Rewatching LOST: 2.17 “Lockdown”

Locke finds himself trapped in the Swan station with Henry Gale, and witnesses an astonishing sight. Meanwhile, Ana-Lucia, Sayid, and Charlie discover Henry’s hot-air balloon, and with it, the answers they seek.

• After Henry’s “joke” about a potential trap waiting at the site of his balloon, Jack is agitated enough to leave the Swan station and go after them. When Henry presses his luck by trying again to trigger Locke’s jealousy of Jack’s role as leader, Locke finally sees through Henry’s manipulations and locks him back in the armory.
• Ana-Lucia, Sayid, and Charlie locate Henry Gale’s hot air balloon, out in the jungle where he said it would be. They also find the grave he claimed would be there, where his wife is buried.
• At the beach, Jack is met with suspicion over the secret everyone seems to know he’s keeping back at the Swan. In an attempt to procure some Neosporin from Sawyer for Libby, Jack cons Sawyer into playing poker against him, for all of the medicine Sawyer stole from the armory. Believing he’s the superior card player, Sawyer falls for Jack’s game, and loses when Jack bluffs him. Sawyer asks why Jack didn’t play for the guns instead, but Jack confidently replies, “When I need the guns, I’ll get the guns.”
• At the Swan station, Locke is alone with Henry when a garbled audio recording of a woman’s voice comes over the speakers and begins counting down to zero. When it reaches the end of the countdown, the station’s blast doors come down, trapping him in the center living area of the station. The station has entered some kind of automated lockdown mode. He unenthusiastically lets Henry out to help him try and pry open one of the doors, but Henry asks in exchange for Locke’s word that he’ll protect him from the other survivors, no matter what. Locke agrees. The two of them manage to lift one of the doors high enough to wedge a toolbox under, but when Locke tries to slide under, the door comes down again, destroying the toolbox and almost crushing his legs. Trapped beneath the weight of the blast door, Locke has no choice but to entrust Henry with pushing the button, which he expects to go off any minute. He instructs Henry on how to reach the dome room, and gives him the Numbers to input. Henry barely makes it in time, but before he does, the station’s power flickers off, emergency black lights come on, and Locke gets an unexpected eyeful from his position on the ground: an extremely detailed map of the Dharma stations on the island, with extensive handwritten notes surrounding it. Locke stares at it in wide-eyed wonder, trying to commit every detail to memory, believing the mysteries of the island have at last been laid bare before him. At last the lights come back on, the station is repowered, and the blast doors open, freeing Locke. He’s surprised to find that Henry stayed when he could have taken a prime opportunity to escape, and decides he trusts this man.
• While returning to the swan, Jack is stopped by Kate, who asks to tag along to take a shower. Jack lies and tells her the pipes are busted, but the two of them are interrupted by flashing lights in the jungle. They trace it to a parachute and a large palette packed full with Dharma food supplies. Ana-Lucia, Sayid, and Charlie arrive just then, on their way back to the Swan station…
• At the Swan, Henry is tending to Locke’s wound when Jack, Sayid, and the others show up — including Kate, who knows nothing of Henry until now. Sayid pulls his gun on Henry, and Jack throws him up against a wall. Sayid reveals that despite everything being at the site of the balloon just as Henry claimed it would be, Sayid decided to dig up the grave to be sure. And inside, he found not a woman, but a man — a dead man named Henry Gale, who most decidedly is not the “Henry” we know. There can no longer be any doubt: “Henry” is one of the Others.

• Some time after he’d made his choice of Helen over his father, at a time when he and Helen were happy and Locke was preparing to ask Helen to marry him, Locke learned that his father, Anthony Cooper, had died. A few days after the funeral, while performing an inspection on a house recently purchased by none other than Sayid’s long-lost love Nadia, Locke learned that his father was still alive, having faked his death. Cooper claimed that he had conned someone out of over $700,000, and the victim wanted him dead — hence, the faked death, to throw them off. He asked Locke to retrieve the money from a safe deposit box for him, in exchange for $200,000 of it. Against his better judgment, Locke went through with the arrangement, and lied to Helen about all of it. But she followed him to Cooper’s hotel room and caught him in his lie. Brokenhearted by this betrayal, she ended their relationship permanently.

• The man the survivors know as “Henry Gale” is, in fact, not the real Henry Gale. He is one of the Others, and he used the deceased Henry’s name and story as a means to lie about his true identity.
  Question: Is Henry telling the truth, or is he one of the Others? 2.14

• Who drew the map of the Dharma stations?
• What new information does the Dharma map reveal about the island and its mysteries?
• What is represented by the very conspicuous question mark at the center of the map?
• Who made the Dharma food drop?
• How often do the food drops take place?
• Why would the Dharma Initiative still be receiving food supplies on the island when it hasn’t been in operation on the island for what appears to be a very long time?
• The conclusion we’re meant to make from the episode is that the Swan station went into lockdown mode based on the timing of the food drop. So… why? Why would the station need to be locked down when a food drop was being conducted?
• What’s the real name of the man we know as Henry Gale?

• “Lockdown” is the fourth Locke-centric episode of the series.
• Yeesh, how many things can Anthony Cooper take from his son? First his kidney, now he’s largely responsible for Locke losing his woman. Of course, Locke wasn’t exactly blameless over the second one, having willingly lied to her and helped his father after all that he did to him. But had Cooper never come back into Locke’s life, he and Helen would still be together. And as we already know from Season 3, Cooper almost took his son’s life as well, when his attempt to kill Locke paralyzed him from the waist down.
• Speaking of kicking a guy while he’s down… How many different ways can one man injure both his legs? Good grief!
• The Dharma map shown on the blast door was a point of great study and debate amongst fans when it was first revealed. So much tantalizing information crammed into one image — more Dharma stations! mysterious symbols! something called “Cerebus” that could be the smoke monster! and a big question mark right in the center. I have to admit I’m disappointed that most of the map’s juicy bits of information have never been followed-up on, and some of it even turned out to be misleading. (There are lots more Dharma stations on the island than just the seven shown on the map, for example.) But maybe the map will be addressed again in Season 6. On the other hand, it’s interesting to note that the notations on the map that aren’t written in English are written in… (wait for it…) Latin! That’s right, the language of the Others. Hmm. What does it all mean? And will we ever find out?

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Image credits: “Rewatching Lost” logo by Robin Parrish. Season 2 cast promotional image and Dharma Initiative logo: American Broadcasting Company.