Tuesday, April 14, 2020

LOST: It Wasn't Purgatory, Episode 16, Outlaws

Events: After a boar repeatedly harasses Sawyer, he and Kate trek into the jungle on a quest to find it. They learn much about each other during a game of "I Never," notably that they'd both killed someone, both have baggage from having done so, and that neither of them really fit in with the rest of the group. In flashbacks, Sawyer relives the violent death of his parents as well as the misleading con that led him to Australia. In his obsession to punish the man he felt was responsible for his parents' deaths and whose letter he'd been carrying around his entire life, Sawyer kills an American shrimp truck cook, proven in his final moments to be the wrong guy. Finally, in a bizarre turn of events, Sawyer is revealed to have met Christian Shephard in an Australian bar, which Sawyer later discovers while talking to Jack after the failed boar expedition.

Greater Meaning: The episode is centered around Sawyer in terms of flashbacks and major reveals, but the events on-island depend on Sawyer's connection with Kate (and is named "Outlaws," plural). Important also are the past and present connections between other characters, and this episode seems to delight in pointing them out: Kate is connected to Sawyer through both secret events and their own personal perceptions; Kate defends her decision to approach Sawyer to retrieve the gun Jack lent out saying, "I speak his language." Charlie is connected to both Locke and Sayid through unpleasant events, his detoxification from heroin and his ambivalence over having killed Ethan, which Sayid attempts to discuss with him. In addition to his connection with Kate, Sawyer is somewhat surprisingly also connected to Jack through his interactions with Christian at the bar, and as the knower of how Christian truly felt about the falling-out he had with his son. One gets the impression that these connections, both on and off the island, are becoming just as important as the threat of the island monster or the existence of others in the group's midst. These three puzzles (supernatural villain, the human threat, and the interrelationships between the survivors), together with the continued idea of rescue/escape from the island make for several further questions and possibilities moving forward.

Further Questions:
1. What were the whispers in the jungle, and why have only Sayid and Sawyer heart them?
2. Is Sawyer's name really James?
3. Is Charlie hiding PTSD?
4. Who did Kate kill?
5. What happened to the real Sawyer?

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