Season 3, Episodes 22 and 23:
Through the Looking Glass
Charlie's final warning.
Written by Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof.
Directed by Jack Bender.
"We have to go back, Kate. We have to go back!"
Jack leads the survivors to the Radio Tower. Ben and Alex meet Jack's group, and Ben tells Jack that the people on the freighter are not who they claim to be. Alex is reunited with Danielle. Jack refuses to hand over Naomi's phone, even when Ben threatens to kill Jin, Sayid and Bernard. Hearing three gunshots over Ben's walkie-talkie, Jack flies into a rage and beats him to a pulp. After Charlie unjams the signal and Rousseau's meassage is switched off, Naomi gets a signal on the phone. Locke, having been saved by an apparition of Walt, throws a knife into Naomi's back, but is unable to convince Jack not to contact the boat.— Jack Shephard
At the beach, Pryce and Tom lead the Others' raid. Sayid and Bernard successfully detonate their dynamite, killing many Others, but Jin's fails to go off, and the trio are captured. Jack allows Sawyer and Juliet to return and help the others. Hurley tries to join them, but they tell him he will only get in the way. However, he saves the day by crashing onto the beach in the DHARMA van, running over Pryce. Sawyer kills the surrendering Tom for kidnapping Walt. Hurley informs Jack over the walkie that everyone is ok.
At the Looking Glass, Charlie is interrogated by his captors, Bonnie and Greta, who contact Ben and tell him that Charlie is there. Ben sends Mikhail, who shoots at Desmond in the outrigger, forcing him to dive into the station, where he hides at Charlie's prompting. Ben orders Mikhail to kill Bonnie, Greta and Charlie. Mikhail kills Greta and shoots Bonnie, but is shot with a speargun by Desmond. Bonnie gives Charlie the code to turn off the jamming signal before she dies. When he turns it off, he receives a call from Penny, who tells him that she is not on the freighter and doesn't know who Naomi is. Mikhail suddenly appears at the window and blows himself up with a grenade, flooding the room. Charlie locks himself in to save Desmond, who watches through a window, and writes the words "NOT PENNY'S BOAT" on his hand to warn him, before he drowns.
Off the Island, a desolate, alcoholic Jack, on board an Oceanic flight, reads about the death of someone he knew in the obituaries. He is about to kill himself by jumping off a bridge, but is stopped when a car crashes behind him, and he rushes to save the occupants. He is the only attendant at a memorial for the person whose death he read about. The final scene reveals that these are not flashbacks, but flashforwards, as Jack meets Kate, and tells her that they have to go back to the Island.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Actually Pretty Funny:
- Jack can't help but laugh a little when Rose tells him where to stick his Catchphrase."If you say 'live together die alone' to me, Jack, I'm gonna punch you in your face.""Fair enough, Rose. Fair enough."
- Sawyer chuckles when Juliet asks him if he's screwing Jack.
- Jack can't help but laugh a little when Rose tells him where to stick his Catchphrase.
- Ambiguous Situation:
- In the flashforward, Kate mentions that she has to get home, because "he" will be wondering where she is. Who she's talking about is not revealed until later in the series.
- It's also not revealed yet whose death Jack reads about in the newspaper.
- Anachronistic Clue: The fact that Jack uses a 2006 Motorola KRZR is the only clue that what we're seeing are not flashbacks, which all take place pre-2004.
- And This Is for...: Sawyer shoots and kills Tom, then tells him, "That's for taking the kid off the raft."
- Armor-Piercing Question: Ben bluntly asks Jack why he's so determined to leave the Island."Let me ask you something, Jack. Why do you wanna leave the Island? What is it that you so desperately want to get back to? You have no-one. Your father's dead, your wife left you, moved on with another man. Can you just not wait to get back to the hospital? Get back to fixing things?"
- Armor-Piercing Response: Jack gives one to Kate when he tells her he's been flying every week.Jack: I've been flying a lot.
Kate: What?
Jack: Yeah, that golden pass that they gave us...I've been using it. Every Friday night I...fly from LA to Tokyo or, Singapore, Sydney. And then I...I get off, and I...have a drink, and then I fly home.
Kate: Why?
Jack: Because I want it to crash, Kate. I don't care about anybody else on board. Every little bump we hit, or turbulence, I mean, I...I actually close my eyes, and I pray that I can get back. - Artistic License – Physics: When the communications room floods, the water is able to fill the entire room even though it's watertight. Unless there was another place for the air to escape, the water wouldn't have risen above the porthole, thus leaving Charlie in an air pocket until Desmond could get him out. He would still have likely ended up dead, since the air pocket would eventually run out of oxygen, but he would have suffocated rather than drowned.
- Beard of Sorrow: The flashes show Jack drinking heavily, contemplating suicide and sporting a very thick beard. The beard stands out as Jack is usually either cleanshaven or lightly stubbled.
