[LST] Every Man For Himself

TV Programme: Lost
Season: 3
Episode: 4
Date I watched this episode: 15/07/2009
Time since I last watched this programme: 3 days.
Centric for: Sawyer

The title of this episode immediately alluded to the fact that it was likely to be Sawyer-centric. Every person on the island (and especially between Jack, Locke and Sawyer) has their own philosophy, and Sawyer's couldn't be more succintly summed up than as "Every Man For Himself". So in this sense, the episode didn't really tell us anything we didn't already know. But what was interesting was the contrast between this attitude and Kate's (inherited from Jack) "live together, die alone" attitude. Kate, finally forced to admit her love for Sawyer in this episode, has such a hold over Sawyer that she can turn off this raw free-for-all desire in him just by her presence. While he was quite prepared to leave Jack and run off with Kate, he certainly wasn't prepared to leave Kate if he had his own opportunity to escape.

The other main storyline Sawyer had in this ep was regarding the supposed "pacemaker" that Ben had implanted in him. Regarding the issue of conning, Ben says "we're a lot better". It's true - pretty much everything about The Others is a con. It's pretty unclear what their endgame is and that's exactly the way they want it. It's just their culture. At least now we have some answers as to why they have been behaving the way they have been doing of late. As Ben confirmed, they were trying to gain Sawyer's respect through the con, and seemingly it worked.

Jack's failure to resuscitate Colleeen, while not entirely his fault, didn't exactly do him any favours. If he had have saved her life, he could have really increased his standing with The Others: who knows what would have happened then? But alas; it isn't to be. Colleen dies, and the group's view of the survivors, especially in the case of Pickett, is much worsened.

The relationship between Jack and Juliet is a very odd one. Jack quite clearly states in this episode that he doesn't care about making Juliet feel better. But clearly he does, and in her case, despite her actions in the past, she doesn't really act like one of the "other" Others. Additionally, right at the start of "A Tale Of Two Cities", we clearly see that she isn't very happy. So perhaps she is going to be instrumental to Jack's inevitable escape.

The flashback in this episode was actually not that great. I mean come on, we know Sawyer is a con-man, we get it, all of Sawyer's flashbacks are about cons and it's getting kinda boring. It's almost like the writers think it's going to be a big twist when they reveal that Sawyer has been playing everyone along, but it's not anymore. The only useful part in all this was that we got to find out that Sawyer actually has a daughter, which is slightly surprising.

At the beach camp, the main story here was about Desmond, whose time-travelling capabilities (!) were revealed in the last episode. Well he is struggling to come to terms with all this, which is hardly surprising given the magnitude of what he is experiencing. Unfortunately for him, this means he's coming across as a bit creepy, especially to Claire. I think it's only Hurley who's really got a handle on what's going on, although the collapse of the lightning conductor will have raised a few eyebrows.

Paulo was also in this one, appearing mainly in a fairly incidental scene where he lends a golf club to Desmond. Most "new" characters (Desmond, Ana-Lucia/Libby/Eko, Ben, etc) have fairly dramatic introductions, so I'm always a bit uncomfortable when Paulo is on-screen, because everyone feels like they know him although they've never really experienced anything together.

So now we know that these two story threads are occurring on two separate islands - admittedly that was a bit of a twist. It adds a whole different dimension to the thing - and raises the question of how are they ever going to get back together as one group? They no longer have a boat and that's an awful long way to swim (not to mention the sharks first seen in last season's "Adrift").

Still the most compelling story of this season is Ben, how he manages The Others, and how Jack/Kate/Sawyer are coping with the whole scenario. So I'll wait with bated breath to see how that develops. As for the on-island stuff, it's not going anywhere yet, but I'll give it some time as I know this show doesn't often let me down.