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Sawyer comes up with a "brilliant" idea to get out of his cage, if Lost takes place in a parallel universe in which "brilliant" actually means "incomprehensibly stupid." The Others are kinda distracted when the gut-shot Colleen is brought back to their compound, so Sawyer uses his water pipe to make the ground in his cage all wet, and the time an Other comes by, Sawyer'll grab him and then hammer on the food pellet button so he'll get a big shock and zap the Other. Kate points out that this will shock Sawyer as well. Sawyer says, "Yeah, but I'll be expecting it, so I'll be fine; plus, I am an idiot." Ben's the one by, and Sawyer puts his "plan" into "action," but it doesn't work, because the Others turned off his machine.
So now Sawyer knows that the Others are watching them. And the Others take him for a little surgery, and tell him they've installed a pacemaker that'll make his heart blow up if his heart rate gets up to 140. Sawyer never thinks to check under the bandage under his chest, or wonder why his chest doesn't hurt like hell after such an operation, but he goes along with their orders not to tell Kate anything about the surveillance, or they'll put a heart-blower-upper in her too. He can't escape (which really confuses Kate, who's figured out she can slip through the bars at the top of her cage), because that will get his heart rate going, or give him a boner, which could be a problem if Kate continues changing clothes in front of him. However, getting the absolute living shit beaten out of him by Danny doesn't seem to faze him at all.
Why's Danny so mad? Because Colleen dies on the operating table, despite Juliet's best efforts, as well as those of Jack, whom Juliet enlists to help. Jack has also spotted some X-rays that reveal a tumor on someone's spine, so he deduces he's there to save someone's life. Let's hope it goes better than Colleen's operation, eh?
For some reason, Danny stops beating up on Sawyer when Kate says she loves him. (Uh, Sawyer, not Danny.) Sawyer thinks she means it. Kate says she said it to get Danny to stop beating him up. For a con man, Sawyer's awfully naive. This is proved again when Ben reveals that the pacemaker story is a hoax. So why tell him it's not true? Because, Ben says, the only way to get a con man's respect is to con him. And also, to best him at quoting Steinbeck. In which case, congratulations! I'm sure Sawyer's really impressed with you guys now. Oh, and their little prison? Is on another island, which is about twice the size of Alcatraz, but with one fewer crappy Bruckheimer movies made about it.
In the flashbacks, jailbird Sawyer rats out a fellow prisoner, who stole $10 million from Drew Carey, in order to get his sentence commuted, and to provide some money for his never-heard-from-before and not-confirmed-DNA-wise daughter. Hey, Sawyer, wanna play some cards? All you gotta do is find the red queen. Just $10 bucks to chase the lady. C'mon, Sawyer. You look lucky. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
We open on Craphole Island Beach, with a contemplative Desmond sitting, stroking his beard -- and if he found two friends with similarly long hair and disco beards, they could go out for Halloween as the Bee Gees. He's watching Claire play with Aaron. I probably wouldn't have thought anything of it until I had my own baby girl just a few months ago, but Aaron is clearly older than he's supposed to be. Not that I think it matters, and it would obviously be rather impractical to be so worried about matching a baby up with however old Aaron's supposed to be at any given time. And I have to admit that babies fascinate me a lot more than they ever used to, even if usually I'm thinking, "Cuter than my daughter?" (This may surprise you, but I've yet to find one that is.) I am also holding out the possibility that maybe this is some kind of soap-opera island that ages kids a lot quicker than normal (see also: Walt).
Eventually, Desmond walks over to Claire and tells her she's got a problem with her roof, and that she should move down the beach for just a night so he can fix it. She's all "whuh?" and says Aaron just fell asleep, and he promises her it'll be worth it (waking Aaron up, I guess). It'd take him a whole day to fix it? It's palm fronds on a tiny little shelter; how long could it take?
So because a Y-chromosomed person is talking to Claire, Charlie has to get involved, and he strolls over and asks Desmond (whom he calls "brother," mimicking Desmond) what's going on. Desmond says he wants to fix the roof. Charlie says the roof's fine, and furthermore, if there's a problem, he'll fix it himself, because he's "quite handy." As proof, he points out the church he was building with Eko "before Eko exploded." Charlie's constant concern for his fellow castaways really chokes you up, doesn't it? Although he's probably still a little resentful over his island pariah status, which seems to be waning. On the other hand, I would like to point out that this church he's bragging about? HAS NO ROOF. Desmond says he's just trying to help, and he wanders away. Claire asks what that was about. Charlie says he has no idea, but maybe they should find Desmond another button to push.
