We return right after Juliet, Jin, Miles and Sawyer lost Locke into the well after the flash. Trying to regroup, they turn around to see that the giant statue with four toes is intact and standing upright on the coast - and they realize they don’t know when the hell they are. But before they can do more than goggle at it, Locke – down in the well – turns the wheel and they get a major flash. When it subsides, they realize that this one was different from the others: their headaches are gone, no one’s nose is bleeding and, while the well is back, it’s old and filled in. “Now what?” asks Jin. “We wait for [Locke] to come back – as long as it takes,” decides Sawyer.
Three years later. I guess that’s how long it took. A man in a Dharma jumpsuit cues up a reel-to-reel tape and starts dancing with a non-jumpsuited girl. Holy Moses on a bicycle –more all new characters. God help me. (By the way, the man dancing is “Herc” from Friday Night Lights, I don’t recognize the actress, and they’re interrupted by some character actor who’s in everything.) Character Actor is annoyed with the (mild) revelry, saying that they (he and Herc) are on the clock. I begin to realize that while it was “three years later,” we don’t know what the start date was – I think this is Dharma Initiative, long before Desmond got left there. The girl notices something on the monitors: “Horace” is out in the field by the sonic fence. He’s drunk and is throwing dynamite at some trees. The two Dharma guys panic and run to their boss’s cottage to let him know that there’s a problem: “Mr. LaFleur, there’s a situation out at the pylons.” Mr. LaFleur: “Sonofabitch.” Because it’s Sawyer, you see, in a position of authority with the Dharma Initiative. He’s got his own jumpsuit and everything!
Sawyer and Miles drive the Dharma VW van out to pick up Horace before anyone realizes he’s drunk. Which apparently he doesn’t usually do. When they get there, Horace is already passed out so Sawyer takes him back to the compound while Miles puts out the fires and packs up the dynamite. (I recognize “Horace” as Eugene Toombs from The X-Files but I still can’t remember what Lost episode he’s been in – must’ve been a flashback though.) Apparently Horace and “Amy,” his pregnant wife, had a fight and that’s what brought on the drinking. While Sawyer is bringing Amy up to speed, she starts to have horrible cramps. The baby’s in trouble. “Oh hell,” says Sawyer.
Three years earlier. Sawyer et al. go back to find Daniel - but no Charlotte. “She’s gone,” says Daniel, kind of crazy-like. He tells them that she died, but in the last flash her body just disappeared: “She moved on but we stayed.” Sawyer’s like, WTF – is the time travelling over? Yup, confirms Daniel, we’re stuck whenever we are right now. Daniel is totally checked out so Sawyer decides to go back to the beach. Miles thinks this is nuts since (a) flaming arrows and (b) their camp is elsewhen. Juliet backs Sawyer up while Miles is like who put you guys in charge? Regardless, they all head back to the beach. On the walk, Juliet tells Sawyer that actually the beach is a stupid plan, but a stupid plan is better than no plan. “I’m open to suggestions,” says Sawyer agreeably.
Then they hear shots and a woman’s screams, and run towards the sounds, as you do. It looks like two men and one woman, with at least one body on the ground. The two men put a bag over the woman’s head and prepare to do something terrible to her. Over Miles’s protests, Sawyer goes over to intercede, quickly shooting the two men dead. He pulls the bag off the woman’s head. It’s “Amy” from “three years later.” Amy: “Who are you?” Sawyer doesn’t quite know what to say.
After the commercial, Juliet guesses that they’re in the 1970s or ‘80s, judging from the jumpsuits. Amy is crying over the dead body – her husband, Paul - that Sawyer didn’t kill. When Sawyer says they need to move out, she gets quite agitated, saying that due to the “truce” they need to bury the two men Sawyer killed and they need to carry Paul back to the Dharma compound. To calm her, they take care of it. As they head back towards the compound, Sawyer says that he’ll do the talking on the group’s behalf since he used to lie for a living. Suddenly Juliet shouts for Daniel to STOP! He’s about to walk through the sonic fence. Juliet tells Amy to turn it off, feigning ignorance of the fence – because, remember, she knows how to turn it off herself. Amy flips some switches at the control box and walks forward, saying it’s okay. Our gang follows her and then immediately all drop to the ground twitching. The fence is not off – sneaky Amy had earplugs.
Three years later. Pregnant Amy is screaming. The doctor says that the baby is breech and Amy needs a C-section, which is an issue because their women always give birth on the mainland – and since the baby is two weeks early, they’re obviously not ready for it. The doctor is only an internist and can’t handle the situation so Sawyer runs to find Juliet and asks her to help Amy. Juliet emotionally reminds him that every time she’s tried to help a woman give birth on this Island, it ended badly. Sawyer’s like, maybe whatever that is hasn’t happened yet.
Juliet examines Amy. The doctor wants Horace, the baby’s father, to have some input but since he’s still drunk, Amy growls that she wants Juliet to handle things. Sawyer reassures Juliet that she is going to do fine and then goes to wait outside. Jin finds him there, reporting that they’ve been systematically searching the Island in a grid pattern, looking for their lost Losties – but no sign of them yet. They’ll keep looking, “as long as it takes,” says Sawyer. Then Juliet comes outside to tearfully and happily announce, “It’s a boy!” And both mother and baby are fine - the curse is lifted! Or maybe, as Sawyer said, hasn’t happened yet.
