I Am DB

Given the title of this episode, I thought we might learn the whereabouts of Faraday. But whatever happened, that didn’t happen. Lots of other stuff did though, so here we go.

ALTERNATE PERSPECTIVE
Watching the recap of He’s Our You, I was struck by a long-shot thought. Early in the episode, Sayid asked Sawyer how he could live his life side-by-side with Young Ben. Later, when he’s tied to the tree and given the truth serum, he seems to have a moment of clarity, and eventually tells Sawyer that he knows what his purpose in returning to the island is. When he shoots Ben, saying, “I am a killer,” we assume that his purpose is to kill Ben. But what if his purpose is actually to set Ben on the path to the adult he will become? After watching Whatever Happened, Happened and seeing Sawyer and Kate bring Ben to Richard and the Others, I wondered if Sayid somehow came to a realization that he needed to set that future in motion. Maybe that’s why he only fired one shot; he needed to wound Ben, but not kill him. If this were the case, his comments about being a killer could be a way of shouldering some blame for the deaths that Ben will cause later in his life.

I doubt this is the case, but I like the idea. Maybe I only concocted it to help me justify the idea that Sayid wouldn’t fire just one shot. I mean c’mon! How many guys has Sayid shot on this show? And how many has he shot just once and walked away from without being sure they were dead?!?

A SOFTER SIDE
Roger Linus is around again, and in this episode we see someone other than the emotionally and physically abusive father we’re used to. Roger seems decent enough when meeting Kate and asking for her help extracting the charred van from the house, and that’s before Jin shows up with wounded Ben, turning Roger into the Concerned Father. Throughout the ordeal with his son, Roger expresses his gratitude to Sawyer and Juliet for all they’re doing, and when he talks to Kate as she gives blood, we see the regret of a man who was never able to get over the loss of his wife, and couldn’t deal with raising a son on his own, especially knowing that the son indirectly caused her death. It almost makes me feel bad to know that Ben will eventually sit next to him in a van and kill him without a trace of emotion. Though I wonder if Ben being shot changes his future, and perhaps changes the way his father treats him after that…

YOU ARE LOST AND GONE FOREVER, DREADFUL SORRY CLEMENTINE
There wasn’t much doubt, but we got confirmation that the thing Sawyer whispered to Kate before jumping out of the helicopter last season concerned his daughter, Clementine…whose mother, of course, is Kate’s platonic fling Cassidy. I wondered at what point Kate put that together. Even if Sawyer told her Cassidy’s name in that brief whisper (and it was a brief whisper), she would still have no way of knowing that Sawyer’s Cassidy is also her Cassidy. Yet by the time Kate goes to see her, she’s figured it out. Cassidy is not expecting Kate’s visit, but Kate knows exactly who she’s going to see. It’s not an important point, but one I wondered about.

Anyway, I liked the idea of Kate having a gal pal. We generally see her as such a loner, particularly in her off-island life, so the fact that she has a confidant is refreshing. I dug the fact that she told Cassidy the truth about the plane crash, and that she acknowledged that Aaron wasn’t her son when Cassidy asked her about it. As for Cassidy’s theory about Sawyer, I’m not sure I buy it. But it was interesting to hear someone else interpret his actions through a different filter.

THE LITTLEST LITTLETON
Earlier in the season, it seemed like the writers were sometimes dragging out the Oceanic Six coming back together and returning to the island. In writing about The Little Prince, I remarked that the appearance of Claire’s mother made for a neat red herring in Kate’s quest to learn who was trying to take Aaron away, but also seemed like an stalling tactic; a cool, but ultimately unnecessary diversion. But this episode proved me wrong. It turns out Kate left Aaron with his grandmother, which sinks my theory that Caesar and Ilana were somehow responsible for her, Sayid and Hurley getting onto Ajira 316. (Well, partially sinks my theory. It does hold true for Sayid, and time will tell if it’s true of Hurley.) But my theory about their involvement with Kate (and Aaron’s whereabouts) was wrong.

Instead, Kate left Aaron with Claire’s mother, but not before telling her the truth about the crash, the island and the fact that Claire may still be alive. And now, after being interrupted during her conversation with Sawyer in the last episode, we know Kate’s reason for returning to the island: she has come back to find Claire.

Awesome.

JACK 2.0
Juliet can only do so much to help the wounded young Ben, and the Dharma doctor is unavailable for days. That leaves Jack as the only person around with the skills to help. But when Sawyer comes calling, Jack refuses. He recalls agreeing to perform spinal surgery on Ben because Kate pleaded with him that doing so would spare Sawyer’s life. He says he won’t save Ben a second time.

Jack: When we were here before, I spent all of my time trying to fix things. But did you ever think that maybe the island just wants to fix things itself? That maybe I was just gettin’ in the way?
Kate: I don’t like the new you. I liked the old you, who wouldn’t just sit around and wait for things to happen.
Jack: You didn’t like the old me, Kate.

For my part, I do like the new Jack. I like the Jack who doesn’t feel like he has to be in control and who isn’t running around with a hero complex. I like the Jack who is reserved, thoughtful, sad and open to possibilities. When Juliet confronts him later, he tells her he came back to the island because he was supposed to. He says he doesn’t know why yet, but I love that he has embraced the notion that the island has a plan for all of them. Seems like somebody might owe John Locke a big fat apology.

BEN LINUS AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE
So let’s get into this, because it’s the crux of the whole episode: To save Ben or not to save Ben? That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and flaming arrows of Other’s fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by letting Ben die, end them. I’ve had a lot of conversations with people about this over the last week. The dilemma has proven to be one of the show’s more provocative storylines. Where do you fall?

Kate and Juliet fought to save Ben’s life while Jack refused to help. And I gotta say, I’m with Jack on this. Despite Miles’ attempts to explain the Time situation to Hurley (and we’ll get to that), Jack doesn’t know how accurate Miles’ statements are. And we the audience only know marginally more than he does about the rules of time travel as they apply to the castaways. So if we put ourselves in Jack’s shoes, for all he knows Adult Ben will cease to exist if Young Ben dies. And given what he’s seen Adult Ben do, why should he help? I think his justifications, first to Kate and later to Juliet, are perfectly understandable. And while the series end may prove that Ben was, as he has said, one of “the Good Guys,” he has still resorted to countless Machiavellian machinations to achieve those good guy ends.

In the past I’ve compared Ben to Severus Snape, arguably the richest and certainly the most enigmatic character in the Harry Potter series. Spoiler alert for you poor fools who have not read the Harry Potter books: to further my comparison, I’m about to discuss some big, huge, these-answers-didn’t-come-until-the-very-end-of-the-seventh-book facts about Snape. So skip the next three paragraphs.

Seriously, even if you think “I’m never going to read those stupid Harry Potter books or see those dumb movies”…don’t read this. You might have kids someday and change your mind. Or you might decide that all those years of resisting peer pressure have left you hardened and lonely, so you’ll find yourself reaching for Potter to try and connect, before it’s too late, with the friends who have forsaken you. And if that day comes, you won’t want to know the things I’m about to bring up (as they relate to Ben). Here, I’ll even make it easy and change the text color for the part you should skip.

In the end of the Potter series, Snape turns out to have been on the right side of the battle all along, but Rowling glosses over the fact that while his ultimate role was good, his motives were selfish and sort of twisted, and he was still pretty much a bad guy along the way. The part he agreed to play in Dumbledore’s master plan didn’t require him to be such an asshole…to everybody…all the time. Regardless of what he was trying to do, he still abused his power, favored Slytherins, treated everyone like crap…I mean, maybe being ceaselessly cruel to Neville Longbottom for seven years is a small price to pay for the sacrifices he makes, but couldn’t he have still worked his good deeds without being ceaselessly cruel to Neville…and everyone else?

If it seems like I’m going off on a tangent, well…maybe I am. But only slightly. The point is that the end does not necessarily justify all the means. Snape shouldn’t just be forgiven for all the bad stuff he did (which I sort of felt like Rowling did in the epilogue), and neither should Ben (if he turns out to be kinda decent after all).

Spoiler complete.

When Juliet says, “That kid was bleeding out,” Jack’s reply is, “That kid is Ben.” Juliet says, “He’s not Ben yet. He’s just a kid.” But I would argue that he is Ben; or at least, he’s already heading in that direction. As I said last week, he has developed an ease with lying and manipulation, and was willing to plow a flaming van into an occupied home in order to get what he wanted. Now some might feel that Richard’s comments at the end of the episode suggest that he and the Others are responsible for Ben forging the path that he does, and I’ll admit there is some merit to that idea, given how things are worded (we’ll get to that too). But for now, I’m maintaining that Ben has already shown signs of the man he will become. And as that man has given Jack and the rest no reason to believe anything he says, nor any true indication that his actions serve anyone’s interests but his own, I’d be inclined to refrain from intervening as well, and let fate – in the form of Sayid’s bullet – run its course. Avada Kedavra, motherfucker.

At the risk of exhausting the topic, I do have to say that I was intrigued by the respective positions held by Juliet and Jack over what to do about Ben. We have a surprising role reversal here: Jack, usually so noble and quick to act under whatever circumstances, refuses to help. And Juliet, who has always been more calculating, lets emotion rule her and isn’t concerned about allowing Ben to live. Knowing the effect that he will have on her future, I’m surprised she fought so hard to save him. This is the same woman who tried to convince Jack to kill him during his spinal surgery. Now she is able to separate the boy on her operating table from the man who will land on Jack’s. Go figure.

PARADOX PUZZLES
Damon and Carlton have always kept an ear tuned to feedback from the fans, and they keenly and humorously addressed some of the time travel questions out in the ether by positioning Hurley (and who else but Hurley could it have been?) as the audience’s surrogate in grilling Miles – who seems to have been listening closely to Faraday’s lessons – about the complications of traveling through time. These were great scenes, and did help clarify a few things for me.

While I found the scenes quite amusing, I also found them useful for somewhat clarifying what can and can’t be ramifications of actions taken by Jack, Kate, Juliet, Sawyer, Jin, Hurley, Sayid, Miles and Daniel in  the 1970’s. (And Rose and Bernard, wherever the Christ they are.)  I am still fuzzy on Miles’ explanation that the conversation he and Hurley are having has already happened, “but not for you and me. For you and me, it’s happening right now.” Or the similar notion that, “Your maniac Iraqi buddy shot Linus. That is what always happened. It’s just, we were never around to experience how it all turns out.” But hey, whatever. I’ll basically roll with it. It’s time travel, it’s freaky, end of story.

