls on him. The pilot no doubt. Locke hears the commotion and wants to know if he?s all right. Boone says he is. He hunts around and finds what look like religious statues. He throws one down to Locke. It breaks to pieces. Boone yells that it?s heroin to which Locke pays no attention. Boone finds maps too of the flight the plane took.
Inside the plane, Boone spots the radio. He turns it on not expecting to hear anything, but he does?static. He sends out a mayday call that there were survivors of Oceanic Flight 815. The plane is beginning to slip. Locke yells for him to get out. Boone hears someone respond that there were no survivors. The voice is familiar. Now there is serious slippage and below, Locke watches in horror as the plane slowly drops off the cliff and down nose first, before falling over onto its top.
With tremendous will and strength, Locke gets to the plane. He finds Boone seriously wounded. He pulls him out and carries him back to the waterfall where Jack and Kate are stunned by Boone?s injuries. Locke disappears. He is back at the ?beehive? wanting answers.
?I?ve done everything you wanted me to do!? He cries.
Suddenly a light goes on inside.
REMARKS:
This was a dynamic episode. Locke is one of the most mysterious/interesting characters the writers have written a storyline.
Swoozie Kurtz played the part of John Locke?s mother. She?s an excellent actor.
I?m sorry they didn?t tell us how he was living in a wheelchair the previous four years. I do have a theory. (See under discuss)
Flight 815?two of the numbers of the mysterious 4 8 15 16 23 42. Coincidence? I think not.
?I didn?t do it for him.? That phrase has cropped up more than once on JJ Abrams shows. In Alias, that phrase has been used (I didn?t do it for?) several times, especially in Season 2. Although neither writer wrote for Alias, the words were there.
DISCUSS
A car in the parking lot hit Locke, while he was chasing his mysterious woman. Who was driving the car? We know there is a connection, even small or minute, between those who are survivors. Could it be that one of them was driving the car?
Did the car accident lead to the paralysis or did the fact he left the hospital too soon after the kidney transplant have something to do with it?
Heroin in the religious statues? Will it cause problems with the survivors? Remember Charlie was addicted.
We heard the words ?there were no survivors of Flight 815? from the voice on the radio. What do you think? Where is the plot going? Is this time travel? Perhaps the plane was thrown into a third or fourth dimension.
They are playing us?and doing a damn good job.
:boat:
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