In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
Wow, Sawyer's a sucker. A hot sucker, but a sucker nonetheless: he was manipulated by fellow con artist Hibbs into killing a guy who owed Hibbs money. And now, the debtor's been reincarnated as a massive boar with a grudge. After spending all episode searching for one boar while saddled with another bore (Kate), Sawyer finally realizes that maybe he and guns don't go together and he passes on killing the pig. This doesn't mean he's been redeemed -- we also find out via flashback that Sawyer ran into Jack's father in some Aussie dive, the ex-surgeon blubbered about how much he loved his boy, and Sawyer sees no need to pass this on to Jack. Yet.
In other island news: Hurley continues to identify potential psychotic breaks in the making and take steps to fix them, because he is awesome. This time, he sees that Charlie's all torn up inside over plugging Ethan, and gets Sayid to knock Charlie's head back into place. Also, Kate continues to woo Jack, lest she be forced to survive on a desert island with only one man panting after her. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
As the first non-Dan recapper to ever tackle this show, I feel obligated to warn y'all up front: I have no attractive wife, lawyer or otherwise. I hope this won't be an impediment.
So the episode begins with a woman waking up a little boy, then telling him to hide under the bed. "He's here," she adds, just in case the screaming voice and the sounds of someone pounding on a door aren't cluing him in. She then drills the little boy on the importance of hiding under the bed and not coming out, no matter what he may hear. There's some tense back-and-forth on the subject, helped along by a bellowing. The woman tells the little boy she loves him, then runs out of the room, closing the door.
She heads out of the room, and we watch the boy huddle under the bed while we hear her yelling, "Stop it! Go away! What the hell is wrong with you? I'm calling the police!" Not to get all Wednesday-night quarterback here, but wouldn't have calling them before engaging an irate intruder have maybe been a good idea? In any event, the camera switches between the little boy and the closed door, and we hear her continue to scream questions right up until the moment she's shot.
And now the powers that be ratchet up the tension further by showing the kid silently crying in fear. The background pianist is leaning on the Key of Foreboding, and we hear heavy footsteps before the door opens. We see a pair of cowboy boots standing before the bed, and the kid scoots back even further. The pianist leans extra hard on the key just in case we're not already braced for something terrible to happen. Then the man sits down, we hear a gun cock...and the guy sitting on the bed shoots himself as the kid flinches underneath.
Cut to Sawyer waking up with a start, all sweaty and bare-chested. I imagine some of you may need a moment to compose yourselves. Take your time. He wakes up more fully, looking relieved yet weary, and then his expression changes as he registers that there's a giant boar disrupting the décor in his tent. Sawyer decides that the way to treat a giant pig is to lunge at it while hollering. Sawyer soon discovers that he's not going to be the Pig Whisperer any time soon: the boar runs out of the tent, taking the tarp with it. The half-clad Sawyer gives chase, bellowing like a banshee and waving around a metal rod like he's running the 4X400 relay in the Redneck Olympics.
He then pelts into the jungle. It's not like he's had any exposure to polar bears or Tom Cruise's wayward cousins, so there's nothing to be afraid of here, right? Or maybe there is. As Sawyer heads back, he happens to notice that there's a lot of voices whispering faintly, just on the edge of his hearing. And finally, someone whispers loudly, "It'll come back around."
Sure enough, the credits come back around. Those voices know things!
Commercials. Dear Neutrogena: time you want to sell skin care, try not to pick a teenager who looks like she was smoking a pack a day and tanning in the womb. Mischa Barton looks older than I do. I am not inspired to use your product if it makes me look like her.
When we return, Sawyer's picking through the debris in his little camp. Sayid comes over to gloat a little, and says skeptically, "Boar took your tarp?" Sawyer confirms that. Sayid's all, "I thought the boar left this area." Sawyer correctly points out that they must have gotten some bad info on that. Sayid wants to know what it was doing inside the tent. "Discussing the adaptation motifs in Watership Down -- we had a disagreement over whether trickery is a form of adaptive behavior and he went nuts," Sawyer responds. Oh, he did not. He tells Sayid that the boar was looking at him, and when it came at him, he hit it and it went running off into the jungle. "With your tarp," Sayid points out again. Pause. Then: "Perhaps he wanted to go camping." Sawyer asks if Sayid is enjoying himself, and Sayid smiles before saying that indeed, he is. Well, so am I.
