In a flashback, Locke is denied his disability benefits. It is revealed that he is suffering from depression and has ceased treatment.
In the bushes outside the Others' compound, Locke, Sayid, Kate and Rousseau watch as Jack and Tom play football. Unnoticed, Rousseau slips away. Juliet comes out, and then Ben
rolls out in a wheelchair and shakes Jack's hand. Jack smiles, and they
all go inside. The survivors are shocked. Kate is angry; she locks and
loads her rifle, ready for the fight. But Sayid cautions her. Maybe
Jack does not want to be rescued. Kate insists that the Others have
done something to Jack. Locke interrupts and calmly reminds them that
"It's Jack. The first time I saw him he was risking his life, pulling
people out of burning airplane wreckage. If he's shaking hands with the
Others, I'm sure he has a good reason. We just have to go down there
and find out what it is."
In a flashback, Locke is in his apartment watching TV and eating a TV dinner.
He seems melancholic and defeated by the world. Then a young man, Peter
Talbot, knocks on his door and asks if he is John Locke. Locke tells
him he has the wrong guy, but Peter asks him how many kidneys he has.
Locke invites Peter in, and he tells Locke that Peter's mother met a
man named Adam Seward a couple months ago. Adam said he was a retired
computer entrepreneur from Ontario,
but something about him bothered Peter, so he checked out Adam's story.
Peter discovered Adam's name was actually Anthony Cooper, and that
Locke had donated one of his kidneys to him. If Locke did that, then
"Adam" couldn't be all that bad, right? Locke lies to Peter and tells
him it was an anonymous donation.
On the island, Kate, Sayid, and Locke wait until night falls to
sneak up to Jack's house. Kate quietly enters and finds Jack, alone,
playing the piano. Emotion floods her face, but Jack is apprehensive.
He demands that she leave immediately. Jack says they're watching him,
and he points up to a video camera in a corner of the room. Kate says
she is not leaving without him again. Right then the door bursts open
and two armed Others grab her and force her onto the floor. Jack yells,
"Don't hurt her!" They bring in a struggling Sayid and ask who else is
with them. Kate realizes they did not catch Locke. Kate and Sayid look
at each other and Sayid nods; she lies and says it is only Sayid and
herself.
In Ben's house, Ben hears something and wakes up. Standing in his
room, pointing a gun at him, is Locke. He demands to know where the submarine is. Locke says he learned about it from Mikhail. But they are interrupted — first by Alex,
whom Locke grabs and hides in the closet with, and then by Tom. Tom
tells Ben that they captured Kate and Sayid trying to rescue Jack. Ben
tells him to separate them and interrogate them. He wants to know how
they found the barracks. Then Ben gives Richard a cryptic order: bring him the man from Tallahassee.
Once alone, Locke wants to know if that was a code. Ben assures him it
is not. Locke needs Sayid's pack and tells Alex to go get it.
In a flashback, Locke is in a florist shop where he watches his father, Anthony Cooper,
with Peter's mother — a kind, older woman. Cooper notices Locke and
slips over to him. Locke knows Cooper is conning the woman for her
money. Even her son knows something is wrong. He won't let Cooper ruin
another family's life. He warns Cooper to call off the wedding and end
it or he'll tell the woman the truth. Cooper reluctantly agrees.
On the island, Kate is held in a recreation room.
Tom lets Jack in to talk with Kate and warns him that the room is
bugged. Kate asks if Jack is one of them now. He denies it, then he
reminds her that he told her not to come back for him. She asks what
they did to him. Jack is silent for a while struggling to find words
before telling her that he made a deal with them; they are letting him
go home. Kate is stunned. Jack says it was the best chance to bring
back help for everyone. Kate asks him how he could trust the Others;
Jack replies it is because she told him to when she asked him to save Sawyer's
life. Kate finally realizes that Jack was heartbroken by her
'decision'. Before leaving, he whispers to her that he will come back
for her.
Ben asks for Locke's help getting out of bed and into his
wheelchair. Ben says that if Locke killed Mikhail, it means he found
the communications station. And that means he also found the
explosives. Ben guesses that Locke isn't going to leave in the
submarine, he's going to destroy it.