Now if I might briefly don my Continuity Police cap: how does Miles know about the wheel that Ben turned? I find it hard to believe any of them have seen the wheel in the three years they’ve been living the Dharma life. Early in the season, when they were first jumping through time, Daniel said that whatever Ben did down in the Orchid seemed to dislodge them from time. He didn’t mention a giant wheel. Now, we do know – from the very beginning of the season – that Daniel was present during the construction of The Orchid, when a foreman showed Dr. Chang a sonar image of something wheel-like. But we don’t know a) if that has happened yet, b) if Daniel actually saw the sonar pic or knew specifically about the wheel, c) if he shared possible knowledge of said wheel with Miles or the others, or d) where the Christ he is. Maybe Daniel, Rose and Bernard are all camping out together somewhere in the middle of the island, getting stoned and listening to Geronimo Jackson.

As for Hurley’s last question – the one about why Adult Ben doesn’t remember that Sayid is the man who shot him as a child – my thought in the moment was that Ben has recognized Sayid all along. Which would be pretty cool. (And in keeping with that line of questioning, why didn’t Rousseau recognize Ben when she captured him? I should probably wait until after tonight’s episode to pose it; in the preview of tonight’s episode, it looked like Ben has an encounter with young Rousseau; whether or not he directly kidnaps Alex from her remains to be seen, but if they do meet at some point, why doesn’t she know exactly who he is later on? File that question away…)

Anyway, the answer to Hurley’s question comes later, from Richard, who says conclusively (and ambiguously) that Ben will not remember any of this when he wakes up. So let’s talk about that…

SPECIAL DELIVERY FOR RICHARD ALPERT
When Jack refuses to operate on Ben and when Juliet can do no more to save him, she suggests that maybe the Others can help. Why? What does she think they can do for him? Does she simply think they might have doctors on hand? Or has her own time as an Other made her aware of possible – perhaps supernatural – cures that Richard might be able to utilize?

Kate and Sawyer exit Dharmaville, at risk of violating the truce, to bring an unconscious, dying Ben to Richard. When they find him, he of course recognizes Ben from their previous encounter and offers something of a warning to Sawyer and Kate.

Richard: If I take him, he’s not ever gonna be the same again.
Kate: What do you mean by that?
Richard: What I mean is that…he’ll forget this ever happened and that his innocence will be gone. He will always be one of us.

The weight of this hangs in the air for a moment.

Richard: You still want me to take him?
Kate: Yes.

As if the encounter weren’t thick enough with mystery, one of Richard’s men leans into his ear and says, “Richard, you shouldn’t do this without asking Ellie. And if Charles finds out…”

Richard cuts him off. “Let him find out. I don’t answer to either of them.” Then he takes Ben in his arms and walks away without another word to any of them. Turns out they are just around the corner from The Temple, last seen when Jin and Young Rousseau waited for her companions, who had climbed down a hole after the Black Smoke. Richard pushes open a doorway and disappears inside.

Whoa.

First of all, he’ll never be the same? His innocence will be gone? WTF? What are you guys gonna do, take him in The Temple and gang rape him?

Second of all, will Ben really never remember this? Does he not recognize Sayid later in life because of something that happens to him in the course of his healing? And do all of those memories come crashing back to him in the moment before he wakes up to find Locke at his bedside? (More on that in a minute…)

Third of all, what is this Ellie and Charles business? Is Richard no longer the leader of The Others, as he appeared to be when we first met Ellie and Young Charles Widmore in the 1950’s? If he is no longer in charge, how did that come to pass? And are Ellie and Widmore sharing power? And more importantly, are Ellie and Widmore gettin’ it on? Is Ellie indeed Eloise Hawking? Are Penny Widmore and Daniel Faraday siblings?? Do I have any reason to suspect as much? No? Think that’ll stop me from suspecting it anyway?

Let’s say that somehow Richard fell out of power (I’ve speculated this before, when I wondered if that would explain his looking so uncharacteristically unkempt when he met Young Ben in the jungle. If he’d been exiled by his people – or left for his own reasons – perhaps his appearance would have suffered from wandering the island). If he did, then that might put him at odds with Charles Widmore, who was already pretty insubordinate back in the 50’s. You could sense tension between the two men even in their brief scenes. And if Ben is loyal to Richard, that might put Ben at odds with Charles Widmore.

Then again, consider Ellie. She appeared to respect Richard’s authority back in the 50’s. What if Richard eventually decided he didn’t like being the one in charge, and instead preferred to advise the leader from the background, initially asking Ellie to take over and then continuing in an advisory capacity through subsequent changes in leadership? Remember that when The Purge occurs, Richard is asking Ben for instructions on what to do. Even though he brought Ben into Otherhood, he’s taking his orders – ostensibly, anyway – from Ben. This continues to be the case throughout Ben’s leadership…though in the later days he does take steps to undermine it (planting the seed for Locke to recruit Sawyer into killing his father, for example). If Ellie became leader of The Others, and if she and Charles did get romantically involved, Charles might have come believe that her power as leader extended to him as well. All of which might make sense of the remark Richard, you shouldn’t do this without asking Ellie. And if Charles finds out… Not to mention Richard’s reply that he doesn’t answer to either of them.

Or maybe I’m light years off base and absolutely none of this will be correct.

Getting back to things we know: we know that Ben does not stay with Richard and the Others, because he is part of The Dharma Initiative – at least for appearances sake – when The Purge happens (he’s wearing a Dharma Work Man uniform just like Roger’s when he takes Roger out in a van to a remote location and kills him. (It just occurred to me that when Hurley, Jin and Sawyer discover that van in Season Three, complete with Roger’s corpse, Sawyer has no idea that the skeleton sitting next to him will soon be a flesh and blood man that lives alongside him. I wonder if that’s occurred to him…)

So what does Richard do to save Ben? And where will Ben go from there? And did Kate have any second thoughts about what she was about to do after Richard issued his warning? What will the consequences be when the Dharma authorities, and Roger, find out that Sawyer and Kate took Ben to The Hostiles? And how will his return – his wound healed – be explained?

Lastly, I loved the way Richard taking Ben into The Temple fluidly brought us back to 2007 and Hydra Station-Ben waking up from his injuries to find Locke – noticeably absent from the last few episodes – sitting by his bed. I also like reader Shirley M.’s comment on that transition, which didn’t occur to me in quite this way when I first watched it: “Oh, and based on those explanations, don’t you think that when they showed Ben wake up to Locke at his bedside that he’d been dreaming/remembering his own memories that are concurrently happening in the past?  Like how Desmond woke up from a dream and knew they were memories, not dreams?  Also, Charlotte was only able to remember Daniel from her childhood when she was in a dream-like/dying state.”

If Shirley is right, then does that mean that while Ben did not remember Sayid shooting him, or remember Sawyer, Juliet and others from his childhood, that he is about to remember them now for the first time? Perhaps we’ll know in a few hours…

LOOSE ENDS/FOOD FOR THOUGHT
-This episode seems to settle the question of whether or not Kate’s reappearance will throw a wrench into Juliet and Sawyer’s good thing. I imagine the relationships could still get complicated, but for the time being at least, Sawyer says clearly that he’s helping Kate with Ben for Juliet. He also says things never would have worked out with him and Kate. Not off-island, anyway. He admits to growing up a lot in the last three years – and his experience in The Dharma Initiative is largely the reason for that.

On a related note, last week I included Doc Jensen’s rebuke of Sawyer for putting his own well-being ahead of the right thing to do by refusing to let Sayid go free. Well Sawyer redeems this failing with his decision to help Kate save Ben’s life. Or, well…saving Ben’s life may or may not prove to be a “right decision.” But in the context of Sawyer’s actions, it’s right in that he risks his own standing with The Dharma Initiative in order to save a kid’s life.

-I liked that the woman who finds Aaron in the grocery store when Kate loses him looks like Claire. A distorted, kinda scary, sorta freakishly ugly version of Claire. But still…

-I said in my last write-up that I’d like to see more of Juliet’s reaction to living in the company of a young Ben. Although it didn’t play out quite how I wanted it to, we still got to see how she regarded her future boss. So that was a good thing…even if her reaction to him wasn’t what mine would have been.

-I also wondered in my last write-up if Jack and Kate were together again on the island. From their conversation about Ben in the kitchen, it sounds like they aren’t. Though again, who knows where that’s going…

-Seeing Juliet treat Ben’s wounds made me wonder: why is she still in the motor pool now that she’s revealed herself to be a doctor? I know she delivered Horace and Amy’s baby just recently, but what’s a girl gotta do to get some promotion love? Or, to examine her delivery of the baby from another point of view, did the introduction of her medical skills lead to questions from Dharma’s powers-that-be about why she never told them she was a doctor, or at least had medical experience?

Tonight’s Episode: Dead is Dead (Based on the preview, methinks this one is gonna be good. Lots of Ben gaps and Island lore will be filled in!)

The “abridged” notation in my subject line is probably inaccurate, seeing as something must exist in a lengthy, original form in order to spawn an abridged version. In this case, no such lengthy original exists. I was out of town for a family event Thursday-Monday, and so was unable to undertake my usual obsessive dissection. I thought this would be pretty short, but it still wound up kind of long…if not as long as usual. The news of this abbreviated write-up will fill you with feelings of either disappointment, elation or indifference. I never intended these to just recap the episodes’ events, so we’ll see if I can use this piece as a model going forward….

SEEDS OF…SOMETHING LIKE PSYCHOPATHY…BUT NOT QUITE
Some of the things I brought up in last week’s write-up were dealt with in this episode, beginning with the timing of Sayid’s return to the island relative to young Ben Linus’ jungle meeting with Richard Alpert. Ben himself informs us, upon bringing another sandwich to an imprisoned Sayid, that it’s been four years since he asked Richard to take him away. He offers to help Sayid escape if he can go with him to the Hostiles.  We see in these opening scenes that Ben has already developed an ability to lie, manipulate and convince people of his harmlessness and innocence even while harboring devious intentions. The way he smooth talks Phil the security guard is an early display of his skills…and his ease with using them. When did he start to develop these traits? He seemed like a pretty normal kid when he first arrived on the island. Was it just life with his bitter father (more on him later) that set him on the road to being…I was going to say psychopath, but I don’t think that’s an accurate description, as much as I like using the word. And I hesitate to invoke the word “evil,” because Ben’s motivations are still completely unknown to us. I’ll refrain from choosing a word right now. You know what I’m trying to say.