Sawyer does not share our mirth. He grumbles, "Laugh it up, Muhammad. But I come back to find my stuff's gone, I'm coming after you." Sayid doesn't even bother to hide his amusement over how the one guy on the island who lives by the "possession is nine-tenths of the law" philosophy is now screwed by his own ethos. Sayid heads off, and Sawyer calls his name. Sayid turns around, the thought bubble over his head plainly reading, "He dropped the nickname. It must be serious." Sawyer comes over and asks what Sayid heard in the jungle. Sayid shrugs it off with, "I was injured and I was exhausted. My mind was playing tricks." Sawyer asks again and Sayid says that he thought he heard whispering. Sawyer asks what the whispering said, and Sayid ducks answering with, "Why? Did you hear something?" Sawyer backs down and lies that he didn't hear anything. As he stalks off, Sayid watches him with an expression that suggests he's but an orchestral intro away from breaking into song: "I don't know how to love him / what to do / how to move him / He calls me names / but they're just names…"
Sawyer walks off in slow motion, which is how we know he's about to go into flashback...and all of a sudden we're in a hotel room. Sawyer has just entered with a young woman attached to his face. Have you tried covering her in Vaseline? That helps ticks drop right off, I've found. It appears that Sawyer's fine with his new facial accessory. In fact, he'd like to stay the night. That's right when someone switches on the light, saying. "This is really awkward…" Well, that's one way to acknowledge the etiquette dilemmas surrounding any sort of unauthorized incursion in someone else's space. Anyway, it's Robert Patrick, or, as he's known here, "Hibbs." Sawyer ditches the skirt by sending her down to the bar, then heads back towards Hibbs. As Hibbs is buttering him up with, "I don't know how you manage it, Sawbucks, finding women that beautiful to work your grift," Sawyer demonstrates how he disdains flattery by slamming Hibbs into a wall. We quickly find out that Sawyer had promised to kill Hibbs if he ever set eyes on him again, and Hibbs claims he's just there to make things right. His idea of "making us even for the Tampa job" is to pass on "the known whereabouts of the man who ruined your life," i.e. passing on a photo and a location for the guy he claims is the Original Sawyer, a shrimp truck operator down in Sydney named Frank Duckett. We see the wheels turn in Sawyer's head.
And back in the present, Kate's turning in her gun and ammo to Jack. She asks if any of the other castaways are curious as to why there are now guns on the island, and Jack shrugs that everyone knew there was a marshal on the plane, and they all assumed from there. He's awfully surly with her. Kate asks if Jack got all the guns back, and he replies, "All except one." "Who?" she immediately wants to know. Jack rolls his eyes and invites her to take three guesses. "Boone? The hobbit guy? Hurley? Locke?" She asks. "Sorry, that's four guesses. Conversation over," Jack replies. Kidding! Kate doesn't make any guesses at all. She doesn't need to, because she's the most smartest, most prettiest, most usefullest girl ever on the island, so she just knows it's Sawyer. And to prove she's all that and a bag of boar jerky, Kate offers to get the gun back. Jack's all, "And how do you plan to do that?" "By putting out. I got needs, I'm not getting anywhere with you, so I might as well kill two birds with one stone," Kate replies. Or not. Kate claims, "I speak his language." Jack reminds her that "speak his language" is a euphemism for "suck on his lips." He's so disdainful of physical communication. Kate points out, "I only made out with him because torturing him didn't work." Sooner or later, someone on that island's going to realize that there's a middle ground between torture and tonsil hockey. Although perhaps Ethan should be grateful he died before Boone began whispering sweet nothings in his ear.
Jack says, "Let him keep the gun. It's not worth it." Kate rebuts, "Why? Are you afraid he's going to shoot me if I ask?" Yes. Because Jack's every thought is about you and not, say, the fact that he's trying to survive on a deserted island. Jack tells her, "I just don't want you to owe him anything." Then he stalks off and Kate smirks as she watches him leave. The thought bubble over her head reads, "He is too jealous! Excellent. I'm totally going to make out with Sawyer now."
