'Lost' recap: The Man With the Plan

Here lies John Locke, and in more ways than one. In fact, in last night's Now the season has REALLY begun episode of Lost, ''The Substitute,'' we were given three different John Lockes. (Maybe even four, if you believe my contention that Sawyer has become a surrogate Locke in the story. More on that later.) Officially, there was John Locke the Island adventurer, now a ripe, sun-bleached corpse buried six feet under on Boone Hill after Captain Frank Lapidus declared the impromptu graveside service ''the weirdest damn funeral'' he'd ever been to. There was ''John Locke,'' aka the Locke-ness Monster, the fearsome Island entity now wearing the Ben-murdered castaway's visage, who oozed sincerity as he/it/whatever downloaded oodles of noodle-expanding mythology... although can we really trust him/it/whatever? And there was Sideways John Locke, a tough and tender man, so superior to his dead Island doppelganger in many ways, save possibly one. We met him as he fell flat on his face, yet another humiliation for a soul who seems to be destined to suffer a daily diet of humiliations no matter which ''island universe'' he happens to reside upon. But this John Locke can laugh when the fates make fun of him. This John Locke has the self-awareness and strength to grow and change. And this John Locke is loved, and better, he knows it, and we were reminded last night how much we need that kind of love, both to flourish and survive. Especially if you have to spend long days at work enduring the prickly interoffice machinations — severe coffee making retinue — of Benjamin Linus. (Who would win in a sneer-off: Professor Snape or Professor Linus? Debate!)

Fittingly, ''The Substitute'' came to us during Valentine's Day week, and it played like a love letter to Locke. Allow me to give some love right back. Terry O'Quinn is the man, and big hugs to him and everyone who made ''The Substitute'' the first truly great episode of the season, a moving mythapalooza that framed and galvanized the Island story line and proved that the Sideways storytelling device is capable of producing powerful, poignant yarns... even if we still have no freakin' clue what the hell is going on over there in Otherworldland.

At the very least, it was totally better than last week's episode.

The Other(s) World
A Serious Man, Part One: The Parable of the Parking Lot

''Can I share something with you? Because I too have had the feeling of losing track of Hashem, which is the problem here. I too have forgotten how to see Him in the world. And when that happens you think, well, if I can't see Him, He isn't there any more, He's gone. But that's not the case. You just need to remember how to see Him. Am I right? I mean, the parking lot here. Not much to see. It is a different angle on the same parking lot we saw from the Hebrew school window. But if you imagine yourself a visitor, somebody who isn't familiar with these autos and such, somebody still with a capacity for wonder, someone with a fresh perspective… you can see Hashem, you know, reaching into the world.''
— Rabbi Scott, speaking to faith-challenged Larry about the existence of God/the divine (aka Hashem), A Serious Man

Who was the late John Locke? Who was he really? ''The Substitute'' offered at least three opinions on the matter. One came from Sawyer, who drunkenly pissed on dead Locke's memory: He remembered him as someone who was always scared even when he was pretending he wasn't. (Personally, that sounds like a better description of… Sawyer himself. And, I suspect, this monstrous, little boy-spooked UnLocke thing.) Another interpretation came from his killer, Ben, who eulogized him with a speech that somehow mixed two unlikely sentiments: heartfelt appreciation and snarky glibness. ''John Locke was a believer, a man of faith, and a much better man than I will ever be,'' Ben said adding, ''And I'm very sorry that I murdered him.'' Classy, Ben. And a classic Lost moment.

A third point of view on John Locke came via the Sideways, and I would sum up the assessment by using a line from last night's literary reference, John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men: ''A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody.'' Now, the Sideways story line didn't actively portray its John Locke as destroyed by loneliness or abandonment. On the contrary: Sideways John Locke had self-confidence, self-awareness, and a genuine self. He also enjoyed the security of knowing he was loved by his soulmate, Helen. But I wonder if that's part of the important point of these parallel world stories. Lost is creating the means for us to see these too-familiar people with fresh eyes. By presenting them as something profoundly different, as profoundly ''Other,'' the castaways are revealed anew, or perhaps even for the first time, by the comparison.

''The Substitute'' gave us one of the best cold opens of Lost ever. We saw Sideways John Locke pulling into the driveway of a house on a street that resembled one we saw in Season 2's ''Lockdown,'' when pre-wheelchair Locke was working as a house inspector and checking out a home in Irvine being purchased by Sayid's lady love, Nadia. (Maybe Sideways Nadia is Sideways Locke's neighbor. Might Sideways Sayid be on his way?) I loved the pensive look on Locke's face as he rode the lift down from his van. Then the lift jammed, leaving Locke stuck. He fiddled with controls, then tried rolling off the platform, hoping to stick the landing like an Olympic ski jumper. Nope. Locke dropped from his place in the sky and belly-flopped onto his lawn — a mundane suburban analog to one of his several mythic Island falls, none more monumental than his plummet from the heavens in the pilot episode. Then, the insult to injury: the sprinkler system activated, dousing Locke in the face. Lost's perpetual Job figure responded by.. rending his hairshirt and cursing God? Nope. He laughed. This totally surprised me. I expected an explosion of ''Don't tell me what I can't do!'' outrage. But this John Locke is a man who can roll with the joke when the cosmos decides to treat him like a punchline.

NEXT: Locke's got love