Flashback - Sayid
Sayid worked as a chef in a restaurant in an Arab section of Paris (according to press notes; I saw no references to Paris and only Arabic writing). A patron named Sami claimed to recognize Sayid as an Iraqi and offered to hire him to Sami’s nicer restaurant at double pay.
At Sami’s restaurant, Sayid met Sami’s wife, Amira. Her hand was burned…and then so was Sayid! Sami’s wife identified Sayid as “him,” and Sami kicked Sayid in the face. Sayid later awoke chained in the restaurant pantry, where Sami brought a water bowl. Sami confronted Sayid with his torturer past, and asked if Sayid does not recognize one his victims – Amira. Sami said she was held for 3 months for allegedly harboring an enemy of the state. Sayid confessed his true name and role in the Republican Guard, but swore he never saw the wife. He claimed he could remember every face of every person he interrogated, but not her, even when threatened with death if he persisted in his claimed unfamiliarity with Sami’s wife. Later, swore to Mr. and Mrs. Sami that he would never have touched a woman, which led to more Samy-induced beating. If Amira confessed to something she did not do under torture, Sami insisted, Sayid would too, until his wife stopped him and said that was enough for that day.
Later, Amira visited Sayid alone, carrying a gray cat (one strikingly similar to a cat we see later on the island). She told Sayid after months as a shut-in she finally left her apartment to save the cat from kids who were torturing him. Sometimes the cat bit or scratched her, because sometimes he forgot he was safe. She forgave the cat, because she knew what is like to never feel safe, because of what she insisted Sayid did to her. Crying, Sayid finally confessed that he remembered her, and that her face had haunted him ever since he left Iraq. She then abruptly forgave him and said she would tell her husband she made a mistake and to release Sayid, because, she explained, they were all capable of doing what the kids did to the cat, but she would not be that kind of person.
Real Time - The Beach
Sawyer, in badass ponytail mode, finds Charlie, Hurley, Jin, Sun and a bunch of others assembling the ping pong table they found in the wake of the Swan implosion. Still pissed that his stuff got taken and put into community share-space, Sawyer finds a ping pong ball, and tells the crowd he’ll play them for his stuff (and in classis Sawyer fashion, dismisses the suddenly in everyone's business Nikki with a “who the hell are you?”). Sawyer agrees that if he loses, there will be no more nicknames like “Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon” (i.e. Jin and Sun) for a week. The beachgoers choose Hurley as their chamption and Hurley smokes Sawyer for the first point. Off-camera, Hurley beats Sawyer pretty bad, since he spent a lot of time playing ping pong at his mother’s place, but Hurley brings back some of Sawyer’s stuff, anyway. He says Kate will be fine, and he knows that’s what's really bothering him.
Of course, with all the tidbits we got in the main action this week, the flashback and beach scenes felt a bit like storytelling speed bumps...
Real Time - The Search for Jack
Sayid is annoyed that he, Kate, Locke and Rousseau, have been heading North on a bearing of 305 because they've been following Eko’s stick for two days. He wanders off to search for for food, finds a fruit tree and hears…a cow bell? And it’s on a cow! A whistle is heard, and the cow wanders over to a blue building with a satellite dish on top, a horse at the side, and a man wearing a jumpsuit (with a Dharma logo with a flame shape in the middle) and eyepatch out front. Yup, it’s patchy, the guy spotted on the Pearl monitor. Sayid circles the structure and finds nothing but jungle. As a "communications" officer he knows the dish could broadcast thousands of miles. But Rousseau says this is not the radio tower she used for her signal. Sayid leaves his rifle with Kate to approach unamred. Rousseau wants no part of this – she’s survived by avoiding these types of encounters, and tells the group to meet her at the stream…if they survive. Sayid approaches the building, hands in the air. There is a small cat on a table, which Sayid looks at with some familiarity (it looks a lot like the one that inspired his captor to free him from the pantry)…when he is shot. Patchy shouts that he had a truce and that he never crossed the line. Sayid shouts about the plane crash, and patchy emerges. Locke and Kate fire warning shots and disarm him. His name is Mikhail Bakunin, and he says he is the last living member of the Dharma Initiative, who somehow had no idea a plane had crashed on the island or that 40+ people had survived.
They help Sayid inside. Mikhail cleans the wound with vodka. He claims to be a former Soviet army trooper who once served in Afghanistan, helps Sayid. After being stationed in Vladivostok until the Cold War ended and he was dismissed, he says he replied to an ad in the paper asking if he’d like to save the world, and joined the Dharma Initiative, 11 years ago. The Flame station was designed to communicate with the outside world. Locke sees a computer chess game with a camera pointed at it. Mikhail says Dharma initiated a “purge” against "the hostiles," and were wiped out in the ensuing conflict, but he survived by not participating. He tells Sayid and Kate that 4 men appeared and offered a truce – as long as he did not cross a certain line…they took two cows and left him alone. He doesn’t know who they are, but they were here a long time before Dharma was. The bullet is removed. Mikhail calls the cat Nadia (Sayid's lost love?) but says he named her after the Romanian gymnast. He offers iced tea, and goes to check on John, who loses to the chess computer. Mikhael tells him the game is unbeatable and it cheats…Locke doubts that's possible, because only humans can cheat. Kate doesn’t understand why Mikhail would be left alone by the Others with so much equipment. Sayid responds that Mikhail is not Dharma, which is why the Others let him stay. He is certain Mikhail is not alone, because the horse outside is saddled for someone much shorter, a mystery Sayid wants to solve before signaling that it's time for a retreat. Sayid asks Mikhail about the cables around the Flame, which Mihail says run to other installations on the island, and he confirms there is an underwater cable (which Sayid saw waaaaay back in the first season, before he stumbled upon Rousseau) to guide in a submarine. Sayid reveals the loss of Elizabeth, which he concludes must have been because the Others have the Dharma sub and used it to sneak around his pala ferry dock ambush, and baits Mikhail by saying “at least we were able to kill one of them.” Mikhail takes the bait and attacks, but Kate and Sayid take him down. Sayid tells Locke to get some rope. Sayid suggests the Others came to the Flame because they lost communications "when the sky turned purple" and sought to reconnect to the outside world. Sayid then lifts a rug to reveal a trap door.
He and Kate decend the ladder into a dark room, while Locke responds to the chess computer’s verbal prompts. They see C4 wired along the ceiling of this basement. Sayid kicks open a door and finds records storage – boxes and binders all marked Dharma – "Food Drop Protocol," "Operations Manual"…Locke beats the computer at chess, which triggers…a Marvin Candle video?! Dr. Candle, in full-on multimedia mode, prompts Locke (or anyone who beats the computer) with different codes to enter for different purposes: palate drop, for mainland communications, sonar link, etc. The last option says, If there has been an incursion by the hostiles, enter “77.” As EW.com's recap points out, 4+8+23+42=77. Locke tries some of the communications options but the video tells him the sattelite dish and the sonar are inoperative. So Dharma knew about the “hostiles” as long ago as when Dr. Candle was making movies? And they programmed a real-time smart video feed that long ago that knew how have Dr. Candle videos respond to different prompts? Did the hostiles take Dr. Candle's arm (his prosthesis is pretty apparent in the photo, below, taken from BuddyTV.com). Locke is about to "enter 77" when Mikhail takes him at knifepoint.
Real Time - The Beach
Sawyer, in badass ponytail mode, finds Charlie, Hurley, Jin, Sun and a bunch of others assembling the ping pong table they found in the wake of the Swan implosion. Still pissed that his stuff got taken and put into community share-space, Sawyer finds a ping pong ball, and tells the crowd he’ll play them for his stuff (and in classis Sawyer fashion, dismisses the suddenly in everyone's business Nikki with a “who the hell are you?”). Sawyer agrees that if he loses, there will be no more nicknames like “Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon” (i.e. Jin and Sun) for a week. The beachgoers choose Hurley as their chamption and Hurley smokes Sawyer for the first point. Off-camera, Hurley beats Sawyer pretty bad, since he spent a lot of time playing ping pong at his mother’s place, but Hurley brings back some of Sawyer’s stuff, anyway. He says Kate will be fine, and he knows that’s what's really bothering him.
Of course, with all the tidbits we got in the main action this week, the flashback and beach scenes felt a bit like storytelling speed bumps...
Real Time - The Search for Jack
Sayid is annoyed that he, Kate, Locke and Rousseau, have been heading North on a bearing of 305 because they've been following Eko’s stick for two days. He wanders off to search for for food, finds a fruit tree and hears…a cow bell? And it’s on a cow! A whistle is heard, and the cow wanders over to a blue building with a satellite dish on top, a horse at the side, and a man wearing a jumpsuit (with a Dharma logo with a flame shape in the middle) and eyepatch out front. Yup, it’s patchy, the guy spotted on the Pearl monitor. Sayid circles the structure and finds nothing but jungle. As a "communications" officer he knows the dish could broadcast thousands of miles. But Rousseau says this is not the radio tower she used for her signal. Sayid leaves his rifle with Kate to approach unamred. Rousseau wants no part of this – she’s survived by avoiding these types of encounters, and tells the group to meet her at the stream…if they survive. Sayid approaches the building, hands in the air. There is a small cat on a table, which Sayid looks at with some familiarity (it looks a lot like the one that inspired his captor to free him from the pantry)…when he is shot. Patchy shouts that he had a truce and that he never crossed the line. Sayid shouts about the plane crash, and patchy emerges. Locke and Kate fire warning shots and disarm him. His name is Mikhail Bakunin, and he says he is the last living member of the Dharma Initiative, who somehow had no idea a plane had crashed on the island or that 40+ people had survived.
They help Sayid inside. Mikhail cleans the wound with vodka. He claims to be a former Soviet army trooper who once served in Afghanistan, helps Sayid. After being stationed in Vladivostok until the Cold War ended and he was dismissed, he says he replied to an ad in the paper asking if he’d like to save the world, and joined the Dharma Initiative, 11 years ago. The Flame station was designed to communicate with the outside world. Locke sees a computer chess game with a camera pointed at it. Mikhail says Dharma initiated a “purge” against "the hostiles," and were wiped out in the ensuing conflict, but he survived by not participating. He tells Sayid and Kate that 4 men appeared and offered a truce – as long as he did not cross a certain line…they took two cows and left him alone. He doesn’t know who they are, but they were here a long time before Dharma was. The bullet is removed. Mikhail calls the cat Nadia (Sayid's lost love?) but says he named her after the Romanian gymnast. He offers iced tea, and goes to check on John, who loses to the chess computer. Mikhael tells him the game is unbeatable and it cheats…Locke doubts that's possible, because only humans can cheat. Kate doesn’t understand why Mikhail would be left alone by the Others with so much equipment. Sayid responds that Mikhail is not Dharma, which is why the Others let him stay. He is certain Mikhail is not alone, because the horse outside is saddled for someone much shorter, a mystery Sayid wants to solve before signaling that it's time for a retreat. Sayid asks Mikhail about the cables around the Flame, which Mihail says run to other installations on the island, and he confirms there is an underwater cable (which Sayid saw waaaaay back in the first season, before he stumbled upon Rousseau) to guide in a submarine. Sayid reveals the loss of Elizabeth, which he concludes must have been because the Others have the Dharma sub and used it to sneak around his pala ferry dock ambush, and baits Mikhail by saying “at least we were able to kill one of them.” Mikhail takes the bait and attacks, but Kate and Sayid take him down. Sayid tells Locke to get some rope. Sayid suggests the Others came to the Flame because they lost communications "when the sky turned purple" and sought to reconnect to the outside world. Sayid then lifts a rug to reveal a trap door.
He and Kate decend the ladder into a dark room, while Locke responds to the chess computer’s verbal prompts. They see C4 wired along the ceiling of this basement. Sayid kicks open a door and finds records storage – boxes and binders all marked Dharma – "Food Drop Protocol," "Operations Manual"…Locke beats the computer at chess, which triggers…a Marvin Candle video?! Dr. Candle, in full-on multimedia mode, prompts Locke (or anyone who beats the computer) with different codes to enter for different purposes: palate drop, for mainland communications, sonar link, etc. The last option says, If there has been an incursion by the hostiles, enter “77.” As EW.com's recap points out, 4+8+23+42=77. Locke tries some of the communications options but the video tells him the sattelite dish and the sonar are inoperative. So Dharma knew about the “hostiles” as long ago as when Dr. Candle was making movies? And they programmed a real-time smart video feed that long ago that knew how have Dr. Candle videos respond to different prompts? Did the hostiles take Dr. Candle's arm (his prosthesis is pretty apparent in the photo, below, taken from BuddyTV.com). Locke is about to "enter 77" when Mikhail takes him at knifepoint. 