Jack's underwater prison. The Others have thoughtfully left the television for Jack to watch, but it's not like he can change the channel, and he appears to be going crazy (even more so) with the classic cartoons being shown. There's a knock on his cell door, so he obediently goes over to the corner and sits down. She asks how he's doing, and he's his usual snide self, so it's hard to tell if he's pissed off about being held captive or if he's annoyed by carrying the weight of the world. She says he seems "frustrated," and I can't imagine what might be frustrating about being held captive, JULIET, and Jack wants to know if they're going to tell him why he's here or if he's just going to keep watching cartoons. Juliet completely ducks the question, so Jack pointedly asks if he should speak to "Benjamin," like when you try to get results from a waiter or a cashier by asking to speak to a manager. Jack says he's starting to think that Juliet's just the person who brings him food. But if the movie Waiting taught us anything, it's that you don't mess with the people who serve you food. Well, it also taught us that Waiting is a really crappy movie, but that information isn't likely to be of any use to Jack right at this moment.
Juliet smiles as though Jack is crazy, and says Jack can talk to Ben all he wants, but Ben isn't going to tell him anything. "You work for him," prompts Jack, and Juliet says she doesn't work for him, and she corrects Jack's followup theory that Ben's in charge. She says everyone makes decisions together. Jack reminds her of when he had a broken plate pressed against her neck; Ben seemed content to let her die. "I mean, it felt like he made that decision on his own." It takes Juliet a while before she can come up with something that's still kind of lame, i.e. that Jack doesn't know what he's talking about, said in a way that lets us know Jack hit it right on the head. But Juliet says she doesn't answer to Ben.
But when Ben bursts in and says Juliet needs to come with him, it paints a whole different picture, doesn't it? Of course, Juliet does her best to save face, asking if this can wait. "The sub is back. We have a situation. So come with me now," says Ben quietly. Juliet barely glances at Jack, so there's no time for him to smirk at her. But after they leave, Jack goes to listen at the door.
Meanwhile, a stretcher is being urgently carried through the tall jungle grass.
The clanking of Sawyer's cage door wakes him up, as Danny and other Others rouse Kate and Sawyer to work. After what happened before, Danny's sporting a big nose bandage. Saywer says, "You're sounding a little stuffy there, Chinatown." And if you don't know what he means, then you haven't seen the movie. And if you haven't seen the movie, you should see the movie. Go ahead; we'll wait.
Danny snarls that Sawyer should give him "an excuse," and Sawyer says he thought he just did; what does he have to do, talk about Danny's mother?
Danny's about to take his revenge on Sawyer, but the squawking of his walkie-talkie stops him. He gets on it, and strolls over to the side to talk, and seems troubled by what he hears, although we don't hear it. "Where are they?" he says. Just then Ben and Juliet come running around the corner, and we hear someone say, "She's hurt bad, Juliet," and then Zeke and some other Others come in from the grass, carrying the gutshot Colleen on the stretcher. This is just like M*A*S*H, only without the pompous moralizing of later seasons! The Others haul ass out of there, and Kate asks, "What happened?" Did Sawyer get there before you or something?
Well, Sawyer does have it figured out. "We happened," he says. "Been on this rock long enough to realize they ain't in the business of shooting each other," he says. No, that's you guys who shoot yourselves. "We did it. Our team," he says. Kate, sounding kind of disgusted, asks if he's smiling. Damn right, says Sawyer: "'Cause we just got our ticket out of here."
Back from commercial, Sawyer is yanking on his pipe. You know, the one that delivers water to the trough. He pulls it out from the trough so that it'll empty onto the ground of his cage. Kate watches with interest and asks what he's doing. He ignores her, so she asks again, and he snaps at her to "hush up," because he's thinking. ["CLEAR SOME SPACE, people! Sawyer's thinking!" -- Joe R] After moving the pipe, he goes through the whole rigmarole with the foot-pedal and the lever and the button, resulting in a load of food pellets that are added to an untouched pile at the bottom of the chute (as well as the fish biscuit, which I'm sure he'll save for later). The water spreads and pools all over the ground, including outside the cage. Sawyer says to Kate, "You know the chick they brought in on the stretcher? That's Broken Nose Man's girl," like the real tragedy of Sawyer's imprisonment is that the quality of his nicknames has steeply declined. Kate says the guy's name is Pickett, and Sawyer's all whatever, the guy's a little distracted right now. "So?" asks Kate, as Sawyer uses a stick to push the food button without going through the proper steps. The button crackles with electricity, and Sawyer points out the box is getting juice from somewhere. And time one of the Others comes by to pull him out, he'll wait until they step in his little "swimming hole," he'll grab him, and zap! "They fall back from the shock, I grab the keys. Bet the bears never thought of that." Bet the bears figured it'd be a stupid thing to do. At least, the polar bear, the Einstein of the bear world, would. Kate points out the flaw in Sawyer's plan, which is that Sawyer himself will also be electrocuted. Sawyer says he's felt the jolt before and can take it, but the Other won't be ready for it.
Kate rolls her eyes, and Sawyer asks if she thinks he's crazy, and she says she's actually impressed, which isn't exactly what I think when I see someone roll her eyes, but whatever. She asks, "What about Jack?" and Sawyer is all "What about him?" which doesn't impress Kate a whole lot. Sawyer points out that they don't know if Jack's anywhere nearby, or if he's even alive; they've gotta look out for themselves. "It's every man for himself, Freckles," says Sawyer, who has been fortunate more than once on this island that the other Lostaways don't all share that philosophy.