I also want to note that Ben refers to Richard both by name and as the leader of the Hostiles. In the scene where that jungle encounter took place, neither of those tidbits entered into the conversation. We can assume that we just didn’t see that portion of their meeting. I only bring it up because I’ve questioned whether or not Richard was still with the Hostiles/Others at that time, or if he had perhaps been ousted from their ranks or even voluntarily left. In most of Richard’s appearances on the island – including his 1950’s days with young Widmore and his 70’s days when Sawyer spoke to him in Dharmaville, he has been neatly dressed and cleanly groomed. His long-haired, shabby look in the jungle when he met young Ben remains an anomaly, and I’ve long wondered why.

When Sawyer first goes into Sayid’s cell to talk, Sayid brings up Ben. “Sweet kid, huh?” Sawyer smirks. This confirms another of my comments from last week, which is that Sawyer and his merry men (and woman) have indeed encountered young Ben. Although things don’t look too good for the kid when the episode ends, I hope that future episodes will give us flashbacks into the three years between 1974 and 1977 so that we can see Sawyer, Juliet and Miles interact with him. I especially want to see Juliet’s reaction to him. They have a pretty loaded relationship after all, which has been ignored ever since Juliet officially left The Others and joined the Oceanic 815 survivors. In Season Four’s premiere episode, when everyone met in the jungle and broke off into two camps – those who would go with Locke and avoid the rescue freighter and those who would go with Jack and try to leave the island – we didn’t get so much as a glance between Ben and Juliet…and that was the first time they’d seen each other since she defected. I’d be more than a little interested to watch her deal with the boy who will eventually recruit her, fall in love with her and basically imprison her. And thinking about young Ben knowing Juliet reminds me of a comment that Harper made in last season’s episode, The Other Woman. Harper was The Others’ therapist, who met with Juliet when she first came to the island. She was snarky and catty from the start, and mumbled something under her breath about Ben being so good to Juliet because she “looks just like her.” Harper thought that Juliet looked like someone from Ben’s past…but who? His mother? His childhood friend Annie, who we are bound to revisit sooner or later? Or maybe the woman Juliet reminds Ben of is Juliet herself. If they knew each other in Ben’s childhood, and if Ben had a pubescent boy’s infatuation with her…it’s unlikely, but I’m just sayin.’

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT
We know from previous episodes that Sayid went from killing indiscriminately for Ben – out of a belief that by doing so he was protecting his friends – to not trusting Ben at all and telling Locke in The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham, “For two years I was manipulated into thinking I was protecting everyone on the island.” We’ve been waiting to see what happened that turned Sayid away from being Ben’s trigger-happy, go-to assassin. We got our answer in this episode.

Or did we? After committing a murder in Moscow, Sayid meets Ben outside the victim’s building and is told that their arrangement has come to an end; that this fresh kill is the last member of Widmore’s organization who poses a threat to them. Their work is done. Sayid is not happy to hear this, and we can infer from their exchange that since Nadia was killed, working for Ben to eliminate those responsible for her death (or those who Ben claim are responsible for her death) has given Sayid a sense of purpose…not to mention personal satisfaction. But he has no life to go back to, so Ben’s abrupt news does not sit well. Still, to me this doesn’t explain Sayid’s current state of mind – that is, the belief that Ben manipulated him into all of those murders. How does being upset that he has run out of people to kill transform into a conviction that those killings were based on lies? It seems like we’re still missing a piece of the puzzle, but maybe this is as much as we’re going to get on the subject. Seems like it might be time to move on to other mysteries; this episode would have been the logical place to deal with Sayid’s feelings toward Ben. If this is all we got, maybe it’s all there is.

KILLER INSTINCT
Later in the episode, Ben goes to the Build Our World site in Santo Domingo where Locke/Bentham had visited Sayid, and informs his former hitman that Locke is dead and that a man has been parked outside Hurley’s mental hospital for two weeks, keeping watch. He tells Sayid that Locke’s murder may be retribution for the killings Sayid did, but of course we know that Ben killed Locke. It would seem then, that this is his way of trying to lure Sayid back to the island. All of which makes me wonder who the guy in the parked car that Sayid killed really was. Did he actually have anything to do with Widmore? And what about the men in the safehouse who attacked Sayid when he tried to being Hurley there? Or the guy who posed as a hospital orderly when Sayid was recovering from that attack? Were these men all working for Ben? They used tranquilizers, not bullets, so clearly they wanted Sayid alive.

When Ben visits Sayid in Santo Domingo, he tells him, “To put it simply, you’re capable of things that most other men aren’t. Every choice you’ve made in your life, whether it was to murder or to torture, it hasn’t really been a choice at all, has it? It’s in your nature, it’s what you are. You’re a killer, Sayid.” His words cut deep, and Sayid replies, “I’m not what you think I am. I don’t like killing.” But Ben is right; he does have a flair for it.

This episode gave us the reappearance of Ben’s bitter father, Roger Linus. He talks to Sayid while mopping the floor outside his cell, and is none too happy when his son shows up with yet another sandwich for the prisoner. When Roger grabs Ben and yells at him, Sayid jumps up as if to defend the boy from his abusive father…a natural reaction which Sayid must reconcile with who Ben grows up to become. Does he wonder if this mistreatment is responsible for paving Ben’s eventual path? And even if he can trace it back to the abuse, does that matter? Can Ben be forgiven his future misdeeds because of the way he was treated as a child?

Apparently not, based on how the episode ends. Young Ben comes to bust Sayid out his cell, asking if Sayid will take him back to the Hostiles. “Yes Ben, I will,” Sayid answers. “That’s why I’m here.” After having no choice but to knock Jin unconscious in the jungle, Sayid takes his friend’s gun as Ben stands nearby waiting for him. Hunched over Jin’s body and collecting himself for what he’s about to do, he says, half to Ben and half to himself, “You were right about me. I am a killer.” Then he shoots Ben square in the chest.

I don’t think a lot of TV shows would have the balls to show a young kid take a bullet. It was harsh, powerful and completely necessary. But c’mon Sayid, you’ve been doing this long enough to know that you don’t fire one bullet at a victim and then walk away. You gotta fire two or three to be safe. That’s how I roll. I know your feelings are mixed because you’ve just murdered a teenager, but you did what you had to do. So how can you run off without making sure he’s dead? You know what this kid will grow up to do. Sorry to be the cold voice of reason, but you should have put one in his head.

So was one shot enough? Is Ben dead? He can’t be, right? I mean, if he were wouldn’t the whole island kind of implode like the house at the end of Poltergeist? At the very least his adult self, who is currently on the Hydra island thirty years in the future, would disappear, right? “Erased from existence,” as Doc Brown would say?

Or is he still alive because…well, see below for the name of tonight’s episode to complete the sentence.

THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE
When Sayid refuses to cooperate, Horace, Radzinsky, Phil and a reluctant Sawyer bring Sayid to The Dharma Initiative’s hippie shaman, a guy named Oldham, who operates out of a tent. They tie Sayid to a tree and Oldham administers some kind of truth serum. I wondered at first if Sayid could resist the effects of the truth serum – sort of the way Westley had built up immunity to iocane powder in The Princess Bride. But the serum works it magic, and soon a tripping Sayid is spilling details about Ajira 316, Oceanic 815 and the purpose of various Dharma stations – including The Swan, which hasn’t been built yet and about which Radzinsky is particularly edgy. He concludes with a warning. “You’re all going to die, you know. You’re going to be killed.” When Horace asks how he knows this, Sayid tells them he’s from the future. They assume the truth serum was too strong and that Sayid is loopy…but a spy nonetheless. Sawyer’s secret is safe.

He was nervous about this whole thing, of course, because he didn’t want Sayid to blow his story. Entertainment Weekly’s Doc Jensen had a thought about this which I liked. He wrote, “He’s Our You offered us another, more relatable example of free will and the factors and circumstances that infringe upon it: Sawyer. The born-again James LaFleur — scrambling not just to save Sayid’s ass but preserve the good thing he’s got going for himself and Juliet in Dharmaville — tried to convince his old castaway friend to lie and say he was a Hostile trying to defect. But Sayid refused, saying — correctly — that the right thing to do was to grant him his freedom and let him go. Sawyer flipped. No way could he allow Sayid to escape on his watch. ”These people trust me,” he said. ”I’ve built a life here, and a pretty good one, too.” Sawyer stands for any of us who put comfort and security over doing what’s right and standing up to what’s wrong. Funny: Three weeks ago, we were thrilled for Sawyer as we watched him blaze to heroic, happy life as a member of The Dharma Initiative. Now he’s an alarming cautionary tale for moral compromise.”

BEWARE BEAUTIFUL WOMEN DINING ALONE
Another gap that this episode fills in is how Sayid wound up on Ajira 316. After leaving Ben, Sun and Jack at the pier in Long Beach, Sayid goes to a bar to have a drink or ten.

Oh, hold up. Since I’m in the habit of complaining about bad continuity, I have to point something out here. When we first saw this dock scene in The Little Prince, Sayid walks off and says to Jack and Ben, “And if I see you, or him again, it will be extremely unpleasant for all of us.” But when we revisit the scene in this episode, the dialogue is different. Sayid no longer includes Jack in his warning, and instead says just to Ben, “If I see you again, it will be extremely unpleasant for us both.” C’mon guys…that’s just lazy.

Anyway, back to the bar. Sayid meets a stranger who we recognize as Ilana. A couple of things about their interaction, leading up to her bringing him to Ajira 316. First, she uses an accent which she has not used when on the island talking to Caesar, Locke and Sun. So either her accent with Sayid is an act, or the lack of an accent on the island is the act. Second, I don’t believe for a moment that she’s just a bounty hunter bringing him to justice for the family of one of the men he killed for Ben. She’s neck deep in all of the island/Widmore/Ben/Dharma intrigue, and she and Caesar are definitely in league.

By the time he boards the plane, Sayid has seen Jack, Hurley and Kate in the airport and knows things are not what they seem. When Ben walks into the cabin, Sayid leans in to Ilana.

Sayid: Are you working for Benjamin Linus? Are you working for him?

Ilana: Who’s Benjamin Linus?

