An Asian lady and her five-year-old son look at a rattrap apartment – it’s Miles and his mom! Yay for Miles! As his mom deals with the lease paperwork, Miles wanders out to the pool and immediately starts to get visions. He goes to one of the apartments and lets himself in. Moments later, Miles’s mom hears him calling for her. She and the super rush to find him standing scared in front of a man who seems to have taken a bunch of sleeping pills. Little Miles starts babbling about this dead guy he’s found – how he is scared and lonely and wants to be with his wife. The super wants to know how Miles can possibly know all this about a dead man he never met. Little Miles claps his hands over his ears and shouts, “I can hear him! I can still hear him!”
Flash to grownup Miles, on the Island in 1977, being hailed on the walkie. Sawyer calls him to ask him to “accidentally erase” the security tapes for the pylon fence. After some grumbling, Miles agrees to erase the tapes. Sawyer sends Kate back to find Juliet; he’ll do his best to cover up little Ben’s disappearance. Meanwhile, Horace has found Miles and asks where LaFleur is. With LaFleur currently unavailable, Horace asks if he can trust Miles in his place. Sure, says Miles. Horace gives him something – all wrapped up - to take out to Radzinsky, and then to bring something back from Radzinsky to Horace, all without asking questions. “Welcome to the circle of trust,” intones Horace as Miles accepts his mission. Did he manage to erase the tape before Horace came in?
When he finds Radzinsky out in the middle of the jungle, Miles hands over his package. Radzinsky unrolls it – it’s a body bag - and whistles loudly, signally some Dharma goons to carry a dead guy out of the jungle and zip him up. Miles looks on with detached interest, noting the hole in the guy’s head. Radzinsky says Dead Guy fell in a ditch, and Miles needs to shut up and do what he’s told. The goons load the body into Miles’s Dharma VW van and Radzinsky orders him to take the dead guy back to Horace. Miles watches the live men walk back into the jungle before unzipping the body bag. “Okay,” he whispers to Dead Guy, “so what really happened?”
Time unknown, a bepierced and bepunked Miles goes to see his mom. She’s very ill, dying from cancer. He apologizes for not coming by sooner. She asks why he came and he says he needs her to tell him why he’s the way he is, how he can do what he does, and why she won’t talk to him about his father. She says his father never cared for either of them – kicking them out when Miles was just a baby – plus he’s dead now. Miles tears up, sad and angry. “Your dad has been dead a long time,” says Mom. “Where’s his body?” Miles asks. Mom: “Somewhere you can never go.” FM: A-ha! I think I know where that is!
Flashback to 1977. Miles returns to Horace who instructs him to take the “package” out to Dr. Pierre Chang out at the Orchid Station. Miles doesn’t really want to – can’t someone from the motor pool do it? – but Horace gets testy and Miles finally acquiesces. When he gets back to his van, he finds Hurley loading coolers into it: he’s heading to the Orchid too, having made lunch for the work crew out there. Hurley: “We can carpool, maybe prevent global warming since it hasn’t happened it.” Miles, resignedly: “Just get in.”
Juliet is in the clinic when Kate finds her. She brings Juliet up to speed and thanks her for sending Sawyer to help. Oops - Roger picks just then to return from his errand and he immediately notices that little Ben is gone. Juliet pleads innocent, saying she left for ten minutes and when she came back, Ben was gone. Roger is furious, suddenly caring about his son for the first time ever, and says that he’s calling Security. He storms out. Juliet looks at Kate and says, “Well, here we go.”
Hurley writes in a notebook as Miles drives them out to the Orchid. He asks how to spell “bounty hunter” then deflects Miles’s curiosity by saying it’s personal. It doesn’t take long for Hurley to smell something nasty coming from the back of the van. Worried that it might be the mayonnaise on the sandwiches he made, he makes Miles pull over. It then doesn’t take long for him to find the body bag. Miles tells him not to worry about it and not to tell anyone about it, but Hurley wants more information. So Miles tells him: it’s some guy named Alvarez who was digging a hole, thinking about some chick named Andrea, when a filling jumped out of his tooth and drilled through his head, killing him. Hurley wants to know how Miles can know all this. I just do, says Miles. Hurley stares at him and states: “Dude, you can talk to dead people. Your secret’s safe with me. You want to know why?” Miles: no. Hurley: “’Cuz I can talk to ‘em too.”
