ADRIFT

Or, Shark Week on Lost

[Originally Aired September 28, 2005]

Flashback and Michael and Susan engage in a custody battle for Walt. This goes on, intermittently, throughout the episode. By the end, Susan has convinced Michael to give up his fight so she can head to Rome with Walt. Michael says good-bye to the boy and gives him a stuffed toy polar bear as a going away present. On the island, Claire asks Charlie about the Virgin Mary statue he has in his backpack. He says it may come in handy. Sure, if you're a smack addict, it might. On the sea, Michael is drowning but Sawyer saves him and drags him onto a chunk of raft. Sawyer gives Michael CPR, really, really saving him. Jin is missing. Walt is gone. Sawyer is shot and bleeding. Oh, yeah, and there's a shark around now. Swell. Michael and Sawyer argue over the consequences of firing the flare and the abduction of Walt. Michael tells Sawyer to get off his raft so Sawyer swims to another chunk of wreckage. Sawyer uses his bare fucking hands to dig the bullet out of his shoulder. Let me repeat that: Sawyer uses his bare fucking hands to dig the bullet out of his shoulder. Rewind just a bit to Locke's experience exploring the hatch. He finds Kate lying on the floor and Desmond shows up to ask him "Are you him?" Sure, why not? says Locke. Then Desmond asks "What did one snowman say to the other snowman?" Locke replies with a WTF? and Desmond realizes the jig is up. Locke is forced to tie up Kate and shove her in a closet, but he slips a knife in her pants. Then Desmond forces Locke to enter The Numbers onto the computer. A clock resets itself to 108 minutes. After that, Locke and Desmond talk, mostly asking each other questions, both trying to get to the bottom of things. Sawyer's raft bit falls apart and he is forced back onto Michael's chunk. He tells Michael that the boat the abductors had was too small to be from anywhere other than the island. Kate uses the knife and cuts herself free and finds herself in a fully stocked pantry. All the food is labelled with the Dharma logo. She eats some candy and climbs up into the ductwork. At sea, the shark swims by and I am pretty sure it has the Dharma logo on its tail. WTF, did I really just see that? Sawyer sees one of the pontoons and decides to swim for it. He gives his gun to Michael. On his way to the pontoon, the shark returns but Michael shoots it. The next morning they wake and find themselves off the coast of the island again. "We're home," says Sawyer. Jack heads down the hatch and runs into Desmond and Locke, which is not quite a flashback, but something we've seen once already. Sawyer and Michael make it ashore and as they walk onto the beach Jin comes running from the brush, hands tied behind his back. He screams at them in Korean. Then he sputters, "Others! The Others!" They look up and see several menacing figures approaching.