Sawyer: “Sayid ain’t invited. He’s gone over to the dark side.”
Hurley: “Yeah, but you can always bring people back from the dark side. I mean, Anakin—”

• Cute. And it serves to potentially underline the idea that the people who’ve been “claimed” by the MiB aren’t irredeemable.

Kate: “Are you hitting on me?”
Sawyer: “It’d never work, sweetheart. I’m a cop, you’re a murderer.”
Kate: “I already told you, I’m not a murderer.”
Sawyer: “Yeah, well, I’m still a cop.”

• As someone who is most definitely NOT a fan of the Jack/Sawyer/Kate/Juliet quadrangle on this show, I really enjoyed the way that Kate and Sawyer bantered back and forth during this scene. Josh Holloway’s become a much better actor over the course of this show, and scenes like this one help to remind us of that fact.

• “Jabroni” makes it’s triumphant reappearance on the show. Such a weird word. Clearly someone’s trying to work it back into the popular consciousness. Whoever you are – stop it.

Kate: “He’s different now.”
Jack: “Guess we’re all different now.”

• I’ve seen some comments that amount to disappointment over the way that the show’s characters have “become different people” from the folks we met back in Season 1. That’s not a complaint I particularly understand, since a good portion of this show has been about how the people we met in Season 1 have been fundamentally changed. It’s a complaint that the show itself almost seems to anticipate, having Jack voice what should be obvious: these people are not the same people who crashed on the island. They’re all different now. Some of them moreso, some of them less so. This aspect of the show is one of my favorites, and it’s my investment in the evolution of these characters that’s kept me fascinated by this season.

Zoe: “Show them what we’re capable of.”

• Zoe gets her patented Badass moment, and Anti-Locke gets a chance to show her what Badass really means as he stands there with a terminally-unimpressed look on his face and fire rains down from the sky behind him. It’s an excellent moment, rooted firmly in Terry O’Quinn’s performance and acting choices.

• Good ol’ Magical Desmond shows up to continue steering people toward their apparently-appointed Destinies. How much does he really know about everything that’s happening? How does he know to insist that Claire come with him to his lawyer’s offices? Does he know what’s going to happen when she agrees to follow him? Or does he just have a sense that he’s herding these people in the “right” direction? Is he, perhaps, doing a little electromagnetic navigation of his own – following “paths” that only he can see?

• Both Claire and Desmond’s appointments are on Floor 15. Spooky Numbers!

• Ilana, who is very much not-exploded in the off-Island universe, pops up in this episode as Desmond’s (and by association, Widmore’s?) attorney. She looks great, and is an entirely different person from the one we’ve seen previously. Apparently, her last name is Vadansky.

• It’s neat to watch her work an American accent.

Anti-Locke: “All this is happening a bit sooner than I’d expected, but these people have forced our hand, claiming we stole something from them, trying to provoke us into a confrontation. Well, if that’s what they want, that’s what they’ll get.”

• Anti-Locke is a lying liar. Any doubts about this are further dispelled by his claims to “his” people.

Anti-Locke: “The bigger the group, the slower it moves.”

That’s a pretty fair summation of Anti-Locke’s tactics in general, no? He operates on an individual level, pulling people aside for quick chats that allow him to retain total control over what each person knows, and lets him know when people have shared information. He divides, then conquers, so to speak.

Anti-Locke: “You do still want what you asked me for, right?”
Sayid: “Yes, I do.”
Locke: “Then go do what I said.”

• I’d argue that we see the “true” Man in Black bleeding through his assumed face with this exchange. Listen to the way that Terry O’Quinn delivers the line “Then go do what I said.”

Desmond and Sayid come face-to-face again, and share a moment that was, for me, surprisingly poignant. Their exchange contained a couple of things worth mentioning/chewing over.

Desmond: “And what makes you think Locke can bring her back?
Sayid: “I died…and he brought me back.”

Yeah…..about that. Assuming this is true (and it’s been pretty solidly confirmed that SOMETHING brought Sayid back from the dead, although we don’t know for sure that it was the Man in Black), just how did the Man in Black accomplish this? No one with any “Island knowledge” has witnessed resurrection before. Richard and Ben (who are, admitedly, not nearly as in-the-know as I’d previously believed) both state that such a thing is very, very unique – even on this particular Island. So what’s the deal with this?

Desmond: “This woman–when she asks you what you did to be with her again…what will you tell her?”

That’s the heart of Sayid’s journey for me, and it’s what makes his story this season compelling to me as a viewer. What Anti-Locke has offered to Sayid is his heart’s desire – the one thing he wants more than life itself, and has been ceaselessly questing for since the show started: Love.

Each and every time that Sayid has found this elusive, barrier-breaching emotion it’s been taken from him through violence. All three of the women who he becomes emotionally attached to throughout the show die terrible deaths. There’s a sense of cosmic injustice to this, and that injustice in turn justifies (from Sayid’s perspective) the adoption of a selfish, nihilistic worldview; a worldview that would allow him to embrace death. But Desmond’s words here, simple as they are, also serve as a potent reminder of the cost of Sayid’s decision, and serve to underline yet again the themes of self-healing and enlightenment that Lost loves so much. How can Sayid be with the woman he loves if he isn’t honest with her about what he’s done to be with her? And if he’s honest about what he’s done, how can the woman he loves be with Sayid?

