Michael is drowning and Sawyer saves him, while Jin is missing. Michael recalls his fight against Susan for Walt in the justice and the reasons for Michael’s desperate obsession for his son. They drift on a wreckage of the raft, with the menace of a shark. Michael blames Sawyer for the abduction of Walt and promises to bring his son back. Meanwhile, Kate releases herself from Desmond’s captivity and escapes through a ventilation duct, while Locke tries asking Desmond questions about the underground facility they are in and about the use of the mysterious numbers. At the end, Michael and Sawyer reach the beach, and they see Jin escaping from “The Others”.
Desmond has another vision of Charlie’s death, but this time his death ultimately will result in Claire’s rescue. Meanwhile, the survivors discover that an attack by the others is even more imminent than originally expected.
An unlikely person helps Desmond save the life of the mysterious woman who crashed onto the island, and Juliet helps Sun find out whether she conceived on the island or before the plane crash.
Desmond’s latest vision suggests that his girlfriend Penny will crash-land onto the island. The vision also suggests that Charlie will die if he comes along with Desmond to rescue her, but Charlie must come along to make the vision come true.
Claire launches a plan to use migratory birds to send a message, but she doesn’t understand why Desmond keeps sabotaging it. Elsewhere on the island, Sayid, Locke and Kate scale The Others’ protective perimeter and discover their camp.
After Desmond saves Claire from drowning, Charlie and Hurley suspect that he can see the future. So they try to get him drunk to get some answers out of him.
Juliet exposes Sun’s pre-island affair to Jin so that they won’t defect to Locke’s camp. Sayid and Desmond meet the ship’s captain and discover that Michael is working on the boat.
During the helicopter ride to the ship, Desmond’s consciousness begins jumping back and forth between present day 2004 and 1996. He is forced to find Daniel Faraday in 1996 in order to get answers and stop the jumps.
Desmond returns to Oxford to fulfill Faraday’s request to find his mother. Back on the island, the survivors discover that they’ve run into The Others 50 years in the past, but Richard Alpert is the same age.
