Lost recap: " Meet Kevin Johnson"

Almost Live Blog of the Michael/Ben storyline before the opening credits...

Ben convinces his daughter Alex, Karl, & Danielle to go to another Dharma station, "The Temple" which is a safehouse where "The Others" are - Ben convinces them they will be safe from the Boat People when the invasion happens. Also, maybe he wants her to go to The Temple since it's Purim?

Sayid & Desmond corner "Kevin Johnson" aka Michael and force him to tell them WTF he is doing on the ship... lucky for us, he speaks in flashbacks.

we see Michael in a dilapidated apartment in New York writing a note. He has the short hair so we know this is post-Island Michael (or we think we know). He is upset about something. He gets in his car (a 70s era piece of crap). The radio is on and I believe the song was "Getting Better Every Day" by Mama Cass, who sang the song when we met Desmond "Make Your Own Kind of Music". I wonder if Michael is going to choke on a ham sandwich? Michael pins the note to his chest and drives away. Michael is driving super fast down an alley, says "I'm sorry" and crashes purposefully into a building. He is unconscious and/or dead.

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We come back to find Michael in a hospital bed, tubes in his nose, monitors going off. He is groaning, there is a comatose man next to him. A nurse comes in and Michael asks how badly is he hurt... Michael opens his eyes... and the nurse is LIBBY. (Hurley's girl on the island who Michael whacked in the hatch along with Ana Lucia). She has a hideous haircut like Sandra Bernhard.



Michael screams and Libby isn't there anymore. A new nurse comes in, tells him he is lucky to be alive, that the EMTs found him in a wrecked car without ID and a suicide note pinned to his chest. She asks if he wants to tell her his name, he doesn't answer. She asks if he would like her to call Walt. He looks at her quizically (like "how the hell do you know Walt, bee-yotch?") and she says the suicide note was made out to "Walt".

Cut to Michael knocking on a door. His momma answers. She is a large woman. Somewhere between Florida from Good Times and the mother from What's Happening in size. She won't let him see Walt. Lucky for us that she reminds him in an expository way - it seems he dropped Walt off at her house for safety and he went on his way. She wants to know where they were when they said his plane wrecked and he should be dead. She wants to know why they need to have assumed names. She wants to know why Walt won't talk to her but cries in his sleep? Michael tells her to tell Walt that he loves him. As he slinks away all depressed, he sees Walt looking at him from the upstairs window.

Michael goes into a pawn shop and swaps the rolex he took from Jin for a gun with bullets. Michael ducks into an alley way and loads the gun. He puts the gun to his head and is about to pull the trigger when he is interrupted by someone asking him for the time. He says no and the guy says "Come on, Michael". He steps out of the shadows and it's Tom from the Others -- Ben's right hand man, the guy who stole Walt the first time, the guy Sawyer killed on the beach. Michael gives him the "WTF" look.

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Michael goes to shoot Tom, Tom slaps his arm away, they trade punches but Tom gets the upperhand by grabbing the gun and aiming it at Michael. Michael asks him to shoot. He asks Tom "how did you find me?" and Tom replies "we're the ones that let you off the island, you didn't think we'd keep tabs?" Michael asks what Tom wants, and Tom tells him "your help". Michael asks "why would I help the SOB who kidnapped my son?" and Tom replies "we gave him back to you in one piece, you're the one that lost him". Something dawns on Tom and he says "you told him didn't you? you couldn't carry the guilt of what you did to those two women [Ana Lucia and Libby] all by yourself so you shared it with a 10 year old kid... is that why you want to kill yourself Michael? Because of the way he looks at you now? Because he knows you're a murderer?" Tom tells Michael that he can't kill himself. (Not that he is forbidden, he physically CAN'T, the island isn't through with him. He tells Michael he is in the penthouse of the Hotel Earle.

Cut to Michael in his apartment, with the gun to his head. The TV is on and a gameshow is heard. It asks this question as Michael is summoning the courage to pull the trigger.. "Who is the author of Slaughterhouse-Five"... a contestant chimes in... "Is it Kurt Vonnegut?"...Michael pulls the trigger and nothing happens...click...followup question on the TV: "What is the name of the book's protagonist?"... Michael opens the chamber to the gun and all 6 bullets are in there...

sidenote: Slaughterhouse-Five is summarized in Wikipedia like this:
Slaughterhouse-Five spans the life of a man who has "come unstuck in time." It is the story of Billy Pilgrim experiencing different time periods of his life, most notably his experience in World War II and his relationship with his family. The book is a series of seemingly random happenings that, in combination, present the thematic elements of the novel in an unraveling order.

as Michael looks at the gun, the game show on TV is interrupted by a news bulletin: the wreckage of the doomed flight Oceanic 815 has been found in that trench, the reporter says it is too far to be retrieved, even the black box is probably beyond salvage.

