tinyblob.com

This write-up was delayed by silly adult things like moving into my new flat, and arranging to pay for bills and stuff. Crazy.

This episode opens with Sawyer making Tea for the injured Jin. We did wonder where he had been hiding, turns out he was playing nurse. Jins utter fear of being around when “they” arrive (they being Claire and Locke) could be attributed to the face that he recently watched Claire plunge an axe into a helpless mans chest, or because he knows she will not have found her baby with the others. Sawyers affirmation that he’s “with Locke” counters something he says later in the episode, but seems to serve a purpose at the moment – calming down Jin.

Sawyer seems quietly resigned as he greets Kate, I guess he’s used to the whims of the island now and the face that they keep being pushed together. He’s not excited like he was in earlier seasons, I’m happy to see that perhaps he’s completely over her.

The flash sideways tries to play an easy trick on us, but I think we’re all a bit too battlescarred these days, and guessed it before he called out “LaFleur”. Sure, it’s a role reversal but it’s not too big a leap of faith. In the flash sideways Sawyer’s still using his power to do what he wants to do, this time he’s just doing it a little differently. An interesting point is that he didn’t trick her, she even calls him a “lousy con-man”. As a cop he hasn’t had the practice, the life dedicated to fooling people, and he’s not got the skills we’re used to him having.

Fake-Locke certainly seems to be falling into his role as leader. Almost like he’s done this before.. But the unprompted question from Cindy (the flight attendant, turned temple-other) seems to show that they’re not following him blindly like a supposed earlier, she DOES want to know what happened to the people that stayed behind. Plus she says “we want to know”, as if she’s spoken to the others behind his back.

Interesting that Fake-Locke tells them that “The Black Smoke killed them”, taking absolutely no responsibility for it, but not lying. He promises to take care of the kid, and it seems like an honest promise.

I notice a teddy bear in the childs arms and think back to that scene from a long time ago, the barefoot people in the jungle. One of them carrying a teddy bear on some kind of wire. I wonder if that was them leading the kids back to the temple. Curious.

Kate asks Sawyer “so you’re with Locke now?” to which Sawyer replies after some thought “I ain’t with anybody Kate”. That’s not exactly what he told Jin earlier, and suggests two things to me. Firstly that he might well just be more likely to tell Kate the truth. They’ve shared a lot of honesty in the past and she’s the most likely to understand that he’s doing all this for himself. Secondly he might be referencing the fact that Juliet is dead, and that he’s still attracted to Kate.

Our flash sideways takes us to Sawyer calling up people by the name of Anthony Cooper. Anthony Cooper is Locke’s father, an accomplished con-artist who caused the deaths of our Sawyers parents, and is the reason he chose to live under that name and become a con-artist himself.

In the recent Locke-centric episode we learned that Locke seems to still be on good terms with his father – Anthony Cooper, or at least his soon-to-be wife thinks he is. This led us all to think that perhaps in the flash sideways he’s not a bad man, but left the question as to what happened to put Locke in a wheelchair if he wasn’t pushed out of the window by Cooper. Now this episode is telling us that Anthony Cooper did still cause the deaths of Sawyers parents. So who knows what exactly went on. But I have a thought which i’ll get to later on.

I found it very interesting that Fake-Locke seemed so utterly peeved when Sawyer interrupted him, asking when they were going to get off the island. Fake-Locke seems very composed, and even when events anger him he doesn’t seem to… Rise to it. On this occasion he takes Sawyer aside and calmly makes his annoyance clear. Interestingly he verbally forgives Sawyer, even though his apology is clearly sarcasm. This forgiveness is quite importance, seeing as judgement has been quite an important theme in our encounters with the smoke monster.

Best line in Lost so far might well be “I’m the smoke-thing”. But the rest of the dialogue is very important. Fake-Locke admits to killing the people that stayed in the temple, but i’m not quite sure why he did. Earlier I believed that it was his intention to occupy the temple – not so. I wondered if he was trying eliminate potential resistance, seeing as the temple seems to be a sanctuary. But he was able to enter it once, perhaps he was simply worried that a new “Dogan” would be tapped, and be able to prevent his entrance again. Maybe he just killed them all out of spite, this is almost inferred by his mention that they were trying to protect the island from Fake-Locke, even though all he wanted to do was leave. I’m wondering if they were protecting the island exactly by preventing him from leaving. Perhaps leaving is exactly what would destroy the island. He finishes off the conversation by saying that it was a kill or be killed situation, and he didn’t want to be killed. He’s definitely mortal then, even though Sayid couldn’t kill him. I restate my previous opinion that he could only be killed by someone who did so entirely out of free will.

I 100% do not buy Fake-Lockes suggestion that he wants to get on the plane and fly away. Sure it makes sense that the runway was built so the plane would land safely, but it didn’t. It front ended some trees, and I can’t see a plane flying with a smashed windscreen. The pilot would be decimated surely. Plane like that flies a good bit faster than an open top bi-plane.

I don’t think there’s anything behind Charlotte being in this episode, other than the fact that they wanted a bit more fan-service, and needed a female character for him to interact with who wasn’t Kate or Juliet. I think the Juliet moment will come later, and involve coffee (and going Dutch).

