Lost
“Outlaws”
Originally aired February 16, 2005
“Through me is the way to the woeful city; through me is the way into the eternal woe; through me is the way to the lost people.”
–Inscription above the Gate to Hell in Dante’s The Divine Comedy, Canto III
Is this the most tragic episode of Lost ever? I think it might be THE MOST TRAGIC EPISODE OF LOST EVER. Seriously. Between Sawyer’s horrible childhood, and the terrible, almost sickening revelation of Christian’s that he’s actually grateful for what Jack did to him at the hospital review board, but can’t bring himself to tell his son that … I don’t know. It might be the most tragic episode of Lost ever.
It’s interesting, with both Christian and Sawyer we know what the outcome is going to be in both of these instances: little Sawyer will live, but become orphaned and forever emotionally scarred, and Christian will die without ever letting Jack know that he’s doesn’t hold him responsible for what happened. But when you watch these two scenes in particular, you can’t help but be filled with tremendous dread for both men. It’s almost worse when you know what the future holds. You know? Pity and fear, indeed.
Wee Sawyer is woken up by his pretty blonde mother, who is urging Wee Sawyer to crawl under the bed so that “He” will think that Wee Sawyer is still at his grandparents’ home. No matter what happens, Wee Sawyer must not make a sound, or come out of hiding. Mommy Sawyer loves Wee Sawyer, and he loves her right back. And poor little Wee Sawyer slides under his bed as his mother goes out to confront “Him” who is very shouty, and yelling at her to open the door (“He” also calls her “Brooke,” at least according to the closed captioning on the DVDs, which is confusing, because in “The Brig” we learn that her name is Mary.). “He” gets into the house, “He” argues with Mommy Sawyer, and then? Suddenly there’s a shotgun blast, and a sickening thud. As Wee Sawyer trembles under his bed, “He” enters the room, and we all hold our breath even though we know what comes next: “He” sits on Wee Sawyer’s bed and there is one last shotgun blast as “He” offs himself. UGH. Poor Wee Sawyer. I just want to pull him out from underneath that bed and hug him.
Lost note: This is not the only shotgun suicide on Lost. Sam Toomey killed himself with a shotgun blast after he was riddled with bad luck in “Numbers,” and Radzinsky, having had perfectly enough of the Swan hatch and the fratching button-pushing thank you very much, decided to exit the hatch once and for all by becoming a shotgun-assisted splotch on the ceiling.
And it’s not a shotgun but Sayid’s friend Essam shoots himself in the head in “The Greater Good.” For what it’s worth.
But Wee Sawyer will grow up to have plenty of women hugging on him — like this redhead for example! Sawyer and his lady friend stumble into a hotel room and head straight for the bed when they are interrupted by T-1000 who was lurking in the hotel room. AWWWWKWARD!
T-1000 asks to speak to Sawyer alone, and Sawyer obliges, shooshing his lady friend out the room. See, T-1000 and Sawyer used to know each other back in the day, and apparently, he shafted Sawyer on the “Tampa job,” for which Sawyer wants to kill him. But hey! T-1000 is here to make things right! And besides, they both know that Sawyer’s not the killing type. T-1000s brought Sawyer the location of the “real” Sawyer: turns out he’s an alcoholic shrimp truck operator in Sydney, Australia, going by the name “Frank Duckett.” And T-1000 just brings this information out of the goodness of his heart and missing finger. Seems like T-1000 would be able to do that mercury-shape-shifting thingy to replace it.
Lost note: First, the lady friend. Sawyer’s companion is played by one Brittany Perrineau, wife of one Harold Perrineau , a.k.a. Michael. Additionally, this actress portrays the Lotto girl in “Numbers”. The question is, is she supposed to be the same person in both episodes? Hmm …
Lost note 2: The Tampa job: Right, so Sawyer’s ticked at T-1000 for something that happened with the “Tampa Job.” In “I Do,” Kate’s husband Kevin mentioned to her that he’s working on some paperwork on the fugitive recovery in Tampa. One and the same? It’s particularly interesting since this is the same episode wherein Kate mentions that she was married once before. Briefly. Why so many outside world connections between Kate and Sawyer? Kate’s husband (presumably) arrests Sawyer; Kate’s mother waits on Sawyer; and Sawyer’s baby momma befriends Kate. What gives?
