Lost - Lockdown

***½ /  ****

Lost is just on a role with me right now! Lockdown is quite an incredible episode, even if the back story regarding Locke had me wanting to throw a rock at my television. There is nothing more frustrating that seeing a grown man with everything in his life on the upswing throwing it all away on a scumbag, no-good father who clearly is just using him…AGAIN. Locke says to his father…”Do you think I’m stupid?” And, sure enough, Locke does exactly as his father wants! He had a decent job and a strong romance (with Katey Sagal), just throwing it all away over…what? Tighe once again is a piece of shit..good as the manipulative cretin suckering a son seemingly unable to dispatch his influence. But the really good stuff is on the island. So Locke and “Henry” are seemingly trapped in the bunker due to engaged blast doors. Trying to force open one door he happened to get a crowbar underneath, Locke will have to get assistance from “Henry” in order to double the strength. “Henry” sees an opening to secure an ally in his favor (to serve as a protector), coercing Locke into agreeing to give his word of being kept from harm in order to assist. Locke ends up with a leg injury after a tool box further widens the gap of the blast door from the floor, needing “Henry” to help keep the opening secure with weights in a pile on top of each other. All of this really works to maneuver Locke into a difficult spot opposite the camp and “Henry” gains, it seemed during the original arrangement before the leg injury, protection from the mob. Then comes the clock ticking down, the regular lights going off and the neon turning on to reveal a peculiar glow-in-the-dark map, until “Henry” travels through a ventilation shaft to the computer to punch in the numerical code and Execute. That map Locke locks eyes on certainly has its significance, but what that is will have to wait until later. Each clue the show dallies before us, tasty chum for us to consume until its purpose is later revealed, keeps us intrigued. I admire that. I can only imagine the time spent by many viewers, fixed on that map (clever camera shot of the map in Locke’s captivated eye, reflecting it), wondering what it is. When Locke and Jack first enter the bunker, a painting on the wall (a type of mural) caught my eye as it seemed to also lure their attention to it. However, since then I haven’t spotted it or noticed any camera attention to it. It could very well be an Easter egg specifically for that episode, much like the Dharma insignia on the fin of the shark when Jin, Michael, and Sawyer were still on the raft. This map Locke is given the opportunity to see in “full glow” just appears to be something quite more. Just the same, the burial site doesn’t quite have the body of this captive’s wife…and the one dead has a license with Henry Gale on it! So whoever this guy is…he might have some explaining to do!