Flashback: Locke attends a support group meeting after his father abandoned him. He finds little comfort there; instead he lashes out at those complaining about problems that seem insignificant compared to his. The outburst attracts the attention of Helen, a member of the group, and the two begin seeing each other. Their relationship is complicated by Locke’s continued haunting of his father, driving through his neighborhood and parking in front of his own. His father tells Locke in no uncertain terms that he is not wanted. Helen does want Locke, though – but only if he lets go of his pain. She sets an ultimatum: Locke will have to take a leap of faith to keep their relationship alive.

The Island: As Desmond and Jack confront each other, Kate gets the drop on Desmond. An errant shot hits the computer, which sends Desmond into a panic. Kate returns to the caves to get Sayid to fix the machine while Desmond explains that he washed up on the island about three years ago. Another man found him and brought him into the bunker and told him that they had to enter the six-digit code into the terminal every 108 minutes or disaster would ensue. He shows Jack and Locke an orientation film made in 1980 by the Dharma Institute, an experimental research collaboration devoted to the physical and social sciences. The film narrator explains that something at this installation – The Swan – has gone wrong, and now the essential thing for Dharma staffers to do is to keep inputting the code. Two men are supposed to be assigned to the task, and replacements are supposed to arrive every few months. But Desmond has been on his own since his rescuer died.

Locke is eager to fix the terminal and continue the work, but Jack wants nothing to do with it, convinced that the whole thing is just some sort of behavioral experiment. Desmond decides to leave the bunker; Jack follows him. Desmond tells Jack the code and then finally remembers their previous meeting. He asks if Jack was able to fix the girl. An anguished Jack screams that he married her, before letting Desmond go and returning to the group. Sayid has fixed the computer, but Locke can’t remember the code, and Hurley is quite deliberately silent on that score. If they’re going to carry on Desmond’s mission, Jack is going to have to be part of the effort.

Elsewhere on the island, Sawyer, Michael and Jin are captured by the Others and thrown into a pit cage. They are soon joined by another prisoner, a woman who claims to have been on the back of Flight 815 when it crashed. Sawyer is determined to use what bullets he has left to try and get out, but their new colleague has plenty of questions and loyalties of her own.

written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach & Craig Wright
directed by Jack Bender
music by Michael Giacchino

Guest Cast: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Island Man), Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond), Kevin Tighe (Cooper), Curtis Jackson (Security Guard), Katey Sagal (Helen), Roxie Sarhangi (Francine), Jeanne Rogers (Moderator), Marvin Candle (himself), Michael Lanzo (Waiter)

Notes: Locke’s discovery of, and kidney donation to, his father were shown in season 1’s Deus Ex Machina.

LogBook entry by Dave Thomer

Jesse and his stepsister, Sheriff Underlay’s daughter Kira, are walking home with containers of gasoline when they see an overturned RV trailer in the floodwater. They swim out to it to make sure no one is trapped, but while inside, Jesse sees something glowing in the water, and when he investigates closer, it lashes out at him, injuring him severely. Kira runs to get her father, but finds Russell at her house instead, babysitting Rose. Russell rushes back to the scene, recovers Jesse and takes him to the hospital, where Mariel hovers between parental concern and total disinterest in her son’s fate. She donates her own blood to Jesse, but instead of stabilizing him, it nearly kills him. Elsewhere, despite the five-mile quarantine radius around Homestead imposed by Sheriff Underlay, Larkin and her cameraman catch what looks like a military convoy going through town. When she confronts Underlay about it, Larkin gets a canned explanation and then demands the truth, which Underlay then tries to tell her involves the recovery of Airman Paxton’s helicopter. But when Larkin points out the radiation-suited hazmat teams near the crash site, it appears that even Sheriff Underlay doesn’t know the whole story. Nor can Russell explain why Mariel’s blood now resembles the blood of a marine animal more than it does that of a human being…

written by Becky Hartman Edwards
directed by Michael Dinner
music by Jon Ehrlich & Jason Derlatka

Guest Cast: Kimleigh Smith (Admitting Nurse), Melody Butiu (Nurse Karlen), Armin Shimerman (Josh Breims), Joshua Gomez (Scott), Ivar Brogger (Father Scanlon), Leslie Carrera (Mrs. Hernandez), Jean Sincere (Mrs. Lowell), Ewan Chang (Doctor), Barry Wiggins (General Turner), Joshua Harto (Greg Ogilvy)

