Poor John Locke.

Born premature to a teen-age mother. Dumped into an unloving foster family. Picked on in high school.

Conned into giving up a kidney to his (supposed) birth father, who tried to kill him by tossing him out an eight-story window. Stuck in a wheelchair.

Survived a plane crash. Gut shot and left for dead in a grave full of rotting corpses.

And now he’s ghost whispering in a creepy jungle cabin.

To quote that dastardly Benjamin Linus:

Destiny, John, is a fickle bitch.

Uh, or is it?

Because John Locke’s life seems to have been totally engineered by Richard freakin’ Alpert!!!

Last night’s episode, “Cabin Fever,” was an old-fashioned “Lost” show, with only flashbacks, and no time-trippy flash-forwards to contend with.

It didn’t make the hour any less confusing though, with good ol’ Dr. Alpert popping up throughout Locke’s life without aging a nanosecond. And don’t get me started—not yet anyway!—on the Christian-Claire encounter in Jacob’s Kooky Cabin.

Still, this episode wasn’t exactly Excitement City. Quite frankly, this and last week’s installments seem to have been merely set-ups for the rockin’ season finale, “There’s No Place Like Home” (which kicks off Part I next week).

But that doesn’t mean there’s not plenty to talk about. Light a lantern, grab an Apollo candy bar and let’s dive into a Dharma pit of questions…

Locke’s So-Called Life

The episode opened with the story of Locke’s birth, to 16-year-old Emily. She argues with her mother about going out with the man she loves, who’s twice her age. She runs out of the house into the rain and is hit by a car. At the hospital, she tells the doctors she’s six months pregnant. So John’s born three months premature, but fights to live. Emily freaks out when it’s time to hold John for the first time, and as her mother is asking about adoption, a man appears at the door. A nurse asks if that’s the father, and Locke’s grandmommy says she doesn’t know who it is. Of course, it’s Richard Alpert. Did that make anyone else think that Anthony Cooper might not be Locke’s birth father after all?

Richard shows up again when Locke’s about 5, telling his foster mother that he runs a school for special children and wants to test John. He’s floored by one of Locke’s drawings of a stick figure knocked down by a cloud of black smoke (an obvious reference to the smoke monster). But he’s disappointed when John picks the “wrong” object—a knife—from a group of odd objects (among them, a comic book and a dusty “Book of Laws.”) Richard says that’s not the object that belongs to him, when it sure as heck looked like the knife Locke’s been toting around the island for months in the future. He leaves abruptly, saying John’s not ready for his school yet, echoing what he told Ben on the island when he was a boy and wanted to leave his dad and the Dharma folks.

We also saw a high school-age Locke, who isn’t exactly BMOC. After rescuing John from a locker, a teacher tells him that he got a call Mittelos Labs in Portland about having him go to their summer camp. (If you remember, Mittelos is the same laboratory that recruited Juliet, via Richard and Ethan, based on Ben’s directive. So Mittlelos has been around for a LOT longer than Ben’s been the leader of the Others. Could he have inherited the CEO position?)

Looks like Johnny Boy’s a science whiz, who did a stellar model of an island (da-da-dah!) for the school science fair. This marks John’s move away from being a man of science (like Jack), since he tells the teacher he wants to be like the other boys. When the teacher tells him he can’t, John hisses, “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” That’s the same thing he told the Australian walkabout guide when he was told he couldn’t join the tour because he was in a wheelchair.

Speaking of walkabouts, it seems that Locke’s trip of self-discovery wasn’t EXACTLY his idea. It was suggested by an orderly at the hospital where the then-paralyzed Locke was doing physical therapy. And that orderly just happened to be Matthew Abaddon. This Abaddon seemed a lot less sinister than the man who appeared to Hurley and Naomi, though, telling Locke that his surviving the fall from the window was a miracle. And that when they met again, Locke would “owe him one.” (Ooh, foreshadowing!)

FREIGHTER FOLK

Life on the freighter continued to be perilous, too, with Keamy taking out both the doctor and the captain in his quest to get back to the island.

But first, the captain secretly helped Sayid onto a raft, in the hopes that he could save some of the castaways (who, I’m guessing, will turn out to be the rest of the O. Sixers?). Desmond opts to stay behind, saying he’s not going anywhere, since Penny’s on the way.

Keamy also tries to kill Michael for giving Ben his name (which made me wonder why he cared so much), but the gun jams. Perhaps the island’s still protecting him because Michael’s got more work to do?

We also got some more clues about the island’s time-shifting. Before Keamy slits the doctor’s throat, we know that Omar got Daniel’s coded message from a few weeks back. Why did it take so long to get to the freighter? And if the doctor was indeed alive on the freighter at the same time he washed up dead on the island, is the island not only behind the rest of the world in time, but sometimes in the future? (Honestly, I’m not even sure I know what that means.)

Keamy hinted, too, that he knew more about the freighter’s real mission than the captain. After all, he seemed already aware of the “second protocol.” And again, Frank appeared to be on the survivors’ side, too, dropping the knapsack with a sat phone/tracking device from the chopper for Jack and the other beach dwellers to find.

JACOB’S EVER-SHIFTING CABIN OF FUN

Now let’s get to the good stuff. What does any sane person do after getting a few hints as to the cabin’s whereabouts from a dead Dharma dude? Dig through a bunch of rotting corpses, silly!

While asleep, Locke ran into dead-for-12-years Horace Goodspeed, who seemed a little spaced out, even for a ghost. He repeated himself a lot, and kept chopping down the same tree.

Now, what else did this mean, besides leading Locke to X-marks-the-spot cabin directions?

Well, Horace built Jacob’s cabin, so if our favorite island spectre existed back then, he hadn’t moved into the shake shack yet.

Once Locke, Ben and Hurley tracked the cabin down, Jacob was nowhere inside. But Locke did chat with Christian Shephard, who said he could speak for Jacob.

Locke’s shocked, too, to see Claire, without Aaron, acting nonchalant. “Don’t worry about me,” she says. “I’m with him,” smiling at Christian. This added more fuel to the Claire-is-undead theory, doesn’t it?

But the right question Locke apparently asked was: How do we save the island?

The answer? Move it, of course.

No problem!

That’s where we left off, folks, and here’s a few more tidbits I noticed last night, though I haven’t connected the dots yet:

• Christian had on different clothes from what he wore in last week’s appearance to Jack. Whenever he’s seen his son, he’s been in a dark suit with white sneakers. That’s the outfit Hurley saw him in, too, when he caught a glimpse through Jacob’s window earlier this season. But last night, and last week when he first appeared to Claire, he’s more casual—in a plaid shirt, khaki pants and work boots. (A more Dharma-esque outfit, wouldn’t you say? I think Christian’s more connected to Dharma than we know…)

• When Keamy took the “second protocol” from the safe, it had Dharma logos on it.

• The comic book that Richard shows a young John Locke was titled, “Mystery Tales,” and it was about finding a “hidden land.” Sound familiar?

• Emily got knocked up by her older boyfriend, yet she told Locke in a Season 1 flashblack that he was “immaculately conceived.” Was it indeed a virgin birth? Who is Locke’s real daddy?

• The first scene with the island Locke opened with a shot of Locke’s eye, echoing last week’s first shot of Jack—and, I presume, hinting at the promised showdown between the two in the finale.

Tune in next Thursday, folks, when we get down to discussing another hot topic!

Namaste…

(Photos courtesy of ABC)