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Lost: Enter 77

Hurley: "Are we playing with the mercy rule?"

Torture. Redemption. Cows.

As much as I love him, backstories about Sayid always make me uncomfortable, for obvious reasons. Lost appears to be about characters seeking redemption and working out their karma before they die. If that's true, then Sayid's number is up. (Anthony on the Lostreviews list was wondering about Naveen's driving record.)

I was oddly disappointed to learn that Sayid had done something so utterly horrible. But then I called myself an idiot. What was I thinking? That every torture situation would be like Nadia's? Gold acting stars for both Anne Bedian, who played the victim, Amira, and for Naveen Andrews. That final flashback scene was powerful.

There were so many parallels between the backstory and the present. Hurley showed mercy toward Sawyer, as Amira showed it toward Sayid, and Sayid showed it toward Mikhail. (None of them actually deserved it, which I think was the point.) Sayid was playing a figurative chess game with Mikhail, while Locke was literally playing chess with the Dharma computer. Fistfights in the past, fistfights in the present. Sayid and Kate were both awesome, and Sayid even had a bullet wound in his arm at the time. Locke, however, lost some serious points with me. Life and death stakes, and he's distracted by a video chess game? He just blew up the Flame Station. Lest we forget, Locke also blew up the Hatch. That's two.


Finally, I'm an animal lover and I hate it when they're treated like furniture. What happened to the cows and the horse? Did they just get blown up? Did anyone go and see? And what is Nadia the cat going to live on now, papayas? I suppose there must be small rodents on the Island, as well as birds and bugs. I'll have to be satisfied with that.

Character bits:

Sayid used a false name (Nagib?) and worked as a chef in Paris. When did this action take place? Between "One of Them" and "The Greater Good," I assume.



Miss Clue showed up and died. She and Mikhail were yelling Russian at each other before he killed her. Several people sent me the translation (thank you, everyone) so I'm passing it on to you guys:

Clue: "Mikhail, you know what to do."
Mikhail: "Do we have a chance?"
Clue: "We can't risk it. You know the circumstances."
Mikhail: "There is another way."
Clue: "You know what to do. That is an order."
Mikhail: "We've got another way!"
Clue: "Do it, Mikhail!"
Mikhail: "I am sorry!" (shoots her)



Mikhail has been on the Island for eleven years because he answered an ad that said, "Would you like to save the world?" If he wasn't lying about that part, too.

We were theorizing that the guy with the eyepatch was Jacob. He's not. So who's Jacob?

Sawyer got off a few good nicknames before his enforced week of nickname silence: Avalanche, Grimace (Hurley); Zorro (Paulo); and my favorite, Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon (Jin and Sun). Since time moves so much more slowly on Lost, we probably won't get another nickname until the end of the season.

Dharma Film Guy obviously had an artificial left hand. Hinted at before, but for certain this time.

Bits and pieces:

— The stirrups on that horse couldn't have been for Miss Clue. She was pretty tall. Who was it for?

— We got another good look at Eko's stick. It said, "Lift up your eyes and look north. John 3:05." I hadn't really noticed the chapter and verse before.


— The cats in the past and in the present obviously symbolized Nadia. I thought it was funny that the cat in the present was even named Nadia, just in case we missed it.

— The Dharma people are supposedly all dead because of the Hostiles, who were there before them.

— The Flame station is the hub of power. It's probably near the center of the Island. Does that mean that our SWAT team is two days away from the suburbs?

— In this week's hair report, Sawyer has opted for the Highlander demi-ponytail. At least it's out of his face. I have a thing about hair in the face. Sam on Supernatural drove me nuts last season.

As I often do, I'm reaching a point in the season where I can't figure out what my rating should be. Dan gave this episode three polar bears, so that's what it's going to be.

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

5 comments:

  1. Another one, I'm afraid, that didn't speak to me. The writers seem determined this season to make every single character that we have grown to care about into someone that we shouldn't -- Jack and the stalking, Sun and the cheating, Locke not being able to bond with anyone on any level, Sawyer (who for one, brief, shining moment I thought might be this year's hero) unable to work out his issues and driving Kate away, and now Sayid torturing a woman by pouring boiling water over her arms. I'm not at all sure what they are trying to achieve, other than have us stop watching such unpleasant people.

    I did love the fact the Sawyer got hustled by Hurley; but, again, why does it always seem as though the con man is getting conned? I thought we were meant to think he was very good at it. I'm beginning to have my doubts.

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  2. Good call on the theme, Chris: the writers really do make some of our favorites less than savory in these flashbacks. I'm skipping almost all of the flashbacks (Hurley's are an exception, because I love him, his mom, and his dad), and I'm enjoying it much more. I'm really not sure they add anything at all to the story.

    I do love Mikhail's obsession with Nadia Comaneci. Such a fun character detail.

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  3. It's interesting how Locke, playing the chess game, seems to assume that the Dharma people are the ones he should believe. Even when he's trying to be a "hunter," Locke is always searching for an authority (read: daddy) figure.

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  4. The cat being revealed to also be named Nadia is another one of those things that inexplicably tickled me so much. Anyway, that escalation was fun. "Why are we continuing to play this little game, when we all know it has moved to the next stage?" *Smashes lemonade jug*
    Too bad about Miss Klugh... she spooked me (and I found her attractive) and I wanted more of her. Look at that devotion...

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  5. Locke disappointed me in this episode. First his job was to keep watch over the Russian and instead he got distracted by a computer game and the guy gets untied and pulls a gun on him. Then Locke idiotically enters 7-7 on the computer (which I knew it was going to blow up as soon as they found all the C4) and ruins their best chance at communication with the outside world. Bad Locke. No Biscuit (as Billie would say). ;)

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