Flashback to Sawyer, here answering to James Ford, in a prison boxing match. A sanctioned one, from the looks of the boxing gloves and ring. Skinny lil' Sawyer and his slopey shoulders knock down a bigger dude, but there's no hard feelings, as the two of them discuss the fight afterwards, walking back to their cells. "The problem is, I was following your hands, not your eyes." Sawyer has a different theory: "The problem is you're old and dumb." Nothing like being gracious in victory, Sawyer.
In an open common area, there's another fight going on, only this one doesn't look supervised. In fact, it's not even really a fight in the sense of two people exchanging blows; one guy's doing all the receiving. "Who's the punching bag?" asks Sawyer. "Just got here. His name's Munson," says his buddy, adding that the rumour is Munson (one of Drew Carey's coworkers from Drew Carey's sitcom, the name of which escapes me) ripped off the government for $10 million -- but the money was never recovered. A couple of the guards intervene in the fight, while Sawyer's buddy says if it weren't for the warden stopping the fights, Munson'd be a dead man. Well, perhaps that's why STOPPING PRISON BEATINGS is part of the warden's job, pal. Sawyer's right: you are dumb. Sawyer notices the warden taking in the situation. He's played by Bill Duke, who was in Predator, Action Jackson, and the last X-Men movie. How fortunate for us that Sawyer's serving his time in Hey! It's That Guy! Penitentiary. Sawyer appears to have a different take on the warden stopping the fights: "That son of a bitch!" he mutters, as he and the warden lock eyes for a moment (the warden's too far away to have heard Sawyer).
Munson's working the prison sewing room, making something on a machine, while Sawyer pushes a janitor's cart around. There's no one else in the room. Sawyer grouses about Munson getting a plum job like "tote bag duty" after only a week, while Sawyer's been there nine months and is still "pushing trash." Munson wants to know what Sawyer's getting at, and Sawyer asks why Munson (whom he's calling "Costanza," hee) thinks the warden's breaking up the fights. He's buttering you up! says Sawyer, pointing out that the easy job is step one. "Step two: the warden'll reach out to your wife. Use her against you." Sawyer calls it a "textbook con," but Munson's skeptical of Sawyer's motives. Sawyer just says the warden's made his life a living hell, and if the warden ever got his hands on Munson's $10 million, Sawyer'd kill himself. Yeah, that's plausible.
And then, the warden strolls in, munching an apple. "He bothering you, Munson?" he asks. Sawyer sarcastically gives the warden a cheery greeting, and the warden snarls something about extending Sawyer's stay with one phone call. Then he drops his apple core on the ground, for the purposes of lending credence to Sawyer's story. Er, I mean, "because he's making Sawyer's life a living hell." "Now how about you get that trash," says the warden. Sawyer takes his sweet time picking up the apple, and glares at the warden, before dropping the core in his cart and moving on.
Back on Craphole Island, Ben approaches Sawyer's cage. "Oh yeah, the big kahuna," whispers Sawyer excitedly. Ben stomps up outside Sawyer's cage. "Lunch already?" says Sawyer. Ben ignores this and asks how much Sawyer weighs. After he gets over his surprise, Sawyer answers that he's "180, give or take." , Henry asks how old Sawyer is. Sawyer tries to pass himself off as 32, but Ben sneers at that, and Sawyer cops to 35. Meanwhile, Ben's stepped closer to the bars, and is now standing in a puddle of water. Ben says "good" and starts fiddling with the lock on Sawyer's cage, placing a hand on the bars. Sawyer grabs Ben's arm, and yanks him up against the cage. "Sayonara, sucker!" he crows, and stretches out with one leg to hit the food button. Nothing. He tries again and again. Still nothing. And interestingly, Ben's not struggling. "What did you do?" snarls Sawyer. "We turned it off," Ben says simply, and then he conks Sawyer on the head with some sort of club that turns out to be this kind of telescoping baton, and he goes into the cage and lays a beating on Sawyer, the likes of which we haven't seen since the last episode that featured Sawyer. Ben ignores Kate's shouts of protest, and delivers an Albert Haynesworth-esque stomp to Sawyer's head. Everything goes black.
Sawyer wakes up to the sound of Zeke bitching at Ben. We learn that it's been two days since "the sky went purple," and that the Others' coms are down, and Colleen's in critical condition, and blah blah blah, and Ben interrupts Zeke to say that Juliet's looking after Colleen. They notice Sawyer coming to. Sawyer's not too pleased to be strapped to the large table he's on and says so, but Ben ignores him and asks "Jason" (another Other) to do something. Jason walks around to the head of the table and tries to give Sawyer a thick rod with a leather strap, and tells him to bite down on it. "You bite down on it," snaps Sawyer, but it gets stuck in his mouth anyway as Ben says it's for the pain. Fortunately, I was able to cut and paste the few sentences from some gay Lost fan fiction. Efficient! Meanwhile, another Other is preparing an alarmingly large needle, and it looks like they're prepared to go all Pulp Fiction on Sawyer's ass. "God, I hate needles," says Ben, looking askance.
