Le Fleur SE5 EP8

“The record is spinning again. We’re just not on the song we want to be on.”

A cool episode that opens the door for answering a lot more questions. Very enjoyable, especially the Juliet/Sawyer thing.

Now where were we? Oh yes...
We rejoin our Lostaways right where Locke left them. After the first time flash, we see what we presume to be the full on version of the the three toed statue off on the beach. But of course, before anyone can verify, there is a bigger flash and a bit of an earthquake. It seems that Locke did it; turning the wheel has cured the symptoms of Minkowski time displacement syndrome. ”What do we do now?” they ask the new de-facto leader, Sawyer. Sawyer says they wait until Locke comes back.

As they trek through the jungle, they come across a distraught Daniel, who tells them of Charlotte’s demise and disappearance. “I’m not going to tell her,” he mutters to himself. Daniel gets it together sufficiently enough to let them know that the time flashes are over and that wherever and whenever they are that that is where they are going to stay. Sawyer decides they should head back to the beach to wait for Locke. Miles is somewhat less than thrilled with this idea. “Oh sure. And then when we get bored with that we can head back to the Orchid. Those are the only two plans you people have.” But Juliet steps up and endorses Sawyer’s plan, and it’s off to the beach they go. Sawyer thanks Juliet for “having his back” and where there was only a hint of romance, now we see it begin to bloom.

It turns out they are in the Dharma seventies. They hear gunshots and shouting as they come across an altercation between some DH’s (Dharma Hippies) and apparent Others. The male DH is dead and the female DH has a burlap bag over her head and is being threatened. Juliet and Sawyer take out the Others leaving the frightened widow Amy alone. When Sawyer tells her she has to go with them, she tells them they first have to bury the Others—“The truce!” she worries (killing these Others has apparently broken it.) and that they must take Paul, her dead husband back to the barracks.

So after they do all this for Amy, she leads them to the sonic fence, which Daniel almost walks right into. Our Lostaways know what this is and luckily Juliet is paying attention and stops Daniel before he walks into it. “He would have fried his brain!” Juliet whispers to Sawyer. “His brain’s already fried.”They tell Amy to disarm it, and she tells them that she has, but what she’s really done is turn it down to stun setting and grabbed a pair of earplugs out of the fuse box. The Lostaways fall stunned inside the fence and are brought to the DI barracks.

Horace meets with Sawyer who tells them that his boat wrecked and he’s looking for the rest of his crew. Sawyer’s story about being on a salvage ship looking for an old slaver named the “Black Rock” is an especially nice touch. Horace tells him that he and the other Lostaways are on the next sub out. When Sawyer asks if he can stay to “look for his crew,” Horace tells him that only Dharma Hippies are allowed in this compound and he, Sawyer, is just not “Dharma Material”. As Sawyer is relaying this news to the other Lostaways, a little redhead flits by with her mummy, looks over her shoulder at Daniel and waves: Charlotte. The the creepy Dharma alarm starts sounding and the spell is broken. All hell breaks loose on the compound. They all run for cover. Richard is coming, and boy is he pissed.

Richard and Horace exchange words over the truce, Richard scoffing at Horace’s feeble little sonic fence which does not affect the Others. As things start to heat up, Sawyer insists to Horace that he be allowed to talk to “your buddy out there with the eyeliner” (YES! YES! YES! I’m so glad they acknowledged the eyeliner AT LAST!) “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Juliet asks.

Sawyer tells Richard that he killed the Others because he saw them with a gun, asked them to put it down, and when one of them took a shot at him, he defended himself. Adequately. Since Sawyer is not “Dharma Material” it was not Dharma who broke the truce. Richard still seems pissed off, so Sawyer then asks him about the bomb. “Did you bury jughead?” Now Richard is not only pissed, but intrigued as well. “How ‘bout the bald dude marching into your camp and telling you he was your leader then disappearing into thin air?” Sawyer asks. “His name is John Locke and I’m waiting for him to come back.” And an agreement is reached, but at the price of the body of Paul, Amy’s dead husband.

To keep the truce, Amy agrees to give Paul’s body to the Others, but she removes his Ankh necklace first and keeps it. For at least three years, as we find out later.

