Episode 21?At the end of the episode, Michael stands inside the armory and looks down gravely at Ana-Lucia’s body. As he looks up to the bleeping computer, I swear I expected a cruel, wicked smirk to flitter across his face. I watched the end a few times, looking for that smirk…
Sigh!! I really hope that we have seen the end of deaths in this show (most especially deaths of the main characters) but something tells me that we probably have not. Libby brings the number of deaths (of “main” characters) to 4; and of the tailes, only Eko and Bernard remain.
This is an extremely interesting episode, and for once the flashback sequence didn’t seem as long and drawn out as usual. Eko remembers a time when he was a priest in an Australian church. He is arranging to travel to the US. The monsignor approaches him and dispatches him to investigate a case where a woman claims a miracle has happened.
A very skeptical Eko visits the coroner, who plays him a startling tape. He later visits the woman and her daughter (who they are claiming drowned, but then lived), but the woman’s husband tells Eko that the whole incident was a misunderstanding. He claims that his wife was attempting to spite him because of his fraudulent psychic services, where he gives "miracles" to people who are so desperate to believe in them. Eko then tells him that he will report that the incident was not a miracle. As he leaves, he sees the daughter staring at him from the window.
Later, after Eko has checked in for his flight, the daughter approaches him in the airport. He tells him that she has a message for him. He tells him that when she was “between places” she met his brother Yemi, and that Yemi believes that Eko is a good man, even though he was only pretending to be a priest.
Oh wow. Claire’s psychic claims to be a fraud – puts a whole new spin on Claire’s story. Did he really see something or was this all just an elaborate setup to get Claire to believe him? Or, possibly, he really does have a “gift” and is scared by what he sees when he looks at his daughter.
Anyway, back on the island, Eko is busy chopping wood for his church when Ana-Lucia walks up to him. He tells her that the idea of the church came to him in a dream. “In a dream like this one” responds Ana-Lucia. Eko then notices the blood on Ana-Lucia. “You need to help John” she says. He takes his axe and goes to the hatch where he meets Yemi. Yemi tells him that John needs to take him to the “Question mark”. Eko then wakes up quivering.
And that’s when the light bulb in my head switched on. I knew that this episode was entitled “?” for a while now, but it never occurred to me that it was the question mark on the map. Seems pretty obvious in hindsight though.
Meanwhile, the always bickering Sawyer and Jack, along with Kate and Locke are making their way back to the hatch. A wounded Michael bursts out of the hatch and tells them that a man shot the three of them, at which point Eko appears. Sawyer and Kate rush into the hatch to find Ana-Lucia dead and Libby barely holding on.
Jack wants retribution, but as Sawyer points out, he needs to stay and look after the wounded. Eko offers his and Locke’s services. They head out looking for Fake Henry. As they are stumbling around the jungle, and reach the area where the Nigerian plane crashed, and Eko asks Locke what the question mark is. When Locke refuses to tell him and makes to go back to the hatch, Eko head-butts him.
(insert Zidane jokes here!... Sorry, I couldn’t resist!!)
When Locke comes to, he finally agrees to show Eko the map. Eko gets quite excited, and locates Swan station on it, and figures out they need to go "that way," pointing into the jungle. Locke bitches and moans and Eko tells him “Haven’t you ever followed a dream John”.
The next morning Yemi appears before Eko and directs him to climb the cliff. Upon reaching the top, Yemi, sitting in a wheelchair, says "John, wake up" and in terror, Eko loses his grip and falls. Locke wakes up from his nightmare with a fright.
Eko concludes that Locke dreamt about Yemi and then climbs up the cliff. At the top, he’s terribly disappointed because he can’t see anything, until he looks down the cliff at Locke – and sees what appears to be a giant circle (although some think is a ?) in the ground.
Eko shimmies down the cliff face and checks the sand. “Its salted” he tells Locke, so that nothing will grow on it. Eko then picks the ground near the tail with his axe, and discovers a hatch buried underneath the plane. They move the plane and open the hatch.
They make their way carefully down the hatch. Locke flicks on a switch and they continue making their way down a corridor until they enter a room that's got a wall of nine television screens, one of which is on, displaying only static. There are two chairs in front.
Locke tries turning the screens on, but only one seems to be working, and what they see on it shocks them. It’s their hatch! They see Jack walking around. Locke finds another computer terminal with a command prompt:
>: PRINT LOG? Y/N. Locke enters
Y, and pushes the button and an old dot-matrix printer is activated.
Meanhile, Eko finds a video tape, similar to the one they found back in Swan Hatch. They watch it and again they see the same guy, who’s now calling himself something different. The video tape instructs the viewer to monitor the activities in the other hatches.
And what's the nature of the experiment? We don't need to know. What do the subjects think they're accomplishing? Don't need to know. "All you need to know is the subjects believe their job is of the utmost importance," says the Dr. Locke looks less than impressed, but Eko starts gathering the reports with gusto. He seems almost giddy with glee.
He tells Locke that his job is now more important than ever, and Locke scoffs, calling it all a joke. He resents being part of an experiment especially when he’s had so much faith in the whole “pushing the button” thing. Eko tells him that if Locke won’t push the button, then he (Eko) will.
A surveillance station !! ... just what was going on on this island? Makes me wonder if Michael was not lured away into the jungle by the Others. Remember he appeared to be chatting to Walt via the computer at Swan hatch… I’ve never believed that it was Walt, and now, more than ever, I think that he’s been manipulated.
Meanwhile, back at the hatch, Jack is trying to do all he can for Libby, but it’s difficult. Finally he lets Sawyer know that he needs the heroin, and Sawyer says to him “I’ll be back in 20 minutes” But Jack orders Kate to go along. Kate doesn’t seem very happy about this… neither does Sawyer, but they go off to get the heroin.
Sawyer leads Kate to his makeshift tent, and Kate questions him about Ana-Lucia got the gun away from him in the first place. Sawyer is evasive, and doesn’t really answer her properly. Inside his tent, he brushes away sand that’s over his stash, and Kate is astonished that he kept the guns in his tent. “Fooled you, didn’t I” As they leave the tent, Hurley approaches them and asks if they have seen Libby. Kate has to let him know what’s happened.
When they get back to the hatch, Jack smashes open the statue and injects some of the heroin into Libby. Hurley sits nearby and tells Michael that they were supposed to go on their first date. Michael looks more uncomfortable than ever. Hurley rubs salt into the wound when he tells him “I’m glad you’re ok”
Hurley asks Jack if he can speak to Libby, and he tearfully apologises about forgetting the blanket. Libby awakes suddenly and manages to gasp out “Michael”. Mistaking her terror for concern, Jack responds that Michael’s alright. Unfortunately, Libby doesn't have enough breath left in her to say, "No, you idiot! Michael shot me!"
She takes a final breath and dies. Hurley sobs uncontrollably as Jack closes her eyelids. In the other room, Kate is crying and is comforted by a very sombre looking Sawyer. The beeper starts going and Michael is looking down at Ana-Lucia’s body. He looks up,
very freakily.
Michael! What have you done? I want to believe that he did this for Walt, but that freaky look makes me think otherwise. Has he been “infected” with the sickness that Danielle was going on about. I guess we will find out next week, it’s a Michael episode.
My friend and I were chatting about Michael the other day and it struck us both that it seems pretty Other-like to use one of the losties to get to the losties. But we never considered it! With only two more episodes to go, I want answers! No.... I
need answers!!! Michael’s got a lot of explaining to do!