Three years earlier. Sawyer wakes up from the fence zapping, still dressed and on the couch in the compound’s rec room. Horace interrogates him, saying the fence is necessary to protect the Dharmites from the “indigenous population.” Sawyer’s story is that they are from a salvage ship whose mission was to find the old ship, the Black Rock. Horace doesn’t really care about his story: he says he’s going to put “Jim LaFleur” and his crew on the submarine that leaves the Island tomorrow and send them back to the mainland. He sniffs that the only people allowed to stay in the compound are members of the Dharma Initiative and LaFleur’s crew just isn’t Dharma material.
Juliet, Jin, Miles and Daniel are waiting outside. Juliet tells Miles and Daniel that she used to live on the compound after the Others took it over. “Well, welcome home,” says Miles. They notice a little redheaded girl playing with her mother on the playground swings; “Charlotte,” breathes Daniel. Just as Sawyer comes out to report their imminent deportation, a siren starts blaring and the Dharmites scurry about like quail. Sawyer et al. are shooed into a cottage and soon everyone is under lockdown. Sawyer and Juliet watch out the window as a torch-bearing figure walks out of the jungle. The figure stabs the torch into the lawn and continues to walk forward. Juliet sighs heavily when she recognizes the lovely, un-aging Richard Alpert, and she and Sawyer share a look.
The compound is silent – no sign of life until Horace goes to meet Richard. They are guardedly cordial to each other, Horace saying if he’d known Richard was coming, he would have turned the fence off. Richard scoffs that the Dharmite fence might keep some things out, but not the Others. Richard goes on to say that the Dharmites have broken the truce and he wants to know where his two men are.
Watching from inside the house, Miles thinks that the submarine is sounding like a better and better idea all the time. Horace comes in and asks “LaFleur” how well he buried those bodies. “Depends on how hard he’s looking for them,” replies Sawyer. Horace tells a lackey that they are now at Condition 1 and need to be fully armed with the fence set at maximum. Sawyer demurs, saying that he wants to go talk to Horace’s “buddy out there with the eyeliner.” Hee hee. He says that he killed Richard’s men and he’ll take responsibility for it.
As everyone watches, Sawyer introduces himself to Richard as the guy who killed the Other men. He explains what had happened to Amy and insists that he killed the Others in self-defense. He also says that since the Dharmites are not his people, any truce the Others have with them has still not been broken. Intrigued, Richard wants to know who Sawyer is. So Sawyer tips his hand about knowing that the Others buried the bomb back in the 1950s, plus he knows that Locke disappeared right before Richard’s eyes – he tells Richard that he’s waiting for Locke to come back too. Richard seems bemused by this but still wants some payback for his two dead men.
Horace and Sawyer go inside the cottage and tell Amy that for some creepy and unexplained-to-the-viewers reason Richard wants to take Paul’s body back into the jungle with him. But, if she doesn’t want to give the body up, Horace says the Dharmites are willing to suffer the consequences. Amy mans up and says the Others can take Paul; when she says goodbye to her husband she removes a wooden ankh necklace from around his neck. Horace thanks Sawyer for saving them from bloodshed and tells him that he and his crew don’t have to be on tomorrow’s submarine – they can stay for the next two weeks.
Sawyer catches up with Juliet outside, telling her that they’ve gotten a two-week reprieve. Juliet looks at him and basically says she’s leaving: Locke fixed things so we’re not flashing and bleeding from our orifices anymore; I’ve been trying to get off this Island for three years and tomorrow that submarine is my best opportunity. Sawyer reminds her that it’s 1974 and whatever she wants to go back to isn’t even in existence yet. Plus, he pleads, you’re going to leave me here with a crazy guy and Mr. I-Speak-to-Dead-People? Juliet laughs, telling him that he’ll be fine. “C’mon,” says Sawyer, “give me two weeks.” And then he gives her those irresistible bedroom eyes and the next thing you know it’s
Three years later. Sawyer picks a flower from the flower garden and goes into a compound cottage where a nice table is set for dinner. Juliet greets him warmly and he gives her the flower, telling her that she was amazing today (referring to successfully birthing Amy’s baby). She thanks him for believing in her and then SMOOCHIES. And then OMG Juliet: “I love you” and Sawyer: “I love you too.” And MORE smoochies!!! Kate is going to be PISSED when she finds this out. Awesome.
Later, Sawyer is there when Horace wakes up from his drunk. The good news: Horace is a daddy; the bad news: he missed it. Blah blah blah – the reason Horace was drinking was because he found Paul’s wooden ankh necklace in Amy’s drawer and he’s worried that three years isn’t long enough for Amy to have gotten over her dead husband. Sawyer ‘fesses up that there was a girl once, and he missed his shot with her, and then he was all torn up over her for a while – but now he can scarcely remember what she looked like. Sawyer: “Is three years long enough to get over someone? Absolutely.” Famous last words, darlin’.
The next morning the phone rings, waking Sawyer from his snuggly bed with a naked Juliet. He listens intently then growls into the receiver: “Don’t bring them in. Just meet me in the north valley.” He jumps up to get dressed, telling Juliet that it was Jin on the phone. “I gotta go,” he says. He drives out to a cliff overlooking the ocean (not much of a “valley” frankly) and stands there nervously as Jin pulls up in the VW van. First Hurley gets out, then Jack in his suit. Then Kate. She smiles, just a little, and Sawyer realizes that no, three years is not even close to long enough.
Previously on Lost / next time on Lost
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