Eko and Locke take a tour of the island, and discover even more of its secrets.

This review is pretty heavy on the summary, but I’ve put together a few pretty good observations. We’ve got pictures aplenty for your forensic pleasure. The usual spoiler disclaimers apply, so if you haven’t seen it yet, I’d stay away. Otherwise, dig in!

The episode starts out with Ana Lucia standing on the beach, when she reveals to Eko that he’s only dreaming that he can see her, just like the dream in which his brother told him to build a church. She tells him he needs to help Locke. Apparently Mr. Eko’s got some pretty useful dreams. In the same dream, his brother tells him he needs to find the question mark — and bring the axe.

Locke, Kate, Sawyer and Jack return to the hatch to find Michael stumbling out with a gunshot wound, telling them that Henry got a hold of a gun and shot Ana Lucia and Libby. Eko shows up to help, and back in the hatch, Michael is shocked to find out that Libby isn’t quite as dead as he thought she was.

Luckily for Michael, Libby, convulsing from a couple of slugs to the abdomen, isn’t very talkative. Jack gets ready to take off after Henry, but cooler heads prevail as Sawyer, of all people, reminds him that as a doctor, he should probably stick to where the gunshot victims are. Eko, heeding Ana Lucia’s advice from his dream, volunteers to go, and take Locke with him.

Flashback to Australia, Eko style. It turns out that the African Assassin decided to become a man of the cloth before actually landing on the island. He’s just received a fake passport in preparation for a trip to the United States when he’s forced to put his plans on hold to investigate claims of a miracle. A woman claims her daughter came back to life after drowning, but Eko is skeptical.

Back on the island, Locke isn’t enjoying his seemingly aimless trot through the woods with Eko. A head butt from Eko sets Locke straight. Locke shows Eko the drawing of the map he made while stuck under the blast door, at the center of which is — get this — the question mark.

Deeper in the woods, the map has led Locke and Eko back to the plane that Boone and Locke found — the same plane that contained the body of Eko’s brother and a bunch of Virgin Mary statues filled with smack.

The next morning at the hatch, Jack sends Sawyer to get heroin from his stash to help ease Libby’s suffering. He assigns Kate to go with him so he’ll be forced to reveal the location of the guns. Much to Kate’s surprise, it’s all buried right below Sawyer’s tent. Hurley shows up as they’re heading back to the hatch, asking about Libby.

While Kate is presumably giving Hurley a glossed-over version of what went down at the hatch, Eko’s brother shows up in a dream and leads Eko to the top of the cliff near the plane. Eko falls as he reaches the top, as he lands, we learn that this was Locke’s dream, not Eko’s. Suddenly Locke is regaining some of his faith. Eko needs to find out what’s at the top of the cliff.

Another flashback takes us back to Australia, where Eko, conducting his investigation, is prevented from talking to the supposed drowning victim by her father — the man says his wife is just claiming a miracle occurred out of spite for him, because he’s a phony psychic — the same phony psychic who warned Claire about his baby.

Eko, himself doubting a miracle happened, and wanting to leave for Los Angeles, tells the man that he plans to report to his monsignor that no miracle happened.

Back in the woods, Eko surveys the area from the top of the cliff and finds the question mark, cut into the plants.

A little digging reveals a hatch, and with a little help from the axe that Ana Lucia told Eko to bring, the two open it and prepare to head inside.

This hatch is much different from the others we’ve seen so far. The main room that we see contains another console, two chairs, and a wall stacked with vintage televisions.

Most screens show nothing but static, but Locke and Eko are shocked to find that one of the screens shows a live feed of what’s happening back at the hatch. Locke prints a report from the console that reveals a log of accepted” numbers — different numbers than they’ve been entering. Eko finds a video tape labeled Orientation” and pops it into a VCR.

The tape hosted by Dr. Mark Wickman is the orientation video for Station 5 - The Pearl. Wickman says that The Pearl is a monitoring station for watching participants in Dharma Initiative experiments — not only for posterity, but for the ongoing refinement of the initiative as a whole.” Sort of makes me wonder if anybody is actively monitoring them now. If not, what happened to them?

Wickman goes on to say that the pair assigned to The Pearl will be responsible for observing a psychological review in progress. Dr. Wickman says that the observers don’t need to know why they’re doing their job, only that the subjects believe their job is important.

After watching the tape, Eko begins gathering documents to take back with them, but Locke doesn’t see the point anymore. He’s convinced that they’re just rats in a maze, but without the cheese. Eko believes they push the button because he they were meant to, but Locke has completely given up on the hatch and the numbers. It’s now meaningless to him.

In another flashback, Eko is confronted at the Sydney airport by the miracle girl. She has a message from his brother, who she says visited her when she was between places.” Eko, thinking this girl was sent her by her phony psychic father, seems a bit shocked and insulted by the girl’s message, but blond stranger — Libby— butts in and calms him down.

Eko tells Locke the story of how his brother took off in Nigeria in the very plane that marked this hatch’s location. To Eko, nothing could have more meaning at this point. If Locke won’t push the button anymore, he will.

Back at the original hatch, Libby isn’t doing so well. Hurley and Jack on hand to hear her say her killer’s name just before she dies. The two have no idea how significant Michael’s name is.

Notes/Thoughts

First, Dr. Mark Wickman,” is the man from the original 8mm film reels that were found in the hatches by Locke and Eko. But did you notice that his name in the original films is Dr. Marvin Candle? Wickman — Candle — interesting. I’m picking up a theme here. Either way, they can’t both be his name. Also, he seems to have perfect use of his bum arm.

Dr. Wickman” mentions in the tape the name of someone has written that careful observation is the only key to true and complete awareness.” Who is this someone? Good question, the tape had a hiccup right at that moment. Sounds like a name that we’ll hear at some point in the future though.

Dr. Wickman tells the observers to return to the Pala ferry at the end of each shift, which will take them back to the barracks. This explains why this hatch is so spartan in its accommodations. If these barracks are where the others live, it’s clear that they’re not living in conditions quite as bad as Michael said they were. After killing two people and setting Henry free, there’s not much reason to believe anything Michael says at this point.

If these video feeds are being recorded, this may spell big trouble for Michael. I don’t see this being the case, because the observers at The Pearl are supposed to be writing down their observations. Is it part they they themselves are part of an experiment?

Remember back when Henry said he never pressed the button? Now that the tape in The Pearl has essentially said that the job being done in the other hatch(es) isn’t important, it lends some credence to what he said.

Why does Locke put his map in the tube? It probably doesn’t matter much at this point, but he may have just sent The Others a nice little message.

Did you notice that Eko’s brother was sitting in a wheelchair in Locke’s dream?

So what happens next?

I’m intrigued. This episode didn’t contain any shockers like last week’s, but it did tell us a lot. We got a few more castaways who are now tied together. Libby and Claire now intersect with Eko. Even Locke and Boone connect to Eko, even though it’s a connection that happens on the island.

I don’t know if there’s really time to learn more about this hatch. It is what it is. The biggest mysteries of this hatch are the tube for the reports, the barracks and how this relates to The Others. Clearly it’s been abandoned for a while. Next week, I expect some revelations.