Review: Lost 4.11: Cabin Fever

Richard Alpert observes Baby Locke.

"...destiny, John, is a fickle bitch". Ben

After the banality of last week, we return to the core storyline with a Locke-centric episode that sets the ground for the finale. As this season's penultimate story, it feels like a fitting tribute to a character whose signficance is set to rocket in the succeeding two seasons. Elsewhere, the episode finally knuckled down and got moving.
     Since Locke doesn't get off the island (not yet, anyway), we have a long series of flashbacks for this episode. First we see his birth; his teenage mother gave birth to him prematurely after a road accident and then subsequently gave him up for adoption. The immortal leader of the Others, Richard Alpert, is watching, and arrives at his foster parents' house a few years later, claiming to be from a "special school." He presents Locke with a number of island related items - a vial of the Island's sand, a knife, a comic book talking about other lands, and so on. He asks Locke which of the items "belong to [him] already." When the five-year-old boy picks the sand, the compass and then, in particular, the knife, Alpert storms out, claiming Locke isn't "ready".
     Later, in middle school, a science teacher releases a 16-year-old Locke from a locker. The science teacher tells him about a program for gifted students up in Portland (where we know, from Season Three, that Alpert's off-island company is based). Locke refuses, saying that "science camp is what gets [him] put in lockers." The science teacher offers him some advice, telling Locke that he is a certain type of person and no matter what he wants, he will never be the "popular kid". Locke rebuts him with his catchphrase, "Don't tell me what I can't do." Thirty years later, after Locke is paralysed by his father, the mysterious Abbadon poses as a hospital porter and tells Locke to go on a walkabout in Australia to clear his mind - the same walkabout that led to him being on flight Oceanic 815 in the first place.
     These examinations of Locke's past feel sporadic and out of place, despite how much they key into the character as a whole. They were edited well into the other sections of the episode but ultimately they were distractions from the rest of the action.

Keamy's device.

    In the present, two yarns were unfolding. We once again followed Locke, Ben and Hurley in their quest to find Jacob's Cabin, the home of the island's legendary deity. Ben, who is supposed to be Jacob's intermediary, admits that he has little to no idea where he is going, and has simply been following Hurley. They camp for the night, and Locke has a dream where 70s DHARMA member Horace Goodspeed tells him to find his corpse. The next morning, Locke leads the others to the DHARMA mass burial, where Ben dumped their bodies fifteen years prior. In Goodspeed's corpse's pocket lies the cabin's schematics, with which they then locate the cabin. Locke goes in alone, finding an eerie Claire and Jack's father, Christian Shepherd, who appears randomly about the island. Christian gives Locke "Jacob's message," which he then relays to Locke - "We have to move the island."
    Meanwhile, on the boat, Martin "Obvious Villian" Keamy and what remains of his mercenary troupe return. He finds out about Michael, but leaves him to prepare for his final assault on the island - his "Secondary Protocol" to kill everyone on the island. He has a strange device strapped to his bicep. The Captain is wary of Keamy's plans and knows that he will mutiny, and thus conspires with Sayid and Desmond for them to use the freighter's Zodiac Raft to begin ferrying people from the island, where Keamy intends to go, to the safety of the Freighter. Just before Keamy and his troupe set off for the island, The Captain confronts him with a gun, but is shot before he can work out what Keamy's device is for.

See quote.

    Unlike last week, where things dragged a little, Cabin Fever kept up the pace and moved everything into placein a compelling way. A lack of anything to do with the Quadrangle certainly helped in matters, with conversation here more stimulating that trite. My favourite exchange cmes from the Locke storyline, where Ben warns him about the dangers of being "chosen," digging at the philosophy that seems to keep Locke standing. It adds another dimension to both characters - emphasising Locke's idealist stubbornness and Ben's frustration with his current situation. Meanwhile, on the Freighter, we got yet another glimpse (as if The Shape of Things To Come wasn't enough) of Keamy's destructive tendencies - notably in his killing of the Doctor, who because of the time differential between the island and the outside world has already washed up on the beach back in that earlier episode. All good Time Travel fun.
     Next week - the first part of the three hour finale, There's No Place Like Home!

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