Lost/Recap/S06/E01 LAX

Season 6, Episodes 1 and 2:

LA X
(Previously on Lost: something is posing as John Locke; Ben kills Jacob; Faraday's plan to change history; the Incident; Juliet hitting the bomb with a rock; fade to white...)

Jack is on Oceanic 815, looking out the window of the plane. He convinces Cindy, the stewardess, to give him an extra little bottle of vodka. The plane hits turbulence and Rose, sitting across the aisle, tells Jack to calm down. Jack promises to keep Rose company until her husband returns, and then some serious turbulence hits. Bags fall out of compartments, people are jerked around in their seats... and then it stops. Captain Norris calms the passengers via the intercom and Bernard returns from the bathroom. Jack goes to the bathroom and, looking in the mirror, finds a small cut on his neck. He returns to his row and finds Desmond sitting in the aisle seat. Each thinks the other looks familiar but don't recall ever meeting one another before. As Jack looks out the window again, the camera heads out of the plane, down through the clouds, into the water, right to the bottom, and finds the Island--four-toed statue, New Otherton, sonic fence, DHARMA shark, the whole shebang--sitting on the ocean floor.

The Incident: Jack drops the bomb, the construction site is destroyed, Juliet falls to the bottom of the drilling tunnel and smashes the bomb with a rock... and Kate wakes up in the jungle, alive, albeit with ringing ears. She finds Miles, Jack and Sawyer unconscious near what turns out to be the remains of the Swan hatch's destruction, and they realise that not only are they back in the present day, but the plan to change history failed. Sawyer starts beating Jack up, distraught over Juliet's death. Jack is almost as upset that their plan didn't work.

Jack heads to the bathroom, where Marshal Edward Mars is waiting outside. Kate emerges and bumps into Jack before being escorted back to her seat. The stewardesses deliver her an in-flight meal of lasagne, but the Marshal doesn't let her use the knife and fork. Sawyer bumps into the Marshal on the way back to his seat, which is adjacent to Hurley's. Dr. Arzt keeps badgering Hurley, asking about how he got to be the owner of Mr. Cluck's Chicken, and Hurley just admits he won the lottery. Sawyer warns Hurley that people will take advantage of him if they know he's a millionaire, but Hurley doubts it, because he's the luckiest guy alive.

In the jungle, Jin, Hurley and Sayid regain consciousness in the DHARMA van. Jin realises they just experienced a time flash before hearing Sawyer's yelling nearby and going to investigate, leaving Hurley with the badly-wounded Sayid. At the Swan, Jin arrives and lets them know Sayid still needs help, but Kate hears someone calling for help from inside the Swan's remains: Juliet. Sawyer and the others start trying to dig through the wreckage to get her out. In the jungle, Sayid is in bad shape, and wonders what will happen to him once he's died, in light of the life he lead. Hurley hears something moving in the jungle and investigates, only to find Jacob, who wants to talk.

Sun and Jin watch Rose and Bernard, the happy couple, from several rows back. Elsewhere, Boone--minus Shannon--is sitting near Locke, and they talk about what would happen in the plane went down. Locke tells Boone that he went on a walkabout in Australia, a "pretty intense" experience.''

"Boone: This thing goes down, I'm sticking with you."

Inside the statue, the "Man in Black"--the thing that looks like John Locke--cleans off the bloody knife and sends a shell-shocked Ben to fetch Richard. Outside, Richard is in a heated discussion with Ilana and Bram, while Lapidus and Sun watch and wonder who these newcomers are.

"Lapidus: They say they're the good guys.

Sun: [sarcastic look]

Lapidus: I'm not buying it either."

Ben emerges from the statue and, claiming that everything's fine, tells Richard that "Locke" wants to see him. Richard shows Ben the dead body of the real John Locke. At the Swan, the group are doing their best to dig Juliet out of the wreckage, but they need the DHARMA van to shift a heavy beam. In the jungle, Jacob tells Hurley that he died little more than an hour ago, and that only Hurley can see him because of his gift.

"Hurley: How'd you die?

Jacob: I was killed by an old friend who grew tired of my company."

Jacob tells Hurley that in order to save Sayid, they must take him to the Temple, and that Jin knows how to find it. He also tells Hurley to bring the guitar case. Jacob disappears as Jin returns to get the van. As they drive to the Swan site, Hurley confirms that Jin can find the Temple: he went there with the French team. Once at the Swan, they tie chains around the heavy beam and drag it clear using the DHARMA van. Sawyer swears that if Juliet dies, he'll kill Jack.