Over in his own cell, Jack can hear Sawyer's screams crackling through the supposedly broken intercom.
Back in the torture chamber, Jason is correcting the other underling's technique, telling him he's got to go through the sternum, "like in the movie," he says. Hee. The Others count to three, with Sawyer yelling "WAIT!" as best as he can through the bit in his mouth.
Paulo is on the beach, knocking guava or mangos or whatever into the ocean. Oh, Paulo! At it again! Everybody drink! Desmond strolls up and says he's going to borrow one of this clubs, and Hurley said it would be okay. "Does that mean you're off to save the day?" says Paulo, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. He tells Desmond to take the five-iron, as he never uses it. Which is true. We've certainly never seen him use it. "That way, when you die in the jungle, doing whatever you're doing, I don't have to go looking for it," he adds, like JUST WHAT IS HIS PROBLEM? Desmond watches Paulo top his shot and suggests squaring his shoulders. "You play golf?" says Paulo, as though hitting tropical fruit into the ocean has anything to do with golf, and Desmond points out that he's Scottish. Nice, Desmond. Similarly, I'm Canadian, therefore I play hockey. No wait, that's true. Okay: similarly, I'm Canadian, therefore I say "eh" a lot. Okay, bad examples. Let's just move on.
Sawyer's still strapped down, but the Others might want to consider gagging him, too, because he's waking up, and it's when he's awake that he likes shooting off his mouth the most. He lifts his head as best he can and sees a Band-Aid on his chest, and to it a much larger gauze bandage with a bloodstain in the middle of it. He's barely had time to contemplate this, when in walks Zeke, carrying a cage with a rabbit with a spray-painted "8" on its hindquarters in it, and Ben.
Zeke sets the cage down on Sawyer's chest. This is, as you might expect, somewhat vexing to Sawyer, who seems to think, as I did, that this was obviously some mutant rabid rabbit. Instead, Ben picks up the cage and starts rattling it, yelling, "Hey! Come on!" at the bunny, which I guess understands English. Sawyer wants to know what he's doing, but Ben ignores him in favour of yelling "hippity-hop!" at this poor creature, which has started shaking and cowering in a corner of its cage. After several frantic, confusing seconds, the rabbit keels over in the cage. "Did you just kill that bunny?" says Sawyer. Ben puts the cage down and asks Sawyer if he knows what a pacemaker is. Sawyer doesn't answer, which is just as well, because Ben explains that they're inserting in the chests of people who've had bypass surgery. It gives the heart a little "kick-start" when it needs it. But the rabbit had a pacemaker set to deliver its kick-start if it got too excited, or anxious, or frightened... "or tried to escape." So... it's a pacemaker that makes your heart blow up? Do they provide rubber crutches for physical therapy patients too? Seriously, what the hell? Anyway, Ben's got a watch-style heart-rate monitor, which he straps onto Sawyer's left wrist. Ben says that, assuming Sawyer was telling the truth about his height and weight (and you should always assume Sawyer's telling the truth), his resting heart rate should be about 70 beats per minute, and his active rate 140. "Which is the point at which your pacemaker" -- he nods at Sawyer's chest -- "will cause your heart to explode." Seriously, does this company's investors know about this? Sawyer lays his head back down on the table, as the Others loosen his straps. "Which is how I know that you're gonna start behaving now."
Sawyer gingerly sits up, as Ben explains about the heart-rate monitor on his chest. It's got a 94 and a flashing heart symbol on it. Cool! I kind of want one! Ben says it'll start beeping when it gets within 15 beats of Sawyer's "danger zone." I have a monitor that beeps to warn me if the radio's going to start playing Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone." "If and when it beeps," continues Ben, "you're gonna want to relax yourself." He suggests doing some deep breathing or yoga. Sawyer growls something about how if they wanted him dead, why didn't they just shoot him? "Because we're not killers, James," says Ben. Not true! And there's one other thing: if Sawyer says anything to Kate about what the Others did to him, or that they're being watched, anything like that, they'll put one in her too. Sawyer just glares at Ben.
Speaking of Kate, she's pacing in her cage when the Others escort Sawyer back to his cage. She calls to him, asks if he's okay, but he doesn't respond. The Others put buckets with water and sponges in them in their cages, which Zeke says is so they can clean themselves up. Whether or not they do it in a sexy fashion is up to them, presumably. He's also got a sack of clothes for Kate. "And Kate, if any of that doesn't fit, just give me a holler, okay?" he says, sounding genuinely solicitous.
After the Others leave, Kate asks Sawyer what happened. Sawyer's sitting down, wiping his face with the sponge. He tells her that nothing happened, that they just asked him questions. Unfortunately, he doesn't really sell it, so it's hard for her to buy it. She tries again, but he still won't say: "Look, I told you. Nothing happened. Now quit asking." Kate throws up her hands in a "fine, whatever" gesture, and goes to check out the clothes she's been given.
