Previously on Lost: Sun speaks up to Michael, and someone sneaks up on Sayid.
Close-up on a long shot of Kate Beckinsale walking down the beach. She's wearing that cute green top with the open neck that is a vast improvement over the white tank. She's also carrying some nicely color-coordinated bananas. Accessories are important, ladies! She sees Sawyer's copy of Watership Down lying atop Sawyer's clothes and smokes. No doubt Kate is wondering why Sawyer hasn't finished that freaking book yet; what the hell else has he had to do the past few days? Pretty much his life on the beach is hoarding and reading, and most of the hoarding's done at this point. And it's not like he's reading Finnegan's fucking Wake here. It's a novel about bunnies.
Kate picks up the book, and let it be known right now, for future reference, the pages of that book are not puffy enough for it to have ever washed up on shore. "Hell of a book," Sawyer calls from the water, then comes walking in like Bo Derek in 10, only instead of cornrows Sawyer has a mullet, and instead of a light-orange swimsuit Sawyer's wearing nothing. Shamefully, Michael Giacchino failed here to give the soundtrack the hint of bolero it so desperately needed. Kate looks a little bit embarrassed, and a little bit amused, and a little bit interested. Actually, that's not true, but this is one scene where Evangeline Lilly's total lack of affect helps her, because I was able to read all those emotions into her totally blank face. Kate comments on how cold the water must be; Sawyer suggests she come warm him up. "You sure know how to make a girl feel special," she replies. Sawyer gives the Thousand-Yard Smirk of Impending Flashback.
"You're incredible, Sawyer," says some hot chick in a motel bed. She looks like Maria Bello, so that's what I'm gonna call her. "I love you," Sawyer says, rolling off of her; they exchange pillow talk a while longer, until Maria Bello notices the time. Sawyer has a meeting at 3:30, and it's already 3:28. Crisis! Sawyer positively leaps into action: pulling on his pants! pulling on his shirt! finding his shoes! I'm trying to make this sound exciting, because these flashbacks are getting a bit dull. Maria Bello says she'll hang out in the room and order room service. "Why don't you order a chocolate sundae," he says, "and when I get back, I'll use you as a dish." It's comforting to know that Sawyer's come-ons are no more appealing with women he's actually fucking. Sawyer pulls a briefcase off a shelf, only to have it fall open, spilling bundles of cash everywhere. "You weren't exactly supposed to see that," Sawyer says sheepishly.
The jungle. Sawyer, hiking back from his swim, hears a rustling in the underbrush. He rushes forward to find Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity digging in his buried suitcases. Wow, I was wrong. It turns out hoarding is a full-time job! "What are you doing in my stuff, son?" Sawyer asks.
"This is going to hurt," Jack says to Sayid in one of this show's patented Overlapping Meaningful Dialogue moments. He's putting peroxide on Sayid's arm. Sayid expositions re: his attack last week; whoever hit him also destroyed the transceiver and Sayid's radio equipment. "I will do what I need to do to find the man responsible," Sayid says. They're interrupted by Shannon hauling a well-tenderized Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity into the campsite. Jack does some more indeterminate medical-type things as Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity reveals that Sawyer beat the crap out of him. Incidentally, I've gotten several emails asking me to stop referring to this character as Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity. Wrote one reader, Goofy McTwatTwat:
Hey Mr. Kwa. Can you please cut back on writing "God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity" every time you write "Boone"? I think it's pretty funny, but it would be funnier just one time in a recap. Over and over again gets laborious.Just my two cents.
No dice, Goofy McTwatTwat! I don't refer to Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity as Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity because it's funny. I refer to Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity as Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity because that is the man's proper and full name. So it would be rude of me to shorten that full name, just as it would be rude of me to shorten your full name, Goofy McTwatTwat. Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity he remains.
