Lost is Back!

So…is this a character flashback?...hmm...if so, which character?  It looks a bit like Sawyer – longish hair, likes to work out…but the timing makes no sense.  This guy has anachronistic computers and workout equipment – he even has RECORD ALBUMS.  So it can’t be Sawyer.  He’s too young to have been a full-grown adult male in the late ‘70’s or early ‘80’s when this guy obviously must live.  Right?  An alarm goes off, the guy suddenly suits up, grabs a gun from a serious arsenal, and uses a system of mirrors to see what’s going on.  And lo, one of the mirrors is on the floor…at the bottom…of the hatch, where Jack and Locke are peering down…!!!

Amazing.  What an opening.  This show puts all other shows to shame.

A quick recap – Jack doesn’t want to explore the hatch, he insists that they go back to the caves.  Locke resists but then gives in.  On the way back, Jack asks Hurley what’s up with the numbers, so Hurley tells him the story in brief.  The one thing Jack focuses on is not the fact that Hurley won $114 million, but that he was in a psych ward.  Back at the caves, Shannon is looking for Vincent – she and Sayid go into the jungle to look for him.  Vincent barks, and they see him sitting in a clearing, but he runs off as they approach.  Shannon can’t keep up with Sayid and she trips and falls.  Suddenly she hears whispering voices all around her.  In a total panic, she suddenly sees Walt standing there, drenched from head to toe.  He tries to say something to hear but it’s not intelligible.  Sayid comes running back, and when Shannon turns around, Walt is gone.  She starts telling people at the caves about seeing Walt, and everyone is arguing about what’s going on, and Charlie says there were no “others,” that it was just Danielle who had lit the fire.  Jack and his group return from the hatch, and Jack makes a little speech telling them all about it.  He says they will post guards and remain at the caves and that when the sun comes up in a few hours, they’ll all be there.  Locke appears, carrying ropes, and announces that he’s going into the hatch.  Everyone watches him go.  Kate decides she’s going to go after him.  Locke lowers her into the hatch, because she’s later, except that part way down, a tree breaks and she starts to fall.  Locke clutches the vine with bloody hands.  Kate says she’s all right, except – she hears a noise like a metal door sliding open.  Suddenly a blazing light comes out of the hatch – Locke leans back from it, still clinging to the rope.  Kate screams.  The metal door sound is heard again. The light goes out.  Locke pulls up the now slack vine, yelling for Kate.  She’s gone.  
Jack then tells Hurley that he’s going to the hatch too.  When he gets there, no one’s there.  He goes down into it.  At the bottom, he finds a kind of tunnel or hallway – he has Kate’s flashlight that he dropped, and he also has a gun.  He moves along slowly.  Suddenly light comes on and the song that was playing earlier starts up again on the record player.  Jack momentarily panics, but then moves on, seeing no one.  He comes into an open chamber with a curved roof, full of antiquated computer equipment that is all buzzing away.  He sees a blinking cursor on a computer screen and moves to touch it.  Locke says, “Don’t do that.”  Jack turns and pulls his gun on Locke.  “Where’s Kate?”  Locke tells him she’s fine.  Then a gun appears next to Locke’s temple.  Jack can’t see who it is.  The person says to put the gun down or he’ll shoot Locke.  Jack asks Locke if this is his destiny.  The person holding the gun comes out from behind Locke.  Jack freaks out because he recognizes the guy….

Which brings us to a quick recap of the flashback portion of the show.  It’s Jack’s past we’re seeing – back to the time when his future wife, Sarah, was brought into the ER at his hospital with a crushed spine from a car accident.  He doesn’t think she’ll ever walk again.  Sarah’s current fiancée doesn’t seem like he’ll stick around when Jack tells him the prognosis.  Jack goes in to operate on her back to see what he can do, after promising her that he will fix her.  Afterwards, he goes for a mad run up and down the steps of a nearby stadium.  Another guy suddenly appears and begins running up and down too.  Jack strives to beat the guy to the top, but falls, twisting his ankle.  The guy comes over and they talk about what they were doing there.  The guy says he’s training, and that he is “almost a doctor.”  Jack says that he is a doctor, and when the guy asks why he’s running like a maniac, he explains that he promised a patient he would fix her, but he didn’t.  The guy asks if he’s sure he didn’t fix her, and Jack says, it would take a miracle, and the guy basically says he thinks that’s certainly possible.  He introduces himself as Desmond – and tells Jack, “See you in another life.”  Back at the hospital, Jack weeps as he tells Sarah that she will be paralyzed for the waist down for the rest of her life.  She thinks he’s joking, because she can move her toes.  Jack weeps even harder as he tests her responses and realizes that a miracle really did happen.

Of course, Desmond is the guy who is in the hatch.  The guy who spins albums on a record player.  The guy who currently has a gun on Locke.  But how can it be the same guy?  The timing makes no sense.  Jack clearly didn’t meet Sarah twenty years ago.  I believe that Desmond was one of the crew of scientists with Danielle, although maybe not.  His presence there could be totally unrelated.  However, after the hatch blew up, Kate noticed that on the inside of the hatch door, it said “Quarantined.”  And Danielle had talked about how her fellow crew members had all become “sick.” Of course, she also said that she killed them all – but maybe that’s why this guy walled himself off.  Who knows?  Mysteries galore!

To me, the most riveting moment (out of many) was also the most disturbing – the image of Walt, dripping wet, desperate to communicate.  Terrifying!  What does it mean?  Was Walt psychically projecting himself to Shannon somehow?  

The promos for next week promise that we will see what happened to the rest of the castaways – i.e. the poor folks on the boat.  There is so much ground to cover!  And of course, hopefully soon we’ll be finding out what happened to the back of the plane…I can’t wait!