"Turn around," she instructs Sawyer, who does so, using the opportunity to unbutton his shirt a little and peel back the bandage to see a small incision on his chest. He's distracted from that by the sight of Kate, her back to him, taking her shirt off. Literally within a couple of seconds, his heart rate jumps to 125 and his monitor starts beeping, which startles Kate, who turns around, covering herself. Sawyer says it's just his watch, which is broken. Kate's all, "when did you get a watch?" and Sawyer snaps, "I don't tell you everything!" like maybe he picked it up on his way home from WORK or something, and he tells her to leave him alone. And also, to put some clothes on. Now, if that doesnât signal to Kate that something is seriously wrong, she's too stupid to be believed. She turns from him, looking hurt and confused. The beeping continues, and Sawyer dumps the water over his head. I think he dumped it in the wrong place, but the beeping slows anyway.
Flashback to the prison waiting room. Sawyer watches while, at another table, Costanza has an animated discussion with a blond woman. She looks like she's pleading with him about something, while he looks frustrated. He happens to glance over and catch Sawyer's eye. Costanza grimaces slightly, and Sawyer allows himself a quick smirk.
Just then, a woman says, "Hello, Sawyer," behind him. He turns around. Is that Cassidy? I've got such a terrible memory. Anyway, he says his name is "James Ford," which she obviously knows because she got it right when she pressed charges against him. She can't believe he's pissed at her. I'm with her! "Well, what did you want me to do? You conned me!" Sawyer ignores her and asks what she wants, and she'd better hurry, because he's got "license plates to make." She hesitates, but eventually pulls out a picture of a beautiful baby girl (but at best, the second most beautiful little girl in the world) that she places on the table in front of Sawyer. He looks at it a good long while, and snorts a little. "What's this?" he asks in a way that tells us he already knows what it is. "This is your daughter," says whatshername. She smiles at Sawyer. "What do you want?" growls Sawyer. She says that she wanted Sawyer to know his daughter, and he snaps at her, asking if she thought he'd get one look at his daughter and turn into Father Knows Best? She says that they're living in a little place in Albuquerque, but is interrupted by a furious Sawyer, who wants to know why she's telling him all this. I thought you could write her a letter, says whatshername. "Her name's Clementine," she says, which, for some reason, makes me think Sawyer's daughter is a dancer at a casino in the Yukon during the 1898 gold rush. "What the hell am I supposed to write? 'Dear Googoo Gaga'? She's a baby! She ain't mine!" he yells, shoving the picture back across the table at her. He stands up. "I ain't got no daughter," he says, and stomps out of the visiting room, unaware that his use of a double-negative means he just admitted he does have a daughter.
Back in his Craphole Island cage, Sawyer's examining his pulse monitor and feeling his chest. Meanwhile, Kate, who's changed into a floral top and jeans, looks around her cage. She calls across to Sawyer that she thinks she can squeeze out through the bars on the top, because they're spaced farther apart up there. This alarms Sawyer, because it'll make his heart explode. And if that's going to happen, it might as well because she's changing clothes again instead. He tells her not to bother, which surprises her. "I think we should just chill here awhile, get the lay of the land," he says. She stares at him, mouth actually hanging open.
Back in Jack's cage, this supposedly broken intercom is again crackling with static and voices. All I can make out is the word "X-rays." Juliet opens the door on the other side of the partitioned room and urgently walks in, wearing bloodstained scrubs. Jack demands to know what they did with Sawyer. She says they didn't do anything to him. "I heard him yelling, you've got blood on your clothes. What did you do to him?" She tells him it's not Sawyer's blood. "It's the blood of a woman who's dying. Jack, I -- I need your help." Jack thinks about this, presumably wondering if there's any way he could use this to get some booze.
Over by the bear cages, klaxons blare through the loudspeaker, as Juliet and some Others lead a hooded person by. Kate recognizes Jack's clothes, tattoo, or biceps, or all three. "It's Jack!" she yells over at Sawyer, and the two of them shout at him (Kate yelling, "Jack!" and Sawyer yelling, "Doc!") but they're inaudible above the blaring alarm. The scream louder, and Jack's head turns towards them, but he's whisked off by the Others.
Inside some compound, Ben asks Juliet if she's lost her mind to bring him in there. Juliet points out that Jack's a doctor, and can help, as she pulls Jack's hood off. Ben starts to say, "Well, that's not why we -- " but is silenced by Juliet asking if Ben wants her to die. Jack and Juliet look through some swinging doors into what appears to be a rudimentary operating room, Colleen on a table, Danny standing over her. Jack asks what happened. "Gunshot wound to the abdomen," says Juliet, as they scrub up. Jack notices some chest and spine X-rays hanging on an illuminated... I don't know what it's called, that light thing that doctors put X-rays on. He stares at them. "Those aren't hers," says Juliet. They mean nothing to me, but I'm not a spinal surgeon. Jack appears to notice something, however. But he doesn't say anything, and they head into the operating room.
