LOST - LaFleur

We didn't have to wait too long to find out who (or what) LaFleur was...turns out it was none other than James Ford aka Sawyer. When Locke realigned the donkey wheel, it strands Sawyer, Jin, Juliet, Miles and Daniel in 1974--the time of the Dharma Initiative.

Charlotte didn't make the time jump with the rest--but she showed up as a little girl when the group made it to the Dharma compound.

Before being stranded in 1974, the flash that interrupted Locke's descent into the well took them back before the well was even dug. Way before, as the group gapes at the infamous four-toed statue (Actually, we didn't get to see the toes in this episode, but the parts of the giant statue that were missing in the present...)

Once the flashes stop, so do their headaches and nosebleeds. Sawyer makes a command decision to return to the beach. "What, you didn't get enough flaming arrows shot at you?" exclaims Miles. But Juliet backs Sawyer up and the gang heads back towards their camp--not knowing exactly "when" they are.

As they make their way through the jungle, they hear gunshots. They track down the source to two "hostiles" who have killed a Dharma worker and have a woman with a bag over her head. Miles turns to Daniel for confirmation that they can't interfere, but Daniel replies, "Doesn't matter what we do. Whatever happened, happened." Sawyer tells them to drop their guns but when one opens fire, Juliet takes him down.

Yeah, she has Sawyer's back.

The other man turns on Sawyer, but Sawyer kills him. The rescued damsel insists that they have to bury the bodies and bring the Dharma worker--her husband Paul--back with them.

Sawyer tells the others to let him do the talking saying, "I'm a professional. I used to lie for a living." He tells Amy that they shipwrecked on the island. They walk back to the compound, but Juliet calls out and warns Daniel to stop before he gets to the sonic fence. They tell Amy to turn it off and after she does Sawyer tells her to go first. She breaches the fence line without any problem (because she was wearing earplugs), but when the rest attempt to follow her the sonic waves make them lose consciousness.

Inside the Dharma compound, Horace Goodspeed (the familiar face from Cabin Fever) questions Sawyer, who tells him that they were traveling on a salvage vessel in search of a shipwreck called the Black Rock when they were shipwrecked on the island.

Horace explains to Sawyer that they have a submarine that will take them to Tahiti. "You're not Dharma material," he tells Sawyer.

Obviously that's not the case, because the five end up being assimilated into the Dharma Initiative: Daniel working in the Orchid, Sawyer, Jin and Mile doing security and Juliet working as a mechanic. They are allowed to stay after leader of the Hostiles, Richard Alpert, shows up and plunges a burning torch into the ground. Horace goes out to speak to him and Alpert accuses him of breaking their truce.

Sawyer intervenes saying, "Your buddy with the eyeliner--let me talk with him." (Michael Emerson who plays Benjamin Linus claims Nestor Carbonell's eyes aren't lined, but rather are a result of a rare genetic beauty...) He approaches Alpert and refers to him by name--and asks him about Jughead and meeting Locke in 1954. He also admits to killing the men in self-defense.

Alpert agrees to honor the truce in return for the location of where his men's bodies are buried--and in exchange for Paul's body. Amy reluctantly allows the trade, but removes an ankh (Egyptian symbol of life) necklace from Paul's neck.

Juliet tells Sawyer she wants to leave the island on the submarine whether it's 1974 or not. But Sawyer convinces her to stay and the two are shacking up together in Dharma-ville. Three years later, Amy is married to Horace and goes into premature labor with his baby. Apparently the submarine takes Dharma women back to the mainland to give birth, so it's up to Juliet to deliver Amy's baby. She is afraid of what will happen, but Sawyer convinces her saying "Well, maybe whatever made that happen hasn't happened yet."

Juliet delivers the baby safely and Sawyer gives the news to Horace, who has recovered from his drunken spree of the night before. Horace tells Sawyer that he got into a fight with Amy after discovering Paul's ankh necklace hidden away in her sock drawer. He asks Sawyer if three years are enough to get over someone. Sawyer, recalling Kate and his current relationship with Juliet, says yes.

But when Jin calls him the next morning to tell him that he's found Jack, Hurley and Kate, Sawyer rushes from spooning in bed with Juliet to being reunited with Kate.

Yet another LOST triangle...

I caught a bit of the enhanced version of The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham and three things stood out: 1. It was mentioned that Locke's suicide attempt paralleled Jack's attempt to jump off the bridge, 2. Ben definitely shifted gears in a big way after hearing Eloise Hawking's name and 3. the flashes that made the Oceanic Six disappear from Flight 316 were the unpredictable results Hawking warned off if all didn't return to the island.

We have to wait almost two weeks for the next installment--which features a young Benjamin Linus! Until then, check out the recaps and more at Lostpedia, screencaps at Dark UFO and Liz Kelly and Jen Chaney's Dueling Analyses at washingtonpost.com.