Sayid: He’s a liar, a manipulator, a man who allowed his own daughter to be murdered to save himself, a monster responsible for nothing short of genocide.

Ilana: Why would I work for someone like that?

Sayid: I did.

As for Sayid uncharacteristically letting his guard down in the first place, I’ll blame the expensive scotch for his not being astute enough to ask himself why a beautiful woman is all dressed up to eat alone at a bar. (Fun Fact: The scotch he’s drinking is McCutcheon, which is Charles Widmore’s favorite. He once poured a glass for Desmond, explaining as he did so about how valuable the bottle was. He proceeded to drink it himself, telling Desmond that he wasn’t worthy of such an expensive drink. Or something like that. I didn’t have time to look it up exactly, and it’s not important anyway.)

SENSE OF PURPOSE
After Sayid’s visit to Oldham and after a Dharma leadership council votes to kill him, Sawyer gives him a last opportunity to escape. Sayid turns it down, saying that the truth serum brought him clarity and a (renewed) sense of purpose. He knows why he’s back on the island. After leaving him to his fate, Sawyer knocks on Kate’s door and asks her point blank why they all came back. She says she doesn’t know why the others are there, only why she is. But before she can say more, a flaming bus rolls into camp and crashes into a house – Ben’s diversion so he can help Sayid escape.

By the way, when the house caught fire and Jack came on the scene, which house did he come from? Are he and Kate living together? Juliet watched them walk out together that morning, but maybe they had just met up. Yet when Sawyer comes knocking, she closes the door and steps out on the porch as if to avoid disturbing someone inside. So are Jack and Kate on again?

LINE OF THE NIGHT
“A twelve year-old Benjamin Linus brought me a chicken salad sandwich. How do you think I’m doing?” – Sayid

Tonight’s Episode: Whatever Happened, Happened

Last Wednesday night at 6:36, I received a text message from my friend (and new indoctrinated reader) Dimitris. It read simply, “YEAH SUN!!!!” At first, I couldn’t make any sense of it. Then I assumed he was still celebrating St. Patrick’s Day and was sending me a senseless, drunken text. Then I realized that 6:36 on my clock would make it 9:36 in Boston, where he lives. This meant he’d be smack in the middle of Lost, and this made me wonder what awesome thing Sun was going to do exactly three hours from that moment.

CRASH INTO ME
Backtracking to fill in some gaps, the episode opened with Ajira Airways Flight 316 gliding through the night sky en route to “Guam.” What do you do when you’ve survived a plane crash and then find yourself on another plane which you actually expect to crash, and you’re simply waiting for it to happen? Is there part of you that wonders if you won’t really be so lucky this time? Are you more nervous from anticipation than you were when you didn’t know what was going on and whether you’d live or die? Do you relax and wait for the inevitable, secure in the belief that you’ll be safe somehow? I think we saw all of those feelings play out on various faces – Sun, Jack, Kate, Hurley…in the cockpit, even Lapidus knew something was going to happen, though he didn’t know exactly what.

He got his answer when the plane hit major turbulence. But unlike the crash of Oceanic 815, this incident finds the plane flying through a blinding white light. When the light subsides, the night sky has turned to broad daylight. The plane descends through a layer of clouds, and suddenly the island is looming right in front of them. Lapidus is able to avoid a collision and steer the plane toward what looks to be a runway off in the distance. But the landing is rough and the runway isn’t quite long enough, so they plow into the foliage before coming to a stop. Lapidus is injured, but okay. His co-pilot? Not so lucky. Poor guy gets impaled on a tree branch that breaks through the windshield. Based on what we see here and what we know from the episode that initially portrayed the crash a few weeks ago, everyone else seems to be alive. I was reminded of last season’s episode when Matthew Abbadon presented Naomi with photos of Frank, Daniel, Charlotte and Miles. Doubting their credentials for the mission at hand, she referred to Frank dismissively as “a drunk.” Abbadon replied, “To be fair, he’s also a pretty good pilot.”

I’ll say, after that landing. Suck it, Chesley Sullenberger!!

In the cabin, Caesar crouches by an unconscious Ilana and wakes her up, calling her “Lady,” as if he doesn’t know her. She wakes up and says a name that I couldn’t make out (Jaira? Something like that – close to, but not exactly like Sayid’s last name). Caesar introduces himself by name, but I don’t think there’s any doubt that these two already know each other. What are they playing at?

As Lapidus walks through the cabin, he finds Sun, who is bruised but okay. When he asks where Jack, Sayid, Kate and Hurley are, a dazed Ben appears and answers, “They’re gone.” Lapidus asks where, and Ben – sounding as if he’s about to drop dead of a brain injury – replies, “How would I know?”

THEY’RE HEEEERRREEE….
We’re told the next scene takes place thirty years earlier, and stupid as this sounds, it really took me almost a full minute for that to make sense as I watched the reunion scene between Sawyer, Jack, Kate and Hurley unfold. But I realized that we’re no longer tracking time in relation to when the Oceanic Six left the island. The present day is now 1977 for one set of characters and 2007 for the other set.

Once I’d worked that out, I could focus on the scene at hand. Hurley greets Sawyer ecstatically. Sawyer and Jack share a friendly handshake and Kate gives him a short but sincere hug. Dropping the usual “Freckles” nickname, he says, “It’s good to see you, Kate.” Sawyer says he can’t believe they’re really there and that Locke managed to bring them back just like he said. He asks where Locke is, and Jack breaks the news of Locke’s death. He says it doesn’t matter when Sawyer asks how Locke died, and when Hurley inquires about Sawyer and Jin wearing old Dharma uniforms, Sawyer realizes Jin hasn’t explained yet. So Sawyer tells them that he and Jin are in The Dharma Initiative. Jack assumes this means the group came back to the island. “No, we came back,” Sawyer says. “And so did you. It’s 1977.” As they try to take that in, the initial happiness of the reunion gives way to Sawyer’s realization that he has to figure out how to prevent the new arrivals’ presence from disrupting the lie he has built with The Dharma Initiative, which began the moment he and Juliet intervened with Richard’s men and Amy. Jack says they have to find the others, informing Sawyer and Jin that Sayid, Frank and Sun were also on the plane. As soon as Jin hears that Sun was onboard, he jumps into Sawyer’s jeep and speeds off, saying that if a plane crashed on the island, Radzinsky will know.

Back at the barracks, Juliet walks into what seems to be the main security station to ask Miles if he’s heard from Sawyer. Miles says no, he hasn’t been able to reach Sawyer or Jin, but then he looks at one of the monitors and sees Sawyer’s van arrive outside. Juliet goes back home to find Sawyer rapidly rummaging through the closet and throwing clothes into a large bag. She asks what’s going on and without stopping, he tells her that Jack, Kate and Hurley are back. She’s stunned, of course, and sits down on the bed. Sawyer briefly tells her what happened, all while continuing to frantically search for clothes. But I love that he takes a moment to slow down, sit next to her and say that he doesn’t understand it either, but that he needs to act fast. “I gotta find a way to bring them in before somebody else finds them and they screw up everything we’ve got here.” Maybe he took that moment because he realized he was shutting her out, or maybe it was a more deliberate attempt to quell any concerns she might have that Kate’s return poses a threat. Either way, it’s a sweet moment that reveals how far Sawyer has come. And in my interpretation, his comment about not screwing everything up suggests that he’s not simply concerned about protecting a lie, but rather something deeper than that. The implication is that he’s happy with his life in The Dharma Initiative – and with Juliet – and doesn’t want anything to jeopardize it.

Meanwhile, Jin pulls up to the Dharma station known as The Flame – the communications hub which, while under management of The Others, was manned by Mikhail, the eye-patch-clad bastard responsible for Charlie’s death. Thirty years from this time, Locke will blow up The Flame. But in 1977, it is well intact and being run by a testy, territorial fellow called Radzinsky, who has a bit of a Paul Giamatti energy about him. He is peacefully working at a table, building a model of some kind of geodome which looks like one that existed (or should I say will exist) in The Swan station (also known as Season Two’s main Hatch where the button was pushed every 108 minutes). Then Jin bursts in, immediately pressing buttons, looking at a printout, and quickly upsetting the control that Radzinsky likes to exercise over the station. Jin wants to know if a plane has landed on or near the island, or been seen in the vicinity. When Radzinsky dismisses the idea as absurd, Jin grabs him and demands that he check in with the other stations to find out.

Just after the last station reports back that no plane has been sighted, a motion sensor alarm is tripped. Radzinsky says there’s a Hostile inside the perimeter, and Jin immediately grabs his gun and runs out into the field behind The Flame to investigate, with Radzinsky not far behind. After a minute, Jin sees a figure running nearby and orders it to stop moving or risk being shot. Jin comes face to face with the intruder: Sayid, still in the handcuffs he wore on the plane. Jin asks where Sun is and Sayid says he doesn’t know, but that’s all the time they have. Radzinsky arrives on the scene, and Jin has to play the role of Dharma security dude. He levels the gun at Sayid and orders him to his knees. Sayid’s a pretty sharp guy, and you can see that it only takes a moment for him to realize that he needs to play along. Seeing as Jin is in front of Radzinsky, I kept waiting for him to wink at Sayid or give him the slightest nod – something to indicate that everything was okay. That doesn’t happen, but Sayid gets it.

Oh, and did you notice that one of the black and white monitors in The Flame was playing The Muppet Show? Love it.

MAINTAINING THE LIE
Juliet finds Amy in a hammock with her newborn in a stroller beside her. She takes Amy’s passenger manifest for an incoming submarine, explaining that Amy shouldn’t be going to work and that she’ll have somebody else cover for her. Juliet picks up the baby and asks Amy if she and Horace have chosen a name for their son yet. Amy says they’re going to call him Ethan. In yet another beautifully played moment by Elizabeth Mitchell, Juliet allows just a flicker of sickening foreknowledge to cross her face as she registers the future that awaits the baby in her arms…assuming that this is the Ethan we’re all thinking of. She holds it together in front of Amy, but she has to move on before she starts to cry.

