Tuesday, December 08, 2009

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

Or, No More Flashbacks

[Originally Aired January 31, 2008]

Flash forward and Jack pours himself a drink and watches TV. On TV is a high speed chase between someone in a vintage Camaro and the cops. Damn it, says Jack, recognizing the car. The Camaro crashes. Cops surround it. Hurley gingerly steps from the car, hands raised. As they move closer to apprehend him, Hurley bolts. They grab him and he yells "Stop! Don't you know who I am? Stop, wait, don't you know who I am? I'm one of the Oceanic six! I'm one of the Oceanic six!" What the hell? Cut to the police station, Hurley is in an interrogation room. A detective asks him questions. Hey, it's Ana Lucia's old partner! He asks Hurley if he remembers her from the flight. "Never met her," he lies. What the hell? The detective shows him a surveillance tape. Hurley is buying a Big Gulp™. He sees something off-camera and freaks out, running out the door. The detective asks what he was running from. "Nothing." The cop goes to get a donut (he really says that) and while he's gone, Hurley stares at the two-way mirror. Which suddenly morphs into a window. It's an underwater view of the ocean. Someone swims up and puts their hand on the glass. (It kind of looks like Charlie, but it's not very clear.) The window shatters and the room floods with water. Hurley screams and runs for the door. The detective returns and asks what the hell is going on. The cop asks if Hurley wants to get his ass thrown in the loony bin. Hurley says yes, and hugs the detective. What the hell? On the island, Hurley radios Jack and asks if they made it to the radio tower yet. Yes, he says, they called the ship, help is on the way. Jack preps to lead everyone back down to the beach. He tells Kate he's going to kill Locke next time he sees him. Kate asks what the fuck is wrong with Locke. "He's crazy." Sun is thrilled at the possibility of delivering her baby in a hospital. Rose tells Claire to give Charlie a big hug when she sees him for saving their asses. Rousseau guards Ben, who is still tied to a tree. He says "I need you to do me a favor. I need you to take Alex and get as far from here as possible. Everyone who stays here is going to die. Now get Alex and get away right now, I don't care where you go, just go, I will not have my daughter -" Rousseau punches him in the face, telling him she's not his daughter. Down on the beach Hurley tells Bernard "Did I ever tell you I won the lottery? I had like a hundred and fifty million dollars. Worst thing that ever happened to me. Now it'll all be gone. 'Cause they all think I'm dead. We get rescued and I go back. I'm gonna be free." Then he adds "I wanna do a cannonball. I've been walking up and down this beach everyday and looking out at this water. And I wanna do a cannonball." Bernard tells him to go for it. So he does. When comes up for air he sees Sayid helping Dez to shore. Dez says "We need to get to Jack. We can't let him get in touch with that boat." Too late, brother. Hurley asks where's Charlie. "Naomi, she lied. The people on the boat aren't who they say they are." Hurley asks again about Charlie. Juliet and Bernard ask Dez for clarification. Hurley screams "Where's Charlie?!" Dez looks down and apologizes. At the tower, the sat phone rings. Jack answers and the man on the other end introduces himself as Minkowski. He says they can't get a fix on their location, there's some interference. He asks for Jack to put Naomi on. Jack says she's out getting firewood. Jack looks over at her body but it's gone. What the hell? At the beach the group argues over whether or not to call Jack and warn him about Charlie's message. Sawyer says they should call up, and Sayid says no, that the boat will be monitoring communications. Hurley grabs the radio and chucks it into the water, ending the discussion. At the tower Kate says she found a blood trail. Kate isn't sure it's even Naomi's blood. Jack thinks it is, dying pilots don't have time to fake out islanders with false blood trails. Rousseau and Jack follow the trail and drag Ben with them. At the mental hospital, Hurley plays Connect Four™ until he gets a visitor. It's another dude from Oz, the guy who played the undercover narc who became a murdering heroin addict. He introduces himself as Matthew Abaddon, a representative of Oceanic Airlines, and offers to transfer Hurley to a nicer facility. Hurley says no thanks and asks to see a business card. Abaddon doesn't have one. Hurley tells him they're through talking and Abaddon asks "Are they still alive?" What the hell? Hurley freaks out and yells for help from the nurses and Abaddon quickly vanishes. Sawyer and Hurley head through the jungle. It is night now. Sawyer asks if Hurley is okay or if he wants to talk about Charlie. Hurley says "We'll probably get to Jack faster if we don't talk." Sawyer offers to have the group slow down. Hurley says he can keep up. Okay, says Sawyer as he wanders off. But soon Hurley is lost and he stumbles upon Jacob's cabin. What the hell? Elsewhere, Rousseau