Lost note 3: The missing finger. Oh, I’ve gone on about missing limbs before. A refresher.
And this is how Sawyer found himself, rather improbably, in Australia. First stop: a little visit to Laurence the gun dealer. Turns out, Australia? Not Texas — you can’t just walk down the street carrying a handgun over there. The gun dealer reminds Sawyer of this, along with a warning that if he finds himself caught with the gun, he’s not to mention where he might have found said gun. Additionally, the gun dealer knows that a man who buys a 357 and a bunch of hollow-point bullets intends to kill someone — something that a lot of people find they don’t have what it takes to do once they look into that person’s eyes. But the gun dealer doesn’t tell Sawyer this because they’re BFFs. He is just warning Sawyer that there are no refunds.
Next stop: the shrimp truck. Frank Duckett sells shrimp served two ways: served in mild sauce or hot sauce. YUM! TAKE THE HOT SAUCE, SAWYER! And it seems he heard me, because, indeed, he orders the hot sauce. Frank immediately notices that Sawyer’s a fellow American, and as Frank prepares the shrimp they make small talk (or really, Frank makes small talk, Sawyer mostly glowers) about where Sawyer’s from: Tennessee; Southern women: Frank’s for ’em; whether Sawyer will be in Australia long: no; and their respective names: Frank and James. (James!) But then! When Frank’s done with the shrimp, Sawyer’s nowhere to be found. But Sawyer! The shrimps! They were hot!
God, I’m hungry.
Stop number three: The Last Call bar. Sawyer heads there either to drown his sorrow at being unable to kill his sworn enemy or gain liquid courage. It seems he hasn’t decided yet. And this is where he crosses paths with one Christian Shephard, who hits Sawyer up to pay for his drink as he’s misplaced his wallet or rather, left it behind in his hotel room, which actually explains something that I’d been having trouble with this week, which is how could a perfectly intelligent person, a professional, even, do something as stupid as leave behind his wallet, something that he has put in the back pocket of his pants every day since he was, oh, gee since I’m not a guy, I’ll guess 13 or so, when he decided to not listen to his wife and just wait for her to get back from the gym, a trip SHE TOLD HIM would take at maximum 30 minutes because she didn’t really feel like doing the the weights and was going to just stick to the elliptical trainer BUT THAT’S NEITHER HERE NOR THERE, and instead decided to take the children and run off to Central Market “to pick up lunch” even though he knew we had multiple obligations that day, and that perhaps his wife would want to discuss those plans for the day before one party just unilaterally takes off to the store and then refuses to answer his cell phone and maybe it seems a little whiny to be complaining about a husband going to the grocery store, but that’s because I haven’t gotten to the part where the husband LEAVES BEHIND HIS WALLET AND CAN’T PAY FOR THE GROCERIES THAT IT TOOK HIM AN HOUR TO PICK OUT AND HIS WIFE HAS TO NOW GO MEET HIM AND PAY FOR THE GROCERIES HERSELF. I finally understand how all this happens: Mr. T was on a bender.
Right, so Christian asks Sawyer what brings him to Sydney, and makes a crack about Australia being close to hell. Sawyer purchases the whole bottle, and they make a little small talk, and Christian tells Sawyer that he was a Chief of Surgery. But we’re in hell, huh? asks Sawyer. And then Christian launches into another Very Important Monologue that we’ll just quote in its entirety, okey-doke?
CHRISTIAN SHEPARD: Don’t let the air conditioning fool you, son. You are here, too. You are suffering. But, don’t beat yourself up about it. It’s fate. Some people are just supposed to suffer. That’s why the Red Sox will never win the damn series. I have a son who’s about your age. He’s not like me, he does what’s in his heart. He’s a good man, maybe a great one. Right now, he thinks that I hate him. He thinks I feel betrayed by him. But what I really feel is gratitude, and pride because of what he did to me. What he did for me. It took more courage than I have. There’s a pay phone over there. I could pick it up and I could call my son. I could tell him about all this. I could tell him that I love him. One simple phone call and I could fix everything.
