It's Lord of the Flies time in this episode of Lost. We get a little dirty in this one thanks to Sawyer. Nothing extremely creepy happens (unless you want to count Sawyer's hair in the flashback), but we get a taste of the characters here more. Especially Sawyer and Sayid. We get to see a bit of their flaws and what draws them to the island. Oh, and Kate kisses Sawyer. Vomit.
A lot is going on in the caves! Sayid has a bump on his head. He thinks Sawyer knocked him out. (Thanks to Locke! --More on that later) Shannon can't breathe. Everyone thinks that Sawyer has her medicine. Let's blame Sawyer.
Why do they blame him? Because he turned into Sawyer, the confidence man who played his parents and he wants to be hated because of that. I think that this is very obvious when you watch this the first time. But now that we know the ending we can kind of say that Jacob brought him to the island. Encouraging him to write the letter and hold on to that pain of losing his parents. This leads him to the island. I am all totally for Jacob and the island, but to me it makes it seem like the provocation of the letter set him on the path to the island. He was flawed from this point on. I haven't watched these episodes since Jacob's touch and I'm interested to see how it impacted their lives and their path to the island. We all know MIB does a lot of manipulation, but I think that Jacob does his share also.
Sayid the torturer. Has there been a season where he doesn't kill/torture? Sayid can't ever stop the torture and killing because it is native to him. Just like Kate will always run and Charlie will always play music. They all do both things on the island and in the flash sideways. It is in his character. It is comfortable for him. No matter how much he hates doing it, he will go back to it. This is his flaw and after the temple stuff, I really don't think he ever got completely over his flaw. He redeemed himself a bit by taking the bomb and killing himself so that Jack could finish the job, but he never was able to fully get beyond his killing issues.
"They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt; it always ends the same..." Locke was setting Sayid up for the next level of this theory. "They fight." Locke has one scene in this whole episode and he does two things that MIB does in Season 6: sharpen wood and give Sayid a knife that makes him want to kill. MIB is able to feed off of and build on the Losties flaws. He sees them as a weakness. We see him do it over and over. He did it last episode in The Moth with Charlie. He does it here with Sayid by giving him a knife and turning him into a torture/kill machine. To me, MIB wants to accomplish 2 things with Sayid. He wants to prove the theory of "They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt; it always ends the same..." and he wants Sayid to kill Sawyer, taking one of his candidates out of the running for a replacement Jacob.
I really feel like the Shannon and Sayid connection was starting during this episode. If you watch closely, Sayid looks at her and connects with her here. Through all of my times rewatching, I never caught this until now. They were island soul mates and writers were aiming for this the whole time. I am one of the ones who already totally agree with this. I do not think that Nadia should have been a part of the flash sideways love connections. I know I am against a lot of people on this. Love between two people is something that people on the outside of it will never understand. The viewers can't say "Nadia was his true love!!!" because they don't know how Sayid feels. Kate and Claire had a moment in the flash sideways. I don't think that it means they left the island and became lesbian lovers. I think they loved each other and the love grew from the time they spent on the island. The most important part of their lives. The same thing is true for Sayid and Shannon. I also think that this is another reason Sayid went all Republican Guard on Sawyer. He needed get his love's inhaler's back.
And while I am on the subject of love. I suppose I have to talk about Kate and Sawyer's kiss. I am a complete Jater, but I can't deny Kate and Sawyer's connection. His number was 15 and her number was 51. So I guess you could say that they have a "reflection connection". They are drawn to each other. They open up to each other. She will always love Jack, but she can't stop herself from him. I blame the numbers.
It was interesting to see what Kate said about Sawyer's letter. She read it over, and over, and over, and over until she found a big fat clue on the envelope that made her figure everything out. It reminded me of us, the re-watchers. We are going to be doing the same thing until we get that giant clue that solves it all for us. Lost is something that you can't explain for others. You just have to figure it out for yourself. I don't think anyone's answer is wrong. I love discussing Lost with other people. I am so happy to be doing this re-watch with LOSTblog.com to share my ideas. And I am happy that all of you are reading, also!
