WALKABOUT

Or, How Locke Got His Groove Back

[Originally Aired October 13, 2004]

Moments after the crash, Locke lies in the sand and wiggles his toes. Cut to the present and Walt's dog is barking. At what? Strange noises from the fuselage. Is it the monster? Dr. Jack and Sawyer investigate. Boars! (But not boors or Boers.) They're feeding on the dead. Dr. Jack suggests burning them. Part sanitation, part signal fire. Sayid rigs up some triangulators, hoping to find the source of the broadcast. If it really has been beaming out for 16 years there must be a pretty big battery somewhere. Locke's flashbacks: He's a shitty job, and a bully of a boss. He likes to play war games. His girlfriend is a phone sex operator. He's planned a trip to Australia for a walkabout tour. Everyone tells him it's too dangerous, especially for a man in his condition. On the beach, the food has run out, except for the peanuts Sawyer has hoarded. It's time to hunt and gather. Shannon makes a bet with her Brother that she's not completely helpless and can catch a fish. She suckers Charlie into catching one for her. Charlie is low on heroin. Locke, Kate, and Mike trek into the jungle to kill a boar for food. Rose, the woman Dr. Jack saved in the first ep has gone catatonic on the beach. Everyone expects Dr. Jack to help her. Dr. Jack is growing resentful of everyone expecting him to be heroic. Like Brian Eno said, it's such a burden to be relied on. In the jungle, Mike is gored. But it's just in the leg, not someplace bad like the groin or lungs. Locke is separated from Mike and Kate. Kate climbs a tree to plant one of Sayid's triangulators, but drops it when the monster comes stomping back. Locke comes face to face with the monster but later lies about it. Why does everyone lie so much on this island? On the beach, Dr. Jack sees someone in the distance, someone dressed in a black suit. Is that a hallucination? Kate and Mike return to the beach, and everyone believes Locke is dead. Until he shows up with a boar. There is a memorial service at the fuselage, and everyone attends except Dr. Jack who has a problem with God, apparently. Locke gets one last flashback where we see he was in a wheelchair prior to the crash. Then moments after the crash, Locke lies in the sand and wiggles his toes.