But he chooses to not call Jack, because, as he explains to Sawyer, he’s weak. Christian then suggests to Sawyer that if what he’s here in Sydney to do can ease his suffering, he should be out doing it instead of getting his drink on, lest he become like Christian.
Last stop: back to the shrimp truck. It was a dark and stormy night. F’reals, y’all. It’s pouring. Frank is cleaning up for the night, taking the trash out, and well, probably not expecting the two shots to the chest he’s about to receive. But that’s what he gets when Sawyer saunters up behind him, calls out “Sawyer” and then starts blasting away.
But Frank doesn’t die right away — no, Sawyer gets a chance to start reading that letter to him: “Dear Mr. Sawyer … ” before Frank stops him — who? Sawyer? And then Frank understands and tells Sawyer that he would have paid T-1000 … see, he owed T-1000 money, and he would have paid T-1000, Sawyer didn’t have to go and kill him. And Sawyer finally understands, he was set up by T-1000 to kill this not-Sawyer. Which is kinda strange, because T-1000 usually doesn’t have any compunction about killing folks. With his dying words, Frank promises Sawyer that it’ll come back around.
Indeed.
And we’ll get to how it comes back around, but first, let’s discuss the ramifications of Ethan’s death. Charlie isn’t really handling the whole having killed a man thing very well. Claire asks him to take a walk with her — seems she’s beginning to remember bits of things and would like to discuss it with Charlie, but he turns her down. He’s got something he has to do: bury Ethan.
Charlie and Hurley carry his body to the beach (where it is totally still breathing, but that’s just a production error, yo), and Hurley makes some cracks about Ethan’s zombie body coming back to make trouble (which when you consider that the body is still breathing — not really unreasonable). But Charlie’s not laughing.
This makes Hurley turn to Sayid, with concerns that Charlie is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress syndrome, and asks Sayid to talk to Charlie.
Which he does. Charlie’s busy shucking coconuts when Sayid approaches. Charlie knows what he’s there for, and tells Sayid that he doesn’t feel bad in the least about killing Ethan. So Sayid relays a story (so much story-telling in this episode!) about how he served on a firing squad for a very bad man who had killed another man’s wife and children in a car bombing. Sayid didn’t have any remorse in the least. But then, later, he began to suffer from nightmares. He reminds Charlie that what he did to Ethan will be with him for the rest of his life. He urges Charlie to recognize that he’s not alone and that he shouldn’t pretend to be.
So Charlie doesn’t: he goes on that walk with Claire. And that’s how Charlie got all better after killing a man!
Lost note: Interestingly enough, in “The Long Con,” another Sawyer-centric episode, Sayid is the one that is in mourning for Shannon and shucking coconuts, and Hurley comes to check on him.
Jack and Kate are busy replacing the guns in the Halliburton, all except for one, of course. But Kate’s certain that she can get it back from Sawyer — she speaks his language. But Jack doesn’t want her to bother trying to get the gun back: he doesn’t want her to owe Sawyer anything. Interesting …
And it comes back around on the island in the form of one very large, very vindictive boar. Sawyer is woken up in the middle of the night to find he’s not alone in his tent. And it ain’t Kate. Sawyer, being much braver than yours truly (but who isn’t?) chases the giant rooting boar out of the tent, only to have the boar take the tent along with him into the jungle. Sawyer gives chase, and finds himself in the middle of the jungle … hearing … things. Whispers. And, amidst all the indistinct voices, Sawyer hears one thing distinctly: “It’ll come back around.”
The next morning, as Sawyer is cleaning up the mess that was left after the boar’s midnight snack raid, Sayid arrives to mock him. Which he does. Effectively. Sayid turns to leave, but Sawyer stops him and asks about what it was that Sayid heard in the jungle. But Sayid dismisses his experience, claiming that he was injured and exhausted (always with the exhaustion!) and his mind was playing tricks on him. Sayid confesses that he thought he heard whispering, and Sawyer wants to know what it said. Why, Sawyer? Did you hear something? Who me? Nope. Nada.