Notes: Once again, a member of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s ensemble features in the guest cast, this time Armin “Quark” Shimerman as a cautious jewelry store owner.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Perri is mildly annoyed when Kolchak again barges into a police press conference she’s already covering, involving the inexplicable and brutal murder of a woman by her husband – who happened to be a prosecuting attorney. Kolchak is there to ask a question about supernatural involvement in the case, but his query goes unanswered. When another murder occurs – this time at the hands of a judge with no prior record – Kolchak and Perri begin to see a connection. Both the judge and prosecutor were involved in the trial of would-be serial killer Damon Caylor, who persuaded others to commit murders in his name. There’s another connection as well – in some capacity, the phrase “you know what you have to do” was heard or seen by the killers. Kolchak now focuses his attention on a detective also involved in Caylor’s trial and conviction, and sure enough, the detective tries to kill his wife, and is stopped only by Kolchak’s quick action. Now Kolchak’s concern turns to one other person instrumental in taking Caylor down – the reporter who covered his crimes: Perri Reed.

written by Thomas Schnauz
directed by Rob Bowman
music by Michael Wandmacher

Guest Cast: Tony Curran (Damon Caylor), Alex Carter (Detective Granoff), Robert Curtis Brown (Doug Linman), Colby Paul (Jeffrey Linman), Jessica Whitney Gould (Jane Linman), Art La Fleur (Detective Mitchell), Wylie Small (Amanda Daniels), David Dunard (Doug’s Dad), Tara Ciabattoni (Mary Granoff), John Wesley (Warden Blume), Darin Rossi (Umpire), Stephen W. Alvarez (Reporter), Susan Misner (Irene), Heather Kafka (Katrina Ortega)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

A naked Mal sits in the middle of the desert. Seventy-two hours earlier, he met up with an old friend named Monte to pick up some cargo, with Serenity coming by later to retrieve him and the load in order to avoid raising suspicions. When Monte enthusiastically introduces his new wife Bridget, Mal is a bit taken aback to see that Bridget is really Saffron. When her latest husband leaves her behind, Saffron tries to convince Mal that she has the inside scoop on a big heist. Mal isn’t interested, until Inara confronts him about their recent itinerary and points out that the crew hasn’t had a substantial job in a while. Mal decides to take Saffron up on her offer and go for the big score, which isn’t quite what Inara had in mind. The plan involves going to Bellerophon in the Core Systems, to the estate of a huge collector of artifacts from Earth-that-was. Saffron has all the security codes, so they can walk right in and take one of the earliest laser pistols ever made. Getting it out will be a problem – it’s rigged with sensors, so they can’t go out the door. Kaylee figures that if they dump it in a trash bin, they can hotwire the bot that picks up the trash and get it to drop the bin in the desert. Mal and Saffron head in to do the thieving while everyone else takes care of the rewiring. When Jayne gets knocked out, it gives Simon the chance to have a heart to heart with him about events on Ariel. At the estate, Mal is surpised – albeit not terribly so – to find that he is not the only one of Saffron’s spouses on the premises. They manage to grab the gun, toss it in the bin, and make their getaway, but Mal still loses his shirt. Everything seems to be going according to plan – but whose?

written by Jose Molina and Ben Edlund
directed by Vern Gillum
music by Greg Edmonson

Guest Cast: Christina Hendricks (Saffron), Franc Ross (Monte), Dwier Brown (Durran Haymer)

Notes: Saffron married Mal under dubious circumstances in Our Mrs. Reynolds. This episode was not broadcast by Fox and first aired on Sci Fi in 2005.

LogBook entry by Dave Thomer

Flashback: After he hits the lottery, Hurley tries to keep it a secret and enjoy some time with his friends before life changes dramatically.

The Island: Hurley absolutely hates his current assignment: inventorying the food supply in the bunker. He especially hates it when he has to keep the secret from the others on the island, and eventually he brings Rose in to help him. Locke tells Charlie about the hatch, and the food . . . which sends Charlie right to Hurley in search of peanut butter for Claire. When Hurley refuses him, Charlie’s hurt feelings frustrate Hurley even more, so he resolves to take drastic measures to ensure that things don’t change for him again.

Sayid and Jack look for the source of the electromagnetic disturbance, but it’s isolated behind heavy concrete. Claire finds the message in the bottle that the raft passengers carried with them, and gives it to Sun. Michael, Sawyer, and Jin are freed by their captors and brought to another bunker where another group of survivors from the tail of the plane huddles for shelter . . . including one survivor they’ve heard plenty about.

written by Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz
directed by Alan Taylor
music by Michael Giacchino

Guest Cast: L. Scott Caldwell (Rose), Sam Anderson (Bernard), Kimberley Joseph (Flight Attendant), Lillian Hurst (Carmen), DJ Qualls (Johnny), Billy Ray Gallion (Randy), Marguerite Moreau (Starla), Raj K. Bose (Pakistani Shop Clerk)

Notes: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Island Man) and Cynthia Watros (Libby) were added to the regular cast as of this episode. Hurley’s lottery win was originally shown in season 1’s Numbers.