Locke tells Ben he knows nothing about him. But then Ben rattles off
facts about Locke's life: raised in foster care, wasted away most of
his life in Tustin
at a box company, and spent four years in a wheelchair before crashing
on the island. Locke is taken aback. Ben says he even knows how Locke
ended up in the wheelchair, and asks how it felt. Locke coldly replies:
"I felt my back break. What do you think?"
In a flashback, Locke walks through his apartment building's parking
lot. Two detectives approach him and tell him Peter Talbot is dead and
ask him if he as any knowledge concerning the situation.
On the island, Ben asks Locke if he regained his ability to walk
immediately after the plane crash. Locke says yes. Ben asks if Locke is
afraid it will go away if he leaves. That's why he wants to destroy the
submarine.
Ben tells Locke that if he blows it up, he'll have a big problem
with his people. They need to know they can leave if they want to, and
the submarine maintains "that illusion." And if Locke stops and thinks,
Ben can show him things he wants to see very badly.
Then Ben offers to explain it in a way Locke will understand. He tells Locke to picture a box.
He also says that Locke must know a lot about boxes (referring to Locke
working at a box factory for four years). He says, "Somewhere on the
island is a large box and whatever you imagined, whatever you wanted,
would be inside that wish box," marginally similar to the Michael Crichton novel Sphere and the movie Forbidden Planet. Locke makes a joke about it, and calls Ben a hypocrite, a pharisee.
He says If Ben knew what the island really was, he would have more
respect for it. This seems to intrigue Ben, and Locke seems shocked at
what he says, as if he did not really realize what he was saying.
When Alex goes to get Sayid's pack, Sayid tells her that she looks
like her mother. Alex tells him her mother is dead, to which he replies
"I'm sure that's what they told you." His captor, Ryan Pryce, then
assaults him, and Alex runs away, looking shocked. She returns to Ben's
room with Sayid's pack and Locke makes her take him to the sub.
On the way, Alex tells Locke that Ben is manipulating him. She says
that "He makes you think that something is your own idea, but it's
really his." Locke answers, "I'll keep that in mind." Locke apologies
to Alex for involving her. Rousseau spots Alex from a hidden location,
and her eyes fill with tears. She says nothing to either of them. Locke
descends into the submarine.
Jack and Juliet approach Ben in his home. Jack requests that Ben let
his friends go. Ben gives his word to do so "just as soon as you've
left the island." Jack and Juliet are escorted to the dock so they can
leave in the sub. They run into Locke as he is walking back up the
dock. His clothes are soaking wet. Jack asks what he is doing there;
Locke simply replies, "I'm sorry" — the submarine then explodes.
In a flashback, Locke goes to Cooper's condo and confronts him, but
Cooper denies any involvement. He is a con man, not a murderer, he
claims. He says Peter's mother was devastated and called off the
wedding. During Cooper and Locke's conversation, Cooper pours them both
MacCutcheon 60 whiskey, the same whiskey from "Flashes Before Your
Eyes." Locke does not believe that Peter's mother called off the
wedding. His father shrugs it off and says to call Ms. Talbot himself
if he wants proof. Locke picks up the phone to call her when Cooper
suddenly charges him and shoves him through the window. Locke plummets
eight stories to the ground.
As Locke lies in a hospital bed, the two detectives inform him that
his father has fled to Mexico and then disappeared. They leave as a physical therapist,
Kincaid, brings Locke his wheelchair. Locke says he does not want to go
into it. Kincaid lifts Locke out of bed and places him in his
wheelchair for the first time, saying, "You fell eight stories and
survived--don't tell me what you can't do." A look of despair crosses
Locke's face and he breaks into tears.
On the island, Locke is handcuffed in a room. Ben and Richard open
the door. Locke reveals that he knows Ben wanted him to blow up the
sub. Ben reveals that he wanted to find a way to keep Jack from leaving
The Island, but did not know how to, so he was in a bind. Then Locke
came into the Barracks and solved Ben's problem for him.
Ben and Richard lead Locke down a hallway, and Ben tells him that,
for whatever reason, Locke's "in communion" with the island; and that
makes Locke "very, very important." They stop at a door, and Richard
opens it. Locke peers in and the man from Tallahassee is revealed -
Anthony Cooper, tied to a chair and looking roughed-up and terrified.
Echoing the cryptic message that Michael thought was sent to him in
the Swan by his kidnapped son, Walt, Locke's final word is, "Dad?"
