Wading in the Velvet Sea

“Back” Story

Back during the Fall series of episodes, I theorized that the tumor that Jack saw on the wall of the Hydra Hospital was in fact John Locke’s. That he had some sort of spinal tumor that was healed the minute he landed on the island, just as Rose’s tumor was healed. Course, turns out that I was wrong, and was proven wrong the very next week, which made me very mad and cranky and sent me straight for a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia and my “Sex and the City” DVDs.

But this, the actual explanation? Very satisfying indeed.

You had to know that somehow Locke’s father would be at the crux of the injury, but I defy any of you to assume he’d be the literal cause of the injury. I figured that something related to Locke’s dad would send Locke into paralysis, like if Locke were in a car chase trying to catch up with him, or if his dad spilled some milk in Aisle 4 and Locke slipped and fell a few minutes later. Something like that. But to throw him out of an 8th story window? Damn. Well, Locke always wanted to play catch with his dad. Turns out Anthony Cooper was fine with a game of catch, so long as he played it with the ground below using Locke as the ball.

And with that thud, a huge chunk of Locke’s backstory fell into place. Pretty much the center piece, really. The other bits and pieces have filled in the periphery, but this one pretty much fills in the entire picture. So much so that I can’t imagine the need for any more Locke flashbacks. Which may mean that John Locke will not see Season 4.

Man in The Box

I’m really going to have to think about this one for a while.

Earlier in the episode, Ben asks Tom to get “the man from Tallahassee”. Tom is naturally perturbed by this request, mostly because Jack had promised Tom that he’d give him a massage while the two watched “In and Out”. OK, I made that up. But that little tidbit of info, that little request, was all but forgotten, least on my part, during the intense chamber drama between Ben and Locke. Especially when Ben brought up the magic box that grants one’s wishes. Because that was so far out of left field that I stopped typing notes on my laptop and made sure The Girl hadn’t slipped roofies into my Diet Coke.

But Ben wants Locke to belief (and right now, the show wants us the viewers to believe) that there’s a “box”, for lack of a better analogy on Ben’s part, that essentially gives the person who opens it exactly what he wants. Locke is skeptical at first, mostly because his mindset is, “There’s somethin’ that needs destroyin’, and that’s just what I do/One of these days, John Locke’s gonna blow your ass up too/Ready C4? Start blowin’!” But in retrospect, Locke should have believed in this notion, since he himself posited the very same thing in Season 1 to Charlie. If you remember “The Moth”, Locke tells Charlie that the Island might be able to provide Charlie a guitar, but that Charlie would have to give the island something in return. Presto chango, look up, there was the guitar.

The same basic principle worked here, but in a subtler way. Locke gave Ben something he wanted: namely, an escape from the Catch-22 he found himself in with Juliet and Jack. In return, the “box” (not Ben, and this is an important point to note) gave Locke the one thing that was essentially crippling him: the inability to confront his father after the attempt on his life.

Steeled Wheels

The word “crippling” here of course has a double meaning, just as Ben’s question, “Did it hurt?” had two levels. What we see in the flashback illuminated what was going on on the Island (a crucial aspect of any successful flashback), and what it served to illuminate, for me, was the logic in Locke’s head during his encounter with Ben. For Locke, the wheelchair is a prison. It’s a state of pure powerlessness. To see the look in his eyes when lifted against his will into the wheelchair for the first time is to see pure terror.

As such, Locke is completely confidant, overconfident, in fact, that he has the upper hand when dealing with Ben simply because, as he states, “You’re in the wheelchair, and I’m not.” Ben knows this psychological stance and simply plays into it, feeding Locke’s ego and once again pushing Locke in precisely the way he wanted to. Moreover, after Locke’s departure, he secured the future loyalty of Jack and Juliet, two people who will definitively serve Ben in the war that’s to come. Smart guy. Must be the eyes. Good lord, they creep me out. Have I mentioned that? They creep me out.

But getting back to power for a second: remember, Ben states early on that Tom was to get “the man from Tallahassee”. Locke’s father? Been there longer than that night. He didn’t materialize in that room (itself not the “box”, because the “box” isn’t literal, after all). I’m thinking we’re going to find out that Locke’s dad came to the Island…80 days ago. The same day as the plane crash. Ben mentions Locke’s special relationship with the Island, and I think it’s fair to say that the same thing that healed Locke also brought the source of the injury to the Island as well.

Every Little Thing He Does is Magic

It’s very tough to parse anything Ben says as canon, so there’s a silo of salt associated with what’s to be theorized now, but I’m going to pull a Locke and trust Ben to tell a kernel of truth. And that truth is Locke’s unique relationship to the Island as being not merely unique, but one-of-a-kind. Ben cannot access it, Tom cannot access it, and Kate can’t walk eight feet without being captured by an Other, so she CERTAINLY cannot access it. But Locke can, and as such, is pretty much now established to be the most important person on the Island.

There’s two ways this relationship can go forth. In one sense, Locke can potentially make the Island into what he wants. He can’t do it consciously yet, but if my theory about his dad is correct, coupled with the guitar trick in Season 1, then we have a potential scenario where the island can produce things based on Locke’s will. We’ve seen this “mind over matter” stuff throughout the series, but I think Locke’s ability is both the most underdeveloped and the most potentially powerful. Until now, he’s seen the island as above him, so to speak, with he himself as merely a humble inhabitant. His disgust as the “perversion” of the island by The Others (something I predicted in my podcast) also demonstrates how pure this Island is to him.

On the other hand, Locke is potentially the person through whom the Island can finally do its GREAT WORK. I say GREAT WORK and type it in ALL CAPS because it’s the POTENTIAL REASON THE PLANE CRASHED. Also? There’s no way to tell just now if this great work is in fact the salvation of mankind or the end of it.

Remember back to the backgammon game: white and black. Remember the two iterations of Smokey: white and black. This duality pervades the show, and pervades Locke the most. Throughout the course of the show, with the exception of Ben, no other character’s come as close to being as inscrutable as Locke. Just when you get a handle on him, the rules change and off he goes into another direction. A shaman to a button-pusher to the potential key to unlocking the Island’s true power: quite a journey.

This unique relationship with the Island, coupled with the power struggles already forming within the Others, points towards a huge shakeup by season’s end. Will John Locke soon lead the Others, rename themselves Smokey’s Bears, and run riot until Smokey's possible end game---getting off the island---finally reaches fruition?

Final Thoughts

I haven’t even touched on anything unrelated to Ben and Locke, since that was by far the most interesting aspect of the show for yours truly. But other forward progress was made as well. Alex learning her mother is alive, Danielle seeing Alex for the first time in sixteen years, Anthony Cooper drinking the same whiskey as Charles Widmore, Tom’s seeming loyalty to Jack (letting him into the house for a few minutes behind Ben’s (admittedly sore) back, Jack wondering if Juliet and Kate were going to fight over him, and if so, if there was any Dharma Initiative pudding around that the two could roll around in while fightin’ fer their manly man. All good and interesting, but just not as interesting as “Ben and John’s Magic Box Hour”. Just sorta dominated the landscape for me.

But now it’s your turn: how did Locke’s dad end up there? Is Locke’s dad Jacob? Is Jack’s dad Jacob? Is this whole thing just one big “You should eaten your peas like I told you, and now that you haven’t, I’m going to plan on eventually sending you to an island where you can’t get away except by submarine or magic box” on the part of the fathers of the passengers of Oceanic 815? Now that the submarine’s gone, will the line between “Others” and “Lostaways” melt, leaving two camps: those that want to stay and those that want to go?

A magic box? Really? Really?