This week on Lost, John, Hurley and Ben trek through the jungle in search of Jacob’s cabin, while Keamey makes preparations on the freighter to return to the Island for a little payback for his lost men. This is definitely a set-up episode for the “three-part” finale (which divides hour one from hours two and three by a two-week hiatus, so is it really one “finale?”), but it closes with an extraordinary cliffhanger of a reveal.

Spoilers follow.

“Cabin Fever” opens in a flashback to the 1950’s. Young Emily Locke is preparing to go out on a date. On the turntable Buddy Holly sings “Everyday,” while Emily’s mother tries to stop her from leaving.

“He’s twice your age, Emily!” her mother says.

“So what, mom. Jealous?”

Emily rushes into the rainy night only to get hit by a car. Cut to the future, as the nurses wheel her on a stretcher through the hospital, she reveals that she’s possibly six months pregnant. Soon, Emily gives birth to a premature son.

As the nurses wheel her newborn son away to whatever constituted a “NICU” in the medieval days of the 1950’s, Emily begs them to name him “John.” This is the start of a John Locke flashback sequence (possibly the final one of the series, if next year’s rumored change of format is any indication) that can only be objectively described as a “retcon.”

To those who don’t know what a retcon is, it refers to “retroactive continuity.” According to Wikipedia, a retcon is: “the deliberate changing of previously established facts in a work of serial fiction. The change itself is informally referred to as a “retcon”, and the act of writing and publishing a retcon is called ‘retconning’.”

John Locke’s early years as depicted in this episode, while interesting, are a big fat retcon. Further proof that the series mythology didn’t solidify fully until season three.

Back in the present, John leads Hurley and Ben through the jungle in search of Jacob’s cabin. As Hurley asks about when they’re going to get there, Ben says he doesn’t know. Apparently he’s been following Hurley.

“Hugo’s the last one who saw it!” he declares.

With no definitive plan, John decides to make camp.

Hurley worries about what will happen when Keamey and his men return. John says he doesn’t know. Yet.

Back on the Widmore freighter, Sayid wakes Desmond to tell him that the helicopter has returned. Up on deck, Keamey unloads his mercs. The creepy boat Doctor asks what happened to one of the injured soldiers.

“A black pillar of smoke threw him fifty feet in the air and ripped his guts out,” Keamey explains.

Yup, definitely not a very good security system if Keamey is still alive to tell the tale. Seriously, you’d think the smoke monster would be a little more formidable than this.

On spying Sayid, Keamey approaches him and demands to know how many people are on the Island and where they all are. Sayid, now realizing that these freighter people are a bunch of complete douchebags and out to kill his friends, politely declines to share that information.

The Captain arrives on deck only to be accused of giving Keamey up to Ben. The Captain tells him that he’s not the one who gave him up.

“Then who did?” asks Keamey.

Cut to Michael’s room, where Keamey commences torturing Michael. He asks Michael if he knows who he is, and Michael tells him his full name, “Martin Keamey.” He also confesses to having sold Keamey out to Ben Linus.

Keamey pulls out his pistol and begins to try to shoot Michael in the head. Clearly, the Island doesn’t want him to die, as Keamey’s gun to longer works.

The Captain begs him not to kill Michael. He believes Michael is the only person who can fix the boat’s engines. Instead of killing him, Keamey just knocks him out.

Cut to commercial.

Back on the Island, John awakens to find Horus, one of the late members of the Dharma Initiative, chopping down trees in the jungle. Astute viewers may surmise that Horus is felling logs to build Jacob’s cabin. After a brief conversation, Horus indeed reveals that he’s building a getaway for himself and his wife.

When Locke doesn’t understand what he’s talking about, Horus guesses it’s because he’s been dead for twelve years.

As he continues to chop down what camera angles are trying to trick us into believing is more than one tree, Horus tells John that he has to find him. And when he does, he’ll find Jacob. Then he pushes the same tree down again.

John wakes up a second time to realize he just had a dream. He rouses Hurley, and pushes his companions to begin treking through the jungle.

“I used to have dreams,” says Ben wistfully.

In the past, Emily and her mother go to visit young John in a 1950’s-era incubator. Emily can’t bring her self to hold her new son so she tearfully runs away, while her mom asks the nurse about how they should go about giving him up for adoption.

Watching from the window is a mysterious man that the audience knows is Richard Alpert, the ageless Other last seen in season three.

The nurse asks Mrs. Locke if he’s the father. Mrs. Locke says she doesn’t know who he is, but her demeanor suggests otherwise. Clearly, she’s acquainted with Mr. Alpert, but we’re not going to learn how this week.

