Then came the season two and Locke became the resident metro-hatchual, changing light bulbs, washing dishes and smashing bowls in impotent frustration. Many Lost fans I know came close to giving up on his character and adding him into their "Please kill these characters next" lists.
Fortunately, when the hatch went "BLAM-O!", Locke gave up being the Hatch-Wife and returned to something resembling his season one form. He's found his way back onto the path that made him so interesting when we first met him. His walkabout continues.
Like Boone before him, Locke is willing to sacrifice Sawyer, only this time the price isn't a life, it's a soul.
By the light of his camp fire, Locke is reading what looks like a loose leaf file, burning it when he finishes. As he reads, a muffled voice reveals that he has a prisoner, tied and gagged.
Flash to eight days ago, and we return to the moment when Locke opened the door to find Anthony Cooper tied to a chair. Ben warns him not to get to close, but true to form, Locke is heedless of the warning and gets his hand bitten for his trouble. A quick tazering helps Cooper forget his delusions of Hannibal Lecter.
Two things. One, this explains the bandage we saw on Locke's hand back when he was saying goodbye to Kate, and two, why the hell would Cooper do that? It was obvious from the conversation that Locke had no idea that Cooper had been brought to the island, so why would a street smart con man attack the first familiar face he sees? You'd think that he'd be more inclined to try to enlist Locke as an ally rather than make him an enemy, even with their past. He's too smart for that. I smell a long con.
Ben once told Juliette that in order to manipulate someone, he simply found out what they were emotionally invested in and used it against them. Could Locke be any more emotionally invested in the man who stole his kidney and threw him out a window, sending his life into a tailspin?
Then to make matters even weirder, Cooper has a question for John.
"Don't you know, John? Don't you know where we are?"
Locke wants to know what Cooper meant by that, but Ben doesn't have the time to explain it to him, since the group is leaving right away. Convenient.
John is invited along and even given time to say goodbye to Kate before they leave.
Back at the beach, Kate pulls the old "I can't sleep in any tent but my own" routine, leaving Sawyer to sleep alone. Securing his trusty 9mm in his waistband he follows her out of the tent and heads off to water the jungle. He spots Hurley and Jin acting suspiciously in front of one of the tents, but the call of nature seems to outweigh his curiosity and he leaves the two men to their business with barely a smart assed remark.
A few yards into the jungle, he takes care of business. A noise alerts him and he suddenly spins on his heels to point his weapon and his gun at someone carrying a flashlight.
Locke.
"Hello, James. Wanna zip your pants up?" Millions of women disagreed with Sawyer's choice here.
While he fumbles with Little Sawyer, he asks Locke what he's doing back.
"Lookin' for you, actually."
"Okay, Tarzan. So, now that you're back from your 'Blow Up Everything That Could Get Us Off The Island' Tour, how 'bout you tell me why you joined up with the damn enemy?"
"I didn't join 'em. I infiltrated 'em."
John Locke, Undercover Other.
He tells Sawyer that he has the man who kidnapped and tortured Sawyer tied up and helpless and he wants Sawyer to kill him. He knows about the man Sawyer killed in Sydney and he's betting that a man who killed once can kill again. Sawyer claims that the file that Locke saw had its facts wrong, that he's not a killer, but a little reverse psychology has Sawyer running barefoot through the jungle after Locke before he gets ten feet back into the jungle.
(*Sidenote: Since the authorities deported Sawyer for his bar brawl rather than prosecuting him for murder, the only likely explanation for the Others knowing about Sawyer's misadventure with the Shrimp Truck guy is that they had a hand in setting it up in the first place. Either that or something broke in the investigation after Sawyer left the country, but I prefer to think the Others were involved from the beginning, since the chance of killing the man who destroyed his family is what brought Sawyer to Australia in the first place.*)
Three days ago, John Locke was helping Cindy the flight attendant set up her tent and noticing how everyone in New Otherville is watching him with smiles on their faces.
"Don't mind them, they're all just excited you're here."
"Excited?"
"We've been waiting for you."
When he is summoned to Ben's tent, he overhears Juliette's taped message to Ben and asks about it. Ben is remarkably candid with him, right down to their plans to "take" any of the women in the survivor's camp who have become pregnant.
After reassuring Locke that no one will be harmed, he has Locke hand him a cane and he is able to stand with it's assistance. He believes that Locke is responsible, since the feeling in his legs began to return at the same time that Locke arrived in Otherville. He's eager to show John just what the island can do.
Unfortunately, Locke is "Still crippled by the memories of the man you used to be before you came to this island. And you'll never be free until you release the hold that your Father has over you. Why do you think you brought him here?"