Cut to Michael knocking on the penthouse door to see Tom and "Arturo". Seems they are a little more than friends, ifyaknowwhatImean (Not that there's anything wrong with that). They kiss. Tom is gay. Did we know that? I don't think we knew that. Did Arturo remind anyone else of Mr. Weed from "Family Guy"? ... 'I am making eggs, with the peppers from last night...ha ha ha... oh, stop feelming me monkey, I don't have my face on!"



Tom dispatches Arturo to step aside and get some air so he can talk to Michael. Tom tells Michael that he doesn't get to the mainland often and when he does he likes to indulge himself. Michael asks why the plane was found on the bottom of the ocean. Tom tells him that Widmore staged it, he doesn't want anyone to find the plane or the island except him. He shows Michael pictures and documents that show Widmore exumed 324 corpses from Thailand, bought a 777, and placed them in the fake plane and had it sunk at sea. He tells Michael the only way he can redeem himself for killing Ana Lucia and Libby is to save his fellow islanders from Widmore, who wants to kill them all. He sets Michael up with a passport and papers and says there is a job waiting for him on the boat as "Kevin Johnson". He is to kill everyone on board before they have the chances to kill the Losties. Of course, Michael doesn't care that these folks have perfectly forged passports for him, but that the documents he shows from Widmore must be the real McCoys, right?

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Michael is on the dock and checks in with Naomi (now dead) as Kevin Johnson. She tells him there is a crate waiting for him from someone and she'll have it sent to his quarters. He meets Minkowski (now dead), and shakes his hand. He walks by Miles Strom who says "your real name isn't Kevin..."... Michael looks at him and Miles says "don't worry, 80% of the people here are lying about something"...

Michael's cellphone rings, it's Tom on the other line. Tom asks Michael if he is getting cold feet -- he reminds Michael that he is there to save his friends on the island. In a day or two, open the crate he sent and do the deal.
On the deck, Michael meets helicopter pilot Frank Lapidus, who tells Michael he thinks that the Oceanic 815 crash was faked and he is on the trip because the owner of the boat, Charles Widmore believes him also, and that he wants to find some of the survivors. Michael looks at his crate but is reluctant to open it. We see him next swabbing the deck and hears machine gun fire. He investigates and finds some guys skeet shooting using an Uzi (or is that uzing an uzi?) Michael asks why they have machine guns if this is a rescue mission, and the guy with the gun tells him to go mop something. Michael decides these guys aren't up to any good and goes into his crate. There is a briefcase. It's a buh... no, not a buh, a bomb. He sets the detonator to go off in 10 seconds and is prepared to meet his maker....Liby appears to him again and tells him not to do it... as it winds down to 0, nothing happens except a flag pops up, kind of like when a bang flag pops up in the cartoons when you think Bugs Bunny is about to be shot. The flag says "NOT YET".

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Minkowski comes and tells Michael that he has a call from the mainland... he says "It's Walt and he really needs to talk to you".. Michael picks up the call and its not Walt, its one Benjamin Linus. Ben tells Michael that he doesn't want him blowing up the boat because Ben doesn't kill innocent people. He is trying to prove to Michael that he isn't a monster like Widmore. (Uhh..didn't Ben gas the Dharma people????).. he tells Michael to compile a list of names of every person on the boat and when he calls again he will give Ben the list, then disable the radio and the engine, that the boat will then never be able to reach the island. He tells Ben he'd do it, and Ben tells him to consider himself one of the good guys.

Cut back to modern time, Sayid says "you're telling me you work for Benjamin Linus?", Michael says Yes.... Sayid then gives Michael a hammerlock (whats next, noogies?) and pushes him into the captain's office. Sayid tells the Captain that this isn't "Kevin Johnson" that he is a fellow passenger from Oceanic 815, he is the sabateur, and his name is Michael Dawson and he is a traitor.

CUT TO Danielle, Alex, and Karl in the jungle going to the Temple (it is Purim after all). They decide to stop and drink. Karl tells Alex "he has a bad feeling about this"... (uh oh... 5 minutes to retirement for Karl, methinks)... he thinks Ben is playing them... Alex tells him that she doesn't like taking orders from her dad either, but she knows he doesn't want her getting hurt... hmm.. seems Karl's water bottle has sprung a leak about the size of a bullet hole... and oops, his chest has too.. Alex wigs out over his dead body and Danielle tries to pull her away to safety... they are behind a tree hiding from the snipers... Danielle tells her daughter that she loves her very much...and on three they are going to make a run for it... 1......2.....thunk... Danielle takes a bullet and is dead. Alex holds her hands up and surrenders, yelling out "I'M BEN'S DAUGHTER!"... cut to LOST title screen.

I think it's pretty obvious that Ben set the trap to get Karl and Danielle out of the picture. No more episodes until April 24th.