Cut to Charlie and the eternally pregnant Claire. He's futzing with a shoe-sizer -- I don't even want to know -- and doesn't bother to look at her as she sits down. He does ask how she's feeling. Answer: "Very pregnant." Here's hoping you can hold on 'til May sweeps, Claire. Anyway, she continues to work her way out of her "amnesia" and have pleasant memories of Charlie. She then asks if Charlie would like to go for a walk, and he blows her off with, "Sorry. I have to...do something." Claire looks hurt by the rejection. Awww. I may suspect her of lying about her amnesia, but she's still adorable. I hope these two crazy kids can work it out.
Back in the main plot, Sawyer's loping through the woods, loaded for boar. He comes upon the tarp, which is crumpled to a tree, and as he stalks away, the whispering starts up again. Once again, we all clearly hear a whispered voice promise, "It'll come back around." And this time, the boar comes back. Those voices are on to something! Who knows what they'll warn us about ? An US magazine cover featuring Jessica Simpson? Another pundit on the government payroll? Opus the penguin? I'm sure Sawyer would rather any of those be chasing him than the giant boar currently gaining on him. Sawyer eventually saves himself from being gored or boar-d or whatever by ditching his tarp and throwing himself in a mud puddle.
Cut to Sawyer back in his ruined sleeping area, stewing as Kate says skeptically, "A boar did all this?" Sawyer's pissed: "Last night, it wrecked my tent. This morning, when I went to get my tent back, it attacked me from behind. Runs off into the jungle like a coward!" I must have blinked and missed the part where Sawyer stood his ground and screamed, "Fight like a pig!" Kate laughs that a boar wouldn't attack for no reason, and Sawyer snaps, "Thank you, boar expert." Well, she's an expert bore, but I'm not sure that's the same thing. Sawyer insists the boar is harassing him, so he's going to pick up a gun and go get even. Kate laughs, "Have you listened to yourself? It's a boar. Just go tell Locke and he'll kill it." Sawyer says this is his fight. Kate points out that Sawyer could end up "lost or worse." Sawyer snarls, "Since when did you care?" Kate lies that she doesn't. Sawyer's all, "Good. If you excuse me, I've got some revenge to tend to."
And then he stalks off into another flashback. This one's in Sydney. Sawyer's walking on a dock somewhere, and he ducks into a pier's machine shop. There, he hooks up with some Australian guy who says he did a few jobs with Hibbs back in the States. We quickly learn that Sawyer's there to buy a gun; the guy says, "A few disclaimers. Australia doesn't allow its citizens to carry handguns. You get nicked with this --" "I'm not going to rat you out," Sawyer assures him. The guy carries on, while I'm still processing that first point. You can't carry handguns if you're an Australian citizen? What if you're in the outback and you need to kill something? Do you just throw a Foster's bottle at it and hope for the best? Anyway, the guy's all, "A man who buys a compact .357 with hollow-point loads...he's not looking to scare or steal. He's looking to kill. But when it comes down to it, if he finds he doesn't have what it takes to finish the job --" "Your sales pitch needs some work," Sawyer smirks. The guy continues, "What I'm saying is, you look a man in the eye and a point a gun at him, you find out who you really are, mate. And should you find you're not a killer, there's no refund." Sawyer says it won't be a problem.
Commercials. Tiger Young and Aerosmith have officially exited the Kingdom of Cool on their agreement to shill for Buick.
After we get back, Charlie and Hurley are preparing to bury Ethan. Hurley speculates that Ethan will rise from the grave and kill them all, finishing with, "Dude, I know how works. This is gonna end with you and me running through the jungle, screaming and crying. He catches me first because I'm heavy...and I get cramps." Oh, Hurley, that would be so sad, if only because we'd miss your perfect comedic delivery. Charlie's overcome just thinking about it. Or maybe he's all torn up inside and stuff because he's planting the guy he plugged. Hurley notices and asks if Charlie's all right. Unspoken answer: no.
