Season 4, Episode 8:
Meet Kevin Johnson
"I'm reporting for duty. Kevin Johnson."
Written by Elizabeth Sarnoff & Brian K. Vaughan.
Directed by Stephen Williams.
"I got some bad news for you, amigo. You can't kill yourself. The Island won't let you!"
— Tom Friendly
In flashbacks, a guilt-ridden Michael attempts to commit suicide, but fails. He is visited by Tom, who tells him he can't die until the Island is done with him. Tom shows Michael proof that Widmore staged the wreckage of Oceanic 815, and recruits him to spy on the freighter. Although he believes he's there to blow it up, Ben informs him that he does not want to kill any innocents on board, and asks Michael to find out everything he can about the crew, and sabotage their communications and engine.
On the freighter, Gault beats up a group of deserters. Sayid asks Michael why he is on the boat, to which he states he's there to die. Michael admits he's working for Ben, at which point Sayid tells Gault that Michael is the saboteur.
At the Barracks, Ben tells Locke's group that Michael is his spy on the boat, and that the freighter crew will kill everyone else on the Island once they have him. Ben sends Alex, Karl and Danielle to the Temple, a sanctuary of the Others. On the way, Danielle and Karl are suddenly shot and killed by Keamy and his crew. Alex yells that she is Ben's daughter, and is taken prisoner.
Tropes in this episode include:
- "Bang!" Flag Gun: Bomb, rather. Michael activates the bomb, but a small flag pops up that says "not yet."
- Brig Ball Bouncing: Michael starts doing this in his cabin aboard the freighter. Minkowski compares him to Jack Nicholson doing the same thing in The Shining.
- The Cameo: Walt has a brief non-speaking appearance in Michael's flashbacks, as he looks digustedly out of a window at his father when he tries to visit him.
- Captain Obvious: Miles dramatically tells the group at the Barracks that the freighter crew are after Ben, which both they and the audience had already been made aware of more than once.
- Catapult Nightmare: Michael sees Libby offering him blankets in the hospital and then screams himself awake.
- Death Seeker: Michael makes several suicide attempts in flashbacks, which all fail. Tom tells him that he can't die until the Island is done with him, so he becomes Ben's spy on the freighter in order to invoke Redemption Equals Death for himself. He also tells Sayid that he's here to die.
- Dramatic Irony: Sayid turns Michael in upon hearing he works for Ben. As shown in "The Economist", Sayid himself will work for Ben after leaving the island.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- Tom is shocked when he realizes that Michael told Walt everything about how he rescued him, calling him out for telling a ten-year-old how he murdered two women.
- Ben is unwilling to kill everyone on board the freighter, as he's well aware many of them are innocent and have no idea of Charles Widmore's true intentions for the Island. He even states that these standards are what separates him from the completely ruthless Widmore.
- Flat "What": Hurley's reaction to Ben saying that Michael is his spy on the freighter is a soft "What?"
- Goodbye, Cruel World!: In his first flashback, Michael is seen writing a note that he then pins to his jacket before he tries to kill himself by deliberately crashing his car.
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: All of Michael's attempts to kill himself fail because the Island won't "let" him die yet.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Although he was the one who put Michael into a desperate situation by arranging Walt's kidnapping, Ben is correct when he points out that Michael was not ordered to kill Ana Lucia and Libby, and did so on his own initiative.
- A Million Is a Statistic:
- Michael is ok with killing everyone on board the freighter before he meets them, but starts to doubt his mission when he starts to get to know the crew a little better. Tom snaps him out of it by reminding him of his friends on the Island that need to be saved.Tom: Oh, you met some of 'em now. Got some names and faces, and you're gettin' cold feet, huh?
Michael: Yeah, actually, I am.
Tom: Well, here are a few more names for ya—Sun, Sawyer, Jack, Claire, her baby. And the only way you're gonna save their lives is if you man up and get on that boat. - Surprisingly averted by Ben, who refrains from simply having Michael blow the freighter up before it gets to the Island, on the basis that many of the people on board are innocent and have no idea that their employer, Charles Widmore, is "a monster".
- Michael is ok with killing everyone on board the freighter before he meets them, but starts to doubt his mission when he starts to get to know the crew a little better. Tom snaps him out of it by reminding him of his friends on the Island that need to be saved.
- Sacrificial Lion: To really drive home how deadly Keamy and his mercenaries are, Rousseau- who survived 16 years of everything the Island could throw at her- is killed by a single sniper shot.
- Series Continuity Error: Only one helicopter can be seen on the freighter in the flashbacks, even though Naomi flew one that crashed when she approached the island.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: Cass Elliot's "It's Getting Better" plays on the radio when Michael tries to kill himself.
- Stating the Simple Solution: Sawyer wonders why the group can't simply hand Ben over to the freighter crew. Ben explains that once they have him, alive, the freighter crew's orders are to kill everyone else on the Island, which Miles's uncomfortable facial expression confirms.
- Straight Gay: In Michael's flashbacks, it's revealed that Tom was gay, something that wasn't alluded to besides an off-hand comment that Kate "wasn't his type."
- Surprisingly Sudden Death: Karl is sniped in the jungle out of absolutely nowhere, with Danielle following soon after when she and Alex try to run.
- Title Drop: Tom says "Meet Kevin Johnson" when he presents Michael with his fake passport.
- Travelling at the Speed of Plot: Both Michael and Tom's adventures in the flashbacks have to have been condensed into a very short space of time to fit the timeline of the show, unless they were affected by the Narnia Time around the Island.
- Considering the episodes in which he appeared on the Island in Season 3 and the fact that the submarine, the Others' only means of leaving the Island, was destroyed in "The Man From Tallahassee", Tom's trip to and from the Island to recruit Michael could only have occurred during the period of five days between "Stranger In A Strange Land" and "Par Avion".
- Michael's return to America, falling out with Walt, multiple suicide attempts, recruitment by Tom and return to the Island on the freighter via Fiji takes place over a period of about two weeks between his leaving the Island in "Live Together, Die Alone" and Naomi's arrival in "Catch-22".
- Whole Episode Flashback: Once Sayid and Desmond confront Michael, we are given a single flashback for much of the episode.