Commercials! In eight days, Prince Harry speaks on Primetime Live! On the way to London last week, I picked up a copy of People to read all about William, the Good Prince, and Harry, the Bad Prince. Is it just me, or does Harry seem about a million times funner than William? William, as far as I can tell, is just a British John Elway, in looks and in pretty-boy aura. If he wasn't a prince he'd end up selling used cars. But Harry is the kind of kid you want to hang out with in your gap year, punching photographers, drinking to excess in Ibiza, shagging tarts. London was fun, by the way. The highlight by far was the Premiere League football match we attended, between Tottenham Hotspur and Charlton. Those Tottenham fans sure like to call people names! Early in the match, a guy sitting right behind us yelled at Tottenham striker Fredi Kanoute, "Fucking win it, you lanky wanker!" For the rest of the trip, about three times a day my mom would, apropos of nothing, mutter "lanky wanker!" and giggle to herself.
Claire, wearing the floppy hat she looted a few weeks back, sits on the beach writing in her Dream Journal. Charlie delivers water, and Claire tells him he's sweet. Charlie tells her he's worried about her out here on the beach -- "It's very sunny," he notes. "Thus the hat," she replies. Charlie mentions the doctor back in the caves, though he wisely leaves out the part about the occasional cave-ins. In advertising, that's called "minimizing negative connotations." Claire says she wants to stay on the beach "for when we get rescued." Charlie frowns and grumbles in a manner that is 75 percent of the way to flat-out saying "fat chance," but luckily Claire is so sunny and stupid she doesn't notice.
Jack's tending to Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity, who admits he was rummaging through Sawyer's stuff looking for Shannon's asthma medicine. "She's been embarrassed by [using an inhaler] since she was a kid," Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity says. "I guess breathing's not cool." Ha! Shannon joins the illustrious company of Milhouse Van Houten as famous characters whose inhalers become a major issue when stuck on deserted islands. He says that he'd packed four refills for her inhaler in his bag, and though he'd thought the bag lost, seeing Sawyer reading Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity's copy of Watership Down made him think Sawyer had found the bag. Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity was the one who packed Watership Down? Is he, perhaps, in eleventh grade?
Chez Sawyer. Jack interrupts Sawyer's mysterious letter-reading to look for the inhalers. C'mon, Sawyer, give up the inhalers! Shannon needs them to live! They argue about who has a right to what stuff, et cetera, Sawyer calling the cave-dwellers "commies," accurately calling Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity a "thief," and declaring that on the beach, "possession is nine-tenths." Just as Jack seems about ready to pick a fight, Kate shows up, asking what's going on, and Jack stalks away. Kate is like a frigging ten-year-old, popping up into every discussion, demanding to know what's going on. She behaves as though she's at Six Flags with a bunch of friends and is afraid she's gonna get ditched. Maybe this happened one time when she was a kid at some British amusement park with her sister. Sawyer travels back in time through the magic of the human hippocampus.
The hotel room. Sawyer "explains" the "business" "deal" that requires all that cash, some hoo-hah about oil platforms and whatnot. The upshot is that he says he's meeting an investor from Toronto who's going in (roughly) halfsies with Sawyer on a $300,000 investment. Maria Bello tells Sawyer there's another option. (The actress here does a good job of showing how crafty the character thinks she's being.) She could supply the moolah instead. "Yeah, and where are you gonna get $160,000?" Sawyer asks, knotting his necktie. "My husband," Maria Bello replies.
"I'm gonna kill him," says Jack. He's pacing Midsection Beach with Kate, fuming about Sawyer's selfishness. But he won't actually kill him, of course, because they're "not savages. Not yet." Kate offers to talk to him, wryly noting, "He says we have a connection." "Do you?" Jack asks. "Please," replies Kate.
Sawyer's choppin' broccoleh! Er, logs. Kate approaches and asks him what he wants for the inhalers. He says "a kiss ought to do it." Kate tries to call him on his boshit: "You try too hard, Sawyer. I ask you to help a woman who can't breathe, and you want me to kiss you? Nobody's that disgusting." Sawyer doesn't respond, so Kate tries another tack, telling him she's seen him reading that mystery letter of his. "You can play games all you want, but I know there's a human being in there somewhere." She asks again for Shannon's meds and says she understands Sawyer. Sawyer tells her to shut up and angrily approaches, axe in hand; it probably wasn't too hard for Evangeline Lilly to look a little bit scared here. He holds out the letter and says, "You wanna know what kind of human being I am?" He shoves the letter into her hand. "Read it!" he says. Then, hilariously, adds, "Out loud." Oh, television. How I love/hate thee. Kate Beckinsale deploys her Oxford-trained pipes and reads the letter; it's from a boy whose parents were conned by Sawyer. As a result, the husband killed the wife and then himself, if the kid ever meets Sawyer, he'll give him the letter, et cetera. Sawyer takes back the letter and says, "Now, about that kiss?" He stares at Kate for a long moment, then stalks away, saying, "I didn't think so."
