Lost Gets All Trippy

So last night was another great episode of the fantastic drama Lost. Episode 3 of Season 3 focused back to the original survivors and showed some of what happened to Desmond, Eko, and Locke after the hatch exploded in the season finale. We did learn that the three guys survived the hatch implosion and that the hatch is no more. What we did not get to see is what happened during and immediately after the implosion. In the beginning, we start with Locke lying on his back. we learned that Locke had inexplicably lost his voice but not his ability to walk. When Eko's scripture stick dropped from the sky (with an Old Testament verse stating, ''Lift up your eyes and look north''), Locke marched off to build...a sweat lodge?

Locke quickly built his sweat lodge and entered it, leaving Charlie as his guard. He started eating some sort of gooey stuff he made and then started sweating like crazy. Shortly thereafter, he started to see Boone, the guy that died in Season 1 because of him and played by Monday's Hottie of the Day Ian Somerhalder. Boone took Locke through a trippy fantasy through the airport. He apparently needed to show him whom he needed to help. He saw each of the main castaways in certain situations such as Sun and Jin arguing, Charlie and Claire with the baby (whom Boone said doesn't need help, for now), and Jake, Kate, and Sawyer being frisked by Ben. Anway, Boone tells him he needs to help himself and clean up his own mess before he helps them. So Locke realizes he first needs to save Eko before saving the others.

He leaves his lodge and embarks on a mission to save Eko, who it turns out is captured by the polar bear. Locke the hunter is back. Locke and Charlie run into Hurley who finally made it back. Hurley tells them what happened but Locke says that his priority for now it to save Eko's life. They tell Hurley to go back and tell the others what happened. On his way back, Hurley runs into Desmond, who is inexplicably naked. After lending Desmond a shirt, they talk about what happened and Desmond tells Hurley that Locke will save them just like he said in his speech. Hurley is confused because there has been no speech. Desmond just tells him not to pay mind to him. More on this later.

So we also finally got to see bear again when Locke tracks Eko back to the bear's cave. The cave was filled with human skeletons wearing Dharma logo t-shirts. Locke gets to do what he intended and saves Eko. He takes Eko back to the camp and we run into two new characters, hotties Niki and Paolo. They aren't really new since they have been stranded on the island since the plane crash too but this is the first time we see them. Anyway, Locke then gives a speech about helping Eko and then rescuing the others. This is the speech that Desmond told Hurley about. So Hurley realizes that something weird is up with him.

It seems to me that Desmond can now, or has always, seen into the future. As for the flashback, it was about Locke but I didn't see much point other than to see that Locke really is a hunter I guess. Also, I did notice yet another Geronimo Jackson reference so I'm wondering what is up with that. Next week, we see more of the captives and apparently Kate is forced to say she loves Sawyer, not Jack. Looks very interesting.