Cindy the stewardess asks Jack, who has identified himself as a doctor, to help them with a situation: a passenger has locked themselves in the bathroom and isn't responding to questions or requests. Sayid also volunteers to help, kicking down the door so that he, Jack and Cindy can get to Charlie, who's unconscious and not breathing. They start trying to resuscitate but there's something blocking Charlie's airways; Jack asks for the pen he carried in his jacket pocket, but it's gone. He reaches his fingers down Charlie's throat, pulls out a baggie of heroin that had been lodged in there throat, and he comes to.

"Charlie: Am I alive?

Jack: Yeah.

Charlie: Terrific."

At the Swan, the beam is pulled clear. Sawyer descends into the wreckage and finds Juliet, barely alive, and he promises to get her home. Outside the statue, Ben continues to play coy about what happened inside. Bram grabs Ben and goes into the statue with three of his men. Inside, the Man in Black tells them that Jacob is dead and that Bram is free of his obligations to him. Bram shoots the Man in Black, to no effect: he steps behind a pillar and disappears, and moments later the Smoke Monster arrives. It kills Bram's men, and initially can't get to Bram himself, who drew a circle of ash around himself, but it uses falling debris to force him into the open and impales him on Jacob's tapestry. Once Bram is dead, the Monster seems to disappear and Ben, who'd been hiding in a corner, goes to leave, only for the Man in Black to reappear at the entrance.

"The Man in Black: I'm sorry you had to see me like that."

At the Swan, Sawyer is trying to lift wreckage off of Juliet so that she can get free, while Juliet talks nonsense.

"Juliet: We can get coffee sometime. [...] We can go Dutch."

She tries to tell Sawyer something, something important, but mid-sentence she succumbs to her injuries and dies. Sawyer cries over her body for a few moments, then carries her out of the Swan wreckage and accuses Jack of being responsible.

Charlie is arrested by air marshals.

"Charlie: [to Jack] Should'a let that happen, man. I was supposed to die."

Jack heads back to his seat and finds that Desmond is gone and Rose doesn’t remember seeing him. Captain Norris makes an announcement over the PA, the fasten seat-belts sign is turned on, Oceanic 815 lands at LAX and the all the passengers disembark safely.

By the next morning, the DHARMA van has travelled as close to the Temple as it can. Jack, Kate, Jin and Hurley carry Sayid--and Hurley's guitar case--to the Temple while Sawyer and Miles stay behind to bury Juliet. Sawyer tells Kate that he has no intention of catching up with the rest of the group.

At LAX, Jack is summoned to the nearest courtesy desk by the PA and learns that his father's coffin is missing: apparently, it was never put on the plane in the first place.

Jin leads the group to the Temple's outer wall and Hurley shows them the entrance to underground tunnels that lead to the Temple itself. Inside the tunnel, they find the body of Montand, a member of Rousseau's science team. As they get further along, they start to hear whispers and disappear one at a time, until Jack is taken last of all by the Others. The group are brought at gunpoint to the Temple, a massive ziggurat surrounded by jungle.

The Marshal brings Kate through customs and she asks to use the bathroom. After checking one of the stalls in the ladies room, the Marshal gives her two minutes, and once inside she uses the pen she stole from Jack on the plane to try and pick the lock on her handcuffs. When the Marshal realises what's going on and demands that she get out, Kate gets the drop and knocks him unconscious. She takes his gun and his jacket (to hide the handcuffs), leaves the ladies room and gets an elevator to the ground floor, the same one as Sawyer. When airport security joins them, Sawyer covers for Kate.

Once Juliet is buried in the jungle, Sawyer reveals why he asked Miles to stay and help: he wants to know what Juliet was trying to say when she died, and forces Miles to read her.

"Miles: [doing the reading] It worked.

Sawyer: What did she wanna tell me?

Miles: That's what she wanted to tell you. It worked.

Sawyer: What worked?"

At the Temple, Jack, Kate, Hurley, Jin and Sayid are met by Dogen, the leader of this group of Others and man in charge of the Temple, as well as his interpreter Lennon. Cindy the stewardess, now with the Others, confirms the group's identity. Dogen orders they be shot, but Hurley tells him that the group was sent by Jacob and offers the guitar case as proof. Dogen opens the case and finds a large wooden ankh... which he smashes over his knee to get the slip of paper inside, a message from Jacob with Hurley, Jack, Kate, Jin and Sayid's names written on it.

"Lennon: Pick [Sayid] up, get him to the Spring.

Hurley: Hey, excuse me! I carried that case across the ocean, and like, through time. So I wanna know what that paper says.

Lennon: The paper said that if your friend there dies, we're all in a lot of trouble."

Sun and Jin are having trouble in customs, first because of the language barrier and later when a customs official finds $25,000 in undeclared cash in Jin's suitcase. As Jin is taken to a holding area, another official asks Sun--whom she addresses as "Ms. Paik"--whether or not she speaks English and if she could clear the matter up. Sun simply says "no English".

