The episode begins with Jack Shephard, Kate Austen, and Hugo "Hurley" Reyes having returned to the island, three years since they left it in "There's No Place Like Home". The narrative then shifts to 46 hours previous where the previous episode, "This Place is Death", left off. Eloise Hawking takes Jack, Desmond Hume, Sun-Hwa Kwon and Ben Linus to a Dharma Initiative station underneath the church called the Lamp Post, which was used by Dharma to find the island; since the island is constantly moving, they developed a way to predict where it would be at a given time. When Eloise mentions that the group only has 36 hours to get on Ajira Airways Flight 316, a Boeing 737-300, in order to return to the island, Desmond refuses to join them and leaves. Eloise then tells Jack in private that he must bring something that belonged to his father Christian Shephard with him on the flight and also gives him John Locke's suicide note. That evening, Jack gets a call informing him that his grandfather Ray has attempted to escape his nursing home. The next day, Jack goes to the nursing home and finds an old pair of Christian's shoes and decides to take them with him. Later, Jack returns to his apartment, where he finds Kate waiting for him, in his bed. He asks her where her adoptive son Aaron is, but she refuses to answer. Kate tells Jack that if he wants her to get back to the island, he must never ask her about Aaron. Then they kiss passionately and fall into bed. The next morning, Jack receives a phone call from a severely beaten Ben, who tells Jack that he must go to a butcher shop and retrieve Locke's dead body. Jack does so, putting Christian's shoes on Locke's feet in the process. He also leaves the suicide note in Locke's pocket. At the airport, Jack, Kate, Sun, and Hurley all board Flight 316. Hurley buys up all the remaining seats on the plane, in order to spare the lives of potential passengers. Sayid Jarrah also boards the plane, in the custody of Ilana. Ben is last to board the plane, which momentarily disquiets Hurley. Also on board is Caesar. Jack asks Ben as to what will happen to the other people on the plane, to which Ben replies: "Who cares?", leaving Jack speechless. During the flight, Jack hears the Captain's voice, that Frank Lapidus is piloting the plane and Frank realizes that they are going back to the island. Jack, who has been given Locke's note by a flight attendant, reads the note which says, "Jack, I wish you had believed me." The 737 hits turbulence and there is a flash of white light similar to that caused by the time shifts. The first scene replays, following which, Jack, Kate and Hurley are found by Jin-Soo Kwon, who is driving a Dharma van and wearing a Dharma jumpsuit.
Production
This episode and "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" were written at the same time by executive producers Lindelof and Cuse. "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" was originally meant to be aired first, but the order was switched because they felt it made more sense and was "cooler" and "there is probably some good information to get in '316' before."
Reception
13.161 million American viewers watched the episode's premiere. IGN's Chris Carabott wrote that Frank's return in the episode was shocking, but seemed as though it was meant to be. He opined that: "The chances of Frank being on that plane are astronomical and the fact that he was supposed to be the pilot of Flight 815 just makes the situation all the more unusual. His appearance in this episode is absurd but after four and a half seasons of Lost it makes perfect sense." James Yates of the Staten Island Advance wrote that it was "great" to see Frank again, as he had missed the character's presence, and hoped he would play a major part upon returning to the island.
