Special

WHY AM I WATCHING SPECIAL?

In which Walt goes missing and Michael looks for him. That just happens in this one episode, right?

Have you seen my son?

THE ISLAND

So yeah, Walt wandered off and Michael is looking for him. Turns out the kid is with Locke learning how to throw knives. And boy oh boy, does this piss Michael off. Dude just fucking hates Locke. He decides it's time to get off this fucking island. Stop playing with polar bears and crazy French people and creepy baby stealers. It's time to build a raft and go the fuck home. But Walt doesn't want to build a raft. He wants to throw knives around with Mr. Locke. Locke is trying to get Walt to leave telling him to respect his father's wishes. That's when Michael finds them together again, and flips the fuck out again, this time in front of the camp. But this time, Walt fights back. He yells at Michael saying he's not really his father, he never even met the dude before last week. So Michael sends Walt to his room. Or what counts as his room in the caves. He sends Walt to the waterfall.

Walt says screw this noise, and first chance he gets, he grabs Vincent and leaves. When Michael finds out, he goes running for Locke. Dude fucking hates Locke. But Walt isn't there. So Locke offers to help find him. Michael accepts, which is the first smart thing he's done all episode. Walt is just wandering through the jungle (I guess he's gonna walk back to Sydney?) and then a polar bear finds him. Because this weird ass jungle is just lousy with polar bears. He hides in one of those tree cage things and calls for help. Michael, Locke, and Boone hear him and come running. Michael and Locke work together to save Walt, and Michael comes to respect Locke a bit. Boone just watches with those piercing blue eyes. No one comes to respect him.

That night, Michael gives Walt a box from his mother's house. It's filled with all the letters and cards and drawerings that Michael sent Walt over the years. She never gave them to him, but for some reason she never threw them away either. The two have a nice bonding moment looking through the box. Meanwhile, Locke and Boone are in the jungle looking for Vincent, who ran off in all the excitement. He's blowing on his homemade dog whistle, and out of the jungle comes running....Claire!?!

There's so much Michael this week, not much room for a B plot. Basically Charlie is looking for Claire's diary, for no reason whatsoever. So we get the scene we've seen half a dozen times already where someone wants something, so they go to Sawyer all confrontational. Sometimes he has it, sometimes he don't, but he's gonna be smug about it either way. He always wants them to pay for it, but he'll give it to them out of the goodness of his heart. Everyone goes to Sawyer with an attitude, then are shocked and angry that they get one back. Anyways, Charlie ends up reading the diary because he's such a Nice Guy creeper. But it's OK, because she talks about a black rock in it. The same black rock that the French woman was rambling about and Sayid has been trying to find with his map. Maybe Claire is there? No. I already told you. She's wandering around the jungle.


THE FLASHBACK

Michael, his girlfriend Susan, and Michael's weirdly smooth face are shopping for baby furniture. They're about to have a son, and Michael wants to name him Walt, after his father. Unfortunately Michael And Walt's life together is short lived. When the baby is just a few months old, Susan gets a job as a Netherlands Lawyer. And now we see the start of Michael's issues, as she takes his boy. He's a construction worker/artist (neither of which are paying the bills), and she's a globe trotting adventurer, of course the baby is coming with her. And that dick Brian who got her the job. Ugh, that guy.

A few months later, Michael is on a payphone. This is how you know we are in the distant past. People used to pay actual money to use phones that were just sitting out in the street! Can you imagine? He must have had a lot of quarters on him, because he's calling Amsterdam to talk to a 6 month old baby. Hope it was worth not doing laundry this week, Mike. During the call, Susan lets it slip that she's dating that dick Brian. Michael flips the fuck out, shouts that he's coming to get his son, slams the phone down, and takes off running towards the airport. Then he gets hit by a car.

The recovery process is long and hard, but Michael passes the time by drawing pictures for his son, and mailing them off to Dubai, or wherever the hell Walt is living this week. Maybe it's America, because Susan is here! She tells Michael not to worry, she's taking care of his medical bills and also she's marrying that dick Brian, and also he's adopting Walt, so he's not even your son anymore! All the problems are solved. This does not go over well with Michael and he refuses to be paid off. Susan wonders if he's just stubbornly sticking to his principals rather than doing what's best for Walt. So, she knows him pretty well.

Now, the Flashback shifts over to Walt. They're in Australia this month. He's catching Pokeymans or whatever it is kids do, and the adults are ignoring him. Susan isn't feeling well, and Brian is more interested in Susan than Walt on a good day, so this dick has just completely tuned Walt out. Then a bird flies into the window. Walt looks at it like "Huh, that was weird" Brian looks at Walt like he has been replaced with some sort of bird summoning goblin from the Netherworld. It's a really weird overreaction. What a dick.

Back to Michael now. He's in his apartment catching Pokeymans, or whatever it is guys in their late 20's who are on disability do, when Brian comes a-knocking on his door. Susan died. It was some kind of crazy blood disease, and she died like a week after that bird did. Michael is stunned. "Oh wow, that's horrible. I'm so sorry. Where's Walt? Out in the car?" "No, he's in Australia." This fucking dick left a grieving child with the nanny so he could fly halfway around the world, just to tell Michael that he doesn't want the kid anyway. He never liked the kid, he's a weirdo who keeps killing birds with his brain or something. He gives Michael some money and plane tickets and tells him to go pick up Walt. If anyone needs him, he'l lbe gambling his sorrows away in Monte Carlo. What a dick.

But Michael does go to Australia. While he's waiting for Walt to get home from school, the nanny gives him the box  of drawings. When Walt does get home, they make their introductions. Walt has no idea who Michael even is, and kind of doesn't want to fly to another country with a stranger. Smart kid. So Michael lies and is all "Brian wants to keep you, but he's on a farm now, and there's lots of other dicks for him to play with. So you have to come home with me. Also, we're taking his dog, because seriously, he's a fucking dick."

GAH! Where's your beard?!

THE RANDOM THOUGHTS

• This entry was a really tough one to write. There was a lot of complex emotional stuff going on with Michael that I am woefully underqualified to talk about. Basically we learn the root of his problems with Locke and Walt, and while it doesn't make him sympathetic, you do understand it better. 
• Boone Fuck Up of the Week: Michael is yelling at Locke, getting all up in his face, so Boone tackles him and punches him in the face a few times. Yeah, that will calm the situation down. Dumbass. 
• And once again we have an artist who had to give up his dream because he had a son. Some Lost writer has a weirdly specific axe to grind. 
• Apparently in American English the word is spelled "ax"? That looks weird.

Found him!

THE CATCHPHRASES

• WALT! WAAAAAAALT!!! (x17)
• Have you seen my son/my boy/Walt? (x2)
• Let's find your boy. (variant)