Lost Watch: Locke Box

Episode Title: The Man from Tallahassee Air Date: March 21, 2007

“Lost” is officially back on track, and it’s thrilling to actually be excited with the show instead of pissed off about it on a Thursday morning.

As always, spoilers are ahead.

Last night’s episode finally revealed why John Locke was in a wheelchair for four years before he crash landed onto mystery island…and more importantly why he’s so angry and scared of leaving while the rest of the castaways are desperately trying to find a way home.

His father, the con artist who convinced him to donate his kidney, is in town, about to marry a rich woman. When the woman’s son comes to Locke looking to see if he vouches for him, Locke goes after his father and tells him to leave. After the kid ends up dead, Locke goes to his apartment to confront him- and gets pushed out of an eight story window, paralyzing him. Clearly, Locke’s life totally sucked before he got to the island.

While Kate and Sayid attempt to rescue Jack (who doesn’t want to be saved,) Locke has other plans. He finds high ranking “Other” Ben, incapacitated after Jack performed surgery on him, and holds him at gunpoint, wanting to know where the submarine that the dead Russian Other spoke of is docked.

Ben quickly figures out that Locke plans on blowing up the sub, which would effectively cut the islanders off from the outside world. Ben pleads with Locke to leave the sub alone, telling him it is the only connection that his people have with the outside now that the “anomaly” (the Hatch explosion from the end of season 2 caused by Locke) has cut off their radio contact. Ben tells him he doesn’t have to blow up the sub, that he knows Locke has committed to the island fully and doesn’t need to fear that the sub exists. He tells him about a “magic box” on the island in which whatever you dream, whatever you want, comes out of it, and that Ben will show it to him if he doesn’t blow up the sub.

Locke is steadfast in his convictions, telling Ben he feels the Others have “cheated” by their actions on the island, not really committing to it by living in houses with air conditioning, fully stocked fridges, and keeping their connection to the outside world intact.

That’s right, crazy John Locke, the man who is in love with the island, is back in a big way. His obsession with the Hatch in Season 2 was clearly just a short term fling. But what he and the island have- that’s forever.

After Locke finds the sub, he peeks down the entrance in a shot eerily reminiscent of the last shot from Season 1, when he finally got the hatch open. Then he blows it up, even after finding out why Jack’s been so friendly with the Others- Ben was about to let him go home on the sub. Poor Jack is stuck after his one ticket home is sunk.

This is the third hatch that Locke has blown to pieces, if you want to count the sub as a hatch. His erratic, stubborn, angry, and sometimes stupid behavior is becoming the show’s true wild card, throwing everything out of whack.

When Locke is captured by the Others, Ben tells him he wants to show him something- something that came out of the “magic box.” He wants to show him “The Man from Tallahassee,” who Ben asked one of his henchmen to fetch earlier. Locke is shocked to find his con artist father bound and gagged in a closet.

Boom. Cut to black.

It was a wild ride that was also a welcome reminder that the show’s mysteries go deeper than just figuring out who the Others are- the island’s story is so much bigger than that. The last two seasons have focused so much on The Others that it’s nice to remember that the Island has so much more to reveal than just whether The Others are Dharma or not.

It's also nice to see another episode where Locke is his intense, weird, unpredictable self again. He was so whiny in Season 2, confined to the hatch and punching in numbers for the whole year. It's good to see the old badass yet kinda stupid Locke of season one making trouble for his friends again. Somebody needs to talk this guy through some of his decision making- every time he's decided to do something, it's panned out pretty badly. But are all his choices leading to something the island is trying to reveal? Or is the island itself playing him like everyone else seems to? That would make Locke even sadder- the guy's so gullible, a mass of land can con him.

So this weeks list of questions include: how did Locke’s dad get to the island (did he really appear in a magic box or is Ben lying?) Will Locke try to kill him, or maybe have a father son bonding session where they hunt boars together? Is Locke’s dad the same con artist who ruined Sawyer’s parents’ lives and turned him into who he is? What’s going to happen to Jack now that he’s stuck on the island? Will he be accused of abandoning his friends? Why was he playing football with them- just because he struck a deal with them doesn't mean they are all best friends, does it? Are the Others and castaways going to be spending more time together instead of being seperated from now on? What will happen to Kate and Sayid now that they are prisoners of The Others? And what the hell is the so called MAGIC BOXanyway?

Just a few weeks after many fans thought they could free up an hour in your schedule on Wendesday nights, “Lost” gets addictive and exciting again.