Richard smiles — perhaps at Mrs. Locke, perhaps at young John. It’s unclear.

Back in the present, Hurley tells John about his theory about why they’re the only ones who can see the cabin — because they’re the craziest. This is probably true.

John reveals that they’ve trekked to the mass grave containing the remains of all the members of the Dharma Initiative.

“What happened to them?” Hurley asks.

“He did,” says John, nodding towards Ben.

Cut to commercial. Buy lots of things on credit. Is that young Colin Hanks on the cover of the Untraceable DVD? Buy a Mazda 3. Eat Outback steaks. Buy an iPod. Every day is Mother’s Day. Buy buy buy.

Here is where the retcon really begins. Richard Alpert comes to John’s foster home to see him. John is playing backgammon, which he has long expressed a love of. Alpert introduces himself and says that he might take John away to a special school, but it appears to be contingent on some kind of test. Richard notices a drawing on the wall that looks suspiciously like the Smoke Monster. John admits to drawing it. Yes friends, John had the smoke monster in his mind, even when he was a child. Amazing.

Alpert pulls out several objects and asks John if he can tell him which ones belong to him already — a baseball glove, an antique book entitled Book of Laws, a glass vial of some kind of sandy substance (possibly sulfer from the circle surrounding Jacob’s cabin), a silver age comic book called Mystery Tales, a compass and an antique knife.

After pondering his options, John selects the vial of sand, the compass (which appears to be the one he used in season one), and the knife.

Disappointed, Richard asks him if he’s sure the knife belongs to him. John, played by a child who’s little more than a prop, nods. A better actor might have been able to convey that he was lying, but this child is not quite up to the task. No matter, Richard collects the objects and briskly leaves. No special school for John.

Now, here’s where the retcon comes in. John met Richard in season three, yet had no recollection of having met him as a child. One would expect a weird experience like this to stick out in his mind, but it doesn’t. The reason that is, of course, is the writers hadn’t planned this yet. They didn’t know at all that John’s birth is somehow entwined with the mysteries of the Island, and that Richard appeared to him when John was a boy. It’s a cool idea, but it’s annoying. I can take some retcons, but others like this one, are hard to swallow. And in some ways totally unnecessary. Did John need to be called from the Island since birth? It’s a cool idea, but again, it’s not that critical to the story. And due to the established continuity they can’t have these childhood encounters with Richard Alpert really amount to anything.

Stuff like this drives me crazy. Lost is better than this.

In the present, John digs through the bodies until he finds Horus (who, his jumpsuit tells us, is a Mathematician).

Hurley asks Ben if this is where he shot Locke, and Ben admits that it was. He also tells Hurley that it was pointless and he should have realized it at the time, but he wasn’t thinking clearly. I know that doesn’t sound funny, but it’s played rather humerously. Ben and Hurley make a great comedy duo, with Ben playing the sociopathic straight man to Hurley’s good natured paranoid schizophrenic.

“Is that where you killed them, too?” Hurley asks, referring to the Dharma Initiative.

Ben explains that the Others did kill the Dharma Initiative, but it wasn’t his decision. There were other leaders besides him, and that he is not always their leader. One wonders if we’ll get to see those other leaders soon.

Down in the mass grave, John uncovers a blueprint of the cabin along with a map of its location in Horus’s pocket. Hurray!

Back on the Freighter, Keamey orders Frank Lapidus to gas up the chopper. The Captain tells Keamey about the mysterious sickness that’s been effecting the crew and offers it for a possible explanation for why Keamey is acting like a homicidal nutjob. Unbeknownst to the Captain, Keamey is a homicidal nutjob — in fact, the weird Island illness would probably make Keamey a nice guy, caring and empathetic when it comes to the needs of other people, particularly the innocent victims of Oceanic 815 who just happened to crash on the Island, or maybe just Danielle and Karl.

Keamey takes the Captain by the throat and demands his key. Although it’s against the “rules,” the Captain relinquishes it into Keamey’s custody. The merc then procedes to enter the Captain’s office and open the safe, removing the “Secondary Protocols.”

The protocols reveal where Ben is going, or at least where Widmore thinks he’s going.

“If Mr. Linus knows we’re going to torch the Island there’s only one place he can go.”

Unlike Charlotte, Keamey and Dan Farraday, the Captain apparently was not keyed into the fact that this is more than an extraction mission. He’s not exactly on board with the idea of “torching the Island.”