Sawyer returns to the jungle and finds his tarp, but he doesn’t get very far before those pesky whispers start up again, and once again above all the other sounds, Sawyer hears “it’ll come back around.” Cue the boar. From behind him, Sawyer hears the snuffling, and grunting of a very angry and very large pork chop, which then charges Sawyer. Who drops his tarp, and loses it again. Poor Sawyer.
Back at his tarpless camp, Sawyer grouses to a bemused Kate that the boar has it out for him. But she’s having a hard time believing that a boar would just attack him for no reason. But Sawyer isn’t laughing. He loads his gun and begins wandering out to the jungle, as Kate calls after him to just have Locke kill it. But Sawyer can’t. This is his fight. He has some revenge to tend to.
So off he goes to “track” the boar, but really? He’s about as good at tracking as I am. In fact, Kate, who has been following him for a while, is pretty sure that Sawyer has been tracking Boone for about an hour.
So she agrees to help Sawyer find his boar, but in return she wants “carte blanche;” any time she wants something from his stash — medicine, soap, his pants, WHATEVER — he must give it to her, no questions asked. And what choice does Sawyer have, really, but to take the deal?
But they aren’t going to be finding any boars right now … it’s night, and there’s drinking to be done. (Word.) Sawyer breaks out the cute mini liquor bottles that he stole from the plane (and Jack’s been looking for) and challenges Kate to a game of “I Never,” which those of you with healthy livers may not be familiar with. Essentially, it’s a drinking game that inevitably ends with someone crying. Anyway, what we learn from Sawyer and Kate’s game of “I Never:”
1. Kate’s never been to college.
2. Sawyer’s never kissed a man, but Kate certainly has.
3. Kate’s never implied to have gone to college when she didn’t, but Sawyer has.
4. Neither Kate nor Sawyer have been to Disneyland.
5. Kate’s never worn pink, but Sawyer has.
6. Sawyer has never voted Democrat.
7. But Kate has never voted.
8. Sawyer’s never been in love, but Kate has.
9. Kate’s never had a one-night-stand, but Sawyer has (duh).
10. Sawyer’s never been married, but Kate has.
11. Kate’s never blamed a boar for all her problems. But Sawyer has.
12. Sawyer’s never cared about having carte blanche because he just wanted to spend some time with the only other person on this island that just doesn’t belong. But Kate has.
13. Kate’s never carried a letter around for 20 years because she couldn’t get over her baggage, but Sawyer certainly has.
14. Hey! They’ve both killed a man! Small world!
That night, Sawyer has a terrible dream wherein he’s small again and hiding under that bed, and here come the cowboy boots of doom, except this time? The boots turn into a boar.
This wakes Sawyer up, and whaddya know but their campsite has been destroyed. Well, not Kate’s stuff, only Sawyer’s. Ha-ha! And that’s where Locke finds them.
Kate explains to Locke that they are out here because Sawyer believes that a boar has it out for him — and Sawyer points out that this is the third time this boar has attacked his stuff, and this time the boar appears to have pulled out one of his shirts and peed on it. HA HA!
Right, so Locke tells the two of them the story about how when his foster sister died, his foster mother blamed herself for not watching her close enough. In a fit of depression, his foster mother retreated from life until a golden retriever appeared from nowhere and locked eyes with her, making his foster mother burst into tears. The dog went on to live with them in Locke’s dead sister’s room until his foster mother died some years later. Kate suggests that Locke is saying that the dog was his sister, but Locke insists that no, that’d be silly. But his foster mother believed it was, and it was his foster sister’s way of letting their mother off the hook. Yeah, I don’t think the boar is trying to make you feel better about anything, Sawyer.
Kate and Sawyer continue on their boar hunt and come across a boar wallow, but no sign of the big bad boar. But there is a darling little piglet that Sawyer grabs, calling out for its daddy. Kate, not amused by this kicks him in the shin so as to make him drop the little thing, and tells Sawyer to find his own way home.
And so it is that Sawyer is alone in the jungle when he comes face to face with his nemesis, the boar. Sawyer grabs his gun and lifts it, but after staring into its beady little eyes for a moment, Sawyer lowers his gun. Kate, in the bushes, sees everything. When he finally notices her, he explains that it’s just a boar.