Oh, dear. I guess my pleas that at least a few of the characters not have haunted secrets in their pasts have gone unheeded. It's reaching the point where the eventual answer to the whole Lost mystery had better be something that explains why only fucking crazy people survived the crash, and normal vacationers all croaked.
Commercials. ABC showed Saving Private Ryan uncut for Veteran's Day. Oh, unless your local ABC affiliate opted out because of the very real possibility that the newly-fascist FCC might ding them for a quarter-million-dollar fine. Sorry, viewers in Boston, Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit and 61 other markets! Sorry the government has to baby-sit your asses!
Sayid approaches Locke, who's carving a spear with one of his 400 knives. Hey, I bet the election would have been closer if, instead of deploying 10,000 lawyers to battleground states, the Kerry campaign had deployed 400 knives. Sayid asks Locke where he was the night before; Locke says the only witness to his whereabouts was the boar he was skinning. Locke then takes a shot at pinning the blame for Sayid's attack on Sawyer, while also making clear that he doesn't actually know what Sayid was trying to do the evening. Sayid says Sawyer couldn't have attacked him, because he set off the bottle rockets right on time. "Unless he found a way to time-delay the fuse on his rocket," Locke blithers. "Anyone who watches television knows how to improvise a slow fuse," he adds. I have a number of responses to this:
1. I watch television, and I don't know how to improvise a slow fuse. Nor do I know how to disarm a missile with a paperclip, or receive a newspaper with tomorrow's headlines on it, or read someone's mind when they're singing.2. Sawyer improvised a slow fuse that somehow went off perfectly at the moment that Sayid and Shannon set off their bottle rockets?
3. Also, Sawyer managed to slow-fuse his antenna so that Sayid would get signal just before he got clocked?
I like to imagine Sayid is thinking all these things and getting suspicious of Locke, rather than that he is a moron. Locke hands him a knife, "just in case there is a time."
Camp Crystal Spring. Night. Shannon struggles for breath, gently coached by Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity. Jack sees Sawyer filling up water bottles at the spring, and approaches him. Look, I don't mean to be a Negative Nelly, but wasn't it just like a week ago in island time that every time someone went into the jungle, some boar or polar bear or Iron Giant would attack them? And now people are just traipsing a mile in the dark from Midsection Beach to Camp Crystal Spring all alone? I know Sawyer is a special case, being all giganto-schlonged as he is, but still. Has no one experienced any difficulties making the trip through the jungle? Anyone? Anyone? Scott? Oh, sorry, you're Steve. Anyhoodle, when Sawyer responds poorly to Jack's demand for the inhalers, Jack punches him, producing a nice splash as Sawyer's water bottle gets knocked out of his hand. Jack holds his shoulder, still sore from last week's dislocation. (I wish that instead of Lost, the producers had called this show Dislocated.) Jin and Sun hurriedly move away from the developing fracas. Sawyer compliments Jack on the punch, reminding him of their conversation in the fuselage. "I've been telling you since day one we're in the wild." Jack punches him again with the kind of punch that breaks your hand and knocks the recipient unconscious. Instead, Jack looks fine and Sawyer keeps talking. Jack looks around, noticing that Shannon is no longer wheezing; apparently, when no one's paying attention to her, she stops being such a drama queen and just breathes like a normal person. Speaking of drama queens, Sawyer says, "That all you got?" Jack stalks away, and Sawyer discovers a new Stare of Impending Flashback: the Dull, Glazed-Over Stare of Impending Flashback.