Keamey orders the Captain to fix his gun and then leaves.

On deck, Desmond tells Sayid that it wasn’t a gunshot that took down one of Keamey’s mercs. The Captain orders Omar, Keamey’s brand-new named associate, to go below while he watches Sayid and Desmond. As Omar leaves, he receives the morse code signal that Farraday sent two weeks ago. The Captain then offers the two a place to hide in the ship’s pantry, as he’s sure Keamey will kill them. Sayid asks for the zodiac inflatable boat instead, so that they can start ferrying their people back from the Island to save their lives. The Captain relents and agrees to give it to him.

“Meet me behind the container in ten minutes,” he says

Cut to commercial. The local news is reviewing Grand Theft Auto IV. No mention on how it’s ruining America.

At the mass grave, John tries to talk Hurley into leaving and returning to the beach. Hurley decides it’s safer to stick with John and Ben than to travel through the jungle at night.

Ben is impressed that John manipulated him into staying, but John denies it.

“I’m not you,” he says.

“You’re certainly not,” Ben replies. It’s true. Ben is a badass, and Locke is a well-documented chump.

In the 1950’s (or is it now the 1960’s?), teenage John is saved from being shut in a locker by a kind teacher. The teacher tells him about the exciting opportunity for him to go to a science camp in Portland being run by a “Dr. Alpert.” John tells him that things like science camp are the reason why he’s been abused by his fellow students. He hates science — he prefers boxing and sports and hunting and manly things.

The teacher tries to tell him that he’s not that guy — he’ll never be the quarterback or the prom king or a superhero. It’s okay that he’s not — it’s okay that he’s a geek. But John refuses to listen.

“Don’t tell me what I can’t do,” John says, repeating words that David Fury wrote back in season one’s best episode.

On the boat, Lapidus comes to help Michael and explains that that he should have trusted him because he already knew that Frank’s one of the only people who believed that the Oceanic 815 at the bottom of the ocean was a hoax . Michael reminds him that it was Lapidus’ boss that put the fake plane there, to which Frank replies with a chuckle that people tell him that he believes in conspiracy theories, dismissing the possibility. Michael then implores him to believe that Keamey is going to kill everyone on the Island and that Lapidus doesn’t want it on his conscience.

Lapidus pulls Michael out of his cell, only to see Omar strapping a strange electronics device to the inside of Keamey’s left arm. Frank explains to the “boss” that he’s taking Michael down into the hold to fix the boat. Omar shuts the door so they can’t see what they’re doing.

On deck, the Captain gives Sayid the correct bearing to get back to the Island. As Sayid moves to board the boat, Desmond refuses to accompany him.

“I can’t go with you,” he says. “I was on that Island for three years — I won’t set foot on it again. Not when Penny’s coming for me.”

Sayid understands, departing without him. One wonders how Desmond will escape being killed, but I guess it’s a chance he’s willing to take.

When last we see him, Sayid is streaking across the water in the zodiac. Who knows how the time distortion will effect his arrival on the Island.

Cut to commercial. Rachel Ray wants you to buy breakfast sandwiches at Dunkin Donuts.

Back on the Island, Ben muses about being “chosen,” and how his fortunes have turned, having both suffered through a spinal tumor and then losing his daughter. John apologizes for the horrible things that have happened to him, but Ben tells him that they had to happen. It was his destiny. He warns John that destiny is “a fickle bitch.”

It’s at this point that they find the cabin.

Flashback. Just after having shattered his spine, middle-aged John is in physical therapy. After failing to walk with his hands, an orderly tells him not to give up.

John tells him that he should read his file.

The orderly explains that he did read his file — that he survived falling eight stories, which was a miracle. The camera pans up to reveal the mysterious Mr. Abaddon, emissary of Charles Widmore.

Abaddon tells him that Locke needs to go on walkabout in the Australian outback — John is incredulous at first, but Abaddon tells him that he went on walkabout convinced he was one thing, but came back knowing what he really is.

“And here you are,” says John, “an orderly.”

Abaddon smiles. “Oh I’m a lot more than just an orderly, John.”

He then pushes John’s chair into the elevator.

As the doors close, Abaddon tells him that when they run into each other again that John will owe him one.

In the present, Keamey and his mercs load an arsenal into the helicopter. Omar tells the doctor that the morse code message said that the Doctor had washed up on shore with his throat slit.

“But I’m the doctor!” says the Doctor.

No sir, David Tennant is the Doctor. Everyone knows that.