Danny freaks when he sees Jack, but Juliet assures him that Jack's here to help them. "Tell them who did this! He ought to know that!" spits Danny. "I need him out of here," says Jack, as he gets ready to operate. The beeping of Colleen's heart-rate monitor underscores the urgency. Zeke, who's been an awfully helpful Other this episode, leads a protesting Danny from the room, as Jack examines Colleen. Juliet says she got the bullet out, but Colleen's still bleeding. "Right upper quadrant," says Jack, examining the patient, adding that it's flowing badly. Juliet disagrees, saying she padded it, but Jack ignores her. "I need you to clamp under the liver so I can get a look back there," he says. Juliet makes as if to do so, but hesitates. Jack looks at her quizzically. "I'm not a surgeon," she says. "I know," says Jack. "But I need you to do this." We can see Danny, Zeke, and Ben watching from some sort of observation room. Jack medical-jargons about something behind the liver, which is why she missed it, and he needs "lap pads," as many as she's got. Danny watches anxiously. Jack's just getting to work when Colleen flatlines. He tells Juliet he needs the "crash cart." She doesn't move. "Juliet? I need paddles," he repeats, and she tells him they're broken. Jack takes this in, and Juliet tries to explain that they haven't had anything happen before, while Jack gets to work on the CPR. Everyone watches. Zeke covers his mouth. Jack counts to himself as he gives Colleen's chest quick pumps. You know, I don't think Jack sabotaged the rescue effort? But I do think he let go of the CPR sooner than he's let go of anything we've seen since the series started. Didn't he pound on Charlie's chest for a solid half-hour? No, that's right; it only felt like it was that long.
Danny's chin starts to quiver. Jack catches his breath. "Time of death," he says, looking around for a clock as he takes his gloves off. He doesn't find one. "She's gone," he says. In the observation room, an enraged Danny yells, "They did this!" in Ben's face, but it's muffled for us through the glass. "They did this"? Yeah, Sun shot Colleen when Colleen was part of an armed group boarding Sun's boat. I'm starting to get a little fed up with the "we're not the bad guys" routine that the Others keep falling back on. Danny stomps out of the room, ignoring Zeke's attempts to console him. Juliet gazes down at the lifeless Colleen.
Danny stomps out to the bear cages, where Kate sees the murder in his eyes and actually recoils as he goes by. Danny unlocks Sawyer's cage, and Sawyer's too fearful to make any kind of quips; he just puts his hand over his heart and tells Danny to take it easy. Danny doesn't so much comply as he pulls Sawyer from his cage and throws him up against the bars of Kate's cage. Sawyer's monitor starts to beep. "You love this guy?" Danny yells at Kate. Kate's taken aback by the question, and Danny punches Sawyer and yells it again. And punches him again. And again. And again. And he punctuates each punch, each backhand, with, "DO YOU LOVE HIM?" It's brutal, in the most literal sense; I actually had a hard time watching it. Kate screams and cries and grasps at a bloodied, slumping Sawyer through the bars of her cage. Sawyer's making no effort to fight back, but Danny's full-on berserker; I don't think Sawyer could have done anything anyway. Finally, Kate yells that yes, she does love Sawyer. A barely conscious Sawyer is all "sweeeeet!" For whatever reason, Danny stops whaling on Sawyer long enough for his grief to catch up with his anger, and he staggers away. "Lock him up," he yells at someone, although I didn't see anyone else there.
Flashback to Sawyer in prison, reading Of Mice and Men. Wasn't Sawyer's late-onset myopia due to the fact that he hadn't read before but had been straining his eyes since he got to the island? Costanza comes up to him, says he needs to talk. Sawyer says he's busy. "It's important. Please," says Costanza.
They walk down some prison corridor, as Costanza tells Sawyer that he was right. "I loved her! And I thought she, I really thought --" he says, and Sawyer tells him that $10 million tends to change things. "That's why you never get attached. 'Cause once you care, that's when they can come at ya." Costanza asks what the woman he saw Sawyer with the other day wanted. "Something I ain't got," says Sawyer after a moment. Holding up his book, he asks if that's all, if Costanza minds if he goes back and finds out if George gets his farm. Costanza says he needs Sawyer to move the money. "The money you didn't steal?" says Sawyer wryly, although I don't recall Costanza ever denying it. "We both know I did," says Constanza, who adds that "Lila" has hired a private investigator and is going to find it. And here's why I thought this was going to turn out to be a con on Sawyer: I couldn't believe that Costanza was worried about some rinky-dink private investigator finding the money, when the government wasn't unable to find $10 million of its own money. Anyway, Sawyer declines, saying it's too risky. He starts to walk away. "If you don't help me, the warden'll get it all. He'll win. Please. Please." His back to Costanza, Sawyer smiles. The fish is on the hook. Now he just has to bring him in.