- Big Damn Heroes: Jin, Sayid and Bernard are at the mercy of the Others on the beach, and Sawyer and Juliet, unarmed and watching from the trees, are discussing how hopeless any attempts to rescue them are, when Hurley comes thundering out of the jungle in the DHARMA van and runs over Ryan Pryce, giving the survivors the opening to win the battle.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Others are largely defeated. Their beach camp raid is foiled, with Tom's group being wiped out, Jin, Sayid, and Bernard are saved, and Ben is captured. The jamming signal is disabled, allowing the survivors to contact the freighter and give them hope that rescue is finally on the way. However, Desmond's premonition comes true and Charlie dies in the process. As well, we learn that the people on the freighter are not who they claim to be, and a foreboding feeling hangs in the air. Finally, it is revealed in the future that at least Jack and Kate escape the island, but Jack has become more broken and depressed than ever and longs to return.
- Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Ben admits that he locked Karl in a cage and tried to brainwash him because he didn't want Alex to get pregnant, though he says he did overreact.
- Break His Heart to Save Him: In a situation very reminiscent of what Charlie did at the end of "Greatest Hits", Sawyer insults Hurley's weight when the latter offers to come help him and Juliet rescue Jin, Sayid, and Bernard as a way of keeping him from committing to a potential suicide mission, as Juliet had just revealed that she lied about the gun cache they were ostensibly heading to so that Jack would let them leave. While Hurley is visibly hurt by Sawyer's comments that he'll "just get in the way", he doesn't allow it to dissuade him, instead pulling a Big Damn Heroes moment by driving his van into the camp and providing everyone a distraction to get the jump on Tom's group.
- Call-Back: Kate mentions that she saw Jack on the news, noting that he's still pulling people out of wreckage. Jack says, "Old habits."
- Cassandra Truth: Ben spends the whole episode trying to convince Jack that the people on the freighter are not who they claim to be, which Jack, naturally, doesn't believe for a second, because he's Ben. Charlie's conversation with Penny reveals that she did not send the freighter, and Ben has been telling the truth all along.
- Chekhov's Gun: It turns out that the Others were building a runway on Hydra Island.
- Condescending Compassion: Sarah comes across this way in the flashforwards. When Jack is in the hospital, she shows up to see him as she was still listed as his emergency contact. Although she's ostensibly there to check he's okay, her presence, pregnancy and patronising attitude do nothing but rub in how she's moved on with her life, and she refuses to give Jack a ride home, claiming that would be inappropriate, begging the question of why she showed up at all.
- Crying Wolf: Even though Ben is telling the truth about the freighter crew not being who they say they are, he's destroyed his credibility with the survivors by lying to them about pretty much everything since the day he met them.
- Emerging from the Shadows: Jack finally calls someone and asks to meet them at the airport. He sees a car pull up, and the driver who emerges...is Kate.
- The Ending Changes Everything: The final scene, revealing that Jack's supposed flashbacks were actually flashforwards, completely changes the meaning of those scenes, as viewers go from wondering how Jack changed from the broken wreck he appeared to be to the confident leader we've seen in the series so far, to wondering what happened after he left the Island to turn him into such a mess.
- Face Death with Dignity: The last thing Charlie does before he drowns is perform the Sign of the Cross.
- First Kiss: Jack and Juliet kiss for the first time before she heads off to the beach with Sawyer to help Jin, Bernard and Sayid.
- Heroic BSoD: It's clear that since leaving the Island, something has happened to Jack that makes him a wreck. He constantly flies over the Pacific and prays the plane will crash so he can get back.
- His Name Is...: Subverted. Charlie is forced to lock the communications room before he can warn Desmond that Penny didn't send the freighter. However, he's able to write "NOT PENNY'S BOAT" on his hand with a marker and show it to him before he drowns.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Ben killed his father during the DHARMA purge and ordered that he be left in the van. That same van was later found by Hurley, who uses it to create an opening to defeat the last of the Others' strike team.
- Hope Spot: Desmond and Charlie have defeated the Others in the Looking Glass, Charlie turns off the jamming signal, and for a moment, it looks as though he will make it out without his fated death coming to pass. Then Mikhail turns out to be Not Quite Dead, and causes Charlie to drown, just as Desmond predicted.
- Interrupted Suicide: Off the Island, Jack is about to throw himself off the Sixth Street Viaduct bridge in L.A. when a car crashes nearby. His Chronic Hero Syndrome causes him to abandon the jump to help the driver and her son. In an ironic twist, when the driver wakes up from surgery she reveals she lost control of the car because she was distracted by seeing Jack standing on the railing about to jump.
- I Surrender, Suckers: Defied. Sawyer claims he shot Tom in anticipation that he might try to pull one of these.Hurley: Dude, it was over. He surrendered.
