No man is an island.

Every Man For Himself

We open with Desmond on the beach in all his handsomeness, watching Claire. He tells her she's got a problem with her roof and that she should move a ways down the beach while he fixes it for her. Charlie gets all insecure (and wouldn't you in the presence of Desmond's Scottish awesomeness?) and tells Des that the roof is fine and if it wasn't he could fix it himself. He was just recently building a church with Eko before he exploded, after all. Alright, that was kind of cute. Desmond says OK and walks off.

Jack's cell. Juliet comes in with some food for him. Jack wants to know why he's being held there. He plays Juliet against Benry, implying that Benry is really the one in charge and Juliet just has to follow his orders. Juliet says that isn't true, that they all come to decisions together. Just then Benry barges in, saying, "Juliet! I need you. The sub (the sub!?) is back, we have a situation. Come with me now." Hmm, I think I know who's in charge here.

And sub?? What sub?!

People are running through the jungle, carrying a body on a stretcher. It's Colleen (not Connie, as I incorrectly called her) and she's in bad shape. So they brought Colleen back to the Hydra Station from the sailboat in a submarine? Why would they need to do that?

Danny (aka Pickett, and not Denny, as I incorrectly called him) comes to the zoo to collect Sawyer and Kate for another day at the quarry. But Danny gets an urgent call on his radio about Colleen. The Others rush through the cage area with Colleen, Danny joins them, and Sawyer and Kate see her. Kate asks Sawyer what happened, and he said "We happened." He tells her they just got their ticket out of there (and even after watching this twice I'm not sure what one thing has to do with the other). He starts playing with his Rube Goldberg food contraption, dumping water on the ground. He gets it all set up and tells Kate that when someone comes to get him, they'll step in the water, he'll hit the food button and trigger the electric shock, the Other will fall down from the jolt, Sawyer will grab the keys and they'll both escape. Kate's impressed, but she asks, "What about Jack?" Sawyer says they don't where he is or if he's even alive. It's every man for himself.

Flashbacking. Sawyer's in prison and he's rockin' the Samurai look. He asks about a fight he sees taking place and someone tells him that it's the new guy, Munson, and rumor is that he stole $10 million and they never found the money. They guy also says that the Warden keeps breaking up the Munson fights, to protect the guy and get on his good side, maybe get hold of some of that money some day. Later, Sawyer in on trash duty in the sewing shop, which is where Munson works. Sawyers tells Munson that the Warden is only being nice to him (breaking up the fights, giving him a cushy job) so that he can get his own hands on the money. He tells Munson that next the Warden will somehow turn his wife against him.

Zoo. Benry approaches Sawyer's cage, clearly upset. Blink, Benry, blink! But he stops short of the puddle in front the of the cage door. He asks Sawyer how much he weighs, how old he is and Sawyer tells him(180, 35). Benry steps closer, in the puddle, and opens the cage door. Sawyer grabs Benry and kicks the food button, but nothing happens. He tries again and again nothing happens. He looks at Benry, who cooly says to him, "We turned it off." (the "asshole" is implied there) and then BAM! Benry opens a can of whoopass on Sawyer, tossing him around the cage until he passes out. Is Benry super strong, like Ethan was?

As Sawyer comes to, strapped to a table somewhere, we hear Tom's voice: "...two days since the sky turned purple, we're blind, all our comms are down, I can't get them up again. Colleen's in critical cond --" Benry interrupts to say "Juliet's taking care of it." Sawyer's awake now, and he's wondering what the hell is going on. Someone named Jason gives him something to bite down on, "for the pain", as another guy whips out a big ass hypodermic needle and holds it over Sawyer's naked chest. And in one of the best moments of the episode, Benry looks away and says, "God, I hate needles."

In his cell, Jack can hear Sawyer struggling and yelling over the "broken" intercom speaker on his wall.

Back with Sawyer, and Jason and the other guy argue over how to stick the needle in Sawyer ("over the sternum, in the sternum, like in the --" the what? the movie? Pulp Fiction?), and all the while Sawyer is freaking out. Jason (or is it the other guy?) shakily holds the needle up above Sawyer and counts, "1, 2, ..." Cut to black.

Beach. The new guy is using the golf clubs to hit small, green fruits into the ocean. Desmond approaches and asks if he can borrow a club. New guy tells him to take the 5 iron, he never uses it. "That way, if you die going off into the jungle doing whatever it is you're doing, I won't have to go after it." Nice. Being Scottish (and awesome), Desmond give the jerk a golfing tip before walking away with the 5 iron.

Sawyer is waking up, still strapped to the table, but now he has a bandaid and a small, bloody piece of gauze taped to his chest. Benry and gang come in and Benry places a cage on Sawyer's chest. Inside the cage is a little bunny with the number "8" painted on its back. Benry picks up the cage and starts really rattling it, yelling, "Come on! Come on! Move it! Move it!" until the poor rabbit collapses in a heap. There's a joke in there somewhere about a personal trainer, but since I've never had one... Anyway, in the second best moment of the episode, Sawyer asks, "Did you just kill that bunny?" Benry tells him that the rabbit had a pacemaker in its chest, and when it got too excited, the pacemaker would send a jolt to its heart, causing it to explode. He tells Sawyer that they put a pacemaker in his chest, too, and the same thing will happen to him if he does things that will cause his heart rate to elevate, things like fighting and escaping. Benry gives him a watch that will beep when his heart rate gets to within 15 beats of kaboom. Sawyer asks him why he doesn't just kill him, and Benry replies, "Because we're not killers, James." And if you tell Kate anything, they'll put one in her, too.