After all is said and done, Sawyer seeks out Jack and returns the gun (but not without holding it on him just for giggles) because he struck a deal with Kate. Jack makes some off-hand remark about that being why the Red Sox will never win the series — which Sawyer of course recognizes from Christian, and he asks Jack if his father is a doctor, too. Was, says Jack. He’s dead. Say? Why do you ask? Well, it’s a funny story! I met your father in a run-down dive on the docks in Sydney where he encouraged me to kill a guy! Quite the motivational speaker, your dad!
Wait, no. I’m sorry — Sawyer says nothing.
For now.
It’ll come back around … oh, karma. Again, we find ourselves dealing with karmic issues (and I know I don’t have to point out to you the karma/DHARMA thing). Frank Duckett’s final words serve as a karmic curse on poor misled Sawyer: a promise that Sawyer will pay for this bad act in one fashion or another. And Sawyer’s decided that this boar, and his very poor attitude toward Sawyer and his belongings, must be this punishment. That the boar is Frank Duckett, just as the golden retriever in Locke’s story was his dead sister.
Or maybe (and bear with me here as I delve in the weird waters of New Agey-ness with which I am unfamiliar), maybe it’s not so much that Frank has been reincarnated as the boar (which isn’t really even possible, since Sawyer killed Frank roughly a month before these events), but perhaps the negative energy that was created by Sawyer when he killed Frank has come back around and infused this creature. Or something.
And what’s interesting about the idea of negative energy from one event being transposed onto another event is that it requires the existence of an omniverse, wherein all universes, all space and time exist at once, right? Otherwise, how does that energy get from point A to point B? How do the reverberations made from Sawyer killing Duckett get to the island a month later? We’re not talking about Duckett’s children seeking revenge on Sawyer here, we’re talking about a boar. A wild boar. On an island far away.
Continuing on the whole quantum physics tip, the “it’ll come back around,” could also be about time loops, of course. It’s interesting, most of the names on the show have some significance, either historical, philosophical, religious, or literary. Sawyer was a bit trickier; James Ford was an Ohio River pirate in the 19th century, which, you know, isn’t too far off the mark with Sawyer. But then, my dear editor passed along a blog about Lost that mentioned a book I’d never heard of: FlashForward by one Robert J. Sawyer. The J? Stands for James.
So, dig: the book is a sci-fi novel about how some physicists conducting some high-energy experiments somehow zap everyone’s consciousness 21 years into the future, but only for a few minutes. The consequences are what’s interesting: some people didn’t see anything (are they dead in the future?) while others had to contend with what they now know happens to them. The question that remains is, can that future be changed or prevented? Will it come back around? Are they doomed to just exist in this loop over and over again? And should they try to glimpse the future again? [Ed. Note from the Future: It also made for a terrible television show I blogged for half a minute, but it was too terrible to maintain.]
Along those lines: Christian. Dr. Fate. Both here and in “Two for the Road,” Christian meets someone at the bar and tells them that fate controls their lives. Dr. Fate then suggests that they do something that indeed changes their fates significantly. He suggests that Sawyer should take care of his “business” in Sydney, and he suggests that Ana-Lucia should come with him to Australia.
ANA: Why would I go to Sydney with you?
CHRISTIAN: Maybe fate has just thrown the 2 of us together, you know. Two drunks in an airport bar —
ANA: Why would fate do that?
CHRISTIAN: Same reason fate does anything — so that we can help each other out. You do need help, right? Unless you don’t. What I’m doing down there could be a little dangerous and I need someone to protect me — a bodyguard. It’s perfect for someone who stopped being a cop.
They both do as he suggests and both their fates are then set. Christian appears to be the direct opposite of Hurley’s father David, in that David urges his son to make his own luck with the presumption that one controls their own fate, whereas Christian seems to believe that one is a slave to fate. It can’t be changed. So here’s my question: is Christian like Ms. Hawking? Is he a course corrector? Is he another voice of the universe, directing people along the paths that they are supposed to follow, and making sure they don’t mess it all up? Granted, Ana-Lucia and Sawyer are not traveling through time when they encounter Christian, the way that Desmond is when he meets Ms. Hawking. But perhaps the role that the universe has assigned to Christian is to lead people to their fates, like the White Rabbit? Does Christian know how it’s all supposed to unfold somehow? He says to Ana-Lucia when they get to the bar where he will meet Sawyer: “My, my, look what fate has delivered up this time.” Meaning the bar, so that he and she can have another drink, but could he have known that he was supposed to be there? That he was supposed to encounter Sawyer, this person who would improbably cross paths with his son and deliver this message?