Sawyer, his hair slicked back unattractively, sits at lunch with Maria Bello and her husband. My attractive lawyer wife tells me this guy is also in Gilmore Girls, but to me he looks exactly like Richard Kind, who played dimwitted Press Secretary Paul Lassiter on Spin City, so that's what I'm gonna call him. Sawyer is playing Maria Bello's husband expertly, making noises about how sticky it can be it get into business with friends. "I know your wife, from working with her at the auto dealership," Sawyer continues. "But I'm just not sure I'm comfortable." "Louisiana will invest two thirds of the drilling costs," says Richard Kind, Who Played Dimwitted Press Secretary Paul Lassiter On Spin City (just kidding, Goofy McTwatTwat! I'll just call him "Richard Kind"). "What is this, a loophole?" Sawyer plays it cool and acknowledges that Richard Kind has a lumberyard, so he doesn't need this. A lumberyard? It just shows that being able to handle your wood at the office doesn't always mean you can do it at home. Maria Bello pushes her husband to get in on the deal. "Show him the cash," she says to Sawyer, who cracks open the briefcase and gives Richard Kind an eyeful. When his quarry's still dubious, Sawyer offers to leave the money with him for a night. There's a pause while Richard Kind considers the deal, then Sawyer throws down three crisp C-notes for lunch and tells him to forget about it, he's already got another investor lined up. Maria Bello prods her husband again. Boy, between getting henpecked by his wife and poked by that preening rooster Sawyer, poor Richard Kind must feel like the feed trough at Tweedy's Farm. As Sawyer walks away, Richard Kind says, "Wait!" Sawyer smiles.
Claire and Charlie are engaging in telegenic beach-related busywork, discussing what they miss the most. Claire misses warm, fluffy towels; Charlie misses banoffee pie. "Is food the only thing you miss?" Claire says, and Charlie manages not to go on about the pipeweed for which his body screams. "You're pregnant!" he says. "Do you not crave anything?" Claire says she's the only Australian who loves peanut butter. Charlie says he can get Claire peanut butter, but if he does, she has to leave Midsection Beach and move with him to the caves. She agrees.
The caves. Shannon is gasping very realistically for air. Poor Shannon; on top of not being able to breathe, she looks really shitty right now. I wonder which she feels worse about. Jack rushes over and spins a web of lies, lies! about how she's panicking and needs to calm down. No one I know who's ever been in the midst of a serious, can't-breathe-at-all asthma attack has ever managed to snap out of it by "calming down," but I guess they were weak, not strong like characters on a TV show. Anyways, Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity is still freaking out, but Jack gets him to shut up and gets Shannon to control her breathing. There's a really nice shot of a really scared-looking Shannon breathing through her nose. She calms down a bit, and Jack takes Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity aside, telling him not to let her panic. Then Jack takes off, Sayid following. "That was awesome, man," says Hurley. "That was like a...Jedi moment."
Sayid catches up to Jack and tells him that his five years in the Republican Guard should help them get Sawyer to talk. "I thought you were a communications officer," says Jack. "Part of my training entailed getting the enemy to communicate," Sayid replies, which is a little glib for a guy who later professes to be haunted by his time as a torturer. "Just give me ten minutes with him," he adds. After some time spent looking agonized about the decision, Jack agrees.
Commercials! Man, if Australia is anything like England, it is frigging impossible to get cheap peanut butter there. Whenever we travel to London, we always visit my former co-worker Ethan, who was born in America but moved to Balham with his lovely wife Sarah/Sally a few years back. Because peanut butter is like £8 for a tiny little jar there, I usually go to Costco before we leave and get him one of the 128-oz tubs of Skippy. Last week, however, I was unable to fit the Skippy in my carry-on because it was already stuffed with his request for this trip -- a Donald Rumsfeld mask he wanted to wear to a Halloween party. When I emailed him this week asking how the party went, he wrote back and said that other guests at the party refused to talk or dance with him when he had the mask on.
