Spoilers below the image!
So, last night at about 7:20PM, our power went out. No, there wasn’t a storm, and we still have no idea what happened — only that the power didn’t come back until about 11:45. Meaning that I missed LOST.
Oh, I watched it first thing this morning online, of course. I’m just letting you know that I’ve had about 12 fewer hours than normal to think about/sleep on the episode.
So, LaFleur opens up where we left off on the island, with John Locke disappearing into the ground below. Quickly, Juliet, Sawyer, Miles and Jin all go through another flash, and see a statue that most likely has four toes standing off in the distance. Ooooh. But it doesn’t last long, because that damn Locke has to go turn the wheel before any investigating can be done.
They flash again, but this time more intensely. They notice that their headaches are gone, as are the nosebleeds. Juliet declares that she thinks it’s over, that Locke did it. Sawyer then declares that it’s time to wait for him to come back. When asked how long they’re going to wait for, Sawyer says in a gruff, manly voice “as long as it takes.” Indeed, he repeats that line so many times throughout the episode that I start to worry that it will become the new “They took my son!”
The show takes us to three years later, where we see some dudes in a Dharma station at night, blah blah blah, and they notice on their monitors that Horace (you know, guy who helped Ben and his dad, also seen dead and chopping down trees?) is drunk and throwing dynamite around the sonic weapon fence. They say that they better go get LaFleur, the security chief, but they’re scared of waking him. They do it anyway, only for us to learn what any dummy could have guessed on their own — LaFleur is Sawyer.
Sawyer goes and gets Miles, and together they go get Horace. Sawyer brings Horace back home to a pregnant woman, we presume his wife, named Amy. Amy is about to tell Sawyer about some fight that her and Horace had, when she starts having contractions. Oh noes! The baby is coming!
Three years earlier again, Faraday is mumbling in the jungle, sans Charlotte’s body, something about how he’s not going to tell her this time. He then says that: Charlotte’s body has disappeared, of course the flashes have stopped you dumbasses, I’m going to use that really irritating line about “when” we are again, and yes, I could indeed be doing some better acting in this scene, but no I’m not going to.
Quite quickly, Sawyer becomes the new Jack, and Juliet becomes the new Kate. Meaning that Sawyer becomes the leader who actually isn’t all that great of a leader and doesn’t really have all that many good ideas, but becomes leader by default because he has some of the most useful island survival skills for the moment, is the most pushy and most of all because no one else really wants to do it. Juliet becomes the new supportive woman to the leader, who is actually generally smarter than the leader in question, has better ideas most of the time, but plays second fiddle and gazes adoringly at said leader, constantly professing how “behind” him she is, because well, that’s what us ladies do.
They stumble upon a couple being attacked. The man is shot dead, and the woman has a brown sack thrown over her head (sound familiar?). Sawyer and Juliet play hero, killing the two guys. The woman — the Amy we saw previously — takes them back to Dharma Central with the dead guy/boyfriend Paul’s body, but not before knocking them all unconscious with the sonic weapon fence, because they were too busy chatting to notice her putting earplugs in her ears.
Sawyer wakes up, cons Horace. Says his name is Jim LaFleur, and he’s the captain of a ship that crashed on the island. Horace says thanks for saving Amy, now we’re sending you home because you’re not Dharma material. For some reason, Sawyer hates this idea and works on letting them stay longer. (Seemingly, as he later explains to Juliet, because there’s nothing in 1974 back in the real world for them anyway. And besides, they’d risk running into their former selves, which would just be awkward.)
He accomplishes this by saving the treaty between the Dharma people and the Others/Hostiles/Indigenous population lead by Richard Alpert. He tells Alpert about the bomb, asks if he buried it, says he knows all about Locke coming to visit him in the 50s, and explains that no treaty was broken because he killed the Others guys and he’s not a Dharma person. Yet! Bwaha! Because brokering a deal with Alpert buys Sawyer two more weeks on the island, which he manages to extend into 3 years, which is where we are now — presumably, 1977.
Let’s see, then Sawyer takes Amy to the doctor, who says that babies are only supposed to be born on the mainland. Sawyer goes and gets Juliet — who is now a mechanic, which I love — and gets her to save Amy and the baby, blah blah blah. Fluent-English Jin comes and tells Sawyer something about how there’s still no sign of the Oceanic 6 — I guess they’re watching out for them every day — and Sawyer says “WAAAAALLLLLTTTT!” “as long as it takes!”
Then we find out what we also already knew, which is that Sawyer and Juliet are an item. They say that they love each other, and are playing house like Sawyer once wanted to do with Kate. Then Sawyer goes and gives Horace a good talking to, about his drunken ways and how he missed the birth of his son. Horace says he’s upset because he thinks that Amy still isn’t over dead Paul and asks whether or not three years is long enough to get over someone. After telling a very thinly veiled story about some woman he used to love and can now only barely remember, Sawyer asserts that yes, three years is long enough to get over someone.
Until the Oceanic 3 (Jack, Hurley, and Kate) show up with Jin at the very end, and Sawyer not only doesn’t tell Juliet but also looks all wistful when he sees Kate. Oops.
So questions: Mainly, this episode dealt with interpersonal relationships, rather than big questions. Which leaves us asking (and yes, roll your eyes, but I care), will Sawyer and Kate get back together? Or will they stay in the current Sawyer/Juliet, Jack/Kate (kind of) pairings? Will Sawyer remain true to Juliet, only to have Juliet end up feeling all insecure and getting it on with ex-sorta-flame Jack instead? Who knows!
Will we ever find out what happened to Rose and Bernard? Three years have passed, and still no sign of them. How could they kill off a character that has been with us since the very first episode of the show without a word? And if they’re alive, where the hell are they? Will Faraday stop looking at toddler Charlotte all longingly like a damn pedophile? Will Horace stop being a weirdo drunk? And will all of our Lostie friends, as the running question goes, ever get back to the future?
Seems like it’s two weeks til a new episode, but we shall see!