Back in the bear cage, Sawyer is gingerly mopping his face with the sponge. Kate asks if he's all right. "The guy hits like a girl. No offence," he says. Kate, looking upwards, absent-mindedly asks why Danny did that. "Hell if I know," says Sawyer, asking if anything the Others do ever makes any sense. The answer is no, but that's also true of the Lostaways most of the time. Meanwhile, Kate's started climbing up to the top of her cage. Sawyer anxiously asks what she's doing. "I've told you the time ain't right!" he says. "You're the one who said we had to go," says Kate, as she slides through the bars at the top of the cage and scootches over to the side. "That was before --" says Sawyer, stopping himself. "Before what?" yells Kate. Sawyer doesn't answer. It starts raining. "I don't know what they did to you," says Kate, as she clambers down the side of her former cage, "but I know you're scared enough to lie about it. And that scares me more than anything that they have done to us before." Because it takes a lot to get Sawyer to lie? Kate drops to the ground and hurries over to Sawyer's cage, where she starts hammering at the lock with a rock. He tells her to go: "You gotta go!" he says, and she stares at him. "What did they do to you?" she cries. She looks at the pulse monitor, and asks what it is. "If you really love me, go," he says. Poor Sawyer. Poor, stupid Sawyer. Kate drops this bomb on him: "I only said that so he'd stop hitting you." Sawyer looks rather hurt. Is it me, or is Sawyer the most naïve alleged con artist ever? Kate sadly walks back over to her cage and climbs back up and in, while Sawyer yells at her to run and says "every man for himself!" for the umpteenth time this episode. After getting back into her cage, she repudiates him with Jack's maxim: "Live together, die alone." And don't tell me Sawyer doesn't know the significance of why Kate chose those words.
Meanwhile, Ben watches on his bank of security monitors. He's wearing round John Lennon glasses! Zeke's there too. "You know, Danny wants to kill him," he says. "Danny can wait," says Ben. Zeke asks if he should bring Jack back. Ben considers it, and finally says no: "I want him to sit with her for a while longer." On one of the monitors, we see Jack sitting to Colleen's covered body, and as we move into the room ourselves, we see that he's handcuffed to the operating table.
Juliet comes in and apologizes that "they" put the handcuffs on him. Then she gets right to the point: "I'm a fertility doctor." Jack waits. "I'm not used to death," she adds. Jack asks what the woman's name was. "Cole. It was short for Colleen," says Juliet. She says she should have come for Jack sooner, but Jack says it wouldn't have made a difference: "She was dead before you put her on the table." Juliet asks if he's just saying that to make her feel better. Jack looks at her a long while, laughs, and says he doesn't care about making her feel better. Juliet actually looks HURT by this. She says she'll take him back, and apologizes for bringing him here. She moves to uncuff him from the table, but he stops her. And considering how Jack jumped her before, shouldn't she have a little backup here? But Jack's not going to hurt her this time; he just has some questions. He asks about the X-rays he saw earlier, which he says are spinal X-rays of a man about 40 years old, and hey! What a coincidence! Jack just happens to be a spinal surgeon! "So you tell me, Juliet: who am I here to save?" Everybody, Jack. There. You happy?
If Paulo wants his five-iron back, he'll find it atop a tall Tinkertoy structure that Desmond's built. It's the spire on a tower, and Desmond's running some wire from it down to a stick that he plants in the ground. He stands up and looks at his creation, satisfied. He strolls over to a table where Hurley is chopping up some fruit, and then just sits up on the table, and how nice of him to plant his ass where food is being prepared. Hurley looks at Desmond's tower. "Is that art?" asks Hurley tentatively. Desmond calls it an experiment, not taking his eyes off it. Hurley asks if Desmond wants some fruit salad, but he says he's not hungry. Hugo still seems a little freaked out by Desmond the psycho psychic and starts to leave, carrying his fruit salad in some kind of cone thing, but Desmond says Hurley might want to wait a moment. Hurley asks why, but Desmond doesn't answer: the thunder does, and a moment later, the rain, that suddenly starts lashing the camp. In Claire's shelter, Aaron starts crying, and she tries to soothe him. Charlie comes over to help. I guess it's too bad that Sawyer's not around to read car magazines to him.
Suddenly, lightning strikes the five-iron tower, and the wire carries the current harmlessly to Desmond's grounding stick, which catches fire. Claire's freaked out for all of about half a second. Charlie, though, looks at Desmond's freaky smile and thinks for a moment, possibly about whether he and Claire are ever going to be more than just friends. So I guess this is more of the "is Desmond psychic?" nonsense that is going to pay off soon, I'm sure, like the monster, and bird that called Hurley's name, and the four-toed statue, and everything else. Maybe we could just investigate why the lightning struck the golf-club tower when there are so many taller trees all over the place?
It's dark in the bear cages, but the birds are chirping. Sawyer wakes up, startled to see Ben there in his cage with him. "Good morning," says Ben. "Let's go for a walk." I suppose a morning jog's out of the question.
Flashback to Sawyer taking another walk, this one with an escort of prison guards to the prison gym, where the warden stands waiting outside the boxing ring. "I have to be honest, Ford. When they first brought you here, I thought you were nothing more than a dumb hick. Now I know better." He does? "You're a dumb hick that knows how to steal." Oh, okay. I'll accept that. Sawyer wants to get this over with, whatever this is. The warden acknowledges one of the men with him. "You remember Agent Friedmann from the treasury department," he says. Friedmann nods. He looks like he'd make a good rookie officer in a buddy-cop movie, the kind who's by-the-book but gets paired up with the loose cannon veteran. And each thinks the other's methods stink but by the end they're working together and respecting each other? Look at me, I just wrote a movie. I bet Samuel L. Jackson's available for the lead.
