Episode Report Card Daniel: C+ | 2 USERS: C YOU GRADE IT In torture we trust
By Daniel | Season 2 | Episode 14 | Aired on 02.14.2006
Ugh. Again with the tree-frog hunting B-plot? You know, this isn't even a B-plot. It would have to aspire to be a D-plot. It's like if there are some sort of phantom forgotten letters beyond Z somewhere, that's what kind of plot that is. But I finally get it: The main island story is about Sayid torturing Henry. The flashbacks are about Sayid learning to become a torturer. And this is about Hurley and Sawyer torturing the audience. So here's the basic outline: They find the frog. In all the jungle, they've finally found ONE tree frog, which is apparently responsible for all the tree frog noises. And they run towards it, and Hurley trips and falls, which he does an awful lot for someone who considers himself to be rather "spry," and it jumps at Sawyer, who catches it in his hand. Hurley tells a pointless story about having a turtle that RAN AWAY when he was ten. Hurley, it was a TURTLE. If you go home, it's probably only at the end of the driveway by now (to be fair, Hurley suspects his mom actually threw the turtle out). Hurley suggests taking the frog away so it can find a Mrs. Tree Frog. Sawyer's all, "Yeah, that's one idea. Here's another." And he clenches his fist, squeezing the frog. No more noise. Hurley's all, "Dude." And Sawyer suggests eating it with ranch dressing. See? That frog was the audience. ["How much did I want one of the seventeen thousand other frogs that are obviously also on the island, writers to start chirping right here?" -- Sars]
In the hatch-hole, Jack's cleaning up all the bloody gauze and detritus from working on Henry. Locke offers to help, but Jack gives him a perfectly timed, perfectly toneless "shut up." Then, because a good workman always puts his tools away, he notices that his pliers -- his surgical pliers, mind -- are missing. He asks Locke where they are. Locke doesn't say anything, not even, "Uh, just what is it exactly that you think Sayid's doing in there?"
Sayid wants to know about the balloon, and Henry rattles off the specs like he's a salesman at a hot-air balloon dealership. Well, one that's suffering from torture trauma, anyway. The balloon has a big yellow smiley-face on top. Sayid wants to know why he'd travel in that way. "Because I was rich. Because it was my dream. And Jennifer thought it would be neat." Sayid cocks his head. "You 'were' rich," he says, noting the past tense. Henry takes a moment to answer. I like how wide open to interpretation it is. "I guess I'm thinking of things in the past tense now. How's that for optimism?" Sayid asks how he became so rich. Sold his company. What kind of company? Mining. What did he mine? "We mined non-metallic minerals," says Henry, joking that everyone wanted to talk to him at cocktail parties.
Sayid gets up, crosses the floor over to Henry, asks him for his hands. He has to ask again, a little more forcefully, because Henry is understandably reluctant to comply. Oh, there are Jack's good pliers! "Where is she buried?" asks Sayid. Henry's a little too freaked out to answer -- or maybe he just hadn't thought through this part of the story. After some prodding, he says she's buried in the jungle. "By the balloon, in the jungle." Sayid wants to know how deep he dug the grave. Henry stumbles with an answer. "How deep? How many shovelfuls of earth? Did you use your hands? How long did it take you?" says Sayid. Comparing techniques? He's shouting by this point, and Henry cries that he can't remember. "You would remember! You would remember how deep. You would remember every shovelful, every moment. You would remember what it felt like to place her body inside!" yells Sayid. To be fair, Sayid, you didn't ask him how it felt to put her body inside, but Sayid's not done making a perfectly good torture scene all about him: "You would remember if you buried the woman you loved. You would remember -- if it were true!" Needless to say, Naveen Andrews sells every moment of it. Even Henry's transfixed. "Did you -- did you lose someone? Did you lose someone here on the island? Did you lose someone, too?" Like he wants to start a CLUB or something.