Further Instructions epi 3.3

ABOVE: Today’s LOST crew putting on their best LOST faces, (except Pastor T, who apparently missed the memo! Strike a pose, big guy!) –Oh, and some girl with a HUGE mouth came over and crashed the party, that was kinda weird.

SO WHAT ARE MY TOUGHTS? FUNNY YOU ASK!

THE INFAMOUS EYE: Well we’ve seen many a episode begin with a big ol eyeball, this time it was Locke’s. At last we are back on the other side of the island, finding the fate of our button pushers. Locke is lying in the jungle, just waking up, and sees a crazed, naked Desmond running past him. He has the use of his legs, something some spoilers (or should I say FOILERS foretold he would not have). On the other hand, he has lost his voice instead.

LOCKE AND CHARLIE: Locke goes to the beach camp and tries to communicate with Charlie, but not before tearing apart his tent for supplies to build something else. Charlie, as is his custom lately, was pretty rude and sarcastic towards Locke, maybe even a bit antagonistic. Locke ignores his comments and continues to motion and write out a basic message: He needs Charlie to guard a sweat tent, you know, so he can “speak to the island”. Well okay, so now the roles turn a bit as LOCKE ingests some sort of nasty guano looking hallucinogenic to bring him into his intense dream state in the sweat tent. (Zero tolerance policy, haha, nice Charlie!) In all, Charlie ventures into danger with Locke, and this time his younger companion is not injured. In fact, I might think that the relationship between them is building again?

DREAM STATE: Boone, representing Locke’s spirit guide of some sort, appears in the sweat tent. He has a sort of all knowing way about him, (I guess that’s cause he’s like dead?), and asks Locke to follow him. Of course, Locke will have to use his old wheelchair, because in the dream state, he cannot use his legs. His voice, he is told by Boone, will return when he has something important to say. So as Boone escorts Locke around in his chair, their surroundings turn into the Oceanic Airlines terminal, where Locke has to figure out who is in great danger that he must save. Not Charlie and Claire, the couple with the baby- they are okay, for now; not Hurley, an attendant; not Sun or Jin –Sayid taking care of that, and not Sawyer, Kate and Jack, passengers checking in with the sinister Ben through the security check –though he will help them later; and not Desmond, the pilot. After riding the escalator to follow Boone, Locke finds himself in a pool of blood and Boone, now covered in blood as well, throws him Mr. Ecko’s staff. “Clean up the mess you’ve made” Boone tells him. They’ve got him. Who? A scary growling face beckoning Locke back to reality reveals to him that it is a polar bear who has Ecko. He emerges out of the tent, or more precisely falls backwards out of it in fear, to tell Charlie (with his hoarse voice) that he is going to save Ecko.

*This was a trippy dream scene, the best part of the whole episode. I still find it strange how much Locke has dipped into drugs, from the stuff he put on Boone to his own sweat tent journey, as well as the back flash of tonights epi. He seems to believe that these drugs he had used on Boone and now himself will help “guide” them. Yet he is so against Charlie using any. I dunno about that!

POLAR BEARS: So there are more polar bears than the one killed by Sawyer, and whether they were summoned by a psychic Walt or not seems unclear. Following its tracks, Locke and Charlie find the bear’s cave and, after burning the bear’s face to make it let go of Ecko, do manage to rescue Ecko and get him back the beach.

HURLEY: Before finding the bear cave, they run into Hurley, on his trek back from the other side of the island. I can’t remember, but I don’t think he explained the thing about Michael being responsible for the death of Anna and Libby, but he does tell them about Fake Henry (we now know as Ben) being the leader, and about the capture of their three friends and Hurley’s duty to warn the rest of them. Locke, rather than going after this right away, stays on target with his current plan to save Ecko. Hurley then bumps into…

DESMOND: a naked Desmond, much to Hurley’s embarrassment. Desmond and he exchange a few current events, updating each other a tad on what each one missed. Desmond then says that Locke will save Kate, Sawyer, and Jack, BECAUSE HE SAID SO IN HIS SPEECH. Hurley recalls no such speech. Hurley- strange look on his face.

GETTING BACK TO THE BEACH: Locke and Charlie, dragging along a badly wounded Ecko, make a rest stop. While Charlie is away, Locke takes a moment to say some words of regret and apology to a passed out Mr. Ecko. But Ecko awakes and tells him it is not too late to save them. When Charlie returns, Ecko shows no signs of having just been conscious.

FINALLY BACK ON THE BEACH: Claire, Hurley, and new characters Nikki and Paulo (two emerging full-time characters, fellow Losties, played by Kiele Sanchez- of WB’s Related- and Rodrigo Santoro –of Love Actually) gather around the returning rescue crew. Locke quickly steps in to delegate, followed by a short monologue about his intents to find and free Jack, Sawyer, and Kate. Hurley appears shaken about this, looking back and forth between Locke and Desmond (who is wearing an XXXL tie-died t-shirt tossing rocks into the ocean). De ja vu, he mentions to Charlie when he says, “that was quite a SPEECH”. Could it be our little Aussie Desmond has achieved super natural powers of foreseeing the future during the hatch implosion? (Funny, Hurley could have these powers to, as he first asked Desmond if he was going to turn into the Hulk or something now!) I think this is an interesting twist, however maybe a bit unrealistic and sci-fi for a show attempting to be more scientifically based.

THE FLASHBACKS: The show was a Locke centric, although the flashbacks were not all that revealing. Locke picks up a hitchhicker, befriends him and allows the young man to come be a part of a little farming commune. This seems to be Locke’s new substitute family. The new friend, named Eddie, stays for 6 weeks and at last asks Locke about the guns in the back of the truck the day they met, as well as the large greenhouse no one can enter where large supplies of fertilizer travel in each day. Locke goes in to speak with the leaders of the communce about letting Eddie in on everything, only to find them frantically packing the evidence of their MARIJUANA GREENHOUSE because new information has revealed that Eddie is not some aimless wanderer, he is undercover FBI. Locke, faced with losing his new family, urges them to let him fix it. His idea of fixing it is to shoot him while they are out hunting. Instead, he confronts him at gun point, asking whether or not he had been picked. Eddie confesses that he was, and that he knows Locke won’t shoot him because he is a “good person”. He walks away, and the last we see if Locke taking a breathe and lowing the gun a smiggen.

FINAL WORD: I really thought we might see how Locke lost the use of his legs in this episode, but alas, we are left wondering. Darn. I can’t help but imagine why in the world these flashbacks were all that significant. And will we see Eddie some where else? Like maybe Kate’s ex-husband? Hmmmmmm