Sawyers reaction to Kate’s dress, still sitting in the cage, seems like more of a reinforcement that he is indeed pining for her. Bleh.

I spoke before about Sayid being resigned to his fate, rather than actually being “converted” to evil. He seems completely uncaring as Claire utterly fails to take out Kate. Got to wonder what’s going on in his head. But I’m more interested in what Fake-Locke is thinking about. He refers to Claire’s behaviour as “inappropriate”, fascinating. He was annoyed at Sawyer for interrupting him. Why is he so bothered about decorum? He’s acting like a parent, think back to his line upon leaving the statue foot – “I’m very disappointed in you all”, spoken like he was talking to all people. Like some god character, some great progenitor. Not that I believe this IS his backstory, just that he’s acting along those lines.

One thing worth noting is that on an island full of people with Daddy-issues, he’s going to be the one doing a damned good job of leading people. He gets Claire calmed down right away (okay, so a little corporal punishment was involved..), but he certainly seems to be doing something right here.

Don’t really understand the “drag marks” to the bodies. If they’re coming from where the bodies where, how were they killed? There’s no blood. Maybe it WAS Smokey.

Was anyone fooled by this “lone survivor” collecting wood? Yeah, collecting wood, heard that one before. The episode started with a woman who knew about cons, we were bound to see that again. Plus, she doesn’t really seem disheveled enough to have been dragging bodies around. I enjoyed Sawyers line “God’s got nothing to do with it”. Is that the writers talking directly to the fans again? Just like his “surprise” line near the beginning.

Fake-Locke apologises to Kate, again, doing the “right” thing. He takes responsibility for it and explains his actions. Says that he gave Claire “something to hate” to keep her driven. Got to wonder about this.. The truth would’ve driven her just as well, driven her to find a way off the island, or just keep surviving. But he chose to give her hate. Is that because he’s used to being driven by hate? Remember, if Fake-Locke and The Man In Black are the same person, then this is the individual we heard say “You have no idea how much I want to kill you” to Jacob. He certainly sounds like someone who’s driven by hate. Is this the only thing he knows?

This “survivor girl” asks way too many questions, and Sawyer isn’t buying it “we got plenty of guns”. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen someone being sent alone to pose as a survivor and find out things. Remember Ethan?

Interesting information from Fake-Locke. He’s not a dead man, he had a mother, his mother was crazy, she caused him some problems. Makes me think about Jacob and Esau again. The fascinating line is “now Aaron has a crazy mother too”. I’m guessing some people will jump on the “Fake-Locke must be Aaron!” thing, but I’m pretty certain that’s not the case. I guess he’s simply bothered by the fact that he may have been instrumental in this kids “mommy issues”, and wants Kate to do something about it. Somehow preventing this issue reminds me of the warnings Claire got in the early seasons, that her son couldn’t be raised by another. As if Fake-Locke had somehow sent this message to her, by proxy.

The sonic fences scream “Dharma”, but we know it’s Whidmore in the sub. Is he Dharma, or did he just learn about the sonic fences before?

What’s in the locked door/cupboard on the sub? Something to use against Smokey? Someone? Desmond? Perhaps it’s number 108, the person Jacob said would find their own way to the island. We’re certainly supposed to be thinking about it, but we don’t have the information to make any kind of decision. Whidmore says to Sawyer “It’s sad really, how little you know” and I can’t help but think that this is the writers mocking us some more. But Sawyer has a point, Whidmore sent the freighter to the island, apparently to kill them all. We know they had a “greater purpose” but we also know that the Losties weren’t important to them. Whidmore could be insinuating that Sawyer doesn’t know the bigger picture, he doesn’t realise that their lives are trivial compared to whatever he’s trying to accomplish. He also says that his people didn’t murder the Ajira survivors, as I mentioned previously. Whidmore grins when Sawyer suggests leading Fake-Locke into a trap. Maybe he’s grinning because he likes the idea, or maybe he’s grinning at Sawyer’s attempt to fool him. He certainly knows a lot more than we do about the situation, so it’ll be interesting to see what develops.

Fake-Locke knows about Charles Whidmore, either because of Locke’s memories, or because he encountered him way back – which I suspect to be the case.

Sawyers revelation of his backstory to Miles leads me to the thought I mentioned earlier. If we remember back to the scene where Jacob visited young James Ford he found the child writing a letter. The letter. The “Dear Sawyer” letter which seems to be the basis of our Sawyers backstory. The young James Ford’s pen had run out of ink and he couldn’t continue the letter. But Jacob arrived just in time to hand him a new one. He gave him the ability to write the letter, keep the letter, base his life around the letter. He gave him HATE, just like Fake-Locke gave Claire hate. He sculpted him in a manner not too dissimilar to the way the Others built a runway for the Ajira plane to land on. Built something up for the future. In the flash sideways James Ford didn’t become “Sawyer”, maybe because he didn’t have that latter, maybe because Jacob never visited him. This might have something to do with the island sinking, or it might just be to do with Jacob dying – I don’t know, and we’re not in a position to guess. But it’s interesting food for thought, what if all of the flash sideways are the way our Losties would’ve lived if Jacob had never been around.