Lapidus asks Keamey what they’re doing with all the weapons. He reminds him that he was hired to fly scientists.

“Fire it up, Frank,” Keamey says.

Lapidus says he won’t do that. Keamey threatens to kill him, but Frank reasonably explains that he’s the only pilot they have.

To prove his point, Keamey slits the Doctor’s throat and throws him overboard. He says that if another 30 seconds pass, he’ll kill someone else.

We hear the report of a pistol. The Captain is on deck, firing Keamey’s pistol into the air.

“Fixed your gun,” he says.

The Captain then says that everyone should stand down or he’ll fire. Keamey shows him the device strapped to his arm, telling him that he doesn’t want to stop him. While the Captain’s distracted by malevolent technology, Keamey shoots him dead.

“What will it be, Frank?”

“We’re flying,” Frank agrees. But while Keamey and the men are distracted, he loads up a package containing a satphone, which we all now know acts as a GPS tracking device.

Cut to commercial.

On the beach, Jack, Kate and Juliet observe the helicopter overhead — someone throws something out the window. It’s Lapidus’ satphone!

Jack notices the GPS homing beacon. “I think they want us to follow them,” he says. Idiot. Seriously. Jack’s a complete idiot. Hasn’t he been paying attention to what’s been happening with Charlotte and Dan?

Outside the cabin, Ben tells John that he’s not going in. His time is over, it’s John’s now. One can’t help wonder if John is being played. He is a complete chump, after all, and Ben is very persuasive.

“I’m cool with you going in alone, too,” says Hurley.

John passes Hurley his torch and walks over to the cabin. Outside the door, he lights the gas lamp and then steps inside.

A figure sits in the shadows of the cabin. Anyone who freeze-framed the season premiere knows who it is, but John doesn’t own a DVR.

“Are you Jacob?” John asks.

“No,” says the figure, “though I can speak on his behalf.”

John gets closer and the figure leans into the light. It’s Jack’s dead father, Christian Shepherd, but he only identifies himself to John as “Christian.” Not that John would figure out who he is by his full name, anyway.

John asks him if he knows why he’s there.

“Yeah sure,” says the elder Dr. Shepherd. “Do you?”

“I’m here because I was chosen.”

“That’s absolutely right,” says jack’s dad.

I’m starting to wonder if Christian Sheperd is like Spock in Star Trek II/III, and the Island is the Genesis planet. Where’s Captain Kirk when you need him?

At this point, John notices another person in the room – it’s Claire. She looks at him with a bemused expression. It may be that she’s Australian, or it may be that she’s become part of the Island. I’m reminded of Agent Cooper finding Laura Palmer in the Black Lodge.

“What are you doing here?” John asks her.

She tells him that she’s with Christian.

Dr. Shepherd explains that the baby is where he’s supposed to be. And that it’s probably best that no one learns that he saw Claire there in the cabin.

Christian then goes on to say that time is short and that the people from the Freighter are on their way back to the Island. John only has time for the question that matters.

“How do I save the Island?” he asks.

Claire and Christian give John a look that suggests wolves about to move in on easy prey. I’m beginning to wonder if Claire is really dead — if she was injured seriously when her house collapsed two episodes ago and that Christian took her when she died in her sleep. It explains why Aaron can’t stay with her anymore.

Outside, Ben and Hurley wait for John. Hungry, Hurley takes an Apollo bar from his pocket and shares it with Ben. Comedy gold. They should do Hope and Crosby road movies together.

John emerges from the cabin and approaches his companions.

“Did he tell you what we’re supposed to do?” Ben asks.

“He did,” John replies. “He wants us to move the Island.”

Lost.

I have very mixed feelings about this episode — the ending reveal of what John and Ben are supposed to do, the details regarding the origins of the cabin, Christian and Claire’s Red Room-style appearance inside the cabin that was a straight homage to Twin Peaks, along with the tense build-up with Keamey on the Freighter was all uniformly excellent. But that excellence was tempered by the fact that John’s back story was practically re-written on the spot. I know this is probably better in some ways than their original concept of John, but having him be chosen from birth is a bit of stretch given what we’ve already known. The fact that his father may not be Tom Sawyer after all is also troublesome. And most of all, as I previously wrote, they weren’t in a position to have the events of the past have a meaningful impact on John in the future without creating a clear continuity paradox.

In terms of plot, “Cabin Fever” delivered, but the character work with John was only moderately successful. Fortunately, the plot reveals were enough to carry the day, but Locke’s retcon drops the overall rating to three out of five Walts: