OK, now THIS is what I’m talking about! Lost at its best, as well as a few answers to our seemingly never-ending questions.
But first, a tidbit on Sawyer. He’s acting like he’s mad at everyone for taking all his stuff, but he is really worried about Kate going off without him. Noticing that some of the Losties are putting together a ping pong table, he decides he’ll play Hurley to get his stuff back. If he loses, he can’t give anyone nicknames for a week. This comes from Sun and Jin or “Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon,” as Sawyer immediately labels them. Guess who wins? Hurley actually hustles Sawyer.
Meanwhile, Sayid, Kate, Locke and Rousseau are on the trail to the Others hideaway. What they find first, however, is the guy with the patch on his eye—the one Locke and a few others saw in the TV monitors in the Pearl hatch in an earlier episode. Looks like the guy is living in a structure of some sort. There’s a satellite dish, along with a cow, a horse, a cat and a few other domestic animals.
Sayid says they should go in and talk to him. Rousseau, however, doesn’t want any part of it. “I’ve survived on this island as long as I have by precisely avoiding these confrontations.” She’ll wait by the stream for those of them who survive. So, Sayid goes in unarmed, but he gets shot in the arm anyway. Kate and Locke come running, but Eye Patch is yelling they’ve crossed the line, thinking Sayid is an Other, obviously.
They manage to convince Eye Patch they are survivors from a plane crash. Putting down the weapons, Eye-Patch helps Sayid into the building, which looks to be some sort of a communication center. As he tends to Sayid’s wound, Eye Patch tells them he is the last surviving member of the Dharma Initiative. Uh-huh, I see. Apparently, he was part of the Soviet Union army, but when they lost the Cold War and his unit was deactivated, he ended up answering an ad saying, “Want to Save the World?” and joined the Dharma Initiative. He has been on the island for 11 years, but says the Hostiles have been on the island a lot longer than the Dharma Initiative.
There’s a flashback, of course–this time centering on Sayid. He is a chef, working at a restaurant. An Iraqi man compliments him on his food and asks him to come work in his restaurant. Sayid shows up, but it turns out to be a trap. The man’s wife was supposedly tortured by Sayid, back in the Iraqi Army days. The man wants retribution, but tied up and beaten, Sayid claims he doesn’t remember her. Is he telling the truth? The wife eventually comes down to talk to Sayid alone. Petting a cat she rescued from the hands of mean children, all she wants from Sayid is for him to recognize her and admit to what he has done to her. A defeated Sayid finally fesses up to her and says he has been haunted by her face ever since. He says how sorry he is–and that’s all she needed. Sayid is let go.
Back to the island, Sayid questions Eye Patch about the communication center, and Eye Patch explains how all the cables, going out all over the island, come from this place. There’s even an underwater cable which acts as a beacon to bring in the submarines. The SUBMARINES? Geez, all they need now is a four-star resort.
Of course, Sayid believes Eye Patch is lying and that he is an Other and is not alone. He thinks they lost communication when the “sky went purple” (hatch imploding) and sent Eye Patch, and possibly others, out here to fix things. Sure enough, Eye Patch shows his true colors, but Sayid and Kate are able to contain him. Or so they think.
Meanwhile, Locke is obsessed with playing chess with a computer in one of the side rooms. Eye Patch has told him he can’t win, that the computer cheats, but Locke finds that hard to believe. When he DOES beats it, suddenly the Asian guy from the Dharma Initiative appears on the computer screen, in black and white, rattling off a series of numbers to push if such and such thing occurs. The last order is that if Hostiles were to take over the facility, someone must enter “77.” Locke can’t resist punching numbers into a computer, can he? Just before he does the deed, Eye Patch grabs him.
Sayid and Kate have gone underneath the structure through a hidden trap door and find out the whole place is wired with explosives (Hmmm, methinks entering 77 might trigger something). Sayid finds a room filled with Dharma Initiative manuals, including an Operation Manuel. Suddenly, they are attacked by the same woman who once interrogated Michael in the make-shift hut and who told Hurley on the dock he had to go back to the Losties and tell them never to come looking for the Others again. Kate and Sayid overpower her.
Big confrontation ensues outside with everyone screaming and pointing guns. Eye Patch has Locke; Sayid and Kate have the Other woman. But then the woman starts speaking Russian, telling Eye Patch to do something he doesn’t want to do. Finally, he does what she asks: He shoots her. Sayid gains control of Eye Patch again but doesn’t kill him.
Locke runs back into the structure, as Sayid reveals he has now has a map to the Others compound, via the electrical cables. When Locke comes back, he says he taken care of the Hostile problem. Before Sayid can ask what that means, the whole place blows up. Sayid can’t believe Locke just blew their only chance to communicate with the outside world. Good one, Locke.
Oh well. They have bigger fish to fry at the moment. As they leave, with Eye Patch in tow, Sayid notices the same cat his former torture victim was petting from his flashback. Like Hurley’s imaginary friend…and Kate’s horse…and Mr. Eko’s brother. Yep, I do believe the black smoke monster lurks around every corner.
