Stuck on the Wrong Song: Castaways Adapt to Community Living on "Lost"

I've long since given up trying to figure out who Kate will pick between Jack and Sawyer when given the chance and yet I couldn't help but have my heart melted by this week's episode of Lost ("LaFleur"), which featured a pairing between two characters that has been subtly building throughout Season Five.

Those of you who believed that this week's episode would feature some sort of tearful reunion between Sawyer and Kate, returned to the island after three years apart, clearly don't watch the series carefully enough: there was no way that Team Darlton was going to fulfill that tension without making the audience work for it. (We'll have to wait two weeks for that.)

This week's episode of Lost ("LaFleur") filled in the blanks about just what happened to the castaways who were left behind on the island while the Oceanic Six returned to their lives (or some of them anyway: I'm still curious to know where/when Rose and Bernard are) and sees them integrate themselves into the nascent Dharma Initiative, overseen by Horace Goodspeed (Kidnapped's Doug Hutchison), whom we last saw as a time-trapped wood-chopping ghost in one of Locke's vision quests. (More on that in a bit.)

So put on your Dharma jumpsuit, crank up the eight-track on your VW van, and let's discuss this week's episode of Lost.

Sawyer. No discussion of this episode could begin without discussing just how front and center Sawyer's character has become and just how different a beast he is from when we first encountered Sawyer back in Season One. Back then, he was a self-centered con man with little concern for anyone else around him but over the past five or so seasons, his character has slowly developed from gruff outsider to, well, the leader of the pack. The ease with which he takes charge of our time-tossed castaways (without the threat of violence) is astonishing to watch as is the way he calmly constructs a cover story for the group (one involving the Black Rock and some reef) and confronts Richard Alpert about murdering two of his men and tells him about Locke, Jughead, and burying the bomb. Yes, he's a very different man than the one we met all those years before and seeing him in his guise as LaFleur, the head of security for the Dharma Initiative, it's clear that he's realizing his potential. (It's also, rather sadly, a path to his full potential that will likely be cut short now that Jack and the other castaways have returned.)

Sawyer has always been quick on his feet; his background as a con man has always helped him and here he constructs a convenient cover for the group that utilizes his knowledge of the island, what happened to Rousseau's research team, and pulls a new identity (LaFleur, from the French for "flower," as a Creole nom du guerre) seemingly out of thin air. I don't think for a second Sawyer ever thought that his new life as James "Jim" LaFleur would last more than a few days, much less three years but he settles into his new responsibilities as head of security with a commitment that we've not seen from him... to the point that his employees--like Jerry (Patrick Fischler) and Phil (Kevin Rankin)--fear and respect him.

Juliet. I loved that Sawyer and Juliet fell into a rather uncomplicated relationship. They seemed genuinely happy together and Sawyer had finally gotten over Kate and moved past his dreams of a future that they could never share. (Hell, he claims that he's all but forgotten what she looks like.) The little details about their domestic arrangement--the flower he picks for her (how very apt given his pseudonym), the way Juliet covers her head with the pillow when the phone rings--point to years of shared intimacy. I for one love these two together and it's fantastic to see Elizabeth Mitchell's Juliet the focal point of a romantic relationship rather than just a tangent. The look of sad resolve in her eyes when she tells Sawyer in 1974 that she wants to leave on the sub is totally at odds with the blissful smile she offers Sawyer in his arms. Juliet also manages to get past her fears about childbirth on the island, by successfully delivering a baby boy. Plus, in addition to her whip-smart intelligence, she can fix cars (love the little wrench on her Dharma jumpsuit), so Juliet is just kick-ass in my book.

The Statue. We're given the first look at the infamous Statue in this week's episode when the castaways look up from the location of the Orchid well. Of course, Team Darlton goes to great lengths to both show us the statue when it actually existed (which means they traveled to the far past) AND manage not to show us the front. Which makes me believe that said statue is of someone we know very well. The statue appears to be holding two ankhs (more on that in a bit) in its hands and the ankh itself is an ancient Egyptian symbol for eternal life. So there's a statue that seems to represent eternity... a man who seems to live forever (Richard Alpert) and a man who has returned from the dead (Locke). Coincidence? Could Locke or Richard be the basis for the statue?

Charlotte. A grieving Faraday comes face to face with a five-year-old Charlotte Staples Lewis and wants to stop himself from telling her not to come back to the island, which seemingly leads her to her death. Does Faraday not tell her this time around? Does he alter the future and allow Charlotte to live after all? Or will he be forced to tell her once more? The look on his face as he sees Charlotte in younger and more innocent days? Absolutely heart-wrenching.

(Random aside: how awesome is it that Jin can now speak English?)

