Season 1, Episode 19: Deus Ex Machina

Locke's undying optimism and faith will be put to the test — both in the real world and on the island.

MAJOR PLOT POINTS

Growing up, Locke loved the game Mouse Trap and it's a good thing, because he finds himself caught in the island's web and Anthony Cooper's web of deceit.

On the island, he is still obsessed with opening the hatch and believes a trebuchet will do the trick. It doesn't, but it does fire shrapnel into Locke's leg. Curiously, though, he doesn't feel a thing. In fact, he soon discovers he can't feel anything in his legs, which suddenly seem to be failing again. During a nightmare, he sees himself in a wheelchair again, but also sees a Beechcraft crash in the jungle. He's convinced it's a vision and talks Boone into journeying with him to find the plane despite Boone's growing doubts about Locke's, well, sanity.

The two come across a dead Nigerian priest — carrying a 9mm — in the jungle. Pressing on, Locke eventually collapses but protests Boone's pleas that they return to camp. Instead, he relays that he'd been in a wheelchair before the island healed him. As he bares his soul, Locke also spots the plane in the jungle canopy and Boone climbs up to investigate. Inside, he finds Virgin Marys stuffed with heroin as well as a radio. While sending out a mayday, and getting a response, the plane shifts and Boone crashes down with the wreckage before he can respond again.

Locke gets Boone back to the caves and into Jack's care, but lies about the circumstances of his injuries. He tells the other survivors that Boone fell off a cliff while hunting boar then disappears. Back at the hatch, a distraught Locke sobs in the rain atop the hatch only to have a light click on inside and beam up through the unbreakable window. Perhaps every seeming setback, the trebuchet and failing legs and Boone's injury all occurred to ensure Locke was there at that exact moment to see the light, so to speak.

Before his days in a wheelchair, we see Locke working in a toy store and hounded by a nut-job, red-headed woman — do they come any different? redheads or women? — claiming to be his mother. Raised in foster homes, Locke never knew his parents and, according to his schizophrenic mother doesn't have a father as he was immaculately conceived. Unwilling to take her at her word, Locke hires a private investigator to find out about his mom and dad.

And so, we are introduced to a new character, Anthony Cooper. Charismatic, apparently wealthy and eccentric, Locke is immediately drawn to his father, who takes him on hunting escapades and fills a void in Locke's life. Cooper's real agenda, however, is to find his unwanted son because he needs a kidney and doesn't want to wait out life on the donor list enduring dialysis. Locke agrees to give Cooper a kidney only to have his father disappear immediately after surgery. Since that was all he was after in the first place, Cooper wants nothing to do anymore with Locke.

Elsewhere, Sawyer is experiencing headaches and must reluctantly seek Jack's help. He embarrasses him in front of Kate, asking about his history with prostitutes and STDs, but eventually lets on that Sawyer needs glasses and fixes him up. Of course, he did it for Kate not Sawyer.

QUOTABLE

"I've done everything you asked me to do. Why did you do this to me?" — Locke crying atop the hatch after Boone was severely injured on the trip into the jungle to the Beechcraft