s3e02: The Glass Ballerina

AKA "Sun is a big fat liar." In part two of the three-part series "Let's find out what happened to everyone after the finale as slowly as possible," Sayid thinks he's luring the Others into a trap, but they sneak around him and take the sailboat, which Sun manages to get off of after killing an Other who was only introduced in this episode. No fish biscuits for you, Sun! We see in flashbacks that there's a lot of stuff she doesn't tell Jin - such as sleeping with Baldy, who might be the father of her baby as I speculated a few months ago - which is paralleled in the present-day plot, where she helps Sayid keep Jin in the dark about his true motives. Except not really, because he's gaining a better understanding of English. So, having accomplished nothing and helped the Others get another boat, the three head back to base camp.

Back at Others HQ, Sawyer makes out with Kate, though it seems like he does it mostly to see how the Others will react and how tough they are. Stone-cold bitch Juliet gets him in line by threatening to shoot Kate. Sawyer explains his whole plan to Kate, not thinking that he might be under surveillance. But guess what?

Finally, Benry Gale goes into Jack's cell and tells him that he can go home if he cooperates with the Others, using footage of the Red Sox's World Series win to prove that the Others have contact with the outside world. (He also answers the question of why they'd still be on the island if they were able to get off when he says that he's lived on the island his whole life. 40 years or so? That predates Dharma, unless he's a lot younger than he looks.) The question is, what will Jack have to do?

One guess: harm/kill one of his people. Bear in mind Jack has known these guys just over two months; could the prospect of getting off the island prove too tempting to resist? (Probably not, if we know Jack, but who ever knows anything with this show?)

I should note that if I had a nickel for every time the show had an episode that treaded water for 58 minutes and then suddenly got interesting in the last two, I'd probably be working on a buck and a half. It's one of the few things that really drives me up a wall about Lost; the tendency of most episodes is to spin the wheels all show and then grab us back with a tantalizing ending. In some respects that's how the seasons have started to go, too - how much did we learn in the entire second season, and then they gave us a whole bunch in the finale? It's a little bit cheap and I wish they could offer more on an individual episode basis.

Next week: Fooled you, Flanders! Made you think Locke, Eko, and Desmond were dead! They're not, though. But you thought they were! But they're not.