Horace Goodspeed. I'm glad that we're seeing more of Dharma leader Horace Goodspeed, who seems to be becoming a fairly pivotal player in the history of the island. He was with Ben's parents when Ben was born on the side of the road in Oregon and offered Ben's father Roger a job with the Dharma Initiative, bringing both of them to the island. He built the cabin that Jacob now inhabits. And he was killed by Ben as part of The Purge and was the only one who received any sort of respect from Ben (who gently closes Horace's eyes in death). Plus, it's Horace who appears to Locke in a vision in which he's seemingly trapped in a time loop chopping wood to build what will later be Jacob's cabin... and is suffering from a nosebleed. Does Horace somehow become "unstuck" from time at some point before his death? Or is Locke's vision of Horace just an echo of an actual event that occurred? Curious. Horace's name is also evocative of the ancient Egyptian god Horus, a sky god who was the son of Isis and Osiris, a falcon-headed deity who was often depicted holding an ankh... the very same symbol held by the four-toed statue and worn by Amy's husband Paul.

In 1974, Horace Goodspeed is the leader of the Dharma Initiative and very suspicious of Sawyer and his companions. He immediately wants them put on the sub the following morning and sent to Tahiti but relents, giving Sawyer a two-week period to find his missing friends, after seeing how Sawyer handled Richard Alpert. Horace seems like a good man, though he's plagued with a secret alcoholism that Sawyer goes to great lengths to keep from the other Dharma members. Although, when Horace is drunkenly blowing up trees with dynamite, it's hard to keep that under wraps for long.

The Truce. Just what is the nature of the truce that exists in 1974 between the hostiles and the Dharma Initiative? Horace and Richard Alpert seem to know one another so it's entirely possible that these two leaders worked out some sort of treaty between their followers, one that seems to be strictly enforced, after frequent violent clashes. The sonic fence, we learn, doesn't keep out the Others (who are seemingly immune to its attack, according to Richard) but would therefore seem to have been built in order to keep out the smoke monster. Which explains just how the hostiles are able to rip through the encampment during Ben's childhood even with the fence activated. So what ends the truce altogether? Clearly not this skirmish involving Amy and Paul, which is defused when Sawyer gives Richard Paul's corpse to take back as proof of wrongdoing on their part. So when do things escalate and how? Very interesting.

Amy. Just what was Amy doing out on a picnic with her husband Paul beyond the sonic fence? Sawyer and the castaways come upon Amy when she's being seized by two hostiles, who throw a bag over her head. Paul, meanwhile, is already dead. While the scene seems almost deliberately set for a romantic interlude, the cynic in me is looking at this scene very differently. Just why were these two past the sonic fence? And why did the hostiles attack the pair? While Paul is seemingly killed right away, the hostiles don't kill Amy but throw a sack over her head as though they are planning to kidnap her. So why is Amy so important to the Others that they'd want to take her alive? Is this the start of their forced conscription by kidnapping "good people"? And just what happened to Horace's first wife? When we saw Horace in "The Man Behind the Curtain," he's married not to Amy but to a woman named Olivia... So what happened to her?

The Ankh. Paul, meanwhile, is the Dharma Initiative's head of security, a position that is later filled by Sawyer in his guise as LaFleur. He seems to be a valuable member of the Dharma Initiative and a companion of Horace Goodspeed. So why does Paul secretly wear an ankh necklace, the very same symbol that the statue holds in its hands? Is he connected to the island and its indigenous population? Is he a worshipper of the same religion that the hostiles practice? (Besides for the presence of ankhs, the Temple featured Egyptian hieroglyphs, making it likely that the Others practice some form of Egyptian worship dealing with death and reincarnation.) The ankh necklace also plays a role in the row between Amy and Horace three years later, after he discovers that Amy has held onto Paul's necklace. So is Amy a believer as well? Hmmm... Just what did they fight about vis-a-vis the ankh that had Horace so drunk he was blowing up trees instead of watching his son be born?

The Baby. Speaking of which, there's the baby to consider. Amy gives birth to a baby in 1977, a baby that is successfully delivered by Juliet. Which means that the island curse against pregnancy is not in effect in the late 1970s. We're told that Amy gives birth to a son but are very specifically NOT told the child's name. Which leads me to believe, once again, that the son is someone we know. Born in 1977, Amy's son would be roughly thirty years old in the present day. So just who do we know that could match that description... and who may not realize he was on the island before? Very curious. And is it a coincidence that Jacob moves into the cabin that Horace was building for his first wife Olivia? Hmm...

Best line of the evening: "Your buddy out there with the eyeliner, let me talk to him." - Sawyer (Just awesome, really.)

What did you think of this week's episode? Who do you think is the baby? And which character is the basis for the four-toed statue? Did you love seeing Sawyer and Juliet madly in love with one another? Discuss.

In two weeks on Lost ("Namaste"), Sawyer is forced to further perpetuate his lie in order to protect the lives of his former companions when they turn up on the island; Sayid is identified as a spy by the Dharma Initiative; Sawyer is reunited with Kate but is torn between her and Juliet.