Flash back to the mainland. Miles is working his scam, talking to a grieving father, “Mr. Gray,” about his dead son. Who was cremated and his ashes scattered on the football field where he used to play. Miles says that it really works better if there’s a body but Gray points out that Miles’s ad simply said he can communicate with the dead. Miles concurs. Gray just wants to know if his son knew he loved him. Okay, says Miles, but this’ll cost extra. Gray hands over more cash immediately and a quick flash of remorse crosses Miles’s face. Then he takes Gray’s hands and tells him to think about his son, picturing his face. Miles is quiet for a moment, and then says that the son knew his father loved him, he always knew. He tells Gray he is sorry for his loss and takes his leave.
As Miles walks back to his car, he is accosted by Naomi Dorritt (remember her? her hair is still ridiculous). She introduces herself and says that her employer is interested in engaging Miles’s “rather unique services.” They agree to talk some more at a nearby restaurant.
Flashback to 1977. Kate finds a now drunken Roger sitting on a swing set, pounding Dharma beer. She asks if he’s okay and he snaps that his son was shot and then disappeared, so he’s pretty far from okay. Kate says she’s got a feeling that Ben will be fine and Roger shouldn’t give up hope. Roger immediately picks up on something BECAUSE KATE IS STUPID AND SCREWS EVERYTHING UP and asks if she knows more than she’s saying. Kate backpedals hastily, realizing her mistake, and Roger growls that she should just mind her own damn business. Yes, Roger! Tell her that again!
The Orchid must be really far away because Miles and Hurley are STILL driving. Hurley doesn’t understand why Miles won’t just admit what he can do. Miles wants to get this straight, though: does Hurley really have conversations with dead people* like they’re buddies? Yup, says Hurley. You actually see them? Of course, says Hurley, why wouldn’t I? Because that’s not how it works. A-ha! exclaims Hurley, so you can do it. Miles exasperatedly says that what he gets is more of a sense, a feeling – “not chatting with ghosts, you nitwit.” They finally arrive at the Orchid and Miles tells Hurley to keep his mouth shut and just “deliver [his] damn sandwiches.”
Dr. Chang comes up to them immediately and berates Miles for bringing Hurley along when he was told to come alone. Hurley immediately pipes up, promising that he won’t tell anyone about the body. Chang is not well pleased and tells Hurley that he better be able to keep this secret or he’ll ship him off to Hydra Island (a/k/a “Island Junior”) to weigh polar bear feces for their crazy experiments. Hurley shuts up. Chang orders a couple of workmen to take the “package” inside and tells Miles to wait ‘til he gets back. “Dude, that guy is a total douche,” says Hurley. Miles: “That douche is my dad.” Oooooooh.
Flash back to mainland. Naomi has brought Miles to an abandoned restaurant where she shows him a body. This is his audition and she asks what he can tell her about the dead man. Miles concentrates: “Name’s Felix. On his way to deliver something to a guy named Widmore … a bunch of papers, photos, pictures of empty graves, a purchase order for an old airplane.” Miles covers his face then asks if he passed. Naomi replies that she’s leading an expedition to an Island on which there are a number of dead people. She’s looking for a man, also on the Island, who was responsible for these peoples’ deaths and thus Miles’s talent could prove very helpful. “Much as hunting down a mass murderer sounds really safe, I’m going to pass,” says Miles. Naomi: my employer is willing to pay you $1.6 million. Miles: “When do we leave?”
Flashback to 1977. Miles and Hurley wait for Chang to come back. Miles doesn’t want to talk about it but Hurley pushes the issue and asks how he knows Chang is his father. Miles: “The third day we were here, my mom got in line behind me at the cafeteria. That was the first clue.” I love Miles! And he and Hurley are very fun together, the earnestness and the snark playing off each other nicely. Chang comes back and tells Miles to drive him back out to Radzinsky. “And you, Hurley …” he menaces. Hurley: “Polar bear poop – got it.” As they get into the van, Miles asks what happened to the body. Chang snaps, “What body?”
Back at the Dharma compound, Roger finds Jack encroaching upon his janitorial duties in the children’s classroom. Jack says that he was just trying to help since Roger must be going through a lot right now. Roger thinks for a moment and asks if Jack knows Kate at all. He says that he thinks she’s got a weird thing for his kid, first giving him blood, and then telling him that everything will be all right when Ben disappeared. He thinks that maybe he should report her to Horace. Jack suggests that maybe he’s had a rough day and should sleep it off first – plus he knows Kate and he knows that she’d never do anything to hurt Roger’s son.