Jack, Kate and Hurley are still waiting where Sawyer left them. Kate asks Jack if the woman who told him how to get back to the island mentioned that it would be thirty years earlier. Jack chuckles and says no, she left that part out. (Jack could have done a better job of asking more specific questions, though, couldn’t he have?) Sawyer then returns and explains his plan: a submarine is just about to arrive with a group of new recruits, and they need to blend in. As all the passengers take a sedative before the trip, no one meets until they arrive on the island, so there won’t be concerns about not being recognized. Time is of the essence if their arrival is to look natural. He says Juliet is taking care of getting their names on the necessary lists, but that if they don’t hurry, the trio will have to camp out in the jungle and risk being mistaken for Hostiles…or actually encountering Hostiles. It will be six months until another boatload of new recruits arrive, so they need to haul ass. Jack is skeptical and wants to find Sun and Sayid, but Sawyer says that Jin is working on it. Kate says they should follow Sawyer’s advice, and Hurley agrees, so Jack accepts his direction and they change into casual clothes and board the van. It’s interesting to see a role reversal in which Sawyer is the leader, the voice of reason and experience and Jack is the one who needs to follow directions and accept what he’s being told.

On the ride, Hurley brings up the 800 pound gorilla in the van: the eventual mass murder of The Dharma Initiative. Sawyer gives him a look that seems to say he’s aware but would prefer not to think about it. Hurley asks if he intends to warn them. “I ain’t here to play Nostradamus to these people,” Sawyer says. “Besides, Faraday’s got some interesting theories on what we can and can’t do here.” Jack hears this and says, “Did you say Faraday? He’s here?” Sawyer ominously replies, “Not anymore.”

Not anymore? Not anymore, like…not alive anymore? Or not anymore, like not here with us in The Dharma Initiative anymore? And if it’s the latter, was he cast out or is he self-exiled? As for his theories which Sawyer mentions, are these new theories which we haven’t heard about yet, or does he mean the theory that they can’t change the future? The one encapsulated by now familiar mantra, “Whatever happened…happened?”

They arrive in the main barracks of Dharmaville and Sawyer tells them that they’ll go into the Processing Center, watch the orientation video and wait to hear their name and receive their work assignments. He’ll be in there with them to get their backs, so they needn’t worry. But then Miles arrives and tries to find out where Sawyer has been all day… getting his answer when he sees Jack, Kate and Hurley. Like Jin, Sawyer and Juliet before him, the reaction on Miles’ face to learning of their return says, “How the fuck did they get here?” He snaps out of it and tells Sawyer that Jin has reported the capture of a Hostile. Sawyer contacts Jin on the walkie, and Jin slips away from Radzinsky, who is locking Sayid in a storage closet, to tell Sawyer who they’ve captured. Sawyer now has to head for The Flame to deal with this new complication.

CHECKING IN
Jack and Kate watch The Dharma Initiative orientation video for new recruits, hosted (of course) by Pierre Chang. Incidentally, we’ve seen this video before, in Season Three’s episode The Man Behind the Curtain, which tells of Ben’s arrival on the island with his father.

Jack hears his name called, and walks over to a registration table where Chang himself sits him down. Chang seems frazzled, explaining that the woman who was supposed to be doing this just had a baby. He welcomes Jack to The Dharma Initiative and hands him a uniform labeled Work Man. When Jack inquires what that means, Chang says, “Based on your aptitude test, you’ll be doing janitorial work.” Jack laughs, but accepts his assignment. (I assume that this aptitude test was not taken that day upon arrival, but rather is something that a real Dharma recruit would have taken long ago, off the island, and that Jack’s results are faked.)

Security officer Phil, who we met in last week’s episode, walks over to Kate, who has not yet been called. He doesn’t see her name on the list of recruits or on the sub manifest, and asks who recruited her. As she searches for an answer, Juliet steps in with a piece of paper featuring some “last minute changes.” She and Kate smile at each other, and introduce themselves.

HOSTILE REUNION
Sawyer arrives at The Flame, where Jin greets him with the explanation of Sayid running through the jungle, alone, in handcuffs. Inside, Radzinsky is wired, pointing out that the prisoner saw the model of The Swan and may have seen the survey of where they’re building it. He says they should nip the problem in the bud by killing him. Sawyer sarcastically thanks him for his input (Sawyer? Sarcastic? Really?), and Jin – playing his part well – grabs Sayid out of the closet and throws him down on the couch. Sayid takes in the sight of Sawyer but stays quiet. Sawyer paces in front of him, looking at him as he speaks. “My name’s LaFleur, I’m head of Security. Now I want you to listen real carefully to what I got to say. If you do that, you’ll be fine. Understand?” Sayid nods. “Alright, let’s start simple. Identify yourself as a Hostile.” Sayid says nothing. “The terms of the truce say you gotta identify yourself as a Hostile, or we got the right to shoot you.”

As he talks, Sawyer says with his eyes what he can’t say with his mouth, and Sayid again knows to play along.

“We do not refer to ourselves as Hostile,” Sayid finally says, “but yes, I’m one of them.”

Sawyer prepares to transport him back to the main security station in the barracks, despite Radzinsky’s vehement objections. Oh, and I love Sayid’s comment about not referring to themselves that way. Knowing nothing about the situation he’s fallen into, he still makes a point to defend himself within the ruse. It shows Sayid taking the position of an Other, but does it without being explicit. Well played, chaps. Well played.

HOUSE CALL
The new Dharma recruits gather for a photograph, with Kate and Hurley front and center, and Jack just behind them and to the side. Everyone is enjoying the picnic when Sawyer and Jin drive up with their prisoner. Jack, Kate and Hurley all watch as Sawyer marches Sayid out of the van and inside. Sayid sees them all but keeps moving. Sawyer and Phil put Sayid in a holding cell and lock him in. Sawyer gives Sayid a look that says, “Don’t worry, trust me” and then leaves him alone. I’m not sure why he didn’t take a minute here to talk to Sayid alone; there seems to be a moment where Phil has left the room, and Radzinsky and Jin didn’t come this far. Why not ask Sayid what the hell is going on?

That night, Jack knocks on Sawyer’s door and is surprised when Juliet answers. They greet each other with a hug and he says he must have the wrong house, but she says no, he’s in the right place. She invites him in, and Jack takes a moment to register that Sawyer and Juliet are living together. Sawyer looks relaxed in a chair, reading a book and drinking a beer. Juliet leaves them to talk, and Jack asks what’s happening with Sayid. Sawyer says that Sayid is safe for now, and that he had no choice but to act like Sayid was a Hostile until he can figure out what to do. Jack asks where they go from here, and Sawyer says he’s working on it. Jack points out that it looked more like he was reading a book.

“I heard once Winston Churchill read a book every night, even during the blitz,”  Sawyer replies. “Said it made him think better. That’s how I like to run things. I think. I’m sure that doesn’t mean that much to you, ’cause back when you were calling the shots you pretty much just reacted. See, you didn’t think, Jack. And as I recall, a lot of people ended up dead.”

“I got us off the island,” Jack says.

“But here you are,” Sawyer continues, “right back where you started. So I’m gonna go back to reading my book. And I’m gonna think. ‘Cause that’s how I saved your ass today. And that’s how I’m gonna save Sayid’s tomorrow. All you gotta do is go home, get a good night’s rest, let me do what I do. Now ain’t that a relief?”

“Yeah,” Jack says as he exits. And he seems to mean it. Jack has seemed pretty mellow since his return to the island, rolling with the punches instead of trying to figure everything out and act on it – the exact trait that Sawyer was criticizing in this scene. He didn’t even protest his Work Man assignment. So while he did bristle at Sawyer’s remark about people dying under his leadership, I think that by and large he is fully prepared to leave things to Sawyer and wait for whatever destiny the island has in store for him.

Or maybe he’ll get impatient soon and start reverting to old habits.

Anyway, Sawyer follows him outside and stands on the porch, watching him walk away. He turns and sees Kate pacing on the porch to his right. They look at each other. He gives her a small wave, which she returns. Then he goes back inside. Not that they’ve had much time to catch-up, but there’s definitely been awkwardness between them. Is three years long enough to get over somebody? Still working on that one…

I’ve complained about some inconsistencies in the writing of the show, but one thing that they’ve successfully kept up for the past several episodes is Kate being so subdued. Ever since the night she showed up in Jack’s apartment agreeing to return to the island with him – ever since she showed up without Aaron – she’s not quite been herself, and the writers (as well as Evangeline Lilly) have done a good job maintaining that.

As for Jack and Sawyer’s exchange, their friendly reintroduction is over and has given way to old tensions. I love Sawyer calling out Jack’s leadership style, and directly invoking what occurred to me earlier, which is the idea that he’s now the man who has to figure out the answers while Jack has to just wait and see. But the remark about a lot of people dying during Jack’s tenure wasn’t exactly fair or accurate. And Jack’s retort about getting them off the island wasn’t quite on the level either. He got a handful of them off the island. Six out of 40-plus survivors. Better than nothing, for sure, but maybe not something to brag about either.

DELIVERY BOY
A boy walks into the security station and tells Phil, alone on duty, that he’s got a sandwich for the prisoner. Phil let’s him go on in, which seemed a little unlikely to me. He’s really gonna let some kid go into the area with the Hostile? Alone? With a sandwich? Not sure I’m buying that, but it’s a minor quibble. The boy walks up to the cell door and offers Sayid the paper bag. His identity was already obvious, but we finally see his face and recognize him as the young Ben Linus.

Ben: Are you a Hostile?

Sayid: Do you think I am?

Ben asks for his name, which Sayid gives him, asking for his in return. Upon realizing who he’s talking to, Sayid simply says, “It’s nice to meet you Ben.”

I have to wonder when this is supposed to take place in relation to the incident in which young Ben encountered a long haired, shabbily dressed Richard Alpert in the woods (Season Three’s The Man Behind the Curtain), saying that he wanted to leave The Dharma Initiative and go with him. Has that already happened? Obviously the actor playing Ben is two or three years older, and he’s filmed from odd angles that might have been designed to conceal, for the time being, the fact that he’s grown. His hair is also longer, and I’m thinking that this is definitely after that encounter with Alpert. So is Ben looking for a way out at this point? Is that why he has an interest in Sayid? And has Sayid even fully grasped that he is in 1977? He hasn’t had a moment alone with Jin or Sawyer for them to explain it to him, so how much has he been able to piece together? He would have recognized The Flame station, having been inside it before and then witnessing its destruction. So seeing it again, intact, would surely tip him off that something strange is going on.

The other thought I had after this scene is that after spending three years with The Dharma Initiative, surely Sawyer, Juliet, Jin and Miles are well acquainted with young Ben by now. The boy walks casually into the security station and greets Phil with total familiarity. They must all know each other. So how have they all reacted to the presence of Ben? And have any of them considered preventing the boy from growing up to do the things they know he’s done?

