s3e11: Enter 77

All right, an episode that manages to be good without being wacky! Okay, so the "Sawyer gets his ass kicked by Hurley at ping-pong" subplot was wacky, in addition to completely predictable (Sawyer gets his bravado tossed back in his face? No way!), but at least they hustled through it. As did Hurley (see what I did there?).

As usual, Sayid for some reason knows everything. Maybe it's supposed to be the difference between Locke, who seems to think that a few adventure courses make him an expert, and Sayid, who was in the military and actually is an expert. Yet the show has certainly made Locke plenty of a bad-ass at various points in the past. Not so much this one, though.

Sayid, Locke, Kate and Rousseau stumble onto a house while following Locke's compass bearing. Rousseau huffs off, in keeping with her namesake's belief that man's natural goodness is corrupted by contact with others. Oh, Lost, you are so deep. (Little known fact: Anglo-Irish statesman/philosopher Edmund Burke died on July 9, 1797, of injuries sustained after wandering into the street during a conversation with his ex-wife and being run over by a carriage.) Sayid goes up to the house and gets shot for his troubles.

Turns out the guy in the house is Mikhail, the last surviving member of the Dharma Initiative. Just kidding! He's an Other. And the woman who let Hurley go, Bea/Miss Clue/Klugh/whatever, is hiding in his basement, after having recently ridden a horse there. Sayid, of course, knows all this. After a bunch of fights, Mikhail shoots the fluent-in-Russian Bea at her apparent request. Locke beats a computer chess game and gets access to Dr. Marvin Candle (or whatever his name really is), but is unable to use the satellite dish or sonar, so instead he blows up the house by accident. Jesus Christ, Locke, what did you think was going to happen if you said there'd been an incursion by the Hostiles? Superman would swoop in and save everyone? Stop pressing things! Sayid gives Locke an absolutely withering look for his bad judgment and our heroes troop off into the night. Strong work by Naveen Andrews in this one; no wonder he's getting annoyed at his lack of face time.

Meanwhile, Sayid continues to have some of the most interesting backstory, although an entire episode's worth is spent to set up a single decision by Sayid at the end of the episode - not to kill Mikhail - and then the teaser suggests that it's all a moot point next week, as the group stumbles upon yet another weird-ass thing we've never seen before. It would be nice to know what the Others are hiding such that they constantly seem to feel a need to take it to the grave with them, but clearly this is asking way too much. That's more a Season 5 thing, don't you think?