Episode 4 Summary
Flash sideways: Jack notices a faint scar on his stomach from getting his appendix out, although he doesn’t even remember the surgery. Jack picks up his son, David. Jack apparently only sees David once a month. He then goes to help Margo find Christian’s will. Jack’s mother comments that David was extremely upset at “the funeral.” She also implies that David may be terrified of Jack, similar to how Jack was with his own father. Then Margo finds the will, where Claire Littleton is mentioned. Jack comes home with pizza for David, who has disappeared. He goes to find David, and upon going into his bedroom at his mother’s house, learns that David is at a piano recital. Dogan approaches Jack to talk about the pressure on David and the fact that he has such a gift for music. After the recital, David admits to Jack that he made his mother promise not to tell Jack that he was still playing. David didn’t want Jack to see him fail, to which Jack says that he “just wants to be a part of his [David’s] life.”
Island:
Temple: Hugo goes into the Temple and sees Jacob, who wants Hugo to help “someone” who is coming to the Island. Meanwhile, Sayid questions Jack about his disease. Hugo, who is the only one who can see Jacob, explores the Temple and tells Jacob to tell Dogan that he is a “candidate.” However, Hugo must bring Jack on Jacob’s “little adventure.” After Hugo explains that “[Jacob] turns up where he wants, like Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Jack agrees to go with him. Hugo leads Jack through the jungle, and they run into Kate, who is going to find Claire. Hugo and Jack continue walking, and make it to the caves, where they find Shannon’s inhaler and skeletons. Jack explains how discovered the caves. Hugo asks Jack why he came back to the island, and Jack responds that he was “broken” and thought the island could fix it. As they talk, the two walk out of the jungle and see a lighthouse. They go into the lighthouse and see a dial surrounded by mirrors, with names listed around the dial. Jack pulls the chains and sees his childhood home in the mirror. Jack realizes that Jacob has been watching them the whole time and smashes the mirrors. Later, Jacob appears to Hugo again and says that Jack needed to see the mirrors in order to realize what he is supposed to do. Now, Jacob is trying to get Hugo and Jack from the Temple because someone horrible is coming there, but it’s “too late” to stop.
Jungle: Claire has been running around the jungle for three years, which she tells Jin as she releases him from the trap he was caught in. Jin finds himself in a shelter built by Claire and discovers that she has a fake baby that she is obviously using to cope with the disappearance of her son. The man who was holding Jin captive said that he knows Claire and she will kill them. Apparently the Temple people took Claire in because she was killing their people. Claire interrogates the man because she believes that the Temple people have her baby. However, Jin steps in and says that Kate is actually raising Aaron. Even after hearing that, Claire still kills the man from the Temple. Jin then tells Claire that he lied and that the men at the Temple have Aaron to prevent Claire from killing Kate. Suddenly, John appears and Claire says, “That’s not John, that’s my friend.”
Destiny vs Free Will
Kate: Jack asks “Is leaving [the island] an option?” to which Dogan replies, “Everything is an option.” Those at the Temple must not accept the idea of destiny if they still see the ability to choose.
Jack’s Son
Kate: Strike 1: He’s a Sox fan. At first, I really didn’t like David because he was so unresponsive to Jack’s advances. But you can’t blame him for being slightly uncomfortable around a father he never sees. He’s extremely talented though. But who is the mother—Sarah? I guess Jack describes their relationship the best: “Communication isn’t one of his [David’s] strong points.” It’s not that surprising that Jack isn’t the best father- he seems to have some issues with communication himself still, and struggles to maintain relationships (for instance, his on and off relationship with Kate). I thought he’d be better though—he was a pretty good father figure to Aaron. Still, the love he has for his son is obvious. He’s not the same (somewhat) verbally abusive father that Christian was.
Joey: This week, we added a father-son bond to Jack’s list of broken relationships. Sure, Jack’s successful, but all of his relationships are in the gutter. This guy needs some serious work. Jack’s experience with his son David opened the viewer’s eyes to Jack’s abundance of daddy issues, stemming from childhood. However, I was happy to see Jack make an effort to reconnect with his talented son. But here’s the real question: could Jack protect the island? I’d say no. At this point, he has too many unresolved issues.
Claire on the Island
Kate: Claire also is showing some similarities to Michael, screaming about her kid all the time. Please don’t let this be a repeat of season 2.
Also, Claire is friends with FL. She knows that he isn’t the real John, but I doubt she realizes that he’s so evil. And where is Sawyer right now—I thought he and FL were trying to get off of the island? I guess not, because they must be headed towards the Temple, and FL is the evil person Jacob was talking to Hurley about.
Joey: Besides making a fake baby from animal carcasses, Claire took an axe to another person this week. She’s gone mental, which is why she’s strikingly similar to Rousseau. Like Rousseau, she has crazy hair and lives each moment in frustration as she fights for her lost baby. It’s history repeating.
Lighthouse
Kate: This must be the equivalent of the cave in last episode. Jack smashing the mirrors isn’t really surprising—he can be so irrational! The man of science could never trust anything that seems slightly off. This is stressed even more when Jacob says that it’s harder to convince Jack than just jumping in the back of his cab like Jacob did to Hurley. Specifically about the mirrors, I would think that they would tell Jacob when to enter people’s lives.
Walczyk: 108 is the sum of the numbers.
Joey: Yikes. Jack has issues. That seems to be a recurring theme this week. After seeing a reflection of his childhood home in the lighthouse mirrors, Jack decided to break the mirror during a bout of rage.
Candidates
Kate: I want to know what happened to the other candidates. There’s a ton of them, most of them scratched out. Did they die in pursuit of protecting the island (a la Jacob) or in running away from their job? How many of them knew they were candidates?
Kate Froehlich can be reached for comment at [email protected]
Joey Hoff can be reached for comment at [email protected]
Allison Walczyk can be reached for comment at [email protected]