VW van. On the ride back to Radzinsky, Hurley asks Chang about his family and learns that Chang has a three-month old son named Miles. What a coincidence, says Hurley, staring pointedly at the back of grown Miles’s head. He tries to initiate some father-son bonding but neither Chang nor Miles seem interested. Suddenly Chang instructs Miles to stop the van, then hops out and opens a totally hidden gate, walking through into a huge construction site. I think it’s the future underground hatch. I am proven right when Hurley hears one of the workers call out the unit number to be pounded onto the hatch door: 4815162342. He whispers the final number before the worker says it and Miles asks him how he knew the number. “Because they’re building the hatch … the one that crashed our plane.”
At some point after the “audition,” Miles is abducted whilst eating a fish taco by a man, Brant, who tells him not to go to the Island in Widmore’s employ. Brant asks him, “Do you know what lies in the shadow of the statue?” Miles: “No, can’t say that I do.” Then you’re not ready to go that Island, says Brant, “But if you come with us […], you’ll learn why you have a gift […], and you’ll know about your father.” Miles says that he stopped caring about his father a long time ago, but he does care about money – they can double Widmore’s offer if they don’t want him to go. “Toss him,” growls Brant. They throw Miles out of the van (pulling over first) and Brant tells him he’s on the wrong team. Oh yeah, retorts Miles, what team are you on? Brant: The one that’s gonna win. So these “shadow-of-the-statue” people are either Others or at the very least anti-Dharmite/Widmores.
Back to 1977. Hurley fills Miles in on the whole hatch deal, then asks Miles if he’s psyched to hang out with his dad. Miles slams on the brakes, shouting that he doesn’t want to hang out with his dad – he’s dead and gone. Then he grabs Hurley’s notebook and says that if Hurley wants to get in his business, he’ll get in Hurley’s. Miles starts reading out loud from the notebook: Hurley’s writing The Empire Strikes Back from memory - Chewbacca, light sabers, ice planet Hoth and all. His reasoning is that since it’s 1977 and Star Wars just came out, he thought he’d sent George Lucas the script for the sequel – saving him the trouble of writing it himself – with some improvements, of course. Miles sneers that that’s the stupidest thing he’s ever heard. Hurley: “Well, at least I’m not scared to talk to my own dad.”
Sawyer has finally made it back to the compound. When he gets to his cottage, Juliet and Jack are waiting for him. They tell him that Kate has aroused Roger’s suspicions and the looks they all give each other are variations of “what a dumbass she is.” When Jack takes his leave, Sawyer sincerely thanks him for the news. Sawyer is leaning against the porch railing still when Phil comes up. He says he knows who took young Ben and holds up a videotape. Sawyer says that there’s a perfectly good explanation for what Phil saw (Phil certainly hopes so) and asks him to step inside. Once inside, Sawyer asks if he’s talked to Horace yet. Phil says no – after three years of working together, he thought he’d give LaFleur the benefit of the doubt. So Sawyer punches him out and tells Juliet to get some rope.
On the mainland, right before getting on Widmore’s freighter, Miles returns to Mr. Gray’s home. He returns the money and says that he lied – he was unable to talk to his son. Gray asks why Miles is telling him this when he could have gotten away with the cash. Miles says it’s because it wouldn’t be fair to the son: if Gray needed his son to know he loved him, he should have told him while he was still alive. A little choked up now, Miles leaves, ready for his voyage.
In 1977, Miles and Hurley sign the VW van back into the motor pool at the compound. Hurley apologizes for giving him shit about his dad – he was estranged from his own father for a while, but is glad that he reunited with him. Miles retorts that Chang left when he was a baby and so he never knew him, and isn’t about to try now. “That’s what Luke said,” says Hurley wisely, “[…] and he got his hand cut off.” As Miles stares at him in disbelief, Hurley goes on to say that although it all worked out eventually, the lack of communication almost ruined everything and also brought about the Ewoks. As he continues to talk and talk and talk about the Star Wars trilogy, Miles’s face changes: he’s hearing the message behind the movie. And when Hurley sums up by saying, “And let’s face it, dude, Ewoks suck,” Miles is nearly in tears.
He walks across the compound and looks in the window of the Changs’ cottage. He sees his infant self sitting on Chang’s lap, reading a picture book, his mom busy in the background. Baby Miles is happy; grown Miles is crying. Chang gets a phone call and leaves the cottage so Miles turns, stepping into the shadows. Chang sees him, however, and tells him to get his van – they have to pick up some newly arrived Ann Arbor scientists at the submarine dock.
At the dock, Miles is helping with luggage when a familiar voice is heard: Daniel Faraday climbs out of the sub. Miles goggles, “Dan!” Dan smiles warmly at him: “Hi, Miles. Long time no see!” Aw – we were wondering what happened to you, Daniel. I thought you were still in a fetal position somewhere crying over Charlotte!
Previously on Lost / next time on Lost
* BtVS episode title!
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