s5e13: Some Like It Hoth

Kid Miles starts us off, getting a vision of a dead body at an apartment complex his mother is trying to move into. Presumably this is when he discovers his gift for talking to (or at least hearing) dead people. Then it's back to the island, where Sawyer tells Miles to erase some security tapes so no one knows that he and Kate took Ben to the Others. Miles is about to do that, but then Horace comes in and tells Miles to take a package to Radzinsky, who pops out of the forest with a gun as Miles drives up. The "exchange" is for a dead Dharmite, who "accidentally" got shot. Miles isn't supposed to ask any questions, but hey, would anyone mind if he... asked the dead guy?

Teenage punk Miles! Hilarious. He visits his dying mother, looking for answers about his "gift." He also wants to know who his father is. His mother tells him that his father kicked them out when he was a baby, and has been dead for a long time. Miles asks where the body is, and his mother tells him it's "somewhere you can never go." Back on the island, Miles isn't enthused that he has to take the body to Dr. Chang at the Orchid. (I wonder why not.) Hurley gets in on the ride over. Then it's over to Juliet and Kate, who discuss handing young Ben over - then Roger bursts in with the medical supplies. Did they think it was going to take him like, a week to get them? Juliet acts like she walked away for ten minutes and Ben was gone, so Roger runs off to security. "Here we go," Juliet says.

Miles and Hurley drive through the jungle, with Hurley writing something "personal." He asks how to spell "bounty hunter," and the title of the episode is "Some Like It Hoth." Is he trying to write Star Wars before George Lucas can? Since it's already 1977, I think that ship has sailed. I guess maybe he's just trying to write Empire. Hurley asks Miles if he cut one and won't let the smell issue drop, so he makes Miles pull over to check on the food he brought. But, uh, it's the dead body. Miles explains that the guy had a filling pulled out of his tooth and yanked through his brain, killing him (so it wasn't actually a bullet hole). Hurley notes that Miles couldn't possibly know all this unless he could talk to dead people, then tells Miles that it's okay, because he can also do that.

Back to the past, where Miles is now working his talking-to-dead-people business. It's a high school kid killed in a car accident, but unfortunately he was cremated, so Miles says it will cost extra. Then he does a little séance thing. Fake? Maybe, but the dad got he wanted, so he doesn't follow up. Out front of the house, Miles is met by Naomi, who mentions a job offer. Miles checks her out none too subtly as she walks away - good character continuity, since he called her hot in one of his first episodes. And then back to the island, where Roger is getting drunk on Dharma beer. Kate approaches and says she thinks everything will work out, but apparently is a little too convincing about it because Roger starts asking if she knows what happened. She insists that she doesn't, so Roger flips back into full-on douchebag mode and tells her to mind her own business.

Miles and Hurley debate the intricacies of the "power" that each has regarding talking to dead people. Miles describes his gift as just a "sense" of who the person was and what they knew before they died, not a conversation with a ghost as Hurley describes. Then they arrive at the Orchid, which is still being built. Hurley intelligently reveals that he knows about the body, and Dr. Chang threatens him with polar bear poop duty if he can't keep his yap shut. "Dude, that guy's a total douche," Hurley says. "That douche is my dad," Miles says, confirming what everyone suspected for like, a year now.

Naomi takes Miles to a restaurant, but it's not for food - there's a dead body there that will serve as his "audition." Miles says this isn't really his thing, but Naomi flips him a wad of cash that says otherwise. Miles senses that the guy's name is Felix, and that he was assigned to deliver a bunch of photos of empty graves to a guy named Widmore. He also senses that there was a purchase order for an old airplane. Naomi asks Miles to join her expedition to an island, where there is a man who killed a lot of people, and those people will hopefully be able to provide his whereabouts. Miles says that sounds really safe, but he'll pass. Naomi offers $1.6 million. "When do we leave?" Miles asks. Presumably this explains why Miles demanded exactly $3.2 million from Ben. Also, Widmore faked the plane crash, apparently.