Friedmann asks what Sawyer's got for him. "The ten million's in a red Bronco parked in a Store-Quick facility in Sawgrass. Right off 441. Unit 23C. That's where your money is." Sawyer at least has the good grace to look at least a little chagrined about ratting on a fellow prisoner. The warden says, "As agreed, the last six years of your sentence have been commuted." Friedmann says that as soon as they've recovered the money, Sawyer'll get his commission. "Now, how do you want that?" and I hoped Sawyer was going to say "ones and twos," but instead he says he wants it in a new bank account in Albuquerque. Oh, right. His heart of gold. He says he wants it in the name of Clementine Phillips. I'm having a hard time deciding if Sawyer's hesitation is due to him just now getting the idea to do this, or if because it's hard to give up the money -- remember, he was already working on the Costanza con before he found out about Clementine. What I do know is that before Sawyer gives up however much money his commission is -- well, it's called a paternity test, Mr. Most Trusting Con Man Ever. "And I want it so there's no way she can ever find out who the money's from," he adds. The warden asks who Clementine Phillips is. "We done?" is all Sawyer says, so the warden, who has not changed expression once during this episode, says, "Congratulations, Ford. You just lied and cheated your way out of prison. You're a free man." Sawyer looks around, as if unsure what to do . I'm guessing, though, that it'll involve a hooker and an eight-ball.
The sun's now up as Ben leads a cheery little hike up Heart Explosion Hill. He tells Sawyer that he wants him to see something just over the rise. Sawyer's being "helped" (i.e. pushed) on the hike by the two Others who bickered about the chest-needle technique. "'That little place you've always wanted, George?'" says Sawyer, which Ben doesn't get. "What, don't you read? It's from Of Mice and Men." See, Sawyer doesn't know that Ben's not in the book club anymore. Anyway, Sawyer says Ben would like the book: "Puppies get killed." Heh. Ben just smiles and doesn't say anything.
They keep climbing, and presently Sawyer's pulse monitor starts beeping: it's at 125 and counting. He feels his chest, and keeps going. Soon, it's at 135, so he asks if Ben brought him up here to make his heart explode. Sawyer, look at the guys behind you. They have guns. If they wanted to kill you, there are much easier ways. Ben just sneers that Sawyer's heart isn't going to explode: "The only thing we put inside you was doubt." Sawyer looks at the heart rate monitor for help. Ben says that it is a heart-rate monitor, but nothing more. He reaches into his satchel and pulls out the bunny, number 8 painted on its butt, alive and well. That thing's been in his bag the whole time? Have fun cleaning that after your hike, Ben. Ben says they gave the rabbit a sedative, not a pacemaker. Sawyer asks how he knows they didn't just paint another bunny with an eight. Because Ben's explanation is much more plausible than "we equipped a bunny with a rabbit-sized pacemaker rigged to make its heart explode"? Ben just laughs and admits Sawyer doesn't know that they didn't do just that.
Sawyer glares at Ben, then hauls off and socks him. Ben's so-called bodyguards have the slowest reaction time of any bodyguards ever, and they eventually get a loose hold on Sawyer's arms, which could, I suppose, at least slow any further attempts to beat up their boss. "You son of a bitch," growls Sawyer, who would really benefit from a profanity thesaurus. Ben gingerly touches his mouth, then says the rabbit wasn't what he brought Sawyer here to see.
They keep walking, and Sawyer sees it: across the water, maybe a mile away, another island. Or, as Ben explains, it's actually Craphole Island. Ben says where they are now is an island roughly twice the size of Alcatraz. "That over there? That's your island. The one you've come to know and love." He just wanted Sawyer to know there's nowhere to run. Sawyer can't believe that they did all this just to keep him in a "damn cage." Neither can I, since it's apparently unnecessary. "We did all this because the only way to gain a con man's respect is to con him," says Ben. "You're pretty good, Sawyer. But we're a lot better." I agree with that, except for the part about Sawyer being pretty good. Sawyer seems fairly lousy, most of the time. Can't seem to finish the job, usually.
They look at the island for a moment. Ben says it's interesting that it wasn't when they put the pacemaker in Sawyer but when they threatened Kate that he fell in line. "You work so hard to make her think you don't care, that you don't need her, but... " His voice trails off. Then he speaks again: "'A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. It don't make no difference who the guy is, long as he's with ya. I tell ya... I tell ya, a guy gets too lonely and he gets sick.'" "What the hell are you talking about?" snaps Sawyer. "It's from Of Mice and Men," says Ben. "Don't you read?" Apparently, Sawyer doesn't read the whole book before he feels superior enough to throw quotations at people.
"C'mon. Let's get you back to your cage," says Ben, turning to go. Sawyer stands there a moment staring across the water before he follows. On the plus side, at least he doesn't have to worry about getting a boner anymore.