Season 2, Episode 17:
Lockdown
In flashbacks, Locke plans to propose to Helen. She reads that his father has died in the obituaries of the newspaper. Locke discovers that Cooper has faked his death. Cooper apologizes to Locke, and asks him to take some money from a safe deposit box for him, and that he can take $200,000 from it for himself. Locke takes the money to Cooper, but they are found out by Helen, who is disgusted that Locke lied to her, and breaks up with him.
After Henry's unnerving speech, Jack and Locke lock him back up in the armoury. Ana Lucia, Sayid and Charlie finally find Henry's balloon, along with his wife's grave. Jack returns to the beach and challenges Sawyer to a game of poker for the medical supplies he's been hoarding, and completely destroys him in hand after hand. Jack and Kate discover a parachute drop with a supply of food.
At the Swan, a set of blast doors suddenly close, locking Locke in the kitchen, although he manages to prop one up with a crowbar. Locke releases Henry to help him open the doors so that he can push the button. They manage to pry one open slightly, but it collapses on Locke's leg when he tries to crawl under it. Locke instructs Henry to crawl through an air vent to push the button. Locke hears the button's alarm go off, and sees a map appear on the blast door when a blacklight turns on. The alarm stops, and the lockdown ends. Ana Lucia, Sayid and Charlie return with Jack, and Sayid tells Henry that he dug up his "wife's" grave, and found a man named Henry Gale inside it.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Blatant Lies: When Kate asks if she can come to the Hatch for a shower, Jack tells her that the plumbing is busted and needs to be fixed, since she doesn't know about Henry.
- Dramatic Irony: Jack feels Locke can wait for him in the Hatch, which is why he keeps playing poker with Sawyer. However, the audience knows that there's a serious problem at the station.
- Evil vs. Evil: Jimmy Bane and Anthony Cooper are both ruthless criminals trying to collect money from the other, with Locke placed in the middle of them.
- Faking the Dead: Anthony Cooper fakes his own death to escape retribution from two men from whom he stole money as a "retirement con".
- Hope Spot: Locke's flashbacks begin with him getting ready to propose to Helen, then finding out his dad is dead and seemingly able to move on. Unfortunately, Anthony faked his death, ropes Locke into a scheme, and when Helen finds out, she leaves him.
- Impersonation-Exclusive Character: The real Henry Gale makes his only appearance of the entire series, as a Posthumous Character only seen in a photo on a driver's license that Sayid recovered from his grave.
- Lack of Empathy: After watching Helen walk out on Locke for lying to her, Cooper simply gets in his cab and drives away.
- Liar Revealed: Locke tells Helen that he hasn't seen his father after the funeral, but she finds out when he drops off the money at his hotel.
- The Magic Poker Equation: Played with. Most of the hands we see in the survivors' poker game involve them all having excellent cards, as Sawyer beats Hurley's straight with a flush and Jack beats Sawyer's three queens with three kings. However, both Jack and Sawyer have poor hands on the final high-stakes hand, with Jack going all-in with a pair of nines and Sawyer recklessly calling with a pair of fives out of embarassment at the way Jack has been destroying him in front of the entire camp.
- One Degree of Separation: Locke inspects a house for sale for Sayid's lost love Nadia in a flashback.
- Pet the Dog: The closest to a decent thing Cooper does for Locke is saying he can keep $200,000 of his hidden funds in return for collecting it. Locke ends up declining it, saying he did it for Cooper and not the money.
- Pun-Based Title: The episode is Locke-centric and features a scene of Locke being trapped underneath a blast door during the lockdown at the Swan.
- The Reveal: "Henry Gale" is an impostor, and the grave he said was his wife's contains the real Henry Gale.
- Subverted Suspicion Aesop: Sayid has been insisting non-stop since Henry's arrival that he is an Other, without having any evidence to back up his claims, which viewers might be inclined to believe is the result of his judgement being clouded by his grief over Shannon's death, especially when the group finds Henry's balloon just where he said they would after Sayid has spent three hours telling them they won't. At the very end of the episode, it's revealed that Sayid was right all along after he's gone to the extreme of digging up the grave and found the real Henry Gale inside it.
- Wham Episode: Locke finds a map in the Swan showing the locations of other DHARMA stations, and Henry Gale is confirmed to be an impostor.
- Wham Shot:
- The teaser ends with Sayid, Charlie, and Ana Lucia finding a grave, then looking up and seeing the smiley face balloon.
- Jack and Kate find a massive pallet full of DHARMA-labeled food. However, they don't have time to investigate before they run into Sayid's party.