ISLAND HOPPING
While all this has been happening, there’s been activity on the Hydra island as well. Frank calls for attention from the Flight 316 passengers and informs them that the radio is dead, but that a search party will find them soon and they should stay put. Caesar asks him where they are, but Frank says he doesn’t know, as the island is not on any of his charts. Caesar says there are some buildings and empty animal cages a bit inland, and a larger island visible from nearby. He wants to explore. Upon hearing this, Ben – who is sitting apart from the other castaways – gets up and slips away into the jungle. But Sun sees him go, and she follows. And when Frank sees her go, he follows too. Sun loses Ben in the jungle, but he appears behind her and asks why she’s following him. She wants to know where he’s going, and like the answer is obvious, he says, “Back to our island. You wanna come?”

She continues to follow him, and asks at one point if Jin is on the big island. “Honestly, I don’t know,” he says. “But that’s where I’d start looking.” He tells her there are outrigger canoes nearby which they can take to the other island. Then Frank shows up, wanting to make sure she’s okay and asking where she’s going. She tells him of her intention to travel with Ben to the other island, adding that she has no choice but to trust Ben – prompting him to give a little private smirk of satisfaction. So Frank follows them to another stretch of beach from the one they started on, and Ben removes branches that are concealing three canoes. Frank implores Sun not to go with Ben, reminding her that the freighter was loaded with commandos sent to capture him. “And how did that work out for everyone?” Ben asks as he prepares a boat. Sun says Frank should come with them, but he says he has a group of people he has to look out for. Ben thinks that’s exactly what Frank should do, and then (for some reason I’m not quite sure of) starts to indicate where exactly on the big island he’s heading – giving rough directions to a dock near the area on the island where he used to live. As soon as he’s done speaking, Sun grabs an oar and knocks his ass out cold. “I thought you trusted this guy,” Frank says. “I lied,” she answers.

I paused the DVR at this point to check the time. 9:36. YEAH SUN!!!!

That night, beneath a full moon, Frank and Sun reach the dock. As they walk from the canoe, the scene looking like something out of Friday the 13^th, there is an unnatural rustling of nearby trees. It resembles the rustling caused by the Black Smoke, but on a much smaller scale, almost like what a Baby Black Smoke might do. It quickly subsides, and only the normal breeze remains. They walk from the dock and find themselves in Dharmaville, now decrepit and abandoned. Just as Frank says that they’re unlikely to find anyone there, we hear the all-too-familiar whispering on the wind. A light turns on in one of the Dharma houses. The door creaks open and a figure slowly walks outside and reveals himself: the ever-present Christian Shephard.

Sun asks if he knows where her husband is. He beckons them inside what we quickly see is the processing center where new Dharma recruits – like Jack, Kate and Hurley a few scenes ago – were once brought. Now the place is dusty and deserted. Christian scans a wall of framed photographs, rhyming off years as he goes. 1972, 1978, 1976…1977. He removes the picture and tells Sun that Jin is with her friends. Then he hands her the picture of Dharma Initiative new recruits from ’77. There she sees Jack, Kate and Hurley. “I’m sorry,” Christian says to Sun and Frank, “but you have a bit of a journey ahead of you.” (And the award for Understatement of the Year goes to…)

How does Christian know to go immediately for the 1977 photo? Okay, that’s probably a stupid question seeing as Christian is supposed to be dead and yet seems to be everywhere on this friggin’ island. How he knows about the picture is probably at the bottom of the Questions About Christian list. (By the way, this is not the first time that an appearance by Doc Shephard Senior has been preceded by the whispering voices. Last season, as Michael was on the freighter trying to freeze the battery on Keamy’s bomb, he too heard the strange whispering. When he looked up, there was Christian, who said, “You can go now, Michael.” And then the freighter blew up.)

By the way, is it possible that the scene with Christian showing Sun the 1977 photograph sheds some light on the last scene of The Shining? Is there a door somewhere on the island that leads to the Overlook Hotel in Colorado?

Umm…probably not. But the scene definitely made me think of that final cryptic image of Kubrick’s film.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
-When Juliet was in the security room talking to Miles, I got a sense of the camaraderie that must have formed between those who remained on the island and banded together. Just as the Oceanic Six had their lie, The Island Five, if you will – Sawyer, Juliet, Miles, Jin and Faraday (maybe) – have been living their own lie, and they too fear exposure…though at least they seem to co-exist more harmoniously than the Oceanic Six did back in the civilized world. (Of course, “Island Five” doesn’t include Rose and Bernard, who we must assume have also been folded into Sawyer’s lie and therefore into The Dharma Initiative…although personally, I’d have a hard time believing that Rose and Bernard were crew members on a salvage vessel. And what about other survivors of Flight 815? Surely they weren’t all felled by the flaming arrow attack?)

-This episode is not the first we’ve heard of Radzinsky. Let’s take a trip way back to Season Two. Remember when Locke found a detailed, hand-drawn map of all the Dharma stations on the island, drawn on a blast door, visible only under blacklight? Okay, stay with me. In that season’s finale episode, Live Together, Die Alone, we learn about how Desmond came to the island and wound up in the hatch. After crashing on the island, he is brought to The Swan by a burned-out Dharma worker named Kelvin, who eventually tells Desmond about his former partner in button-pushing…Radzinsky. It was Radzinsky who began that map, which Kelvin continued and fnished, such as it is. It was Radzinsky who figured out how to make the blast doors come down so that he could draw the map in the first place. But Radzinsky, Kelvin explained to Desmond, eventually put a shotgun to his head. Kelvin pointed to a brown stain on the ceiling and told Desmond, “That’s Radzinsky.”  Is this really important? Maybe, maybe not. But it’s another example of one of the things I love about this show: it has created a detailed mythology which it continues to draw on, thereby strengthening the overall story.

Another simple example of that: Code 14J. This is what Sawyer and his security staff use to indicate the presence of a Hostile – in this case, Sayid. But we also heard Code 14J used in last season’s The Shape of Things to Come, when Keamy’s team forced Alex to disable the pylons, prompting a phone to ring in Ben’s Dharmaville house. When Locke answered it, a woman’s recorded voice repeated “Code 14J” over and over.

-We’re continually told that The Island is not just a mass of land, but an entity with its own consciousness, its own power and its own agenda. “Each one of us was brought here for a reason,” Locke once told Jack. “And who brought us here, John?” Jack asked. “The island,” he answered. When Michael tried repeatedly to commit suicide, it was Tom (The Other Formerly Known as Mr. Friendly) who tells him that the island won’t let him die. When Desmond attempted to storm out of Ms. Hawking’s sub-church Dharma station, she told him that the island wasn’t done with him yet. The list goes on.

If we accept that the island is exercising this power over the fate of the characters, then we have to figure that each one of them ends up where The Island wants them to be. Meaning The Island wanted Jack, Kate and Hurley to wind up together in 1977. It wanted Sayid to wind up in 1977, but not with Jack, Kate and Hurley. It wanted Sun and Ben (and possibly Lapidus, who is either part of the island’s master plan or just an unlucky guy drawn into its grasp) to remain in 2007. And then the question becomes…why?

Not just why do each of them land where they do, but why are they there at all? Back in the real world, the issue that kept coming up was that they had to go back to save the people they left behind. Sawyer, Juliet – everyone is supposedly in great danger and will die unless The Oceanic Six return to the island. But ever since Locke stabilized the frozen wheel and stopped the jumps through time, Sawyer and company have been doing just fine…the fact that they’re stuck in the 1970’s notwithstanding. Now that Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sayid are back…what are they supposed to do? Jack asks Sawyer where they go from here, and Sawyer basically tells him to get a good night’s sleep and go to work the next morning. Could it be that The Island’s purpose in bringing them back is to alter the future so that The Purge doesn’t take place? If The Purge happens, Sawyer and the others are likely to be killed. Is it somehow up to Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sayid to stop that from happening? And if it is – and if they do – then that dramatically alters the future of The Island, and makes it a very different place when Flight 815 crashes there in 2004.

I have a headache…and I look forward to it getting worse in a few hours.

Tonight’s Episode: He’s Our You

“AS LONG AS IT TAKES”
The episode begins immediately after Locke disappeared down the well in another violent flash, leaving Sawyer holding a rope that disappears into the ground. In fact, it was so immediately after that moment that I thought we were still watching the recap of that episode. That is, until Miles pointed toward something and indicated that they were quite a ways back in the past. Jin, Sawyer and Juliet follow his gaze over the tree line and see an enormous statue facing out toward the water, its back to them.

From behind, I first thought it appeared Greco-Roman…but the more I looked at it, the more I thought about the Anubis warriors from Brendan Fraser’s Mummy movies (I’m not proud that The Mummy occurred to me, but hey, I worked at ILM all through the making of the second flick. It was hard to avoid). Anyway, the Anubis vibe would suggest that the statue has Egyptian origins…which would fit with some of the other things we’ve seen on the island – mainly the hieroglyphics on The Temple exterior, on the door in Ben’s secret room when he summoned the Black Smoke and on the 108 minute countdown panels in the hatch. There are also the columns that surrounded the well down which Locke climbed. The pillars had a distinctly ancient look to them. And isn’t Egypt kinda sorta close to Tunisia, which contains what Widmore described to Locke as the island’s “exit?” What if the door between the island and Africa swings both ways? (That’s what she said.)

Bottom line: it looked pretty damn cool. Hopefully this intriguing glimpse of what is probably (but not definitively) Season Two’s four-toed statue isn’t just thrown in there to satisfy us, but rather will be explained more thoroughly later on. Because…wow.

Their viewing is interrupted by another flash, which is the most violent one yet. Miles even remarks when it stops that it was different than the others; more like an earthquake. We know this is the one that occurs when Locke turns the wheel, transporting himself off the island. After a moment, Juliet realizes that her headache is gone. They all realize the same, and that their noses are no longer bleeding. Whatever Locke was attempting to do down below, they figure it must have worked. Now they just have to wait for him to come back. “For how long?” Juliet asks. “As long as it takes,” Sawyer answers.