So Hurley wanders on over to Sayid's corner of the beach, which is looking suspiciously like something out of Pier One Imports. He asks if he may ask Sayid a question. "Of course," Sayid says courteously. Hurley asks, "Did you ever get that Gulf War Syndrome?" Sayid looks like he regrets his earlier offer as he points out, "That was the other side." After an awkward pause, Hurley presses on: "What's the one where they're all, like, shell-shocked?" Sayid tells him it's PTSD, and from there, it's but a hop, skip, and a jump to the point where Hurley's telling him he thinks Charlie's got it, and it might be nice if Sayid went and talked to him. Ah, Hurley. He's like the power behind the throne, telling all the island's ostensible leaders what to do. Cardinal Richelieu, only way more mellow, you know?
Back to Sawyer's Porcine Quest. He's wandering around, feigning competence in reading trails. Kate pops out of nowhere and smarts off, "It's a footprint. Based on weight and distance in strides, I'd say you've been following Boone for about an hour." Sawyer is not thrilled to see Kate, something she blithely ignores, but instead of telling her that the boar story was an elaborate ruse to throw her off the trail of his hot love for Boone, he snots back, "I'm tickled you've taken such an interest in my affairs, I really am, so don't take it personal when I tell you to --" Tell her to what? We never find out, because stupid Kate interrupts to tell him she wants carte blanche to rummage among his inventory after she helps him find the boar. After Boone ponders for a moment how he can later use this situation to his advantage, he takes Kate up on her offer.
Cut to the two of them sitting around a fire at night. All this needs is a voice-over telling us that K-Tel presents "Songs to Kick Off A Totally Dysfunctional Relationship." Sawyer whips out a little airline bottle of booze and Kate asks him where he got it. Kate? You're on an island that has, despite astronomical odds, managed to avoid being infested by Starbucks, McDonald's and Wal-Mart. You really think that the liquor store people are going to make it out here? He got it off the plane, you simpleton. Sawyer says as much, and Kate says huffily, "Jack was looking for [the liquor cart]." Sawyer grins, "Good thing I found it instead then, huh?" Kate is charmed by his absolutely unapologetic demeanor. And then she asks for a drink. Sawyer tells her this is a BYOB campout. Then he relents, but tells her that if she wants to drink, she has to play "I Never." I'm guessing the first statement he'll make is "I never developed my social skills past age 15."
Sawyer explains the rules of the game to Kate -- someone says "I never did [whatever]" and if you have actually done it, you drink -- and then the two of them get down to the rare character exposition that doesn't require flashbacks.
We soon find out that Sawyer hasn't been to college. Kate hasn't been to Disneyland; Sawyer responds, "Aww, that's just sad!" Heh. Sawyer's worn pink at some point in his life, but he defends it with "the eighties." He's never voted, something that can't be defended, period. Sawyer's never been in love, but Kate has. Shocker of all shockers, Sawyer has to admit he's had one-night stands. Then we find out Kate was married. Then she says, "I've never blamed a boar for all my problems." Sawyer rolls his eyes and drinks, but gets some of his own back with, "I never cared about getting carte blanche because I just wanted to spend some time with the only other person on this island who just don't belong." Kate drinks. And then jabs again with, "I never carried a letter around for 20 years because I couldn't get over my baggage." Sawyer gives her A Look. And instead of responding, "I never suggested that hearing your father murder your mom before killing himself is fairly insignificant," he drinks. And then he says sadly, "I never killed a man." Now it's Kate's turn to look all upset. She drinks, resentfully. So does Sawyer. He finally says, "Well, looks we got something in common after all, mood killer." More or less. Let this be a lesson to everyone on the island: if you want to play a game, don't invite Kate.
Commercials: Pepsi is not really making a compelling case for its inclusion in my lifestyle by implying that P. Diddy and Carson Daly are big fans of its product.
When we come back from commercials, Sawyer's evidently having another nightmare based on his childhood trauma, but the pair of legs walking toward the bed morphs into four trotters, and the boar snorts as the voice whispers, "It'll come back around again." The whispering voice is fairly unimaginative and humorless. Why not mess with Sawyer by whispering, "Some pig"? Or so long as we're working the themes of civilization and savagery as embodied by symbolic pigs, why not go with: "There isn't anyone to help you. Only me. And I'm the Beast… Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! …You knew, didn’t you? I'm part of you? Close, close, close! I'm the reason why it's no go? Why things are the way they are?" The gunshot rings out, and Kate wakes Sawyer up.
