Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: A | 868 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT Right Round Like A Record Baby
By Cindy McLennan | Season 5 | Episode 2 | Aired on 2009.01.21
On the island, the British soldier interrogates Juliet and Sawyer. He wants to know what they're doing, how many of "them" there are, and how they got there. When Sawyer tries to intervene on Juliet's behalf, the soldier speaks to him with less respect than you'd show a dog. He wants them to tell him everything, or he'll cut off Juliet's "other" hand. (And hey, isn't Dr. Chang missing a hand or an arm, or something?) Sawyer's all, what do you mean other hand, so Brit explains, "The first one isn't negotiable. It just illustrates how serious I am." Sawyer tries to talk sense with the man (I know!), but he'll have none of it. Just as another commando is going to cut off Juliet's hand, something knocks him down (the shot is so dark, and the glare on my TV is so strong that I just can't tell what). This surprise attack gives Sawyer and Juliet an opportunity to fight back. There's a struggle, and I can tell the commandos are getting bested, because Juliet ends up with Brit Boy's rifle, and she's no Kate in a fight. I'm just saying... As one of the commandos makes a move for her, he's downed by a knife that flies out of the darkness and into his gut. Juliet points the rifle toward the direction from which the knife seems to have come. A dark figure lumbers out of the thick of the jungle, and over to the corpse to retrieve his weapon. He withdraws it, and raises it to inspect the blade. It's none other than Locke (who sort of needs a bra, or I guess that would be "bro" or is it "manzierre"?). He nods towards his sometime-comrades. "James. Juliet. Nice to see ya." And everyone breathes (er... except for the currently dead commandos). I start wondering about how many rules this breaks, when I realize I do have a deadline, but seriously? How many rules did that break? We need Daniel or Chang to tally it up.
A cloaked figure furiously scribbles equations on the blackboard in a lab/office. I wish I could tell you about the math, but it's all Greek to me. Ahem. She walks over to a computer that looks much more like the kind of terminal Desmond used in the Swan, than anything made in the recent past, so I'm not only wondering where she is (I'm guessing Oxford) but when she is (the 80s? I don't know). She enters some data until a message flashes on and off, upon the monitor: "EVENT WINDOW DETERMINED." Behind her, a Foucault's Pendulum swings and seems to be trying to plot a point (while simultaneously being an actual plot point). For more on that, read this post in the forum. Even without reading that, it seems to me that she's trying to locate the island (or its inhabitants) in the space-time continuum. She leaves her workspace, which seems to be in a basement of sorts and ascends a spiral staircase to a chapel. Ben is there, lighting candles. OH BEN! I just decided you were Satan, would you knock it off. Pick a side. Or show your true side, or something. You're making me dizzy! He asks the hooded figure, "Any luck?" At the altar, with her back still to Ben and to us, she replies that she has. She asks (and by her accent she's British, by the way) if he's had any luck, and when he starts talking about his difficulties, she scolds that he'd better get busy, because he only has 70 hours. When Ben complains that he needs more time, she says, "What you need is irrelevant." She turns and it's none other than Ms. Hawking -- the woman who worked in the jewelry store where Desmond went to by a ring for Penny, back in season 3, when he was flashing in and out of time. Excellent! I'd better let her finish what she's saying though, because she's a wee bit intimidating, no? Anyhow, after she turns, she says, "Seventy hours is what you've got."