Three years later, we’re in a Dharma Station with a couple of security guards named Jerry and Phil, who notice something odd on the monitor. One of their own seems to be drunkenly stumbling around the large pylons that surround their territory’s perimeter. A closer look reveals the man to be Horace, a familiar face to us: he delivered baby Ben before moving to the island; he brought Ben and his father to the island and gave his father employment as a Work Man; he was among the people killed by Ben in The Purge; and he appeared to Locke in a dream telling him to find his body in order to locate Jacob’s cabin.

As seen on the security monitor, Horace has dynamite and is blowing up trees. Jerry and Phil debate whether they should go wake someone called LaFleur, who we gather would not be pleased about being disturbed…or about letting this Horace situation continue. So they run out into the Dharmaburbs and knock on the door of one of the recognizable yellow houses. The unseen LaFleur opens the door and listens to their explanation of the situation. Then we get a look at him: Sawyer. He steps back inside and grabs his Dharma uniform, identifying him as Head of Security. Upon laying eyes on Sawyer, one big question came immediately to mind: what kind of conditioner is he using to make his hair so straight and shiny, with such healthy body?

It looks like Sawyer wasn’t kidding when he said “as long as it takes.” He has ascended to a position of major authority and respect in The Dharma Initiative. Now behind the wheel of a Dharma van, he picks up Miles, also uniformed in Dharma garb. They go out to the pylons to get the now passed-out Horace, and while Miles stays to put out the fires, Sawyer brings Horace back to his extremely pregnant wife, Amy. She addresses Sawyer as Jim, and tells him that she and Horace had a fight about Paul. She’s about to elaborate when she suddenly goes into labor.

GOOD SAMARITANS
Three years earlier, Sawyer, Juliet, Jin and Miles return to where they left Charlotte and Faraday, but only the latter is there – kneeling, crying and mumbling things like, “I’m not gonna do it. I’m not gonna tell her.” He manages to explain that Charlotte died and that her body disappeared during the last flash. “She moved on, and we stayed,” he says. This prompts Sawyer to ask if they’ve stopped moving through time. Faraday says yes, it’s over. “Wherever we are now…whenever we are now, we’re here for good.”

Sawyer says they should go back to the beach, the most logical place for Locke and the others to look when they return. Miles argues that after the assault of flaming arrows, the beach doesn’t sound too welcoming, adding that their camp is probably not even there. Sawyer says they don’t have a better option and Juliet agrees, so they head off. As they walk, Sawyer thanks her for getting his back. Their banter is playful as she says, “You should thank me. It was a stupid idea.” They’re smiling. It’s cute. If they were Muppets, the next scene might show them riding bikes together through Hyde Park.

The Great Muppet Caper? Anyone? Alright fine…

They are interrupted by the sound of gunshots and a woman crying for help. Off in the distance is a body on the ground, a crying woman and two guys putting a bag over her head. Miles is hesitant to step in, turning to Daniel. “We don’t get involved, right? That’s what you said?”

“It doesn’t matter what we do,” Faraday says through his glass cage of emotions. “Whatever happened…happened.”

Sawyer’s not about to stand idly by, so confirming that Juliet again has his back, he approaches the group and calls for the men to drop their guns. One swings around and takes a shot at him, only to take a fatal bullet himself – not from Sawyer, but from Juliet. When the second guy fires, Sawyer takes him down. They tell the woman she’s safe and remove the bag. It’s Horace’s wife, Amy. Though she’s not his wife yet…

The first dead guy – the one who was with Amy – has a Dharma jumpsuit, so Juliet figures they’re in the 70’s or early 80’s. The assaulters have a walkie-talkie and Sawyer worries they may have reinforcements on the way, so he tries to keep his group moving. When Amy asks who they are, Sawyer says their boat shipwrecked en route to Tahiti. But she pleads with them to help her, saying something about a truce and that they have to bury her attackers and take Paul, her husband, back with them. (So this is obviously the Paul that she and Horace have a fight about in the future.) Amy is distraught and upset, so they reluctantly agree to help bury the assailants. I’m not sure what they did this with, considering they’re in the middle of the island without a shovel. But no matter. They finish the job and follow her lead with Paul’s body.

Sawyer: Alright listen up. When we get there, there’s gonna be a lot of questions. So just keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking.

Miles: You really think you can convince them that we were in a boat wreck?

Sawyer: I’m a professional. I used to lie for a living.

They come up to the pylons, which Daniel is about to cross until Juliet screams for him to stop. She tells Amy to turn them off. Amy plays dumb, asking what she means. Juliet tries to play dumb back, saying they look like some kind of sonic fence. Amy is definitely suspicious, asking again where their ship was going. Sawyer says that since they saved her life and are continuing to help her, she can show them a little trust. So she turns off the fence and walks through. When the others follow, they immediately feel the effects and collapse to the ground. Amy removes earplugs and looks down at her unconscious rescuers.

JUST WHEN I THOUGHT I WAS OUT, THEY PULL ME BACK IN
Three years later, Sawyer/LaFleur is in a Dharma hospital with Amy, who is experiencing serious labor pains. An internist wants to know where Horace is, but Sawyer brushes off the question and keeps the focus on Amy. The internist says her baby is upside down and two weeks early. Amy was supposed to leave on a sub for the mainland for her delivery, and he doesn’t know if he can help her. He says all the babies get delivered on the mainland. Desperate, Sawyer runs to get Juliet, who he finds laying underneath a Dharma van doing mechanical work. He tells her that Amy is in labor and in trouble. Juliet stands up alarmed and reminds him that they have an agreement.

Sawyer: Screw our agreement, we gotta help.

Juliet: Don’t you understand that everytime I try to help a woman on this island give birth, it hasn’t worked?

Sawyer: Well maybe whatever made that happen hasn’t happened yet. You gotta try. You gotta help her. You’re the only one who can.

Sawyer could be right about the baby issue not being a factor yet…although the internist did say that all babies are delivered off the island. Hmm. Regardless, Juliet (whose Dharma uniform looks like it says Motor Pool) follows Sawyer and tells the internist what she needs. She’s nervous, but Sawyer tells her she’ll do great, and even Amy says she wants Juliet to do it when the internist expresses his doubts.

While Sawyer waits outside, Jin arrives wearing a Security uniform. Sawyer explains what’s happening and that he had to pull Juliet “out of retirement.” Jin’s English is solid by now, and when Sawyer asks if he had any luck, Jin says they swept grids one through three (or something like that) and had no luck. So Sawyer says they’ll move on to the next one. “How long do we look, James?” Jin asks. Sawyer repeats his answer from three years earlier. “As long as it takes.”  Juliet comes out and says it worked; she delivered a healthy boy. She’s crying with relief and Sawyer is literally beaming. Sawyer! Beaming! What a softie.

Three years earlier, Sawyer awakens on a couch after the pylon incident. He’s alone with Horace, who tells him that his friends are fine, but that they’re waiting for him to explain who they are and why they’re on the island. He also says that Amy filled him in on what happened, and he appreciates what they all did to help. When Sawyer says they have a funny way of showing their appreciation, Horace explains, “Look, we have a certain defense protocol. There are hostile, indigenous people on this island and we don’t get along with them. So why don’t you tell me who the hell you are.”

Without missing a beat, Sawyer says his name is Jim LaFleur and that he’s the captain of a salvage vessel that shipwrecked while searching for an old slave ship out of Portsmouth, England called The Black Rock. He asks if Horace has heard of it. “Can’t say that I have,” Horace answers. (Can’t say because he doesn’t know, or can’t say because he knows but doesn’t want to say?) Why were they wandering in the jungle, he wants to know. Sawyer says they were looking for some of their missing crew members and that’s when they found Amy in trouble.

Horace says if he finds any of LaFleur’s people he’ll send them along, but that LaFleur and his present company have to leave the next morning on an outbound submarine. Sawyer asks if their good deed can buy them a little time to try and find their missing men, but Horace denies him. “No, the only people who are allowed to stay on this compound are members of The Dharma Initiative. And look, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, please Jim, but you are not Dharma material.”

YOU SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND, BABY, RIGHT ROUND
Juliet, Miles, Daniel and Jin are seated around a table outside, Juliet staring at the house she lived in as an Other and explaining to her companions her familiarity with the barracks. Jin asks Daniel if there will be more flashes. Daniel, still lost in his grief and not totally with the program, says, “No, no more flash. The record is spinning again…and we’re just not on the song we want to be on.” Then, as Dharma people continue to pass to and fro, he sees a little girl, maybe three years old, with red hair trailing after her mother. She turns and looks at Daniel, and he at her. It’s Charlotte.

Horace and Sawyer come out and join them, and Horace says someone will come by shortly to take them to their rooms for the night. He leaves them alone, and Sawyer explains his improvisation and informs them that they have to leave in the morning. Miles is wondering how this is bad news, but suddenly an alarm starts to sound throughout the compound and people scatter. Phil, the security guy from the beginning of the episode, runs up to Sawyer and the rest and brings them inside a house to hide. They look out the window and see a lone man enter the compound carrying a torch, which he sticks in the ground. The man keeps walking and when he passes under a streetlamp, he is illuminated to Sawyer and Juliet: Richard.

He waits in the now empty “village square,” where Horace walks out to meet him.

Horace: Hello Mr. Alpert.

Richard: Hello Mr. Goodspeed.

Horace: I wish you would have told me you were coming, I would have turned the fence off for you.

Richard: That fence may keep other things out, but not us. The only thing that does keep us out, Horace, is our truce. Which you have now broken.

Horace: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Richard: Where are my two men?

So what is the nature of this truce? How did these two groups first come into contact with each other? What is their arrangement? What does Richard get out of allowing Dharma to stay? Why doesn’t the electrofence keep out Richard and his people?

Horace comes back inside a minute later and asks Sawyer how well he buried the bodies. When Sawyer says it depends on how hard they look, Horace turns to Phil and says, “Call The Arrow. Tell them we’re at Condition 1. Take the heavy ordinance, and make sure the fence is at maximum.”

The last time we heard mention of The Arrow station was at the beginning of this season, when Dr. Chang was taping an orientation video for it, only to be interrupted by news of an incident at The Orchid. Before that interruption, he said that The Arrow’s “primary purpose is to develop defensive strategies and gather intelligence on the island’s hostile, indigenous population.” At the time, I didn’t think we had seen The Arrow yet, but I’ve since learned that we have. Way back in Season Two, when Ana Lucia and Eko finally accepted the truth that Michael, Jin and Sawyer were also from Flight 815, they all went to an abandoned Dharma hatch where the other Tailies – including Bernard – were staying. That was The Arrow, and if you recall, it was completely run down and virtually empty.