As Sawyer wakes up more completely, he sees that the boar's wrecked his pack. He shouts, "It ate all our stuff!" and Kate helpfully corrects him with, "Nope. It ate all your stuff. Mine's fine." Instead of snapping, "Well, now do you believe me about this pig's grudge?" Sawyer fulminates on the ways in which he'll make the boar suffer. He hears a rustling in the bushes, runs for his gun…
…And out pops Locke, who's looking pretty blasé for someone who's got a gun pointed in his general direction by the one guy on the island we know has terrible aim. "What happened to your campsite?" he asks. Kate rolls her eyes, which lets us transition into everyone sitting around a boiling teakettle on the fire. Kate asks what Locke's doing out so far, and he tells her he's looking for salvageable debris. He picked up their trail, and figured he'd be sociable. This is about the time when Sawyer discovers that the boar pissed on his formerly-clean shirt. And now it finally occurs to him to tell Kate, "And you say this ain't personal." Kate tells Locke dismissively, "He thinks the boar we're after has a vendetta against him." "Ah-huh," Locke says neutrally. Kate suggests that maybe the boar's just averse to whatever cologne Sawyer's wearing. So he's a Drakkar guy, is what you're saying? Sawyer blusters some more, and Kate insists that the pig's not holding a grudge.
"My sister Jeannie died when I was a boy," Locke interrupts, mildly. He serves coffee as he talks: "She fell off the monkey bars and broke her neck. And my mother -- well, my foster mother -- she blamed herself, of course. Thought she wasn't watching close enough. So she stopped eating, stopped sleeping. The neighbors started talking -- afraid she might do something to herself, I guess. Anyway, about six months after Jeannie's funeral, this golden retriever comes padding up our driveway, comes into our house, sits down on the floor, right in front of my mother there on the couch. And my mother looked back at the dog. After about a minute of this, them both staring at each other, my mother...burst into tears. Beautiful dog -- no tags, no collar, healthy and sweet. The dog slept in Jeannie's old room on Jeannie's old bed, and stayed with us until my mother passed five years later. Then -- disappeared, back to wherever it was she came from in the first place."
Kate is the first one to speak. "So you're saying the dog was your sister?" Locke looks at her and replies, "Well, that would be silly." Ha! He explains to an unexpectedly emotional-looking Sawyer that Locke's mother thought the dog was Jeannie, "come back to tell her the accident wasn't her fault. Let her off the hook." Sawyer looks like he's just had an epiphany. Luckily for us, he's about to go into flashback so we can see what Locke's story has to do with the rest of the episode.
Cut to Sawyer getting out and walking over to the shrimp truck that contains the man Hibbs claims is the Original Sawyer. Sawyer walks up, and Frank Duckett asks if he wants the shrimp with the hot sauce or the mild sauce. Sawyer eventually whispers that he'll go with the hot. As Duckett prepares the dish, Sawyer pulls out the gun and nervously fidgets with it. Duckett amiably chatters, and gives him half-price for being American. We see Sawyer's gun-wielding hand begin to shake. Duckett introduces himself as Frank; Sawyer chokes out that his name is James. He's on the verge of tears. Duckett turns around to give him the shrimp, but the counter's empty and Sawyer's tearing away in his car.
Evidently, Sawyer headed to a bar. He's knocking back shots, and after the bartender asks if maybe he's not so sure about that, Sawyer insists, "Again." "You tell him, cowboy," slurs another American in the bar. Hey, it's the senior Dr. Shepherd. The good doctor slurs, "These bastards think Americans can't hold their liquor. Look...I, uh, hate to hold my hand out, but I seem to have misplaced my wallet." Sawyer sullenly orders the bartender to accommodate drunken Dr. Shepherd. The doc returns the favor: "I drink to you. What's your name, cowboy?" Sawyer mutters his last name. And Dr. Shepherd toasts him with, "Sawyer...may he find whatever he's looking for at the bottom of a glass." After a little more small talk, Dr. Shepherd asks rhetorically, "You know why they call Australia 'Down Under,' don't you? Because it's as close as you can get to Hell without being burned." Sawyer gets the bottle of whatever he's drinking from the bartender, and Dr. Shepherd sidles over to cadge a few more drinks.
