Sea. 1, Ep. 16: Outlaws

Judging by the title of this episode, you can probably make an educated guess that it's going to revolve around either Kate or Sawyer. If you chose the latter, then you've won some sort of grand prize. Not from me, though. I don't have anything to give you.

But it really is a Sawyer episode, and it opens up in a most heartbreaking fashion: we watch the young Sawyer hide under his bed while his father shoots his mother and then turns the gun on himself as he sits on the bed above the boy. It's quite tragic, but it provides us a narrow window into James Ford's psyche.

On the island Sawyer is reliving this memory as a nightmare, and when he wakes up in his tent on the beach, he's surprised to find someone (something, rather) rustling around at the opposite end of his tent. It turns out to be a boar, and it makes off into the jungle with some of Sawyer's things. He gives chase and ends up in the jungle, surrounded by ominous whispers. It's those damned whispers again! I have trouble understanding exactly what they say, but the entry for this episode on Lostpedia asserts they're saying, "it'll come back around." I suppose that makes sense seeing as how Duckett (the man Sawyer shot in Australia) says it as he's dying.

So Sawyer spends most of episode tracking the boar that did him wrong. It attacks him on two more occasions. The first time it chases him, and the second time it ransacks more of his stuff. All of this leaves our tough guy thoroughly pissed. Kate's also trying to help him, but doing it for reasons of her own. Earlier, Jack told Kate that Sawyer still had a gun, which he claimed he was okay with. But Kate is confident that she can get it back from Sawyer. She subsequently offers her tracking skills to help him find the boar in return for "carte blanche," which she'll obviously use to get the pistol back. It's all quite complicated and yet another time in the series where this lust triangle creates all sorts of problems. As I've said before, I couldn't care less about their three-way melodrama. Just give me the science-fiction, thank you very much.

Somewhat related to the lust triangle is the game of "I Never" played between Sawyer and Kate. I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention that they played it. It provided them the opportunity to trade barbs with each other, and at the end of it all you can tell that there are some bruised egos and hurt feelings. The scene actually takes quite a chunk out of the episode, which I didn't recall it doing. Oh, well. Outlawzzz bein' outlawzzz, I guess!

All right. The majority of what I like to think of as the episode's "filler" has been covered. What's really cool about this episode is the flashbacks. We've already mentioned the scene that changed young little Sawyer permanently. What of the others? The past few chapters have concentrated on character development, and there's nothing wrong with that. But in "Outlaws" we're witness to the chance meeting that Sawyer and Christian Shephard had in a bar down under. The two knock back liquor like it's water and Sawyer gets to learn a little bit about the good doctor before he even meets him. It's a great instance of the interconnectivity between the survivors of Flight 815. It's great because it's one of the first times we see how these strangers are inexorably tied together. And, judging from the fifth season finale that showed Jacob selecting these people off of the island, we certainly must ponder why destiny brought these disparate personalities together (do I sound like Locke here?).

We can also further observe how Sawyer wrestles with his demons via the other major flashback. We learn that Sawyer was in Australia because he had information about the man who had ruined his parents' lives. The guy now runs a shrimp stand in the Outback, and Sawyer pays him two visits. The first one allows Sawyer to meet the man he's been hunting all of his life face-to-face. The two engage in some strained yet mundane conversation, and then Sawyer vanishes. The next time he comes, he puts a bullet in the man (lo and behold, two consecutive episodes with shootings!). Of course, we don't learn until the third season that Sawyer has killed an innocent man. Well, he may not have been innocent, but he wasn't the "Sawyer" that James was actually seeking. That S.O.B. actually fathered another one of the 815 survivors (the interconnectivity again!), and the two become a strange pair of allies as they team up to kill him. If you don't know of whom I speak, then I'll just let you remain in the dark for now. But seasoned Lost fans should remember this.

And so, those are the main highlights of this excellent episode. One of my favorite parts of the flashbacks is having my opinions of the characters altered, and I feel that takes place for me here with Sawyer. Sawyer's a changed man after he kills that man in Australia. After that, brother can't even shoot a boar that wronged him.

Sea. 1, Ep. 9: Solitary

Hello, gang.

I'm a little behind this week. It's Thursday and I'm finally getting to my first episode. In some countries, that's an offense that's probably punishable by death. Fortunately for me, I'm in the good ol' U.S. of A.

"Solitary" is our first Sayid-centric episode. Remember how he went off on a self-imposed exile at the end of the previous episode? Well, this one picks up that thread of the story, and we learn how the lovable Iraqi stumbles upon Danielle Rousseau (A.K.A. the French woman from the repeating distress call) and her hideout.

