LOST: It Wasn't Purgatory, Season 3, Episode 4, Every Man for Himself

On-Island Events: 

Survivors: Desmond offers to fix Claire's roof and she declines. He sets up a long metallic rod with wires just outside of Claire's tent, and moments later, lightning strikes it.

Others: Jack is still being held in the underwater cell; just as he was challenging Juliet about who makes decisions on the island, Ben bursts in and tells Juliet he needs her. In the cages, Sawyer and Kate witness Ben and Juliet come running to save the recently-shot-by-Sun Colleen. Sawyer hatches a plan to electrocute Danny Pickett when he comes back. Sawyer tries the plan out on Ben, but fails when Ben anticipates his trick. Ben later brings Sawyer into one of the Hydra rooms and appears to arrange some sort of medical procedure with a needle to the heart. He produces a cage with a white rabbit inside and shakes it, apparently to death. Ben explains the rabbit had been implanted with a pacemaker programmed to explode at a certain elevated heart rate, adding that they'd implanted Sawyer with the same device. 

When Sawyer received his "pacemaker," the intercom in Jack's room switched on and he hears Sawyer struggle. Soon, Juliet bursts in and begs for Jack's help. The group of others place a bag over Jack's head and lead him to a surgical suite where Juliet attempted to repair Colleen's injuries. Jack tries to stop Colleen's bleeding but she dies. In anger, Pickett assaults Sawyer in his cage; Kate pleads for him stop, and when pressed, admits she loves Sawyer. Later, when Kate tries to break them both out of their cages, Sawyer refuses to escape. Both cages are revealed to be under video surveillance, observed by Ben.

Jack refuses to console Juliet about Colleen's death, but instead insists she tell him about an X-ray he noticed on his way into the operating room. He assumes he was meant to see the scan, as it showed a significant spinal tumor. 

Ben brings Sawyer to the top of a hill and informs him the pacemaker was a hoax. However, Sawyer learns that the island he, Kate, and Jack have been on is a smaller, separate island from the one on which they originally crashed. 

Flashbacks: In prison, Sawyer observes a new inmate named Munson being beaten by other inmates. He learns that Munson embezzled ten million dollars from the government and believes the prison warden is involved in trying to claim it. 

Cassidy, the woman Sawyer conned, visits him with a picture of an infant. She tells Sawyer the baby is his daughter, Clementine; Sawyer denies the child is his. Munson finds Sawyer and begs for his help in hiding the money he stole from the government. Sawyer betrays Munson, informs the warden where to find the money, and as a result, gets his sentence commuted. He arranges to have an account created for "Clementine Phillips," under the condition that she never learn who provided the funds. 

Greater Meaning: Sawyer keeps repeating "every man for himself," but through his flashbacks we learn this has been a go-to defense for quite a while, despite intense emotions that may be contrary to his actions. Strange that an imprisoned con man would take his cut of  money recovered from Munson's theft, and give it wholly to the daughter he refuses to acknowledge. 

So we know, now, that Sawyer is capable of love and compassion, and it's clear that he has these feelings for Kate as he chooses her safety over his own. The question of what they're doing on the second island remains to be seen, as they only seemed to be on rock duty for the one or so days. If Ben plans to let Danny kill Sawyer, as he admitted in the surveillance room, breaking the rocks must not be all that important. Or was Sawyer only brought along in order to influence Kate? They seemed to have much more invested in her experience (clothes, special meeting with Ben, potential favor with Jack) than in Sawyer's, which tracks in consideration of the pacemaker scam to keep him in line.

Further Questions: 

1. Whose tumor is on the scans? 

2. Are Kate and Sawyer dating now? 

3. What happened to Cassidy and Clementine? 

4. Will Jack, Kate, and Sawyer ever get off the second island? 

5. Why does Ben always do such stupid shit to trick people? 

6. Is Desmond psychic? 

Jane Austin Wrecked My Life

I feel like I've been crying all day. First I went to this film and then I came home and watched the first episode of this season's Handmaid's Tale so the works just keep on watering. I made the decision to start seeing films in the theater again, which I'm a little sad about not getting to do for free anymore since my daughter no longer works at AMC, but whatever. One of the happiest times in my recreational life was when I signed up for the 3-a-week subscription back in 2018 and went to several morning matinees while my kids were in school. I don't think I even wrote about most of them, I just went and watched, taking it all in the moment, I guess. As I am in a holding pattern with two things with my school program right now and recovering from a very rough spring semester (mostly due to a few of my organs deciding they'd had enough of my bullshit and consequently failing/inflaming), I thought it appropriate to seek out as many happiness-producing activities as possible. Turns out you can't just drink for ten years and then ignore your self-care because you're busy. Or at least I can't. 

Anyway, I re-upped the theater subscription; this time you get 4 a week! I will miss having my daughter as a wingman for everything I see, but she's onto bigger and better things and she actually prefers the Edina, now, with its Overlook Hotel writing desk stage upstairs. We used to stop at the bougie Kowalski's in Southdale for Starbies, sushi, and hot cheetos before every film last summer. I love those memories, just like I loved the times I went all those years ago, by myself. 

This film was such a perfect beginning to my summer. I seriously wanted to live inside it, forever. 

Jane Austin Wrecked My Life, 2024. 

Written and directed by Laura Piani 

This film is about books and writing with lovely musical interludes of importance thrown in at pivotal moments. As it takes place in France and is mostly in French, it is a beautiful example of what people do in countries where reading and intelligence and empathy still rank as desirable acts/attributes. It's such a visually beautiful film (French streets, all the books everywhere, Jane Austin's house and all its literary-ness and antiques), it could have well been silent and still been a lovely experience. There were lingering shots of many different decorative elements in the different settings, almost feeling like flipping through very well-composed still photos, and beyond the visuals, the story is emotional and funny. I haven't had the experience of not wanting a film to end in a long, long time, but I wanted to stay with this. It made me want to stay in a fancy house or a little European cafe and read books for days. This is decidedly OPPOSITE of the vibe in America right now. Agathe (Camille Rutherford) says at one point that literature, for her, is like an ambulance speeding through the night that is meant to save people. I think that was the exact moment I started crying (although I came close early on when there was revealed to be a piano *that she plays* in the bookstore). There are no pictures of this piano online yet, nor is there any information about the sonata she plays repeatedly throughout the film. 

I need this title. Someone?