Hurley and Charlie tromp through the jungle, Hurley explaining that that the food from the plane's been gone for a week. "No peanut butter, no peanuts, no nothing." "There's gotta be something," says Charlie. "Look at you!" Hurley stops in his tracks, and there's a quick shot of him looking not hurt but kind of scary. How awesome would it be if the instant Charlie said that, Hurley turned around and, with one blow, killed him? "Fat guy hoarding the food, is that what you think?" Hurley asks. You know, Charlie, there is someone who has actually been hoarding things. Did you ask Sawyer for peanut butter? He'd probably give it to you for $10,000 or a quick sniff of your undies. "I have no food!" Hurley yells. "And for the record, I'm down a notch on my belt." "Oh," Charlie says, but before he can say, "Good for you!" Hurley adds, "I'm a big guy. It's gonna be a while before you're gonna want to give me a piggyback ride, okay?" Charlie apologizes; Hurley says he's used to it. Charlie apologizes again, insults Hurley again, and then apologizes once more.
Camp Crystal Spring. Mercutio's cleaning fish guts off himself when Sun approaches and says, in English, that she thinks she can help Shannon.
Chez Sawyer. Señor O'McNicknamenstein wakes up to see Sayid looming over him. "Good morning," Sayid says, then clocks him. Jack and Sayid haul Sawyer out of the tent while Kate looks on, harshing their mellow with her negativity. Man, Kate Beckinsale: you need to relax!
Sawyer, tied to a tree in the jungle, is revived with a splash of water. He's got blood all over the side of his face. Great, I get to recap a torture scene. I feel like poor Gustave. Jack crouches down and tells Sawyer that all they want is the asthma medicine. "It doesn't have to be this way," Jack says, nodding at Sayid, who's sharpening some bamboo. "Yeah it does," says Sawyer. Sayid approaches and gives a little setup vis-à-vis bamboo shoots under the fingernails. Sawyer tells him he thinks he's never tortured anyone in his life. "Unfortunately for us both, you're wrong," says Sayid. Okay, here's how it goes down: Sawyer grunts in pain. Sawyer taunts Sayid. Sawyer coins a new nickname ("Splinters"). Sawyer screams in pain. Sawyer screams some more. Jack stops Sayid. Sawyer taunts them some more. Jack, my attractive lawyer wife, and I all say simultaneously, "What the hell is wrong with you?" Sayid whips out the knife and threatens Sawyer's eye. He gives up and says he'll tell, but only to Kate.
All you people who posted how hott this was on the boards, gleefully discussing the HoYay in this protracted torture scene: Stop. Please. I'm begging you.
Flashback. Sawyer's in a bar talking to some kind of money-man type, apparently the guy who fronted him his half of the "oil money." This guy is upset by Sawyer's take-the-money-for-a-night tactic, rightfully wondering how Sawyer could be so stupid. At first, I too wondered how he could be so stupid -- not how he could be so stupid as to give the money overnight to Richard Kind, but how he could be so stupid to tell this guy all about it. But I was reminded over the course of this scene that Sawyer is definitely the kind of guy who wants to tell everyone how clever he is, so at least that makes a little bit of sense. "Women are easy," Sawyer says. "A few cocktails, a couple of stunts they hadn't seen between the sheets, and they think the scam's their idea." Husbands are tougher, he adds. Money Man asks, in a nicely tuned line of dialogue, "If you got your grift so pat, what'd you need my money for? Where's your seed from the last couple you wrote?" Sawyer replies, "I like earning it as much as I like spending it." For maximum value in that sentence, "earning it" and "spending it" should have been switched. Sawyer looks immensely pleased with himself until Money Man sticks his pool cue (not a euphemism) into Sawyer's chin and tells him he wants his money, plus 50 percent, tomorrow at noon, or else he'll make Sawyer suffer. Can Money Man do that? Money Man can, Money Money Man can.
