Lost - Locke's Secrets

I think you could have also used the title “Heroes” to describe the episode of “Do No Harm”. Of course, I use that as irony because Boone’s fate is determined, in some ways, behind Locke’s decisions to keep the hatch a secret and go on the mission for the plane without telling anyone else. Boone keeping all of this secret was bothering him. Locke seemed to think it was all for the best. Now in “Do No Harm”, Boone is dying, Jack is left with limited resources to keep him alive, and Locke is out in the jungle away from the responsibility that he must answer for. Because Locke pushed Boone into silence, urged him to help conceal the secret of the hatch and look for ways to open it, and encouraged his involvement in finding the plane. Jack must perform a transfusion, set his leg (not knowing that the leg was crushed in the plane’s crash from the cliff), and endure a loss of blood. Locke has been considered for most of the show as a larger-than-life figure with all kinds of expertise and depended on by others to help in the survival on the island. But he took it upon himself to keep certain facts hidden from others. Do I think he was right in that? No. I don’t. I think his reasons weren’t selfish, though. Or he wouldn’t have involved Boone. Yes, he might have needed a second pair of hands in the opening of the hatch, and perhaps he felt that the dangers that might have existed on the other side of it were great enough not to involved the others. But was that just his decision to make? It was clear (and has remained clear) that this hatch is an obsession. He just has to know what is on the other side of the hatch. While the plane was a separate situation altogether, Locke, once again, decided to hold it secret. Was it his choice to make? I don’t think so. Again, if there is something important within the jungle others deserve to know. Because what lies within could affect all of them, Locke owed it to the camp to tell them of what he had found. And as for the plane itself, Locke kept that from the others also. Even as Boone is dropped off at camp for Jack to take care of, without facing the music, Locke removes himself.  This turn of events, as Boone deteriorates and blood collects (“blood compression”) where the crushed leg is, Locke is out in the jungle languishing with the hatch. Towards the end of the first season, Locke’s presence on the island has, quite frankly, taken a hit. He made decisions that could cost a young man his life (granted, Locke told Boone to get out of the plane before it crashes, he was the initiator in his going into it to begin with…) and concealed certain important facts that others needed to know. He has to answer for this…

I plan to dedicate a single entry for Boone. I liked this kid and felt Somerhalder was perhaps done a disservice by the show to bump him off so early in its run. Maybe there was nothing left for the character, but I feel he could have contributed in some ways left untapped…