And this is the first episode in which characters cross paths in a way that is significant, as opposed to the one-off joke of say, having Sawyer in the background in the jail as Boone speaks with the cop, or when Kate’s mom serves Sawyer at the diner. What’s interesting is that we have this very solid connection between Sawyer and Jack through Christian, Jack’s father, and we also have a very significant connection between Sawyer and Locke through Cooper, Locke’s father. (At this point, we’re only missing a connection between Jack and Locke to complete the triangle. Do you think one’s coming any time soon?)
The connection between Jack and Sawyer through Christian is a very important one that has consequences a little later. Of course, Cooper/the “Real” Sawyer hangs over this entire episode like a stink. But don’t discount Sawyer’s father’s role in all of this as well. In fact, I think the boar is a much more complicated symbol than simply Frank Duckett complete with tusks. After all, Sawyer vows revenge on the boar, much as he has on the “Real” Sawyer, and the boar is making a mess of Sawyer’s life on the island in a quite literal sense, whereas the “Real” Sawyer made a mess of our Sawyer’s life in the more figurative sense. But then we have Sawyer’s father. In his nightmare on the island, Sawyer replays the events in his childhood, replacing his father’s boots with the boar. In some respects, it’s his father who ultimately destroys Sawyer’s life, not the “Real” Sawyer, no matter how dreadful he may have been. After all, it is his father who pulls the trigger, upending young Sawyer’s life, not the “Real” Sawyer. And maybe? This is why when Sawyer finally has his moment of revenge with the “Real” Sawyer, it … doesn’t really settle anything, because the person he should really blame is his own father.
But this brings me to something interesting that happens in this episode: as Sawyer explains to Kate that there is a boar that has some sort of vendetta against him, and she mocks him for being ridiculous, what does she tell him to do? “Would you listen to yourself? It’s a boar. Just go tell Locke and he’ll kill it.” To which Sawyer responds: “Nope. This is my fight.”
Remind you of anything? How about when Locke in “The Brig” retrieves Sawyer to kill Cooper when he couldn’t bring himself to do it? It’s not that Locke doesn’t want his father dead; after all, he turns him over to Sawyer. But he can’t bring himself to do the deed. Which brings me back to the boar. I think what we’re supposed to take away from the encounter between Sawyer and the boar is that the boar lets Sawyer “off the hook” for Frank’s murder. But I still keep coming back to the notion that Sawyer sees his father, not Frank, and not the Real Sawyer in the boar’s eyes, and that’s why he can’t pull the trigger. After all, it wouldn’t be the first dead father to come back on the island: both Christian and Wayne, Kate’s murdered father, make appearances. (Although, yes, it could also have been the marshal that possessed Sawyer that time.) If this is the case, then Sawyer is letting the boar/his father off the hook, and not the other way around. Just something to consider.
But back to “The Brig.” You may remember that in that episode Cooper suggests to Sawyer that they’re already dead and in hell:
SAWYER: [Inaudible, sounds like “Your his…”] How did you get here, to the Island?
COOPER: Island? OK. I’m driving down I10 through Tallahassee when bam, somebody slams into the back of my car. I go right into the divider at seventy miles an hour, the next thing I know, the paramedics are strapping me to a gurney, stuffing me into the back of an ambulance and one of them actually smiles at me as he pops the IV in my arm. And then, nothing. Just, black. And the next thing I know I wake up in a dark room tied up, gag in my mouth, and when the door opens, I’m looking up at the same man I threw out a window, John Locke. My dead son.
[Pause]
SAWYER: And he’s dead cause you threw him out a window?
COOPER: No he survived that. But it paralysed him, permanently. He’s dead because the plane he was flying on crashed in the Pacific.