LogBook entry by Dave Thomer

Weeks after the hurricane, Homestead is still under a quarantine that has the forceful backing of Sheriff Underlay. But at the next routinely scheduled press conference, which is increasingly becoming a forum for residents to voice their concerns as well, Russell challenges Underlay’s quarantine declaration, and once he voices that objection, others speak up too. Underlay backs down and opens the city to the rest of the world. Russell goes to check on a ranger station that hasn’t checked in, and finds it manned by a corpse – a diseased one by the look of it. That particular station monitored primates in captivity, and all of those specimens have escaped, possibly carrying the disease. Russell and the sheriff uneasily team up to track down the recapture them, but even then, the disease has spready among other people in Homestead – and has possibly already achieved epidemic status. And without the quarantine in place, there’s nothing to stop it from spreading further.

written by Juan Carlos Coto
directed by Sergio Mimica Gezzan
music by Jon Ehrlich & Jason Derlatka

Guest Cast: Nathan Baesel (Deputy Lewis Sirk), Lisa Jane Persky (Disheveled woman), Jeff Perry (Terrence Gale), James Carraway (Roger Weeks), Christine Healy (Dr. Bates), Holmes Osborne (Mayor Littles), Jim Cantafio (FPL manager), R.C. Shivers (COC woman), Jake Richardson (Gage), Michael Mitchell (Derek), James Sharpe (Frank Riegert), Peggy Dunne (Dottie Petrie), Kimleigh Smith (Nurse Kim), Katy Yeakey (Feverish girl), Bob Morrisey (Lawrence Burley), Joshua Gomez (Larkin’s cameraman)

Notes: Writer Juan Carlos Coto is the younger brother of Manny Coto, creator of Odyssey 5 and executive producer of Star Trek: Enterprise’s last two seasons.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Kolchak, Perri and McManus investigate the scene of a strange death – a college honor student drowned in an abandoned house with very little water nearby. Kolchak notices something that he thinks is an occult symbol on a window nearby, though Perri later cryptically identifies it as the symbol of a secret campus society. A reporter from the school’s paper, trying to ingratiate himself to Kolchak, drops a tip that the student’s ex-boyfriend, Jack Mercer, may be worth talking to. After he’s seen talking to Kolchak and Perri, Jack is confronted by one of his friends and a tenured professor, both members of the society of which he is a recent inductee. Jack’s professor threatens him, and then, mere moments later, that professor is found dead on campus of massive injuries consistent with a fall from a 50-story building – something that the campus rather conspicuously lacks. Kolchak’s leads turn up nothing as he tries to find the threads that tie the growing number of victims together, but when he looks into the history of the house where the first death occurred, he finds a terrifying secret that points to Jack Mercer as either the killer…or the next victim.

written by Adam Sussman
directed by Dan Sackheim
music by Michael Wandmacher

Guest Cast: Eugene Byrd (Alex Nyby), Gil McKinney (Jack), Lane Garrison (Craig), Yancey Arias (Carr), Travis Wester (Devan Harvey), Eamon Hunt (Charles Dunmore), Creed Castleton (Gun Dunmore), Colton Parsons (John Dunmore), Austin Highsmith (Liza)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Serenity stops at a space station to pick up their mail and get a little R&R. Simon tries to whisper sweet nothings in Kaylee’s ear, but manages to put his foot in his mouth instead. The mail turns out to be a bit of a surprise when a package addressed to Mal and Zoe turns out to be coffin carrying the body of Tracey, a private they fought alongside during the war. He carries a message tape asking Mal to bring his body home to his family, a request Mal tries to fulfill. When Alliance officers pursue Serenity, however, he wonders what’s so valuable about Tracey and asks Simon to perform an autopsy. The second Simon’s knife hits, Tracey wakes up screaming. Tracey had been faking his death, trying to get away from people he doublecrossed during a job smuggling artificial body parts. Tracey begins to befriend Kaylee while Mal looks for a way out of their jam. Book may have an idea . . . but Tracey fears betrayal just enough to do something stupid.

written by Joss Whedon & Tim Minear
directed by Tim Minear
music by Greg Edmonson

Guest Cast: Jonathan M. Woodward (Tracey), Richard Burgi (Lt. Womack)

Notes: This episode was not broadcast by Fox and first aired on Sci Fi in 2005. It was also the last episode produced.