Back to the scene, Sawyer tells Horace he’ll go out and talk to Richard. Horace protests, but Sawyer makes it clear he’s not asking for permission. So out he goes, telling Juliet as he exits that he’ll figure something out. He approaches Richard, who is sitting casually on a bench as if waiting to pick up a to-go order of food. What follows is a great scene between these two, in which Sawyer plainly, truthfully explains that he killed Richard’s men, and why. He says that he’s not with The Dharma Initiative, so any truce they might have has not been broken. When Richard asks who he is if not part of Dharma, Sawyer takes a seat next to him.

Sawyer: Did you bury the bomb?

Richard: Excuse me?

Sawyer: The hydrogen bomb with “Jughead” written on the side, did you bury it? Yeah I know about it. I also know 20 years ago some bald fellow limped into your camp and fed you some mumbo jumbo about being your leader. Then poof, he went and disappeared right in front of you. Any of this ringing a bell? That man’s name is John Locke, and I’m waiting for him to come back. Still think I’m a member of the damn Dharma Initiative?

Richard is clearly stunned by Sawyer’s statements, and accepts that whoever he is, he’s not part of Dharma. But nevertheless, two of his men are dead and his people need justice. Uhh, why don’t we talk about the fact that your two men attacked a couple who were trying to have a picnic? Okay, I guess we don’t know how the skirmish got started. Maybe Paul and Amy were in territory they weren’t entitled to be in based on the terms of this truce. But whatever happened, it sure looked like Richard’s men were the instigators.

By the way, you gotta love Sawyer’s ability to play such a badass and still make the term “mumbo jumbo” sound acceptable.

Finally, the mention of Jughead reminds me of something interesting that I failed to mention before. In the wake of that episode, when Faraday told Ellie to bury the hydrogen bomb and pour concrete over it, there has been speculation amongst fans that the bomb was buried beneath the hatch that imploded at the end of Season Two (the hatch known as The Swan). I didn’t recall this, but early in that season, Sayid and Jack went into the crawlspace below the floor of the hatch and found a huge block of concrete that they could not get around. Their trip below the floor was prompted by Sayid discovering this same concrete block above them, behind one of the walls. So obviously, it’s pretty damn big. When Jack asked Sayid for his thoughts, Sayid answered, “The last time I heard of concrete being poured over everything in its way…was Chernobyl.” The Swan might have been destroyed, but it certainly wasn’t H-bomb level destruction. Is Jughead buried beneath that spot? And wherever it’s buried…could it still go off?

TWO WEEKS NOTICE
Horace and Sawyer find the grieving Amy, and Horace explains that LaFleur has worked things out with Richard, but in exchange for what happened they need to let him take Paul’s body back with him. Amy starts to cry, and Horace says that if she doesn’t want to do it, he understands and they’ll accept the consequences. Amy reluctantly agrees that if it will keep them all safe and maintain the truce, they can take him. Before leaving the body, she removes a chain from around his neck. It’s a small wooden symbol, which according to Lostpedia is an ankh, an Egyptian hieroglyph for fertility and eternal life. (Egyptian. I’m just sayin’…) In the meantime, Horace tells Sawyer that he and his people can stay there until the next sub run in two weeks.

Sawyer finds Juliet sitting on the dock, the submarine anchored behind her, and shares the good news. It’s a still, quiet night. She points out that the submarine brought her to the island, and for three years she’s been trying to leave. She says she’s taking her opportunity now. Sawyer says that whatever she thinks she’s going back to doesn’t exist yet, but she counters that that isn’t a reason not to go. Sawyer asks if she’s really going to abandon him with the “mad scientist and Mr. I Speak to Dead People? And Jin, who’s a hell of a nice guy but not exactly the greatest conversationalist?” He asks her to stick around and give him two weeks. Again, their conversation is light and playful. How far they’ve come from the days, just weeks ago in the show’s timeline, when he was a prisoner doing manual labor under her watchful eye.

LOVE IN THE TIME OF DHARMA
Three years later, they’ll have come even farther. The two are living together in domestic bliss. He even picks flowers for her. Who’d have thought Sawyer had such a creamy soft center? He’s like a human Cadbury egg. He tells her she was amazing that day, delivering Amy’s baby. She thanks him for believing in her, they hug, they kiss, she tells him she loves him, he says he loves her…all I can say is enjoy it while it lasts, kids.

Later that night, Sawyer is in the same room where he first met Horace, only now the positions are reversed, with Horace on the couch waking up with a headache. Sawyer tells him that he’s father to a newborn boy. Then he asks what happened to lead him on his bizarre escapade. Horace says he was looking for a pair of socks when he found Paul’s ankh buried in the back of Amy’s drawer. Sawyer can’t believe they got into a fight about that. “Yeah I know,” Horace says.  “But…it’s only been three years, Jim. Just three years that he’s been gone. Is that really long enough to get over someone?”

Sawyer looks like he understands, and a small smile comes over his face. “I had a thing for a girl once. And I had a shot at her, but I didn’t take it. For a little while I’d lay in bed every night, wondering if it was a mistake. Wondering…if I’d ever stop thinking about her. And now I can barely remember what she looks like. And her face is…she’s just gone. And she ain’t never coming back. So…is three years long enough to get over someone? Absolutely.”

Next thing we know, it’s morning and he’s asleep with Juliet when the phone rings. He answers it grumpily, and receives some news that startles him. He tells the caller not to “bring them in,” but that he’ll meet them. He jumps up to put his uniform on and tells Juliet it’s nothing, but that he has to go meet Jin. He drives a jeep along the coastline and gets out to wait as Jin’s van approaches and stops a few yards away. And out comes Hurley, Jack and Kate. They all look at him. He stares back,  barely believing his eyes.

Is three years long enough to get over someone? Let me get back to you on that.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
-Although his uniform simply labels him as Mathematician, Horace seems to be the leader of The Dharma Initiative during this era. How did that come to pass? Where are Gerald and Karen DeGroot, the scientists who conceived The Dharma Initiative in the first place?

-Those with sharp memories might remember that the first time we met Horace – when he delivered Ben and then brought young Ben and Roger into The Dharma Initiative – he had another female companion, named Olivia. From what I heard, the actress who played her – Samantha Mathis, for you Pump Up the Volume fans – was not available to return. So they gave Horace a new girl.

-Where the hell are Rose and Bernard?!?

-So the flashes have stopped, and our travelers have settled into life on the island sometime in the 70’s, working for The Dharma Initiative. The implications of this are wide-ranging and mind-numbing.

Are they really stuck in this time period for good, or will they be able to return to 2009? Jin and Sun have a daughter waiting for them after all, and I have a hard time believing that at least one of them won’t make it back to her (though Sun didn’t seem to give a thought to leaving her behind and returning to the island).

What future events will be affected/changed by their presence on the island? Will Daniel alter Charlotte’s fate? Will young Ben Linus meet the 815 survivors? Now that Sawyer, Juliet, Jin, Miles and Daniel are all part of the Dharma Initiative (and Jack, Kate and the rest may have to join up too), where does that position them for The Purge, which granted, is still years away? Will the Adam and Eve skeletons in the cave near the beach turn out to be the bodies of a pair of 815 survivors?

Whatever the answers to these questions turn out to be, this episode really feels to me like the beginning of the end. If the shifts through time have indeed stopped and everyone is settled in 1970’s Dharmaville, then this episode feels like the one that sets the stage for the series climax. The final chapter of Lost may have just begun.

STATE OF THE SEASON
With two weeks between episodes, I had been hoping to find some time to meditate on what we’ve seen so far this season and what it all means going forward. But as Ferris Bueller said, “Life moves pretty fast,” and I didn’t get to give it the thought I’d hoped. (I believe the second half of Ferris’ statement goes, “If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss is it”…which might hit too close to home for a guy who devotes hours every week to sitting alone at a computer geeking out over a TV show).

Anyway, the big picture stuff continues to elude me, so I have no new theories to put forth about Ben and Widmore, Eloise Hawking, Jacob, Christian and Claire, Walt, time travel, The Dharma Initiative, the JFK assassination, the Watergate tapes, the Lindbergh Baby, Jimmy Hoffa or how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. But in reviewing my write-ups thus far, here’s a recap of some questions/thoughts:

-When Jack and Ben first meet up over Locke’s coffin, Ben asks Jack what Locke told him when they met weeks earlier. Jack says that Locke told him some very bad things happened after Jack and the others left, and that those things were their fault for leaving. Now that we’ve seen that encounter between Jack and Locke – and please correct me if I’m wrong about this – but Locke said no such thing. He only said that Jack and the rest needed to come back with him.

-When Ben brings Locke’s coffin to his butcher friend Jill, he tells her to keep the body safe or else everything they’re trying to do will be useless. So even though he killed Locke, he makes the point that Locke is still a vital part of his plan and must make it back to the island. Why?

-When and how will Desmond re-enter the story?

-Will we learn more about Teresa, the woman Faraday left behind in England after his research went awry?

-Have the interferences by Flight 815 survivors on past island events resulted in the creation of new timelines? For example, when Jin stopped Rousseau from following her companions beneath the Temple, wouldn’t that have caused a splinter in the space-time continuum, seeing as Jin would not have been there to stop Rousseau the first time she landed on the island? Ditto for Locke confronting Richard Alpert, Daniel telling Ellie to bury the hydrogen bomb, Daniel meeting Charlotte as a little girl, etc.

-While my guesses are never deep or too risky, I was pleased to see a few of my mini-theories along the way bear fruit. Like the idea that Locke would realize Jack was Christian’s son, and that telling him about his father’s presence on the island would be the deciding factor in Jack trying to return. I was also right that when the time jumps stopped, Sawyer and company would land in the middle of the Dharma years – not a hard call to make given that we had already seen Faraday appear during construction of The Orchid, but still, that could have been a short, flash-induced visit. So I’ll give myself half a point.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Another great episode, featuring terrific developments for Sawyer and excellent work by Josh Holloway. Elizabeth Mitchell was awesome as well; she’s two seasons overdue for an Emmy nomination.

Tonight’s Episode: Namaste

Click here for a larger picture of the full statue. It’s pretty cool. And apparently, though it’s hard to tell, he/she/it is holding one of those ankh symbols in each hand…