The episode begins with Sayid sitting alone on a beach, studying a snapshot of his love Nadia. Turning his gaze down the beach, he notices something odd in the sand. He approaches it to get a better look and finds that it's a cable running through the sand. It's coming from the jungle, and it goes out into the swells of the ocean. Naturally, Sayid follows the cable into the jungle, which leads him to a trap. Strung up like one of Locke's boars, Sayid dangles upside-down from a tree 'til someone comes along and cuts him down. Sayid loses consciousness and later wakes up tied to mattress-less bed with someone asking him "Where is Alex?" in several different tongues. Sayid hasn't the foggiest idea of what the voice is talking about, so he gets a nice jolt of electricity.

So, as stated earlier, the captor turns out to be Danielle Rousseau. And through the conversations between her and Sayid, we glean the following:

• Rousseau was part of a science team whose ship crashed into the island during a storm.
• Someone took her child Alex from her. Little do we know that it's a female rather than a male. Tricky unisex names!
• Her lover Robert gave her a music box for their anniversary. It hasn't worked for a while, so Sayid fixes it.
• She's the only survivor from her team. "The Others" carried something which the other Frenchies presumably caught. She had to kill them because they were "sick." Oh, and "the Others" can be heard to whisper in the jungle.

Not a terrible amount of information, but we're accustomed to that on Lost. Sayid manages to escape from her shelter, but they later run into each other again in the jungle. And guns are involved. More on that a little later.

The flashbacks in this episode show us more about Sayid's stint as an interrogator in Iraq's Republican Guard. Basically, Sayid was a BAMF. That is, until he was forced to interrogate an Iraqi cutie from his past named Nadia. She sorta breaks him down, and he tries to buy time to keep her alive. Eventually, Sayid's bosses press for her execution because she won't divulge any of the information that they're trying to extract from her. Torn about what to do, he orchestrates her escape, and she vows to see him again, whether in their current lives or in an afterlife. It's all quite sentimental, you know, but seasoned veterans of the show know how it all goes down.

"Solitary" is also notable for the first appearance of Ethan, about whom we'll soon learn more. He's only on the screen for about 30 seconds here, chumming about with Locke and delivering luggage to Hurley which contains golf clubs. Oh, that's the other thing: Hurley builds a golf course for the survivors. A bit of lighthearted fun that's all fluff and no substance.

Back in the jungle, there's a standoff between the escaped Sayid and Rousseau. Sayid pulls the trigger of the rifle he stole from Rousseau's place, but it doesn't work because she had removed the firing pin. She had done the same to her lover Robert several years ago and was forced to shoot him. The Iraqi and the Frenchwoman have a heart-to-heart, and Sayid asks her to join him and the other survivors because he feels they have the best shot to get off of the island, but she declines. As Rousseau and Sayid part ways, the former admonishes the latter to watch the 815 survivors closely. This makes a whole lotta sense after we see in the fifth season how things played out between the French team. As we now know, it turns out that the sickness was caused after the Smoke Monster dragged Robert and others down into the Temple. After that incident, they had subtly changed, and were somehow evil, which is why the pregnant Rousseau had to fill 'em full o' lead.

The episode closes with Sayid making his way back to the beach. Upon reaching some clearing in the jungle, he hears the whispers that Rousseau talked about surround him. As with the other mysteries of the island, there's been speculation about the significance and origin of the whispers. I wish I could take credit for it, but the most interesting theory I've heard so far is that the whispers are the voices of others who have inhabited the same area at different points in time. Now that we know how significant time travel has been in the history of the island, one can't help but wonder about time travelers running in and out of scenes that they weren't originally a part of. To clarify my muddied idea, indulge me in this example:

In season five, there's a scene in which the Losties left on the island are bouncing around in time, not sure of where they're going because the frozen wheel is skipping on its axis. During one of these time skips, Sawyer walks into the scene in 2004 where Claire gave birth to Charlie. Sawyer had been on the island in a different spot during that time, but as a time traveler he's embedded in the jungle and watching Kate serve as midwife. If there are any whispers during this scene in season one (and I don't think there are, but we'll see) then one could theorize that the whispers belong to the future Sawyer who's skipping around to different points in time.

Got it?

Well, if you don't, I don't blame you. Hell, that theory might not even be right. I only include it here because, as I said, I think it's pretty darn good. If you've anything to add about the whispers, feel free to leave some comments.

Thanks for reading!