Kate approaches a bloody, sweaty, and all-around grody Sawyer. He tells her he's still waiting for his kiss. Good God, what is wrong with this guy? "Are you serious?" she asks. "Baby, I am tied to a tree in the jungle of mystery. I just got tortured by a damn spinal surgeon and a genuine Iraqi. Of course I'm serious." Two interesting things here: 1. Jack is apparently a spinal surgeon, for everyone who was wondering what kind of health professional he was. And 2. Sawyer has even nicknamed the jungle. Stop the madness! Sawyer asks Kate if she's really gonna let Shannon suffocate just because she doesn't want to give him one little kiss. That's a pretty unsteady justification for your fourth-degree sexual assault, buckaroo. She finally agrees, crouches down in front of him, and kisses him. Let it be knows that Sawyer is not shy with slipping girls a little bit of Old Slurpy. For her part, Kate seems reasonably into it, despite the total craptastitude of this entire set-up.
As they stare into each other's eyes, Sawyer admits he never had the medicine. The book washed ashore, he says (see above re: falsity of said statement OR poor work of prop department). To his credit, Sawyer is not his usual gleeful self in imparting this information, and to his credit, Josh Holloway acts the hell out of this scene, and to her credit, Kate punches Sawyer in the mouth.
"He doesn't have it," Kate growls to the waiting Goon Squad. Sayid gets pissed off and convinces himself that Sawyer destroyed the transceiver. He takes off through the Jungle of Mystery, knife in hand, Jack and Kate right behind trying to calm him down. Sawyer works his hands free as Sayid arrives and launches into him; the two roll around a bit until Sawyer gets stabbed in the shoulder. A scared-looking Sayid jumps off Sawyer; when Jack pulls the knife out, a gout of blood sprays up and hits Kate in the face. "You hit an artery," Jack says, working to stop the bleeding. He yells at Sayid to get his medical bag. Ah, the first mistake of an inexperienced torturer: always keep your materials close at hand. Were Jack a dentist, he never would have made that mistake. Sayid runs off.
Commercials. It seems as though Advil, by running these ads featuring Kristine Sutherland during a genre show, are basically saying, "Joyce Summers wants you to use our product."
Camp Crystal Spring. Sayid rushes in and finds Jack's backpack. Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity asks him whose blood is all over his shirt, and Sayid tells him it's Sawyer's. Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity's about to follow Sayid for the shakedown until a frightened Shannon asks him to stay. He does. As Sayid runs out of camp, he passes Mercutio, who looks askance at the bloody dude rushing away but seems basically unperturbed. Mercutio finds Sun and hurriedly asks her if the branches he'd holding are the right ones. She smiles and says they are. Suddenly Jin shows up, waving his arms and talking that dang gobbledygook he talks all the time. According to my friend Denny, who speaks gobbledygook, he's saying, "Are these the plants for the mentholated erotic body cream I love so much? Ah, [Mercutio], join us in our slippery, sinus-clearing dalliance!" Sun, rather than, like, explaining to her husband that these plants might help save Shannon's life, just walks away, wisely leaving two people who don't speak the same language and who previously got into a fistfight to work it out themselves. Mercutio cuts off Jin with, "Don't, just don't," and stalks away.
The Jungle of Mystery. Jack's applying pressure to Sawyer's wound while Sawyer says a number of rude things, including: telling Jack he knows Jack wants to let him die; reminding Kate they "made out"; and telling Jack that if the tables were turned, he'd watch him bleed to death. Why don't they gag him now, while they have the chance?
Flashback. Sawyer's closing the deal with Maria Bello and Richard Kind. Sawyer assures them they'll get their money back, tripled, in a week. "You're not gonna skip town, are you?" Richard Kind asks in that jokey way you do when you're not joking at all. Maria Bello chides him: "[Richard Kind], he left his money with us! We could've skipped town!" Yup, Sawyer was right: women are stupid. This woman is so stupid, apparently, that in all her time working with Sawyer at the car dealership, and getting her vagina nicknamed by him in hotel rooms, she never once mentioned her son. I say this because Sawyer sure looks surprised when the kid shows up in the middle of the deal, asking his mom if she'll read to him. Sawyer looks sad and pensive. The kid looks weirdly possessed -- either he has really deep-set eyes or they shot him without eye-light, because he just looks evil. "Deal's off," Sawyer says, because deep in his heart he's a Complicated Guy, Sweet Cheeks. In the ensuing argument, Maria Bello manages to make it clear to her husband that she was spending quality time with Li'l Sawyer, and Sawyer drops Richard Kind's cash on the floor and tears out the door. I guess he got in trouble with the Money Man, huh?
