THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME - PART 2

Or, The Searcher Arrives

[Originally Aired May 29, 2008]

Open where the final scene from Season Three ends. Jack yells at Kate's car. Now she stops and jumps out. "We have to go back? We have to go back?" she asks. She gets in his face, yelling "Who do you think you are?! You call me over and over again for two days straight, stoned on your pills! And then you show up here with an obituary for Jeremy Bentham. When he came to me and I heard what he had to say, I knew he was crazy. But you believed him. I've spent the last three years trying to forget all the horrible things that happened on the day that we left. How dare you ask me to go back?" She storms off for good this time. Back to the island: Sawyer and Jack find Hurley taking a leak near the Orchid. Locke meanwhile looks around for some anthuriums and Ben's magic elevator.

On the freighter, Desmond, Michael and Jin stare a couple hundred pounds of C-4. It's wired to a radio transceiver. Dez studied bomb disposal in the military. Just enough to get everyone blown up. Meanwhile, Keamy leads Ben back to the chopper. He asks Ben why he's so important. Ben doesn't answer. Keamy sees Frank trying to pry himself loose from his cuffs. Who the hell gave him tools, he asks. Then Kate stumbles out of the brush, panting. Keamy asks who she is and why she's running. She says Ben's people are chasing her. Then there's the whispering before all hell breaks loose. The Others set upon the mercs. There's gunfire and explosions and a bunch of other action shit. Ben and Kate run away. Keamy follows. Sayid jumps on Keamy and the two tussle. The fight ends when Alpert appears and shoots Keamy in the back. Ben tells Kate "The helicopter is yours. You and Sayid have a safe journey back."

Cut to the psychiatric hospital. Michael's mother is visiting. She asks Hurley if he's dangerous. Only when he assures her he isn't does she let Walt see him. Walt complains that no one visited him. Hurley apologizes. Walt continues "Do you know who did come see me? Jeremy Bentham. I don't understand why you're all lying." Hurley tells him it's to protect everyone left behind. Back at the greenhouse Locke asks Jack to reconsider leaving. Jack says Locke is crazy. Locke says if they leave they'll have to lie about everything that went on here. That's the only way to protect the island. Jack says this place doesn't need protecting. "It's not an island. It's a place where miracles happen. And if you don't believe that, Jack, if you can't believe that, just wait until you see what I'm about to do." Then Ben returns. "Couldn't find the anthuriums, could you?" Locke doesn't know what they look like. Ben reveals the secret elevator and tells Jack to hurry back to the copter. Locke again tells Jack to lie. "If you do it half as well as you lie to yourself, they'll believe you." Ben and Locke disappear as the elevator descends into the Orchid. On the freighter Michael comes up with a plan: He'll freeze the battery with liquid nitrogen. That way it can't send a charge to the explosives. It's temporary, but it's better than nothing.

In the meantime, Dez and Jin will try to diagram the wiring and maybe figure out a way to disarm it. Faraday returns to the beach and pulls Miles and Charlotte aside. He tells them to get on the boat. Miles says no thanks, he's gonna stay. Charlotte says she'll be at the boat in a few minutes. Miles comments to her "I'm surprised you want leave. It's just weird. You know, after all that time you spent trying to get back here." In the Orchid, Ben starts firing up equipment. Locke asks what all this stuff is for. "The same things that all the Dharma stations are for: silly experiments. Why don't you watch this very informative video that will answer some of your questions?" Locke fires up the VCR and watches as Marvin Candle lies about who he is and explains about negatively charged exotic matter and the vault and other bullshit. He also says not to put any metallic objects in the vault. Ben stacks metallic objects in the vault. Then the elevator starts to rise. "You expecting someone?" At the copter Sawyer saws Frank free. They board the chopper and for the first time since the crash, Sayid, Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley leave the island. Keamy walks into the Orchid. He yells into the darkness for Ben. He tells them if they shoot him to aim for the head, he's wearing a flak jacket. But before they do that, they should know something. "I took out a bit of a life insurance policy, Ben. It's a heart rate monitor, and it's connected to a radio transmitter. We call it a dead man's trigger, Ben. If my heart stops beating it sends a little signal to the five-hundred pounds of C-4 that I've got hardwired out there on the freighter that'd kill a lot of innocent people, Ben." Locke steps out and asks Keamy to talk. Keamy isn't interested and Ben jumps out and clubs Keamy with his baton. Then he grabs his knife and stabs Keamy over on over, shouting "You killed my daughter! You killed my daughter!" Locke tells Ben he just killed everyone on the boat. "So?" On the chopper Frank tells them they have a problem. They're losing fuel. Sayid leans out and sees a bullet hole in the side. Frank tells them to throw out everything that is not bolted down. Is that enough, Jack asks. "I'd feel a hell of a lot better if we were a few hundred pounds lighter!" Sawyer leans over to Kate and whispers in her ear. She asks why he's telling her this. "Just do it, Freckles," he says and kisses her and jumps out of the copter. Goddamn, Sawyer, you're awesome. Totally awesome.