Sawyer finds Juliet sitting on the dock by the sub. He thinks that she’ll be happy that he’s bought them two weeks longer to sit on the island and wait for Locke. Juliet explains to him that she’s been trying to get off the island for three years. She’s leaving. Sawyer is at a loss. He can’t believe Juliet is going to leave him with “The mad scientist and Mr. I-talk-to-dead-people. And Jin, who’s a helluva nice guy, but not much of a conversationalist. Besides, who will have my back? C’mon. Just give me two weeks.” Sawyer grins his most charming grin and Juliet is a goner. Who wouldn’t be?

Three years later
Two Dharma hippies are watching the TV screens in the Pearl. Suddenly they see our old friend Horace drunk and lighting sticks of dynamite. They decide they must wake “Le Fleur “ and tell him. A knock on the door reveal LeFleur to be Sawyer, who is now apparently going by “Jim” as well.

Sawyer and Miles take Horace back to his wife, the woman the rescued three years before, Amy. As Sawyer is talking with Amy, she goes into labor. Unfortunately, the baby is a breach. It must be delivered by ceasarian section, but the lame internist that Dharma is using for a doctor says, “I don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout birthin’ no babies!”. So Sawyer runs to get Juliet, who is now an “Auto Mechanic”. She’s none too pleased that Sawyer is getting her back into the OB-GYN field, mostly because “every woman she’s tried to help in childbirth on this island has died.” Sawyer has faith in her—he knows she can do this, so she goes to Amy, where she immediately takes charge.

Jin comes to tell Sawyer that they have finished grid 133. “Any sign of our people?” “No.” Then I guess we go on to grid 134 then.” “How long do we keep searching?“ Jin wants to know. “Until we find them,”

A tearful Juliet emerges from the infirmary. It’s a boy and mommy and baby are doing fine.

Later on, Sawyer is returning home and he stops to pick a flower. He opens the door to his hut to find Juliet making dinner—because she lives there too. He hands her the flower and tells her how proud he is of how she delivered Amy’s baby. She tells him how much she appreciated him believing in her. They tell each other how much they love each other and embrace.

Time out here for a brief note: I know Sawyer belongs with Kate. But I have to say how happy I was to see him and Juliet together—and how happy they were together, how good they were for each other and how right they seemed together—which is exactly what the writers wanted us to feel since they bring Kate back in two scenes.

Sawyer is with Horace when he wakes up. The good news is he’s a daddy, the bad news is that he missed it. Horace tells Sawyer that the fight with Amy was about Paul, he first husband who was killed by the Others. He was looking for socks and found Paul’s Ankh necklace in her drawer. “It’s only been three years. Do you think three years is long enough to get over someone?” Sawyer gets that faraway look in his eyes and tells Horace that “I had a thing for a girl once. I had a real shot at her , too, but I didn’t take it. For a little while I'd lay in bed every night wondering if it was a mistake, wondering if I'd ever stop thinking about her. Now I can barely remember what she looks like. Her face is...she's just gone. And she ain't NEVER coming back.” Sawyer blinks and clears his vision. “So is three years enough time to get over someone? Absolutely.”

The next morning the phone rings to wake Sawyer and Juliet. We know it’s Jin and we know what he’s telling Sawyer. “Don’t bring them in. I’ll meet you in the valley.” Sawyer gets up and gets dressed and Juliet is concerned, but Sawyer tells her everything in under control.

Sawyer takes the Jeep and sees Jin arrive in the Hippie Bus. Hurley and Jack step out. They part to reveal Kate. Sawyer and Kate look at each other.

No. Three years is not enough.

Thoughts on this episode
So it's very late, my hands are numb and my brain is probably at least half as fried as Daniel's, but a couple things occur to me immediately following this episode:

--What or who is Jin searching for in the grid search?

--Who, if anyone, is Amy’s baby? If it was a girl, we could assume maybe it was the mysterious Annie, but a boy? I am without a clue….

--Am I the only one out there who loves the new Comcast commercials?

--What is the significance of three years? Not only have three years passed on the mainland, but three years have passed in Dharmaland AND Juliet was on the island for three years and wanted to go home.

--Is it possible that the “war” that’s coming has anything to do with Ben gassing the inhabitants of the Dharma Initiative? Will we see little Ben in this timeline? Will we see Roger Workman?

Scenes from next week
How do we integrate our newly arrived Lostaways into the groovy Dharma Initiative of the seventies without messing up what our original Lostaways already have.