"Oh, oh, oh, the magic box. Ok, Ben, how 'bout you show me..."
"The magic box is a metaphor, John."
(*Chicken and Egg sidenote: What if the "magnificent" man who brought all the Others is someone they haven't met? Someone who is going to come out of their "magic box", perhaps. Could the "magnificent man" have brought them to the island by means of this box, only to have the collective will of the group bring him to the island the same way? Ok, so it's silly and hard to follow, but is it less plausible than the magic box, metaphor or no?*)
"I can't show you anything, until you can show me that you're ready and willing to be one of us. When people join us here on this island, they need to make a gesture of free will, of commitment. That's why you're gonna have to kill your father."
After an awkward conversation in the kitchen, with the Doctor, Charlie tells the other three members of the island parachutist rescue squad that they need to tell Jack about Naomi. Desmond says what they're all thinking. They don't know that they can trust him, given all the time he spent with the Others and the company he's currently keeping. They decide to tell someone they feel they can trust.
Out in the jungle, Locke and Sawyer are still heading to the spot where Locke has his prisoner stashed. Sawyer wants to know what was in the file that the Others had on him. Besides knowing about the murder he committed, they had files on how his parents died, but not why the murder/suicide took place. Along with that tidbit were High School transcripts and criminal records detailing arrests for con jobs that Sawyer pulled. As Locke once again asks where Sawyer's current alias came from, Sawyer pulls out his gun and clocks Locke over the head, pulls his knife and puts it to the older man's throat.
He wants to know exactly where Locke is taking him and why. Having been conned once by Ben, he doesn't want to fall for anything again, but Locke is adamant that he's taking exactly where he promised. To kill Ben. Sawyer wants to know why John doesn't just kill him himself.
Locke claims that he can't do it, which is why he came for Sawyer. So, why can't he? Conscience or cowardice?
Sawyer reluctantly agrees to follow him, but he also warns him that he won't kill for him. They'll take Ben back to camp as a prisoner.
"I understand. But you'll change your mind. When you hear what he has to say, you'll change your mind."
Back at camp, Hurley finds Sayid in the jungle, digging a hole.
Did anyone else picture what's his name in the hole Ana Lucia dug for him? Could Sayid be digging a Juliette hole?
Hugo takes Sayid to the tent where they're hiding Naomi.
"You've already spoken to her?"
"Yeah, but you're gonna want to hear it for yourself."
"And you haven't told Jack?"
"No."
"Good."
Jack hasn't won any hearts since his return...
Sayid begins a gentle interrogation of their guest. After her name, Naomi Dorritt (sp?), he asks her about the information she gave the others about the wreckage of Flight 815 being found. Apparently, the complete wreckage, bodies and all, was found in an ocean trench off Bali.
(*Head scratching side note: Does the average person remember things like this, months after the fact? I've seen countless reports of airline disasters and I couldn't begin to recall the flight numbers three months later. I suppose that the salvage operation could have been recent enough for her to remember, but it just struck me as odd.*)
"Well, obviously, we're not dead."
"Obviously."
"So if you weren't looking for us, who were you looking for?"
Desmond.
It seems that his old flame hadn't given up on him after all. Penny hired Naomi's company to find him, giving them a set of coordinates that were for an area in the middle of the ocean, where no land was charted. Three days ago, Naomi was flying over what she thought was open ocean when the clouds parted and she saw land. The instruments started spinning, she realized she was going down and she grabbed her chute and bailed out.
Several problems with her story occur to me off the top of my head.
First, and possibly easiest to dismiss, she found the island at night, not in daylight. Yet she says "Three days ago" not "Three nights ago". Could be a slip of the tongue. Also, how easy is it to spot land from a high flying helicopter over the ocean at night? I honestly don't know, but I'm still suspicious.
Second, is it even possible to bail out of a helicopter that's "Going down"? If the helicopter is losing altitude, wouldn't it be impossible to clear the blades since they'd be falling almost as fast as a body jumping from the cabin?
Third, she landed WELL inland, yet her aircraft apparently crashed far out in the ocean. Now, if she'd flown over the island and the path of her craft continued on out to sea, that makes sense, but she seems to have been flying toward the island when she bailed out, so how the hell did she end up so far inland?
After that explanation, Sayid's questions become more pointed. Perhaps some of the things that occurred to me occurred to him. He's suspicious of her story, assuming that she has no way to contact the freighter she took off from, which would likely be the case if she was a spy sent by the Others.