Sawyer asks what Dr. Shepherd does, and he says over his shot, "I was a...chief of surgery." Sawyer looks at him and asks, not unkindly, "Was?" Yep. And then Sawyer decides it's better to humor the drunk and asks, "So we're in Hell, huh?" "Don't let the air conditioning fool you, son. You're in here too. You are suffering," Dr. Shepherd says to his new confidante. Sawyer's miserable look is all the confirmation the good doctor needs. He continues jovially, "But! Don't beat yourself up about it. It's fate. Some people are just supposed to suffer. That's why the Red Sox will never win the damn series." Sawyer looks over, and his expression says volumes, namely, Oh, Christ. As I weren't already torn up over the prospect of murdering my bete noir, now I've got to share a bottle with a Boston fan? Kill me now. Dr. Shepherd downs his drink, then says, "I have...a son. He's about your age. He's not like me. He does what's in his heart. He's a good man. Maybe a great one. And right now, he thinks that I hate him. He thinks that I feel betrayed by him. But what I really feel...is gratitude. And pride...because of what he did to me. What he did for me. It took more courage than I had. There's a pay phone over here. I could pick it up and I could call my son. I could tell him about all this. I could tell him that I love him. One simple phone call and I could fix everything." Sawyer wants to know, "Then why don't you?" Dr. Shepherd's reply is simple: "Because I am weak. This, uh, this business that you have. Will it ease your suffering?" "Yeah," says Sawyer reluctantly. "Then what are you doing here?" Dr. Shepherd shoots back, because it's always easier to address someone else's problems than it is your own. Sawyer says it's not that simple, and Dr. Shepherd insists, "Of course it is. Unless you wanna end up like me, of course it is." Sawyer continues to look miserable.
Sawyer returns to the shrimp stand. Naturally, it's a rainy night. Ever notice that nobody does nefarious deeds on a balmy summer evening? Sawyer watches Duckett clean up, and looks appropriately murderous as he waits in his car.
Commercials. The Marvelverse has no sympathy for anyone with a lost check card, which is entirely understandable when you consider how they're all dealing with the menace of Chris Claremont-generated plot lines.
Back on the beach, Sayid wanders over to congratulate Charlie on his skill with cracking coconuts. Charlie's still reveling in his PTSD. Sayid ignores it, stating, "You killed a man." Charlie blusters that he killed someone who was killing them and kidnapping Claire and stringing up him, so it's not like he offed any great humanitarian. "I'd do it again in a minute! Pardon me if I'm fresh out of bad feeling," he snaps. So much for John Donne's "No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind" rap. Sayid figures that discussing the classics isn't the way to go about this, so he takes a more indirect approach: "When I was in the army in Tikrit, in Iraq, the man who lived door was a policeman. One day, his car was rigged with a bomb. It killed his wife and three young children instead. They caught the man who did it. I volunteered to be on the firing squad, and I did my duty without a single ounce of remorse. Then, for no reason, I found myself waking up at night. Replaying what I did in my head." Charlie opines that perhaps Sayid is the one who needs checking up on. Sayid smirks, then responds, "All I'm saying is what happened with Ethan will be with you for the rest of your life." Charlie finally buckles, and asks Sayid, "Any suggestions?" "You're not alone. Don't pretend to be," Sayid says.
Cut to Sawyer, friend to exurban sprawl, trudging through the jungle and grousing, "I take comfort in knowing someday this is gonna be a nice shopping complex. Maybe even an auto mall." Kate doesn't even dignify that with a response, because she's too busy finding boar wallows. There's a squealing, and then Sawyer takes off through the underbrush. He comes back with a little boar piglet. Kate deadpans, "I thought he'd be bigger." Sawyer figures that he'll use the little guy to lure Dad -- because when is an animal more easily subdued than when you threaten its offspring, genius? And then he waves around the audibly distressed piglet while bellowing for the boar. At this point, the animal lover in me is rooting for Papa Boar. Poor little piglet! Kate's pretty upset too, hollering, "What is the matter with you, Sawyer? You're going to hurt it!" Sawyer amazingly manages to duck the thematic anvil reading "How ironic that someone hurt as a child by an inconsiderate adult grew up to do likewise!" and continues to jostle the shrieking baby boar. Kate finally kicks him in the knee, and Sawyer goes down, releasing the poor piglet, which scampers off to write in the mud, "Dear Mr. Sawyer, when I grow up, I will gore your ass without blinking twice..." The only thing that would make this scene better would be if Sawyer had fallen on top of the obviously livid parent boar. Kate stalks off, leaving Sawyer alone in the woods.