Sawyer: I didn't believe him. - Just Following Orders: Mikhail uses this justification when he shoots Bonnie and Greta. Ironically, Bonnie herself inadvertently convinces him to go through with it with this argument.Mikhail: Then why do you need to be here?
Bonnie: Because Ben told us to. We were following orders.
Mikhail: And you never asked why?
Bonnie: No. Because I trust him. And I trust Jacob. And the minute I start questioning orders, this whole thing, everything that we're doing here falls apart.
Mikhail: [To Greta] She makes an excellent point.
[He shoots them both] - Lonely Funeral: In one flashforward, Jack visits a funeral parlor where a coffin is on display for a viewing. The funeral director tells Jack he's the only person who's come.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Aaron randomly starts crying at more or less the exact moment Charlie dies. Coincidence, or Aaron psychically sensing the death of his surrogate father?
- Meta Twist: For three seasons, Lost has been well known for its extensive use of flashbacks, meaning most viewers were taken completely off guard by the reveal that Jack's scenes off the Island in this episode were actually flashforwards.
- Missed Him by That Much: Desmond comes within only a few feet of speaking with Penny before Charlie is forced to seal the room.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Bonnie gives up the code to turn off the jamming signal with her last breaths after Ben has Mikhail kill her and Greta.
- Neck Snap: Sayid snaps an Other's neck with his legs.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The survivors appear to be completely screwed until Ben orders Mikhail to kill Bonnie and Greta, with Charlie captured and Desmond hiding in a closet. Bonnie and Greta's Undying Loyalty to the Others meant they would never have given up the code to the jamming signal, while Mikhail would undoubtedly have been able to find and kill Desmond sooner or later. However, Mikhail killing Greta and shooting Bonnie gives Desmond the opening to ambush him as well as giving Bonnie the motivation to tell Charlie the code.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Jack beats Ben so badly his knuckles start bleeding when he makes him believe that Jin, Sayid and Bernard are dead.
- Nothing Is the Same Anymore: The flashforwards confirming that Jack and Kate eventually make it off the Island, and that Jack's new goal becomes to get back there, is a major game changer, as most audiences to this point had assumed none of the survivors would get off the Island until the end of the show.
- Not Quite Dead:
- Ben orders Tom and Ryan to shoot Sayid, Jin, and Bernard if they don't hear from him in one minute, and Jack then hears three gunshots on the radio. Later, it's shown that the Others instead shot into the sand and the three are still alive and unharmed.
- Once again, Mikhail survives a seemingly fatal injury, as he recovers from being shot with a speargun in order to blow himself up with a grenade and kill Charlie in the process.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Ben, when he realizes that Juliet told the survivors about his plan.
- The Others, when they find that the tents are empty.
- Desmond, when he sees that Mikhail is gone, and Charlie, when he sees that he's outside the station holding a grenade.
- The Reveal: Sawyer asks Juliet what they were breaking rocks for on Hydra Island. She tells him that they were building a runway.
- Sequel Hook: While Charlie warns Desmond that the boat was not sent by Penny, Jack makes contact with them and is told they will be rescued soon. Then the final scene shows that at least Jack and Kate made it off the island, but he is so broken that he says they need to go back.
- Significant Anagram: Hoffs/Drawlar, the name of the funeral home Jack visits in the flashforwards, is an anagram of "flashforward".
- Snark-to-Snark Combat: Sawyer and Juliet get some of this in as they head back to the beach together.Sawyer: So, you screwing Jack yet?
Juliet: No. Are you? - Sudden Downer Ending: Charlie succeeds in disabling the jammer at the cost of his life, only to learn that Ben has been telling the truth and the people on the freighter aren't who they say they are. To make things worse the flashforward reveals that while some of the survivors made it off the island, Jack has deteriorated into a broken, alcoholic mess who wants to go back.
- Time for Plan B: Jin uses a pistol to shoot his dynamite, but misses. He then uses the gun to just shoot the Others.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: The survivors' discussed plan to blow up the Others with dynamite fails when Jin's doesn't detonate, while Hurley's unmentioned plan to run them over with the DHARMA van works perfectly.
- Wham Episode: Jack finally makes contact with the outside world and is seemingly about to get the survivors rescued. However, it's shown that while he and Kate make it off the island, he is now a miserable wreck and believes they need to go back.
- Wham Line: When Charlie receives a call from Penny, and asks her about Naomi and the freighter.Penny: But I'm not on a boat! Who... who's Naomi?
- Wham Shot: In the final scene, Jack calls someone and arranges to meet them at an airport. A car arrives, and Kate steps out, revealing that this scene is not a flashback, but a flashforward, and eventually Jack and Kate will make it off the Island.
- With My Hands Tied: Sayid trips one of his captors and snaps the man's neck with his feet as his hands are still bound behind his back.
- You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: Kate's biggest indication that something is wrong with Sawyer after he killed Anthony Cooper is that he's started calling her Kate instead of Freckles.