When she produces a satellite transmitter, she has an answer for Sayid's suspicions.
"Remind me not to rescue you, Sayid."
As they stop by a stream to rest a minute, Sawyer asks Locke to tell him what it is that Ben is going to say that will make Sawyer want to kill him. When Locke dances around the question, Sawyer tries to explain about the incident in Sydney and the mistake that he made in killing the wrong man.
"Well, who'd ya mean to kill?"
Sawyer doesn't answer.
In the middle of the night, in New Otherville, Ben wakes Locke and takes him to the pillar that Cooper has been bound to. It's time for John to free himself from the tyranny of the anger he holds towards his Father. Only, John is a farmer, not a hunter. He can't kill, at least not his Father. When Cooper continues taunting his son after he admits he cannot do the deed, Ben silences him with his cane, but not before Cooper gets the honour of being the first to call him "Bug-Eye". Ben turns and addresses the gathered spectators.
"I'm sorry. He's not who we thought he was."
So, who did they think he was? Jacob? I don't believe so, but it's obvious that they thought Locke was someone special and somehow, by not killing Cooper, he has shown that he isn't that person. Ben once told Jack that he and his group were "the good guys", but don't the "good guys" usually applaud when someone turns the other cheek? This little bit of theatre has to be more than it seems.
Locke and Sawyer finally arrive at their destination. The Black Rock.
"Ben's inside, in the brig."
Once Sawyer and Locke tiptoe through the dynamite crates, Sawyer finds himself in the brig with the prisoner. Then he finds himself locked in with him. When it becomes obvious that Locke isn't going to let him out and Ben isn't going to stop screaming through his gag, Sawyer rips the hood off the man, only it's not Ben under the burlap.
Cooper.
On the beach, Sayid is trying to get the radio device that Naomi had with her. He gets it running, but it can't find a signal, since there seems to be some sort of interference keeping it from picking up a channel. While he works on it, Kate happens by and Hurley's lame "we found it in the luggage" just doesn't fly with her.
While Sayid makes her promise not to say anything to anyone, there's a definite "cat out of the bag" feel to the scene.
(*Technical sidenote: Looking at the radio above, it seems like the equipment thinks it's situated in Los Angeles, which is extremely weird, unless the little graphic of the world doesn't scroll, which would make it completely pointless. So, either the "sophisticated" equipment has a pretty picture of the world that does nothing, or the default position is what we see here and when there's no signal that's what shows up, OR, the island is actually within spitting distance of Los Angeles. My guess is that we're seeing the default graphic, but hey, you never know.*)
Sitting outside of the brig, Locke is quietly whittling his time away, ignoring Sawyer's pounding and demands for freedom, when Danielle drops by for a visit and some dynamite.
How wierd was this scene? Crazy French Chick comes in, hears the pounding on the door, takes her dynamite and leaves without comment. Locke simply warns her that the dynamite is unstable and continues his whittling as if she'd stopped by to borrow his weed-whacker. There were at least two elements that could be considered more unstable than the dynamite in the cargo hold right then...
Two days ago, Richard Alpert finds Locke sitting on a hill overlooking New Otherville and the pillar where Anthony Cooper is still chained. Alpert sits down with Locke to tell him that Ben staged the whole scene with Cooper to embarrass Locke in front of the group. It seems that Ben doesn't want the group thinking that Locke is too special, since that might undermine his authority.
"Ben has been wasting our time with novelties like fertility problems. We're looking for someone to remind us that we're here for more important reasons."
Obviously at least some of the group feel that a man who has miraculously recovered his mobility after a devastating spinal injury might be that special someone.
Of course, Ben too has recovered his mobility following a devastating spinal problem...
Alpert continues, explaining that he only wants John to find his true purpose on the island, but to do that, Cooper has to go. Since Locke isn't going to do it, he has a suggestion and a familiar looking red file folder.
"Sawyer? Why would Sawyer kill my Father? He doesn't even know him."
"Keep reading."
In the brig, Sawyer changes tactics and tries to bluff Locke into opening the door, but Locke knows that Sawyer's gun isn't loaded, since he held a knife to his throat rather than pointing his gun at him when he put him down, back in the jungle.
Cooper seems impressed by John's deductive reasoning.
"Guess I didn't raise no dummies."
This piques Sawyer's curiosity. The captive explains that he is Locke's Father. This little tidbit dials Sawyer's curiosity up another dozen or so notches.
"How'd you get here? To the island?"
