3.13.7 : Lost Thoughts Ep.3.11 (Sayid Meets Patchy)

* This is the kind of episode that has my head in knots for at least a day afterwards and watching the episode (sans flashbacks) again the next morning. A very rich episode, riddled with clues, red herrings, and set ups for potential future twists.

* For as much as I sometimes loathe Lost producers/writers Damon Lindeloff and Carlton Cuse for being media whores (they're everywhere for fuck's sake), the episodes that are credited as being written by those two (as a duo) are almost always the best of the bunch (including this one), dating back all the way to Season One. And these episodes almost always advance the storyline in major ways.

* After last week's diatribe about the character motivations, they stayed on course this week. I wondered about Kate, but then remembered her beatdown of Ms.Klugh and, yes, she's still bitter. Locke is even more of a clown. Sayid is getting answers. Paolo is always about to shit or just finishing shitting, which is pretty aloof. Hurley initiated the ping pong. Sawyer was comic relief, sadly. The only one who didn't continue his arc was Charlie, who was barely there.

Onto big thoughts on this week's episode ...

* Ms. Klugh, we hardly knew ye. Despite several secrets dying with her, I don't mind that she died. Hell, I'm just glad she finally showed up. I guess she was there all along, trying to fix the comms that Tom said were broken. I'm mildly suspicious of that vest she was wearing (note the pic), but I don't think they'd pull a faked death on us. If they did, I can't see how they'd waste it on Klugh. Be that as it may, that moment when they caught her and questioned her in the basement and she gave that blank stare ... god damn amazing. Klugh, you will be missed.

* Locke aka Gilligan blows up his 2nd hatch. So much to say about this. For starters, it stands to reason for it to happen, since answers always seem to slip right through the fingers of the Losties and all that Dharma material had to be eliminated lest we learn anything too good.

Regarding Locke doing it. I don't think he knew it would happen, based on his reaction. There is always that whole subliminal, is he sabotaging the rescue because he wants to stay thing, but I don't think he'd sell out all the other Losties because of it. Locke wants to be the hero.

Now, I have my eyes peeled for those windows of opportunity where stuff could have happened that we'll find out about in later episodes. This happened a lot in Season Two. After Locke pushed 77 could be one of those moments, because there was a lot of lag time between when he ostensibly pushed it and it blew up which we didn't see. We also didn't see the video dude's response to the 77 being pushed.

* The camera over the computer. I think this is important. Some think it was just the other end of what we saw back during the mini-season when Patchy was introduced. Yes, but that's almost too simple and Patchy shut it off, which means he had to turn it back on at some point within that week, or so, since the Losties patched through to it. Given what we've seen of Ben watching the monitors, it stands to reason that Ben may be the one on the other end of that camera that they made a point of showing. Some even speculate that Locke was playing Ben in chess, but I wouldn't go that far yet.

* I'm on the fence as to Mikhail's true origins. He just doesn't seem like an Other. I believe his story about what happened in the past on the island, because it works with what we've known all along. I presume Ben and company are the natives ("hostiles"), Dharma showed up, warfare resulted and either Dharma was totally wiped out, a small faction obsorbed by the Others (including Mikhail), and, perhaps, a ruse is being pulled off to keep mainland Dharma associates in the dark (hence Juliet's recruiting, which doesn't fit the timeline and the Swan food drops. It still doesn't quite explain the origins of Kelvin (the guy who rescued Desmond and dragged him into the hatch), but I think we'll get that explained at some point.

* Rousseau is a dirty, dirty liar and she has same brand as Juliet, I'd bet dollars to donuts on it now. Her quick responses of "I've never seen that" to anything "new" that is discovered by the Losties smacks of BS. She claimed to have never seen an Other, but when she captured Ben, knew he'd "lie for a long time". My guess is she was an Other at one point (Mrs.Ben perhaps) and got excommunicated and banished to the wilderness. Possibly she is the "last living member of the Dharma Initiative". There sure seemed to be an air of acknowledgement between her and Patchy when they met up. The fact that she is apparently continuing onward with the Losties to Othersville adds a whole wildcard dimension to the rescue.

* Questions about when the Losties get to Othersville. Will Jack be an official Other by then ? Will Ben flake when he sees the Losties arrive ? Will Locke flake when he sees that the Othersville community center has no handicap ramp ? Will Rousseau go bat shit crazy at some point ? Is Juliet the scourge of Othersville because of her fancy new brand ? Is Tom really gay ? Will we ever see the Sheriff again ? Why do I have a feeling that Sayid may die ?

The answers : Not yet. Only on the inside. I hope so. Probably. Only on the inside. You bet he is. Yes. Because it would be shocking and his character is fleshed out quite a bit now so he is ripe for dying.

* Are there other Others ? I'm now leaning closer to "yes" than I was before. The Losties v. Others conflict is reaching a climax, of sorts, and the show obviously will need somewhere to go from there. Hence, I'm predicting some new faction that will do battle w. the Losties & Others. Either returning Dharma folks who want to take back the Island, displaced Dharma people already there who are living in hiding in the jungle, or some other group of natives that are enemies of the Others. I suspect we'll find out that our Others have enemies of their own, who aren't the Losties. "We're the good guys" suggests that there are bad guys, somewhere, on the Island.

* Overall, it was perhaps the best episode of the season (along with the bookend episodes that closed the mini-season and kicked off the long Spring season). It finally feels like a lot of the stalling that we saw in that mini-season has given way to the story unfolding at a more reasonable pace. I suppose time will tell what were set-ups in the mini-season and what was filler.