Down below, Kate is jumped by the long-absent Miss Klugh (making her first appearance since the season finale), but Sayid takes Klugh from behind at gun point. Kate, recognizing Klugh, slugs her former captor and tells Sayid Ms. Klugh would know where Jack is. Sayid demands to know if there are any more, then takes her upstairs when she does not respond…but John is not there! He’s outside at gunpoint. Mikhail offers a prisoner exchange, but Locke says not to do it, since they would have shot him already if they wanted him dead (maybe Ben wasn't lying when he told Locke in the Swan armory he was going to the beach to recruit him?) Klugh tells Mikhail in Russian to shoot her. (From my high school Russian class, I think she said “don’t tell them anything,” but then again, I remember very little from Russian class beyond “the hedgehog whizzes by”). (thetailsection.com provides this translated transcript of their discussion:
Mrs. Klugh: Mikhail, you know what to do.
Patchy: ...Do we have a chance?
Klugh: We can't risk it... you know the circumstances.
Patchy: ... there IS another way..
Klugh: You know what to do, that is an order.
Patchy: We've GOT ANOTHER WAY!
Klugh: Do it Mikhail!
Patchy: I AM SORRY! (Shoots Klugh))
Mikhail shoots Klugh dead (apparently marking her last appearance since the season finale), but Sayid disarms Mikhail before he can kill himself.
Locke goes back to the computer. Sayid asks if Mikhail was ever a member of Dharma. Mikhail says no, but the rest of what he said was true. Sayid is a bit incredulous that a group of scientists would choose to mount an attack against the Others of their volition. He says he has his ticket to Othersville, but it’s not Mikhail. Apparently, in the records room he found a schematic map of cables running from the Flame to a place called “the Barracks,” which sounds like a great place to visit. Mikhail threatens to kill them when their guard is down. Danielle, back from her noninvolvement trip to the stream, reminds Sayid that with the map, there’s no reason to keep Mikhail alive. Remembering Amira and her story about the tortured cat, Sayid refuses and says, as Mikhail is his prisoner, he will decide his fate. Locke appears and says he knows why Mikhail did not want him to beat the chess game…then the building goes up in flames. Locke explains he entered 77 because he thought it was the correct response to the video prompt, (after all, there had been an encroachment by hostiles) and Sayid is not pleased that John's actions may have cut off their chances to contact the outside world or get home. Sayid sees the cat staring at him, and he leaves with his comrades and prisoner...
So what do you think? Did Locke make a sensible call, since the other off-island communication attempts failed? In other words, did entering 77 have the potential to send a red alert signal to someone, somewhere, especially given that Locke was not in the basement to see the explosives? Or is this the return of the same Locke who clocked Sayid in the first season to keep him from finding Rousseau's transmitting tower and possibly rescuing them all from the island? Could he be deliberately sabotaging his companions' efforts to escape?
Random Afterthoughts...
(Not sure if this was national, but in New York there was a Visa ad that played “Downtown,” the song that opened Season 3, in a bizzarre breaking of the fourth wall… which abruptly ended when people started turning into M&Ms).
In other news, the Powers that Be granted fellow Lost blogger "DocArzt" (from thetailsection.com) a lengthy interview, which you can check out at the following link:
http://www.buddytv.com/articles/lost/buddytv-interviews-losts-damon-4766.aspx
Among the juicy tidbits from the interview:
- The Dharma Initiative and Hanso Foundation portions of "the Lost Experience" were "true" to the overall story of the show, but the adventures of Rachel Blake will not intersect with or impact our heroes' stories.
- That Hurley's father and imaginary friend were both named "David" (or "Dave") is no coincidence - Hurley chose "Dave" as the name for his inspirational, authority figure fake friend to cope with his feelings over his long missing dad.
- Don't worry if you feel you can't figure out what's going on on Lost yet - the producers say they have not given enough clues for us to fully integrate into a master theory yet, although some online posters are apparently awfully close to figuring out what Smokey is.
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