Back to the island. Miles doesn't want to talk about Dr. Chang being his dad. Hurley asks how long he knew. Miles says it was on the third day, when his mother got in line behind him in the cafeteria. Dr. Chang comes out and asks to be taken to Radzinsky. "What happened to the body?" Miles asks. "What body?" Dr. Chang says. Over to Jack cleaning a classroom; Roger huffs in and notes that it's on his rounds. (No, I want to clean the dirty schoolroom!) Jack says he figured Roger would want time off. Roger says he has nothing better to do, then kicks Jack's water bucket to the door. Very protective. Roger tells Jack that Kate has a "weird thing" for Ben, and that he thinks she was involved in his disappearance. Jack says that Roger is drunk and not thinking straight, and that Kate would never do anything to hurt Ben. "Sure," Roger says, and leaves.

Hurley, stupidly, starts a conversation with Dr. Chang in the car. When Dr. Chang reveals that his son's name is Miles, Hurley says, "Small world!" Then he keeps doing a cat's-in-the-cradle thing which gets really annoying after the second iteration. Fortunately, we arrive at the Swan. Hurley happens to see them building the hatch and putting the serial number - 4 8 15 16 23 42 - on. When the last number is smudged and the guy can't read it for a second, Hurley mumbles it to himself. Miles asks how he knew that. "They're building our hatch," Hurley says. "What hatch?" Miles asks. "The one that crashed our plane," Hurley replies.

Miles is walking down the street when he's pulled into a van. A guy in it - who I recognize after a second as the guy with Ilana when she hit Frank with the butt of her rifle last week - tells Miles he wants to talk him out of working for Widmore. Miles doesn't know who that is, and the guy (Bram?) tells him that he's the one who chartered the boat Miles will be on. "Do you know what lies in the shadow of the statue?" Bram asks. Miles doesn't. "Then you're not ready to go to that island," Bram says. But if Miles goes with them, he'll learn the answers to the questions he's had all his life. Miles says he's more interested in money at this point, and that he'll want double (there you go) not to go. The van pulls over and tosses him out. "You're playing for the wrong team," Bram says. When Miles asks what team Bram is on, he replies, "The one that's gonna win."

Back on the island, Hurley tells Miles what the Swan is going to look like when it grows up. Then he keeps going on about Miles' dad, and suggests that maybe Miles could change his own diapers. Miles stops the van short and yells at Hurley that he doesn't want to know his dad better, because his dad never cared about him and nothing he can do will change that, and for that matter, his dad is dead. Hurley notes that he's not dead; they just dropped him off. Miles grabs Hurley's notebook to get into his business. He reads from Hurley's book and yes, Hurley is trying to write The Empire Strikes Back. He plans to send it to George Lucas with "a couple improvements." Miles says that's the stupidest thing he's ever heard. "At least I'm not scared to talk to my own dad," Hurley says.

Sawyer comes back to find Jack and Juliet talking. Jack tells Sawyer that Roger thinks Kate was involved in Ben's disappearance. It doesn't matter, because right after Jack leaves, Phil steams up with the tape that Miles didn't get a chance to erase. Phil hasn't even finished saying that he hasn't yet talked to Horace because he wanted to give Sawyer the benefit of the doubt when Sawyer knocks him out. Might have been a better way to handle that.

Miles returns to the dad of the dead high schooler and gives him back his money, telling him that he lied about being able to reach his son. The guy asks why Miles exposed the lie, and Miles says it wouldn't have been fair to his son - if the guy wanted his son to know that he loved him, he should have told him when he was still alive. (Sounds familiar.) Back on the island, Hurley tells Miles that he had cut his dad out of his life after he left, but that he was glad he reconnected. Miles says it's different since he was a baby, not ten like Hurley, and that he doesn't want to know his dad. Hurley says, "That was Luke's attitude too," and describes how Return of the Jedi would never have had to happen if Luke and Vader had worked out their relationship at the end of Empire. Miles oddly seems to take this to heart, and wanders by Dr. Chang's house, where he can see Dr. Chang reading to baby Miles. This chokes him up, understandably. Then Dr. Chang gets a phone call and comes outside. He sees Miles and tells him to drive to the dock, where scientists from Ann Arbor have arrived on the sub. Miles resists the urge to ask if Dr. Chang wants to have a catch.

At the dock, who should climb out of the sub... but Faraday! "Long time no see," he says with a smile. Logo. Next time? Fighting and stuff! And Faraday says that any of them can die. Does that mean someone will, by season's end? Apparently this is two weeks off. Kind of annoying.