tells Jack the blood trail has ended. Apparently dying pilots do have time to fake out islanders with false blood trails. Ben is amused. Jack looks for the sat phone but Ben tells him Kate snuck it when they were hugging. Somewhere else in the jungle Kate follows a different blood trail. The phone rings and she answers. Minkowski asks who the hell she is and where the hell Naomi is. Kate hangs up. Blood drips onto her arm and then Naomi drops down from a tree onto her. She puts a knife to Kate's throat (is that the one that was in her back?) and asks why the fuck they stabbed her. Locke did it, she explains, because Naomi lied about who she was with. The phone rings again and Naomi answers. She tells him she had an accident with a tree branch. He asks her to reset the phone so they can get a signal. She does and says "Tell my sister that I love her" and dies. In another part of the jungle Hurley approaches Jacob's cabin. There is a light on inside. Hurley peeks in through the window. Someone sits in the rocking chair. Another person pops up in the window inches from Hurley. Hurley turns around and runs and screams for help. He sees the cabin again, in front of him. What the hell? He closes his eyes and says "There's nothing there, there's nothing there." When he peeks again, the cabin is gone. He turns again and starts to run but trips. When he looks up, Locke is standing above him. Locke asks him what's wrong and Hurley just says he was lost. Locke leads him back to his friends. Sawyer asks where Hurley disappeared to. Sayid asks Locke what the fuck he's doing here. He says he came to warn Jack. Sayid asks why he blew up the submarine. Before he can answer, they hear voices from the woods. They all draw their guns, but it's just the radio tower party. Rose and Bernard hug. Sun and Jin hug. Claire just stands there. Dez approaches her but Hurley says "I'll tell her." Flash forward and Hurley is on the grounds of the hospital and a patient tells him to watch out, someone is watching him. He looks up and sees Charlie. What the hell? Charlie tells him there is no need to freak out. "No need to freak out? I'm trying to buy some jerky and a slushy, and suddenly you're standing over there by the Ho Hos. You're dead, what do you expect me to do?" Charlie asks if they can just talk. Hurley says he doesn't want to have an imaginary conversation with a dead man. Charlie agrees he is dead, "But I'm also here." Prove it, Hurley says. So Charlie slaps him. Ouch. He asks Charlie why he didn't tell him he was going to die down in The Looking Glass. "Because you would have tried to stop me. And since I was gonna do it anyway I thought I would spare you all the drama. And now you have to do something. But you're hiding from it. That's the real reason you ran when you saw me in the store. You knew I was here to tell you." Hurley closes his eyes and says "You're not here, you're not here." And when he opens his eyes again Charlie is gone. What the hell? Back in the jungle Jack punches Locke in the face and steals his pistol. "You're not gonna shoot me, Jack, any more than I was gonna shoot -" Jack squeezes the trigger. Click. The gun isn't loaded. Jack punches him instead and Locke concedes he some 'splaining to do. Kate comes out of the jungle and tells everyone Naomi is really dead now but that she covered for them and fixed the phone. "She didn't cover for anyone. She wants her people to come here. And trust me, when they do we had better be far away from here. I'm going to the barracks. The Others abandoned them. It's the only place on the island with any form of security right now, it'll have to do until I can think of something else. Until then, if you want to live, you need to come with me." Jack says Locke is crazy. Hurley objects "He's not crazy. What about Charlie? Charlie went down to that place so we could all be rescued. And whatever he did down there, it worked. But then something must have happened. He must have heard something before he... I don't know why, but he changed his mind. Because the last thing he did was to warn us that the people on that boat are not who they said they were. So I'm not listening to you. I'm listening to my friend. I'm listening to Charlie." Hurley stands near Locke. Then the survivors fall into two groups. As Sawyer joins Locke, Kate asks what he's doing. "Same thing I've always done, Kate: Surviving." Flash forward to the hospital. Hurley has another visitor. It's Jack. He says he was just in the neighborhood but Hurley isn't buying it. Hurley tells Jack not to worry, he won't tell. What the hell? Hurley also tells him he was wrong to leave with Locke. It was the wrong move. Then he says the island wants them to come back. Jack says that will never happen. What the hell? Kate and Jack stand in the rain pondering their fate. "Thunder's getting louder," Kate says. "That's not thunder." A helicopter hovers over them. Then someone parachutes out. Kate and Jack race to the parachutist. He pulls off his helmet and smiles, asking "Are you Jack?"

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