Cut to outside of Hurley's psychiatric hospital. A man sits in a car. Sayid approaches and asks the time. Then shoots the man to death. He sneaks into the building and into Hurley's room. Sayid tells him he has to leave. Why, Hurley asks. "Bentham's dead." Who the fuck is Bentham anyway? So that's who was in the coffin? Some schmoe we ain't even heard of? Who the hell is he? Sayid tells Hurley it's not safe, he's being watched. "Dude, I've been having regular conversations with dead people. The last thing I need now is paranoia." In the Orchid, Locke tries to save Keamy. "Ben, help me. If he dies, everybody on that boat dies." Ben tells him that's not his problem. What a douche. Keamy gurgles, telling Ben that Widmore will find him wherever he goes. "Not if I find him first." Keamy dies. On the freighter the transceiver beeps. Michael tells Jin and Desmond to go before the battery thaws out. Up on deck the copter approaches for landing. Desmond waves them off. "Don't land! Don't land! There's a bomb!" No choice, they're out of fuel. Frank puts the copter down. They've maybe five minutes. Desmond starts patching up the leak, Jack starts pumping fuel. Kate herds Sun and Aaron onto the copter and runs off to find Jin. He's still trying to figure out the bomb but Michael tells him again to go. "You are a father now. Get to your wife and get her home." Jin heads up. Frank fires up the chopper. Jack drags Kate back aboard. She protests. "Jin's still inside!" It's too late. The copter lifts off. Sun screams.

Down below, Old Man Shephard says "You can go now, Michael." What? Jin runs across the deck of the freighter toward the chopper. Then... the ship explodes. Holy fuck, Jin! Sun creams and cries and begs them to fly closer to the sinking wreckage. "He's gone," Jack tells her. Flashforward to London, and Sun approaches Widmore on the street. He pretends he has no idea who she is. She tells him to stop being a jackass and hands him her card. "You and I have common interests. When you're ready to discuss them, call me." Back in the Orchid, Locke asks why Ben killed Keamy, knowing it would destroy the freighter. Ben shrugs it off as being an emotional reaction. Then he tells Locke to duck. The vault sputters and crackles like a microwave with aluminum foil in it. Then explodes. Ben grabs a parka and heads into the vault. Locke asks where his parka is and Ben tells him he's not coming. Bullshit I ain't, says Locke. "Whoever moves the island can never come back," Ben explains. "I'd like you to get on the elevator, John, and go back up. Richard and my people will be waiting two miles east of the Orchid, ready, willing and able to share what they know. And then they will follow your every word. Good-bye, John." Meanwhile Sawyer swims ashore and finds Juliet on the beach drinking Capt. Dharma rum. He asks what she's celebrating. I'm not celebrating, she says and points behind him. A plume of black smoke rises on the horizon. Back in the jungle, Locke walks into the Others' camp. "Hello, John. Welcome home."

Ben climbs through a hole blown in the wall of the vault. He climbs down, slipping a bit, tearing a hole in the arm of his parka. He reaches any icy chamber. One one wall is a giant wheel protruding from the rock. "I hope you're happy now, Jacob." Ben turns the wheel. There is a noise, a humming. The chamber lights up and everything vibrates. The chopper approaches the island, a flash of light engulfs them. And... the island disappears. Frank says they're out of fuel, and now there's no where to land. Desmond throws out the life raft. The chopper hits the ocean. They scramble to make it onto the raft. Desmond isn't breathing. Jack pounds on his chest. "Come on, Desmond!" Dez coughs, sputters and starts breathing again. "It's okay. It's okay. We're alive." Cut to Kate's house. It's late. A noise wakes her. Her phone rings, but she only hears gibberish when she answers. There's whispering coming from down the hall. She grabs her gun and moves into Aaron's room. Claire stands over the boy. "Don't bring him back, Kate. Don't you dare bring him back." Kate wakes. It was all a dream. On the raft Hurley expresses amazement that Locke moved the island. Jack says he didn't do it. "Oh, really? 'Cause one minute it was there, and the next it was gone, so unless we, like, overlooked it, dude, that's exactly what he did. But if you've got another explanation, man, I'd love to hear it." Then Frank sees lights in the distance. It's a boat!

Jack tells everyone they'll need to lie about everything. "Those men came to the island to kill us, all of us. Our plane was discovered on the bottom of the ocean. Well, someone put it there, someone who wants everyone to think that we're dead. So what do you think's gonna happen to us when we tell them that wasn't our plane? What do you think's gonna happen to the people that we left behind?" The boat pulls near and the crew shouts in Portuguese, I think. From above a woman says to throw a them a rope. Desmond looks up. "Penny? Penny!" Awesome. Totally awesome. Penny and Desmond are finally reunited. Sometime later, Hurley asks where they are. Membata. He asks why they've come all the way out here. "Because it's the only way to keep them safe." So, the Oceanic Six board a raft, and leave Penny's ship. Frank and Dez and Penny wave good-bye. Hours later, they paddle up on Membata, their lie already well-rehearsed.

Cut to L.A. Fake Beard Jack pulls up in front of Hoffs/Drawler Funeral Home. (Just FYI, Hoffs/Drawler is an anagram for "flash forward." Clever.) It's night. The place is locked up. Jack breaks in and stares at Bentham's coffin. He opens it just as Ben walks in. Ben asks if he'd seen Bentham recently. He asks what he told him. "He told me that after I left the island, some very bad things happened. And he told me that it was my fault for leaving. And he said that I had to come back." Ben tells him the island won't let him come alone. That they all have to come together. "I don't even know where Sayid is. Hurley is insane. Sun blames me for... and then Kate, She won't even talk to me anymore." Ben says maybe he can help. They start to leave but Ben pauses. "I said all of you. We're going to have to bring him, too," pointing to the coffin. Lying inside is the body of John Locke.