If you say so. Scary.

I have 2 boys, and I can tell you, without hesitation, that if something were to happed to them, there is absolutely NOTHING that I would not do in order to get them back.

Now, I'm not saying that I would not allow the police to do their job, but you have to see that Michael has no such option in this case.

Lost has been slowly going into a "who can you trust" mode over the past season. So, you know that Michael has to feel that he has no choice but to play by their rules.

I found it funny that Ms. Klugh reminded him that he knew nothing about the boy. But every time he's tried to be the father, someone has taken him away, so he really hasn't had the chance.

That's kinda the point. When it comes to kidnapping, rational thought is thrown out the window. Think about EVERY movie/tv show where a kidnapping has occurred and the police are involved. WHat is the first thing they say? SOmething like "Let us handle this" or "you need to think this through" or "you need to look at this rationally". Why? Because something ahppens to your kid, you throw away rational thought. It is ALL about getting the kid back. In Michael's case, there is no one to stop his thought process. He wants his son back. Also, Mr Klugh (sp) never told him they would kill WAlt. She said "You will never see him again". BIG difference. What she actually said implies that he will never know what becomes of Walt, we can do whatever he want to him.

As far as the person that commented that Michael could have knocked out AL and hidden her... Where, When? Put yourself in Michael's shoes. HOW MUCH TIME DO YOU HAVE before someone comes back? Minutes, seconds, hours... No idea. You NEED to free Henry. AL gives you an opportunity in which it CAN happen very quickly. Even the way he did it; someone STILL walked in. How would he explain what happened (remember, several people KNEW he was in the hatch). "Oh, Henry escaped, took AL or knocked her out (when she wakes up, she knows Michael did it), no, I don't know how Libby didn't notice (she walked in, she would end up having to be part of the explanation) and where was I?... uh, I had to take a dump so, uh, I really don't know what happened. UHHHH NO.

Michael had no way of knowing how much time he had. AL gives him the gun. He shoots her and plans to shoot himself to make it believeable; Libby walks in---Boom.

This is not a stretch for Micahel to do whatever it takes... Remember when he left to get Walt. Locke GAVE him a gun. Gave him Ammo. Michael knocks him out. Walt is the only person that matters to Michael on the island.

What if actually the person(s) that had one or both of your boys said that the only way to get them back was to kidnap one of their young friends and bring that person to them? You pretty much know in the back of your mind that this perp does not have good intentions for the young friend.

Would you do it?

And as I said before, I have no kids, but I would give my life to protect any kid that is around me.

Chris

Some of us don't have clue notebooks to tie it all together.

You're saying that Michael is not thinking rationally, so he'd be pretty much open to doing just about anything and not thinking it all the way through. Yet, he is thinking enough to deduce that his killing plan is the only one that could work? He could have come up with any number of plans. And they don't necessarily have to be great either. After all, he came up with his "it just has to be my way" plan and was selling that to the group.

We could write out a whole bunch of scenarios for what he could have done instead of killing them. Knock AL out, when Libby came, knock her out as well. Tie them up and hide them out in the jungle somewhere. Or don't hide them at all, just throw them into the gun room and lock the door. He has a gun now. He doesn't need to kill, just use the threat of killing. Go round up the people he needs to take. Tell them that the Others said they would kill Walt if he didn't comply. If they don't want to cooperate with him, then he'll shoot them. March them off into the jungle.

Or just confide in them from the start. Tell Jack their demands and try to formulate a plan. In any scenario, if they don't cooperate, he's going to have to end up using some kind of force anyway. For example, what if Hurley stuck with his decision that he didn't want to go? But it seems like you would at least want to try to enlist help.

The point is, even though he is willing to kill for Walt, why would that be his first and only option? And for everyone who may be in his situation, we would all end up doing exactly that? Most people probably wouldn't just go out and kill unless they were forced into it or that was their last resort. To say that everyone would irrationally formulate the exact same irrational plan that Michael had is itself, irrational.

He wasn't thinking clearly before he returned to the hatch. Remember him knocking out Locke and then aiming a rifle at Jack? Remember Jack telling him he'd go with him to help get Walt back?

Hell, you could say he hasn't been thinking clearly since getting out of Ana-Lucia's hole in the ground..

And what Ana-Lucia did to him, Jin and Sawyer while in theri hole may have been one of the reasons he did what he did to her. I'm sure it made it a bit easier. Plus, he probably added in the fact that that she killed Shannon (accidental or not) and he felt somewhat justified in what he did to her in a round about way.

It just looked like bad writing to me. Lost has a nasty habit of developing characters as reasonably rational people, and then having them act in ways that utterly defy logic. No way the Michael they developed commits a double homicide. No. Way

I especially hate when characters withold reasonably benign, but potetially very useful information from each other. These people have secrets that defy any rational purpose for BEING a secret in the first place. The Michael thing is a big secret, I guess, so it's not exactly what I'm talking about, but it's absurd to think that Michael would concoct the "plan" he did rather than just talking to the people on the list.

Don't get me wrong, I dig the show, and it's hardly the only show that does it. It just sucks me right out of the story when I have to think "Give me one f'ing reason why character X doesn't tell character Y what they clearly need to know...it would clear this whole mess up".

Ugh.

Welcome to TV! Nearly every character on TV is an extreme. Normal everyday people in normal everyday situations are not interesting.

Every character on the show has a secret that they are not sharing (from the first episode). Some of the secrets are found out... Kate is a murderer; Charlie is addicted to Heroin. Yes, friendships are occurring on the island; but NO ONE has any reason to trust anyone inplicently on the island. Remeber, it's been less than 2 months they have been stranded. The first few weeks, they discovered several people they survived with are liars (or at least do not reveal the WHOLE truth). Locke STILL has told no one that his legs didn't work. Rose knows and the only one she told is Locke. At this point, what would happen if he came clean? "Hey, remeber when everyone was asking about the wheelchair that was found on the plane... yea, well it was mine. A MIRACLE happened when we crashed; I just didn't want you to know.

Kate set her father on fire... Rational?
Jack saw his dead father on the day of the crash... Rational?
Locke has lied to Every single person on the island (lie of omission) as well as what really happened to Boone...

Being rational while stranded on an island last a little while; but as time goes on; desperation sets in and rational thought begins to slip away. EVEN if all were rational from the get go; which they were not.

Kind off-topic but what happend to all the weird shit that use to happen on this island. Where are the Giant boars, polar bears and dinasours we saw awhile back. I liked the fantasy aspect better.

Gone with JJ the movie director guy who somehow cons people into slapping his name on TV shows?

It was an average sized boar. There's never been dinosaurs. Have you been watching Land of the Lost and confusing it with LOST?

Yeah...what I hate is the mainstream media gives all the props to JJ for the show, when in reality it's basically all the work of Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, and the other writers.

Exactly my point. They suckered us in during the first season with fresh ideas of the unknown and now we are stuck with backstabbing & murder between the islands inhabitants. This has basically become a huge mind control story.

Chris

Was that always the case? I thought that JJ was involved at the start (as was whatshisname from Buffy who went over to 24) but that DL, CC, and their staff had pretty much been in charge starting late last season. That's why I suggested it was gone with JJ.

That may have been the most annoying episode of Lost yet.

I kind of want Sayid to put a bullet in Michael's head just to shut him up and we can avoid any over-acting on Harold Perrinau's part in the future. It's obnoxious and I could barely make it through the ep.

Destroy the computer in the hatch and expose the Others for what they are and get off the island already.

I'm kind of wanting next season to be the final one. This show is getting to be too fucking stupid.

There was that weird smoke thing