I was just wondering. Weren't they supposed to be sneaking up on the Other's camp so they could get Walt back? Why would Michael try to shoot the bird swooping at them and blow their element of surprise unless (my theory here) his Manchurean-style programming came out when he was startled.

I hope it wasn't bad writing just to show Jack had given him an unloaded weapon and now he knew...just in time for the commercial.

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charlie98210
"Whoa!" she said. "Cry 'Havoc!' And let loose the dogs of war!"
And, like Banquo's ghost, they just won't go away.

Charlie,
I am sure that the whole scene was set up so that, like you said, it showed Micheal found out he had no bullets. But on the same hand, a thought just occurred to me, was there others anywhere around the last time the bird was seen? Maybe that is there eye in the sky.

Or because Michael is an impetuous bonehead?

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Sorry...I think my Kharma just ran over your Dogma...

that's what I'm going with, too...

When did the bird show up before?

Was it my inagination or did it say something when it swooped?

the bird was in season 1, Exodus part 2 really close to the end of the show. I'll cut and paste from spooky's transcript which you can find at www.lost-tv.com

We see Jack, Kate, Locke and Hurley walking through the jungle.]

HURLEY: So, dude? What do you think is inside of that hatch thing?

LOCKE: What do you think is inside it?

HURLEY: Stacks of TV dinners from the 50's, or something. And TVs, and cable, some cell phones, clean socks, soap, Twinkies -- you know, for dessert, after the TV dinners. Twinkies keep for, like, 8000 years, man.

LOCKE [laughing]: I like Twinkies, too.

HURLEY: C'mon, really, what do you think is inside?

LOCKE: Hope. I think hope is inside.

[They continue walking. A large bird calls and flies away, scaring everyone.]

HURLEY: Whoever named this place Dark Territory? Genius.

I thought it was pretty stupid of Jack to give Michael the only unloaded pistol and then just say, "Oops, guess I forgot to load one." That should have been a tip-off to Michael that he wasn't trusted and that something was afoot with at least Jack if not all the rest of their group.

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Things fall apart, the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

--Lines 2-6, "The Second Coming" by Wm. Butler Yeats

Manchurian programing? Michael knew the idea of the plan, people programed like in the Manchurian canidate have no idea, whatsoever, that things are not "normal."

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I will tell you the truth at all times, unless I am pulling your leg.

Well, it was probably the reaction of a scared man, with no control of his trigger finger. He would've wasted that whole mag of bullets on that bird. It was probably to show that Jack knew about him, but it also showed us what an awful shot Michael was.

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I was thinking the black smoke was going to show up when the bird flew in. Didn't that happen last season? We saw the bird and then the smoke came after Locke.