"It's what I do."

One of Them.

Original airdate 02/15/2006



This is the one where we find out in flashback how Sayid became a torturer. Turns out it was the Americans, Clancy Brown in particular, who put the bamboo and pliers into Sayid's hands. Aside from the happy coincidence that Kate's father was the Army officer who took him prisoner, that was the flashback.

Meanwhile, back on the island, Rousseau has bagged an Other for Sayid to play with. But Sayid isn't so sure he's an Other (or "one of them"), so he brings him back to the hatch so he can torture the answer out of him. Hats off to those of you who knew that Henry Gale was the wizard's name in The Wizard of Oz. I'm not a big enoug fan of Oz to have remembered that. So it's obvious to some of us right away that this guy is an Other - Henry Gale crashed in a balloon... - but the rest of us figure that out soon enough by the serial killer smirk Henry gives Sayid at the end of the episode. That dude is so One of Them.

There was an interesting theory tossed about after this episode aired that Danielle had managed to place an Other down in the hatch. That she is not what she seems. I like that. Rousseau also sped up their entrance into the hatch by creating a sense of urgency when she told them that the Others were coming and then she led them to the dynamite in the Black Rock, which allowed them to get inside the hatch. Is she simply a deus ex machina, whose only purpose is to show up occasionally and conveniently provide information to our morbidly UNcurious lostaways, or does she actually have an agenda? Good question! (of course, we got some answers last night, but it was fun to think about at the time)

I wonder if Sayid suspects that Charlie was Sawyer's accomplice and could give him access to the guns? Sayid has been laying a bit low lately and he could have seen stuff that the other lostaways didn't notice.

I'm not sure what I think about the Frog Hunting Expedition. I totally get the need to hunt down and eliminate the noise that's keeping you awake, but dude, there surely are plenty of tree frogs in that jungle. And I liked that the writers had Sawyer squish the frog instead of getting all warm and fuzzy about it, but man, that was harsh. I did laugh out loud when Hurley took that header going for the frog. Because it's funny when people fall down.

The scene with the counter alarm going off and Jack holding Locke and Sayid torturing Henry - I was on the edge of my seat. But I was also sort of let down when Locke managed to get the last numbers entered and the clock reset. I want to know what happens! Or maybe something did happen? These are the symbols the appeared right before Locke got the code entered:



The prevailing theory around the Internets is that they are Egyptians hieroglyphs that spell out something along the lines of "to cause death". That would be a pretty bad thing to have happen when the timer ran out, I agree.

There's not much else that I can remember about the episode (that's what I get for waiting so long to post). Was there anything you wanted to comment on?