LogBook entry by Dave Thomer

Flashback: Jin’s efforts to advance in society lead him to take a job as a doorman at an exclusive hotel. His roommate tells him that he is destined to find love; in the meantime he must balance his own values with the rules of higher society. Sun has her own problems with those rules, as her family pressures her to find a husband through a matchmaker.

The Island: Ana Lucia’s group of survivors decides to find the camp Michael, Sawyer, and Jin left behind. Michael chooses to head into the forest to look for Walt. Jin goes after him, and the mysterious tracker introduces himself as Mister Eko and accompanies him. They pass the body of what looks like one of Eko’s fellow survivors – the Others are out there. They’ve missed Michael for now, but that can’t be expected to last.

Ana Lucia trades barbs with Sawyer during one of his rest breaks. He’s slowing down the group, but then again he’s the only one who knows where the camp is. Back at that camp, Sun realizes she has lost her wedding ring. Jack, Hurley and others share their own tales of lost goods. When Kate tries to reassure Sun, she confesses that she found the bottle of messages from the raft, which seems to especially trouble Kate.

written by Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse
directed by Stephen Williams
music by Michael Giacchino

Guest Cast: Rain Chung (Mr. Kim), Kim Kim (Mrs. Shin), Josiah D. Lee (Tai Soo), Tomiko Okhee Lee (Mrs. Lee), Tony Lee (Jae Lee), Robert Dahey (Poor Man), Kimberley Joseph (Cindy), Sam Anderson (Bernard), Rain Chung (Mr. Kim), June Kyoko Lu (Mrs. Paik)

LogBook entry by Dave Thomer

Rose runs home from playing at the water’s edge to tell Russell that she’s seen another of the glowing lights in the water. Russell and Dave go to look, but find nothing; their reaction, however, is telling to both Jesse, who finds it more difficult each day to trust either of his increasingly secretive parents, and Larkin, who wonders why Russell hasn’t brought this potential story to her attention. Larkin has been considering calling on an old flame at the local Air Force base to see if she can catch another glimpse of the containers she and Sheriff Underlay saw being removed from the water, and Russell’s continued secrecy only intensifies her resolve. Carl McKittrick, an old friend of Russell’s, appears in the midst of all this activity to confide some marital difficulties to Russell, but when Russell doesn’t have time to talk, McKittrick instead breaks into a gun store, arms himself, and when Sheriff Underlay arrives on the scene, shots ring out – and McKittrick is killed. Russell vows not to let the matter drop, and when he goes to see McKittrick’s wife, discovers that she was another of the hurricane survivors who was found unharmed in mysterious circumstances after the storm. She and other survivors, including Mariel, Kira’s boyfriend Derek, and the local priest, have formed a support group of sorts, meeting at the priest’s church to discuss their shared experience. And Sheriff Underlay is there too.

written by Michael Berns & Shaun Cassidy
directed by Thomas Schlamme
music by Jon Ehrlich & Jason Derlatka

Guest Cast: Nathan Baesel (Sirk), Matt Ross (Vince Teracoma), Sylvia Kelegian (Lucy McKittrick), Ivar Brogger (Father Scanlon), Veronica Cartwright (Valerie Shenkman), Jake Richardson (Gage), Stephen Lee (Carl McKittrick), Michael Mitchell (Derek Culie), Robert Dickenson (Newscaster), Jake Eberle (Man), Alexis Ryan (Woman), Saida Rodriguez Pagan (Newscaster #1), Reggie Jordan (Newscaster #2), Matt Sigloch (MP)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

The investigation of a bizarre death – a man who seemed to spontaneously combust at a gas station, causing a huge explosion – brings Kolchak and Perri into contact with Howard Gorn, a senior reporter at the Beacon’s national desk whose own investigation into a string of murders with similarly incendiary results formed the basis for a book. In fact, Gorn’s case files on the book are kept in a locked drawer, and not in the paper’s research library, which prevents Kolchak from comparing the evidence. In the string of “Terrormaker” murders, a wax figurine – rumored to be covered with a biological agent causing the spontaneous combustion effect – was sent to each of the Terrormaker’s targets, usually people involved with bioweapons research. Kolchak and Perri try to enlist the help of Doug Panero, the FBI agent who brought the Terrormaker down, and Panero reluctantly tells them later that this new victim did indeed fit the profile of the killer’s previous targets. But the Terrormaker was executed a year ago, and as more wax figurines are delivered to people who then die in a burst of flame, Panero wonders if he helped arrest the right man – and insists that Kolchak keep Gorn in the dark.

