4.10 - Something Nice Back Home

Title’s significance: Bernard advises Jack to think of “something nice back home” during the surgery.

Recap: Remember how Jack wasn’t feeling well last episode? Turns out he’s having appendix issues, for which Juliet advises immediate surgery. While traipsing through the jungle with Sawyer and Claire, Miles gets a vibe that Rousseau and Karl are dead and finds their bodies, but Sawyer pushes to get back to the beach pronto. Juliet sends Sun, Jin, and the scientists to The Staff for surgical supplies; in typical do-gooder fashion, Jack wants to talk Juliet through the surgery. Sawyer’s riled up about Miles’s repeated contact with Claire, but when they find Frank in the jungle he tells them to hide from the approaching Keamy. As the surgery gets underway, it’s too much for Jack, so Bernard chloroforms him against his will. While in the jungle, Claire awakes to see Christian holding Aaron, and Juliet comes clean to Kate about her kiss with Jack, saying she thinks Jack’s in love with Kate. In the morning, Miles reveals to Sawyer that Claire skedaddled with her dad, but curiously she’s left Aaron behind. Flashforwards reveal that Jack and Kate are hooking up off-island, but more interestingly Jack’s seeing visions of his long-dead father. Jack visits Hurley, who theorizes that the Oceanic 6 actually died; Hurley reveals that Charlie has been speaking to him, sending a message that Jack isn’t supposed to raise Aaron. Jack’s not buying it and asks Kate to marry him; she agrees. At his office, he hears the smoke detector go off and is visited by his father again. Kate makes a mysterious phone call, which troubles Jack and drives him to drink until he lashes out about Kate’s promise to Sawyer, Aaron’s true parentage, and the fact that they shouldn’t get hitched.

Thoughts: There’s a critical flaw with flashforwards – characters can’t be put into life-threatening peril. We know that Jack’s going to be fine, so it’s difficult to muster up any suspense during this appendix issue; what’s more, Jack-centric episodes already have a tendency to leave me cold, so the flashforwards don’t really alleviate my boredom (least of all when Jack cries – again). Kind of makes you long for the days of “let’s fix a car,” don’t it? If anything, we can start to ask why the island didn’t heal Jack’s appendix – I think the island doesn’t want him to leave with the freighter people, which almost seems to make too much sense. We get a clue in this episode (as we’ve suspected by now) that the smoke monster has something to do with the apparitions of dead people – see the scene in Jack’s office, when the smoke alarm herald’s Christian’s arrival.

Favorite moment: Daniel telling Charlotte, “You have a really bad attitude.”

Characters introduced (in order):

• ERICA, a fellow doctor

What we learned:

• Jack’s appendix is removed.
• Charlotte speaks Korean.

Questions:

• Why was Jack allowed to fall ill?
• Why is Miles so interested in Claire?
• What actually powers the locations on the island?
• Who was Kate on the phone with?
• What promise did Kate make to Sawyer?
• As of this flashforward, has Jack found out that he’s Aaron’s uncle?
• Why would Claire so willingly abandon Aaron?

Things that are going to be important in Season Six:

• Aaron’s position off-island without Claire helps us know that the writers haven’t forgotten about this important plotline, but how will it show up in Season Six?
• As of Season Five, we still don’t know what would have possessed Claire to leave Aaron behind or what exactly the apparition of Christian is (or if it’s even the same apparition, since he’s dressed differently than he usually is).