"Island? Ok, I'm drivin' down I 10 through Tallahassee, when 'BAM', somebody slams into the back of my car. I go right into the divider at seventy miles an hour, the next thing I know, the paramedics are strapping me to a gurney, stuffing me into the back of an ambulance and one of them actually smiles at me as he pops the I.V. in my arm. And then...nothing. Just black. The next thing I know, I wake up in a dark room, tied up, gag in my mouth and when the door opens, I'm looking up at the same man I through out a window. John Locke. My dead son."
"He's dead 'cuz you through him out a window?"
"No, he survived that, but it paralyzed him, permanently. He's dead because the plane he was flying on crashed in the Pacific."
"Well, I got bad news for you Pops, 'cuz I was on that plane with your son. And he sure as hell wasn't crippled. And we didn't crash in the Pacific, we crashed here, on this island."
"You sure it's an island?"
"Well what else is it?"
"Little hot for heaven, isn't it?"
Sorry for the extended quote, but nothing I wrote could adequately convey the message the way that Cooper's dialogue did. Sawyer sets aside the possibility that he and the others might be dead to ask why Cooper would throw Locke out a window in the first place.
"He was becoming a nuisance. I conned him into giving me one of his kidneys. He never got over it."
The word "Conned" catches Sawyer's attention. Sawyer starts making connections. He asks the prisoner what his name is.
"Con man goes by many names, friend. I've been Alan Seward, Anthony Cooper, Ted MacLaren, Tom Sawyer, Lewis Jackson..."
"Tom Sawyer?"
Yesterday, Locke wakes up to find New Otherville being dismantled. When he asks Ben where "we're" going he learns that he is no longer part of "we" as far as Ben is concerned. Ben is leaving John and his Father behind.
"You can't leave me. After everything..."
"Don't tell me what I can't do, John." Nothing like having your own catch phrase used against you.
As they leave, Ben warns Locke not to follow their trail unless he's carrying his Father's body on his back.
Back in the Black Rock, Sawyer asks his prisoner if he's ever been to Jasper, Alabama. When he learns that Cooper had indeed been to his hometown, he pulls out the letter he's been carrying since 1976 and forces the con man to read it.
Cooper reads it aloud and proceed to unwisely mock his captor's pain.
"Mary. Her name was Mary."
"Mary from Jasper, Alabama. Yeah, I remember her. She practically begged me to take her $38,000 and to rescue her from her sorry little life."
Cooper, believing that they are in Hell, suggests that Sawyer take up his issues with his Father, who is sure to be with them on the island of the damned. Sawyer has other ideas. He practically pops a vessel as he yells "FINISH IT" into the prisoner's face.
Cooper obliges, but not by reading the letter. By ripping it to shreds. Watching the letter be destroyed bursts the dam of his self control. Moments later, the man who destroyed his family and laid the foundations for his own life lies dead at his feet.
Moments later, Locke opens the brig door. After surveying the scene, he nods at a fellow victim of his Father's crimes.
"Thank you."
On the beach, Kate comes upon Jack sitting with Juliette. She wants to talk to him, alone, but he is adamant that Juliette stay and hear whatever Kate has to say. Kate then takes that cat I mentioned earlier and opens up the bag and pinches it on the ass. She tells Jack and Juliette all about Naomi and how she arrived on the island, flying from a freighter only 80 miles away.
I must admit, I like the new Jack. Instead of lamenting that no one told him about her or whining that he should have been told, all he wants to know is how she's supposed to communicate with her ship. When did Jack get practicality implants?
Kate explains about Naomi's "phone/radio thing" and how Sayid is still trying to get it to work.
Juliette jumps in to the conversation, with "We should tell her."
"Tell me what?"
"We should tell her."
But Jack doesn't agree, walking away, leaving Kate with Juliette, frozen in disbelief.
I know exactly how she feels...
Out in the jungle, Sawyer's stomach reacts to what he's done, quite violently. When Locke tells him that he can go back, he asks why Locke did what he did.
"He ruined my life, and he ruined yours. And he had it comin'."
He gives Sawyer the information that Juliette is a mole and the tape recording she left for Ben to back him up when he tells everyone. He does this since he has no intention of going back to the camp. He's not the Undercover Other after all. He has his own journey now, his own path to follow.
As he leaves, Sawyer asks him if it's true that he was a cripple when he came to the island.
"Not anymore."
Back in May of last year, I posted 5 theories on my blog. I'm pretty sure that Locke taking his Father's body for a ride confirms that I was right about my pet theory #4, that Locke would go native and join the Others...
Oh, and remember how Charlie hung in the tree for a long time, way back when? We haven't seen the last of Cooper. I still smell a long con...
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