written by Noah Baylin
directed by Tony Wharmby
music by Michael Wandmacher

Guest Cast: William Lucking (Howard Gorn), Michael O’Keefe (Doug Panero), Clare Carey (Lisa Panero), Madison Mason (Houck), Price Carson (Mystery man), Brandon Fobbs (Delivery boy), Kevin Brief (Fogel), Eugene Collier (Customer), Shane Johnson (Susan Reynolds), Alex Fernandez (Gary Reynolds)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Nandi, an old colleague of Inara, waves asking for help. She has set up a prostitution house on a planet on the frontier, outside the jurisdiction of the Companion Guild. Now the most powerful official on the planet has impregnanted one of her girls, and plans to take his child by force. Nandi needs some firepower to convince him otherwise. Mal agrees to take the job; after sizing up the opposition, Mal’s instinct is to take everyone on board Serenity and run. But Nandi’s not willing to go, so they prepare for the next day’s firefight. Simon helps to deliver the baby while Mal and Nandi spend the night together. Inara finds this development unsettling but tries to hide her feelings. When battle ensues, the official has one further advantage – one of the girls has sold them out.

written by Brett Matthews
directed by Thomas J. Wright
music by Greg Edmonson

Guest Cast: Melinda Clarke (Nandi), Kimberley McCullough (Chari), Fredric Lane (Ranse Burgess), Tracy Leah Ryan (Petaline)

Notes: This episode was not broadcast by Fox and first aired on Sci Fi in 2005.

LogBook entry by Dave Thomer

Russell and fellow park ranger Mona Gomez find an old Cuban man adrift in the Everglades, stammering about how he has lost his family to “the lights.” Larkin confesses to Dave that she thinks she’s been followed since she managed to sneak into a top secret hangar at the Air Force base, shortly before Dave and Jesse join Russell to go hunting for one of the glowing creatures in the swamp. Strangely changed after his own experience in the water, Kira Underlay’s boyfriend Derek is stopped by Sheriff Underlay and warned to stay away from the sheriff’s daughter. Derek suddenly decides that he’s more interested in Mariel – despite the fact that this will surely set an even more direct confrontation in motion with the sheriff. Russell tags one of the glowing creatures with a radio device that he can track, but when he follows the signal, he discovers that these creatures can apparently take over human bodies. And Larkin finds that she is indeed being followed, though her attempt to outfox her pursuers puts her in even more danger.

written by Becky Hartman Edwards & Shaun Cassidy
directed by Lawrence Trilling
music by Jon Ehrlich & Jason Derlatka

Guest Cast: Nathan Baesel (Sirk), Matt Ross (Vince Teracoma), Sylvia Kelegian (Lucy McKittrick), Ivar Brogger (Father Scanlon), Veronica Cartwright (Valerie Shenkman), Jake Richardson (Gage), Stephen Lee (Carl McKittrick), Michael Mitchell (Derek Culie), Robert Dickenson (Newscaster), Jake Eberle (Man), Alexis Ryan (Woman), Saida Rodriguez Pagan (Newscaster #1), Reggie Jordan (Newscaster #2), Matt Sigloch (MP)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

After confiscating a knife from a shy, troubled new student, a school principal is threatened by the boy’s father, and later dies under mysterious circumstances, found impaled on the school’s flagpole. The police dismiss it as a freak accident caused by lightning, despite no record of a storm anywhere nearby. Kolchak takes a persistent interest in the case, and his suspicions continue to bring him back to the boy’s father, who is rumored to have a violent history. When more concrete examples of the boy’s abuse surfaces, the school counselor confronts the boy’s father about it – and she dies later that night, decapitated when a ceiling fan falls on her in her home. Kolchak is now convinced that the father is serving as the earthly vessel of a demonic power, and even shares his suspicions with a police detective whose son is the reclusive child’s best friend. But when Kolchak discovers that he was wrong – there is a demon, but it’s not inhabiting the child’s father – he’s too late to stop a chain of events that will leave the true evil free to cause more death and destruction.

written by Adam Armus & Kay Foster
directed by Deran Sarafian
music by Michael Wandmacher

Guest Cast: Tony Todd (Detective), Eugene Byrd (Alex Nyby), Zachary Winard (Justin), Cayden Boyd (Ryan), Peter Greene (Ezekiel), Frederic Lane (Mr. Carver), Ted Rooney (Jeffries), Drew Osborne (Jake), Paula Newsome (Dr. Lawrence), Mary-Pat Greene (Mrs. Sampson)

LogBook entry by Earl Green