Sawyer wakes up bandaged in his tent on the beach. Kate's waiting to have a chat with him about his mystery letter. She's been trying to figure out (as have we all) why he beat up Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity and let himself get tortured and stabbed rather than just telling someone he didn't have the medicine. "You want to be hated," Kate says. Then she points out that the envelope has a bicentennial sticker on it; the letter is 28 years old. "This letter wasn't written to you," Kate says. "You wrote this letter. Your name's not Sawyer, is it?" Sawyer explains that a confidence man named Sawyer screwed his parents in 1976. And then, years later, he pulled the same scam on another couple. "I became the man I was hunting," he says. Then he sees Kate looking sorry for him, swipes the letter, and yells at her to get out, get out, get out.
Commercials! I gotta say, I'm getting diminishing returns from week after week of flashbacks. As a revelation, this one has very little punch. Finding out that Sawyer is actually Fauxyer (tm Unlucky Bear) and that he Became The Man He Hated doesn't really explain his current near-sociopathic personality. I mean, it shows that he's probably upset with himself, but that's not the same as being a mean motherfucker with a death wish. Point A and Point B don't logically connect for me, and that makes this episode just another in a series of flashback-stuffed hours that make me wish, once again, that they would knock it off with the flashbacks and just vividly illustrate life on the island.
Camp Crystal Spring. Sun is smearing goop on Shannon's chest while Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity explains to Jack that his sister's breathing is much better. Jack crouches down to them and smells the goop; "eucalyptus," he says, shaking his head. "Smart, Jack." Shannon looks much cuter now that she's not wheezing and crying and snotting on herself, such that were I in camp I would happily volunteer to give Sun a break and take over goop-smearing duties.
Midsection Beach. Claire wakes up to see Charlie packing her clothes up into a bag. "You're moving," he says, which gets her all excited for peanut butter. "There is one thing," he says. "It's extra smooth." "That's okay," she laughs. He pulls out an empty jar, and, sticking his finger into it, declares it "full to the brim with stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth, oh God it makes you want a glass of milk, extra-smooth" peanut butter. He offers the jar to Claire, who takes it with a giggle and sticks her finger in as well. It's actually lucky there's no real peanut butter in there, because if there was, Claire would've just caught a nasty case of nail fungus in her mouth from Charlie's disgusting fingers. Charlie hums a bar or two from Driveshaft's country crossover, "Just Because My Words Were Lies (Doesn't Mean My Love Weren't True)." This was a nice scene.
Broody Beach. Kate's staring at the sea, staring at the sand. However, rather than killing the Arab, she just has a conversation with him. Sayid says he's leaving; Kate reminds him about the Iron Giant. "I have worse things to fear than what's in the jungle," Sayid says. "What I did today -- what I almost did --" Do you mean torture? Cuz you didn't "almost" do that. You did it, Sayid. I guess he means actually killing a guy. "I swore to do never again. If I can't keep that promise, I don't deserve to be here." Sayid says someone needs to walk the shore and map the island, and, he says, "I can't think of a better person to do it than the only one I trust." Huh? Wasn't the point of his little soliloquy that he can't trust himself? Kate holds out her hand for a shake and he kisses it dashingly.
Good God, another montage? This time they don't even try to justify it with a shot of Hurley and his headphones. I guess they didn't want to limit their montage options once the batteries die. The montage music, this time, is by the Blind Boys of Alabama. Charlie and Claire leave the beach. Shannon gratefully accepts a bottle of water from Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity. Sawyer almost burns his letter, but doesn't, because he's a Complicated Guy, Sweet Cheeks. As the Blind Boys sing, "And I shall not walk alone," Sayid treks down the beach away from the rest of the castaways. In the context of this show, that lyric is less reassuring than it is totally creepy.
week: A mysterious bag, a mysterious light bulb, and a mysterious syringe. Also, more flashbacks.