Well, he's got his flashbacks for company. Sawyer stalks out of the car, calls the name "Sawyer!" and shoots Duckett a few times. Duckett collapses. Sawyer hands over his letter. Duckett multitasks, bleeding profusely as he reads, then points out that he's not Sawyer. He then gasps that he would have paid Hibbs the money he owed him. Sawyer's all, "Huh-WHA?" and Hibbs correctly intuits, "You don't know what you're doing, do you?" Sawyer practically sobs, "You borrowed money from Hibbs?" As Duckett dies, he whispers, "I was gonna pay. It'll come back around." Sawyer stands there in the rain, trembling with the realization that a) he's a rotten con man since he's as gullible as his marks, and b) not only did he find out he's capable of murder, he killed a more-or-less innocent man. He hasn't righted an old wrong -- he's just taken up a new one.
Back in the present, Sawyer wanders through the jungle, wondering why every single plotline depends on someone embracing or rejecting a deception that will affect others. After a few minutes he runs into the boar. It just stands and looks at him. Sawyer, who has his gun out, looks at it. For some asinine reason, Kate's popped up out of nowhere and is watching The Sawyer Show. Sawyer and the boar continue to stare at each other, and then Sawyer puts the gun back. He looks over -- sure enough, Kate's gazing at him approvingly. "It's just a boar," he lies, unwilling to admit why he needs to have an animal soothe his conscience.
Commercials. I suppose it's too much to expect ABC to air an episode of Wife Swap where the wives stay swapped.
And now we have the ending montage of temporary resolution. Blink and you'll miss Sun and Jin tending to their net. Blink and you'll miss Walt playing fetch with Vincent. Blink and you'll miss Michael working on that raft with someone who may or may not be Boone, God's Frigging Gift to Humanity. Because what this is really all about is Charlie getting over his PTSD after Sayid's pep talk and asking the eternally pregnant Claire if she'd like to take an evening waddle around the island. Awww.
Jack has no time for such shenanigans, because he's splitting wood. Sawyer walks over, points his gun, and says, "Stick 'em up." Jack stares for a long minute before asking, "Trying to be funny?" Sawyer replies, "Yeah." Jack's all, "I wasn't worried anyway. We all know you can't hit the broad side of a barn in clear daylight." Or maybe that's his body language talking. Sawyer tries to save face with, "I was fresh out of pies to throw at you. Here you go, sheriff." Jack takes the gun and not-so-casually inquires as to how Kate wrangled the gun surrender; Sawyer plays him like a piano by smirking that Kate gave him "Nothing she wasn't willing to part with." Jack's over it. He turns back to his work with, "That's why the Sox will never win the Series." Sawyer has a big "Huh?" moment, and Jack says, "I said, that's why the Red Sox will never win the World Series."
Somewhere in Sawyer's brain, a neuron struggles valiantly to fire. "Statement...familiar! Might...be...coincidence!" He asks, "What the hell's that supposed to mean?" and Jack explains, "It's just something my father used to say, so he could go through life knowing that people hated him instead of taking responsibility for it. He just put it on fate." Sawyer's face is a marvelous study of The A-ha! Moment. Sawyer asks cautiously, "Your daddy...he a doctor too?" Jack turns around and says shortly, "Was." He turns back to the wood and adds, "He's dead." Sawyer flinches, and looks stricken. Jack turns around and asks, "Why do you want to know about my father?" Sawyer looks like he's on the verge of saying something, but eventually slips into his normal expression and shrugs, "No reason." He walks off, leaving Jack alone with his thoughts.