Sayid and the group are brought to the Lazarus Pit Deep Fryer of Doom Spring, a huge pool of water in a large stone room covered with hieroglyphics. However, the water--which is supposed to be clear--is a brown-black colour that concerns Dogen and Lennon. After warning Jack and the group that there are risks, Dogen turns over an hourglass while the Others lower Sayid into the spring. He convulses in the water, but they hold him under until the hoursglass runs out, at which point Sayid has gone completely limp. Once they've pulled him out, Dogen checks Sayid and declares that he is dead. Jack tries CPR anyway, but it does no good.

Sayid picks his bags up from the carousel as Kate walks past, trying to get out of the airport even though the police are on high alert. She sneaks into a staff-only area, exits onto the street and waits for the next free cab after getting yelled at by Frogurt for trying to take his. The Marshal sees her on the sidewalk, so Kate jumps into the nearest taxi and tells the driver at gunpoint to go, not realising that there's already another passenger: Claire.

At the spring, the group are waiting for something to happen while Cindy, Zach and Emma bring them some food. Sawyer and Miles are brought in, having been captured in the jungle. Lennon brings Hurley to meet with Dogen, who wants to know what Jacob told him. When Hurley reiterates that it was just instructions to bring Sayid to the Temple so that he could be saved, Dogen claims that Sayid was beyond saving... and Hurley notices that Dogen doesn't need Lennon to translate English back Japanese, only the other way around: he understands English perfectly, and has Lennon translate his Japanese purely for psychological effect. They ask when Jacob is going to arrive at the Temple and Hurley tells them that Jacob is dead, not realising they didn't already know. Dogen immediately orders the Others to "battle stations": they bring everyone inside the Temple and surround it with a circle of ash, fortify the gate and send up a flare.

"Hurley: Guess we're not getting outta here, huh?

Lennon: This isn't to keep you in. It's to keep him out.

Hurley: Him? Who?"

Inside the statue, Ben is still coming to grips with the fact that the Man in Black is the Smoke Monster, and that he manipulated Ben into killing Jacob because he couldn't do it himself.

"The Man in Black: You should know, he was very confused when you killed him.

Ben: I seriously doubt that Jacob was ever confused.

The Man in Black: I'm not talking about Jacob. I'm talking about John Locke. Do you wanna know what he was thinking while you choked the life out of him, Benjamin? What the last thought that ran through his head was? "I don't understand". Isn't that just the saddest thing you ever heard? But it's fitting in a way, because when John first came to the island, he was a very sad man. A victim, shouting at the world for being told what he couldn't do, even though they were right. He was weak, and pathetic, and irreparably broken. But despite all that, there was something admirable about him. He was the only one of them that didn't wanna leave. The only one who realized how pitiful the life he'd left behind actually was.

Ben: What do you want?

The Man in Black: Well that's the great irony here, Ben, because I want the one thing that John Locke didn't. I want to go home."

At the Spring, Kate tends to Sawyer as he wakes up and fills him in on what's happened. She tries to convince Sawyer not to do anything to Jack, but he's already calmed down.

"Sawyer: I ain't gonna kill Jack. He deserves to suffer on this rock just like the rest of us."

In LAX's Lost and Found office, Jack is waiting to find out about his father's coffin when he meets Locke, whose case of knives is missing. Jack, visibly upset, tells him about what happened to his father.

"Jack: Coffin was supposed to go on the plane in Sydney, but it didn't. Apparently he's somewhere in transit, which is their way of saying they have no idea where the hell he is.

Locke: Well, how could they know?

Jack: They're the one's that checked him in. I mean, they've gotta have some kind of tracking system--

Locke: No, I'm not talking about the coffin. I mean, how could they know where he is? They didn't lose your father, they just lost his body."

Jack takes some comfort in Locke's words. As thanks, he tells Locke that he's a spinal surgeon and offers a free medical consult. Locke says his condition is irreversible, but Jack replies that "nothing is irreversible."

Outside the statue, everyone sees the Temple flare explode in the sky above the Island, which panics Richard in particular. Moments later, the Man in Black and Ben emerge from the statue. Ilana and the Others aim there weapons but Richard orders them not to shoot. As Lapidus and Sun watch in disbelief, "Locke" walks right up to Richard.

"The Man in Black: Hello, Richard. It's good to see you outta those chains.

Richard: [realising] ...you?

The Man in Black: Me. [he beats Richard unconscious in seconds, then addresses the rest of the group:] I am very disappointed in all of you!"

The Man in Black throws Richard over his shoulder and walks into the jungle, right past the body of John Locke. At the Spring, Lennon arrives with a couple of Mooks, demanding that Jack come with him for a private conversation with Dogen. Jack refuses, and things are getting physical when Hurley calls everyone's attention to Sayid. Who, to the surprise of everyone, is waking up.