It’s kinda profound, really.

Sayid: “Nadia, I’m leaving. And I’m never going to be able to come back again.”

So, let’s say that the off-Island universe represents the successful escape of the Man in Black from the Island (one option of many at this point, and not one that I really love if I’m honest). As I’d previously pointed out in the last Sayid-centric episode, if that’s the case, then Sayid’s technically gotten what he wanted and lost what he needed. He failed to read the fine print on the contract. Nadia’s alive, well, but married to his brother – a situation that off-Island Sayid helped to create, thanks to the guilt he feels/felt over his past actions. If we accept that this world is a “gift” courtesy of the Man in Black (and I don’t – not yet) then that gift is double-edged, and serves to underline further the idea that these people are the causes of their own suffering, and that no outside force can determine their destinies half as well as they can determine their own – through what they’ve learned or failed to learn from their experiences.

• I received an email this week from reader Josh Cutchin – Musicologist, Music Journalist, Musician, and very nice guy. He pointed out something interesting with regard to this week’s musical score and suggested that I make mention of it in this week’s column. But I thought that, frankly, he was much better qualified to talk about this aspect than I was. He’s the Musicologist after all. I’m just the amateur columnist. Josh was kind enough to compose a brief-but-very-interesting piece for me on the potential connection between the music of this week’s episode and a particular piece by Chopin. It’s well-written and Josh obviously knows what he’s talking about. If you’d like to read it (and you should – it’s good), just click here.

• We get what feels like confirmation that Anti-Locke didn’t cause Sun’s bizarro aphasia, and further suggesting that it’s instead a sign of off-Island and on-Island consciousnesses beginning to connect across whatever magic space wall separates them from one another.

• Anti-Locke notices that Sayid is missing and goes off looking for him. The show then cuts to Sayid, who’s walking quickly through the jungle, eyes on the sky/trees. Where is he going, and what is he looking for? Can we assume that Sayid spared Desmond’s life? And does this reinforce the idea that the Man in Black “claims” people simply through talking them into coming along? Is that the extent of the “infection”? If so, I have no real idea what to make of Rousseau almost getting shot by her lover. Did the Man in Black convince the rest of Rousseau’s crew that the baby was “El Diablo,” ala Richard’s story? Tell me, Lost!

• The boat that Sawyer and Co. take to Hydra Island is the Elizabeth – the same craft that brought Desmond to the Island, and which was given to him by a fresh-outta-the-Institution Libby. And speaking of Libby – Hurley mentioned in Everybody Loves Hugo that Libby hadn’t appeared to him. However, she did appear to Michael back on the Kahana freighter in Season 4. Was this actually her (since it was an off-Island appearance)? Or was it the Man in Black?

• When Kate tells Claire that Locke isn’t Locke anymore, she says “He’s not one of us.” Familiar words, no? The drawing of distinctions between “us” and “them” has been an interest of Lost’s writers from the very beginning, and it’s something I’ve talked about exhaustively in these columns. I’ll be delving into it again in my forthcoming book.

• Claire’s decision to join the fleeing castaways has me even more confused, and not in the good way. Earlier, Claire told Jack that he’d already decided to come with them, because Anti-Locke talked to him (in his special, hoo-doo-powered convincing voice?) and that left him no choice. Here, she chooses to go with them and leave Anti-Locke, and that whole thing about “like it or not, you’re with him now” is nonchalantly set aside. What gives, Lost? This aspect of the season continues to bother me. If it’s in any way explained, and that explanation makes some kind of sense, then groovy. But I’m starting to suspect that we’re not going to get any answer to this, and that’s really, really going to bother me. Really. Bother me. Why? Because this is an element that’s directly character-related, and it deeply effects how we view the characters of Claire and Sayid. Without a clue as to what’s “wrong” with them, we lose our ability to connect with them as characters. We don’t trust them, and while this is obviously at least partially intended by Lost’s writers, it’s also gone on long enough, thank you very much. This isn’t an element that ought to hang this nebulously for this long without an Island-mythology-related explanation at the end of it (being Island-related would partially excuse the nebulousness, since they obviously don’t want to show their “what is the Island” cards at all yet). Unless this information is being held back for a reason, then it’s essentially a case of overextended foreplay at this point, and a lack of resolution on this will actively, deeply bother me. That’s my opinion. Your mileage may vary, as always.

Ilana Vadansky: Worst. Lawyer. In the World. On what planet do you spring the revelation of a dead father’s secret other family/child to their son by just plopping them both in the same room without explanation or warning? He’s the son of your client, for God’s sake. I’ve known quite a few lawyers in my life, and while some of them seemed to occupy an entirely different world from mine, none of them lived THAT far out in outer space.


JACKFACE!

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