SAWYER: Well I got bad news for ya pops, cause I was on that plane with your son. He sure as hell wasn’t crippled. And we didn’t crash in the Pacific, we crashed here on this Island.
COOPER: You sure its an Island?
SAWYER: Well what else is it?
COOPER: Little hot for heaven isn’t it?
SAWYER: [Sarcastically] Oh OK, so we’re dead?
COOPER: They found your plane on the bottom of the ocean. One minute I’m in a car wreck and the next minute I’m in a pirate ship in the middle of the jungle. If this isn’t hell friend, then where are we?
Which is very similar to what Christian tells Sawyer in the bar: “You know why they call Australia down under, don’t you? Because it’s as close as you can get to hell without being burned… Don’t let the air conditioning fool you, son. You are here, too. You are suffering.”
Interestingly, both men, shortly after having these conversations with Sawyer are soon dispatched to the Great Unknown. Both refuse redemption. Christian refuses to call Jack and tell him “about all this.” (About all what? Perhaps no other line in the show has made me more convinced of a conspiracy that Christian knew something about. But then I’m a little wacky in this regard.) Christian refuses to make the one gesture that would alleviate Jack of his guilt for what he did (or does he? Did he know somehow that Sawyer would relay this information?).
Similarly, Cooper, when Sawyer gives him the letter to read out loud, only gets through a couple sentences before he simply stops and refuses to continue. The one thing that Sawyer needed — to know that the Real Sawyer knew and understood what he had done to him — Cooper refuses to give. And thus, he does not receive redemption for his sins.
Which, of course, is what this episode is about. Sawyer is seeking redemption, forgiveness for murdering an innocent man. He finds it, perhaps, when he is face to face with the boar, and he looks into its eyes, and he chooses to NOT pull the trigger this time. It has come back around. When Sawyer buys the gun in Australia, the dealer warns him that when you point a gun at a man and look him in the eye you learn who you are, and that if he “doesn’t have what it takes” (which is a nice repeat of Christian’s speech to young Jack, also know as The Most Important Speech In The Episode, If Not The Series) he won’t give him a refund. Hibbs notes that Sawyer isn’t a killer — except that he must have known that he was, why else would he send him after Duckett, the same way that Locke used Sawyer to kill Cooper. The point is, Sawyer is a killer. And when he chooses to not kill the boar, he’s going against that instinct. It’s a little bit of redemption.
Similarly, Charlie is struggling with his own sense of guilt about killing Ethan. He’s struggling inside, but doesn’t understand why: after all, Ethan was far from innocent. He tried to kill Charlie, he killed Sceve, and he wasn’t going to stop terrorizing Charlie’s fellow survivors until he reclaimed Claire. And yet, he can’t let go, he can’t let himself off the hook … It’s fascinating, and the mark of excellent storytelling and character development that the writers chose Sayid, the soldier, to be the one that discusses this with Charlie, as opposed to sending Dr. McWeepy in for yet another heart-to-heart. Sayid understands what it means to kill, and to kill without remorse, but to have to live with that decision. And it’s interesting that he urges Charlie to seek out others, rather than hold it in and keep it to himself. He suggests almost a confessional approach.
And perhaps sharing one’s burdens is the only way to live with what one has done. There are several people in this episode who make confessions of one sort or another: Sayid confesses executing the Tikriti to Charlie; Christian makes a sort of confession to Sawyer about his relationship with his son; and then there is the game of “I Never,” in which Sawyer and Kate are able to confess their various sins to one another without judgment or condemnation. It’s interesting, everyone on the island seems to need the same thing: to need to alleviate themselves of the guilt, to stop the voices in their heads, they’re all searching for that new start, tabula rasa. Carte blanche. To escape their own personal hells.
Video fun this week is an ooooold video, but it still makes me giggle. And I defy you to get this song out of your head.
*Fun fact! The lead singer of Filter, the band that sang that song that I referenced in the title of this entry? Brother of T-1000. It’s true! (And the story behind the song … it’s grim.)
Lost originally aired on ABC and is now available to stream on Hulu and IMDb.
This post originally appeared on the Hearst site Tubular.