Sawyer's returned to his cage. Tom gives him and Kate each a bucket and sponge to wash up with, and to Kate he also gives a change of clothes. (I still don't get the dress thing) Kate asks Sawyer what happened, but he tells her they just wanted to ask him more questions. His heart rate increases as he peeks at her changing her clothes, so he pours the bucket of water over his head to calm himself down.

Flashbacking. Sawyer's in the prison visiting area, watching Munson and his wife, clearly arguing. Munson and Sawyer exchange meaningful glances ("see? I told you so" "yeah, I guess you did). Sawyer's visitor comes to sit the f*ck down and who the f*ck should it be but f*ckin' Joanie Stubbs from Deadwood! She's Sawyer's girlfriend from the season 2 episode The Long Con. I can't remember her name, so we'll call her Joanie. Joanie pressed charges against Sawyer for what he did to her in The Long Con, and that's why he's in prison now. He asks her what she wants and she shows him a photo of a beautiful little baby and tells him that her name is Clementine and she is Sawyer's daughter. Joanie and the baby are living in Albequerque and she wants Sawyer to write the baby a letter. But Sawyer wants nothing to do with any of it - "I ain't got no daughter" - and walks away from her.

Zoo. Sawyer nervously checks his heart rate as he sits in his cage. Kate says she's noticed that the bars at the top of her cage are further apart and she thinks she can get through them. He tells her not to do it yet, to chill out.

Jack hears more incomprehensible chatter over the intercom and then Juliet comes in, wearing bloodstained scrubs. Jack demands to know what they're doing to Sawyer, but Juliet says it's not Sawyer's blood and she needs his help.

Zoo. A very loud siren/alarm starts going off, like an air raid siren, and then we see Juliet and some Others leading Jack, who has a bag over his head, across the compound. Kate and Sawyer yell Jack's name, and Jack stops momentarily but they keep moving him along. They bring him inside a building somewhere else at the station, and remove the bag from his head. Benry's there (and so are Tom and Danny), and he aks Juliet if she's lost her mind: "This is not why --" What was he going to say? "This is not why we brought him here?", perhaps? Juliet cuts him off, saying Jack's a doctor and he can help save Colleen. As Jack and Juliet scrub up, Jack sees x-rays on the wall. Juliet tells him they are not Colleen's.

Jack and Juliet work on Colleen but are unable to save her life. The crash cart and paddles aren't working and Jack's efforts at CPR fail. All the while, Benry, Danny and Tom are watching from a glass-enclosed observation room above.

Danny's not happy, not at all (Colleen was his wife), and he goes after Sawyer. He drags him out of his cage and beats the ever loving crap out of him. With each punch, he asks Kate if she loves him. Finally, Kate relents, crying, saying "Yes! I love him!" Danny stops and walks away, telling someone to lock Sawyer back up.

FB. Sawyer reads Of Mice and Men. Munson approaches, tells him he was right about the Warden, his wife, etc., and he wants Sawyer to move the money for him. Sawyer tells him that that's why you never get attached, because once you care, that's when they can come at ya."

Zoo. Sawyer nurses his wounds and Kate, despite Sawyer's protests, climbs out of her cage through the bars at the top, like a little monkey. She goes to his cage and wants to know what they did to him that has made him so scared? (It has started to rain, which becomes significant a little later on, I think) He tells her that she has to go and leave him there. She wants to know why he didn't fight back when Danny was beating him. He says, "If you really love me, go." She replies, "I only said that so he'd stop hitting you." Oh, that's cold. She walks back to her cage and climbs back in. He repeats to her that she should just go, that "it's every man for himself", but she just looks at him and says, "Live together, die alone." (which was the title of the season 2 finale)

Benry is watching all of this on his video monitors. Tom reminds him that Danny wants to kill Sawyer, but Benry says that Danny can wait. Tom asks if he should bring Jack back, but Benry says no, he wants him to sit with her (Colleen's body) a little longer.

Jack is handcuffed to the table upon which Colleen's body lies. Juliet comes in and apologizes for the handcuffs. She tells Jack that she's a fertility doctor and she's not used to death. She says she should have come for Jack sooner, but he says that it wouldn't have made a difference. She asks if he's just saying that to make her feel better and he says, "I don't care about making you feel better." Zing! She goes to un-handcuff him and he grabs her arm and pull her closer and you could cut the UST with a knife, the air is so thick with it. He asks her whose x-rays those were - he knows they're the spinal x-rays of a man about 40 years old, and that the person has a tumor on his spine. Since Jack just happens to be a spinal surgeon, he wonders who it is they've brought him here to see.

Beach. Desmond has stuck a tall pole in the sand near Claire's shelter, tied a golf club to the top of it, and run a wire from the club down into the ground. Ah, a lightning rod. He's chatting with Hurley when a thunderclap rings out and it starts to pour rain (is this the storm we saw earlier at the zoo?). As Charlie, Claire and Aaron huddle in their shelter, lightning crashes down near them, striking the lightning rod that Desmond just built. Charlie realizes that Desmond somehow knew that their shelter was going to get hit by lightning. (I'm really liking this storyline, btw)

Zoo. Benry wakes Sawyer up early in the morning and tells him they're going to go for a walk.

Flashbacking. Sawyer's taken by guards to a building somewhere on the prison grounds. The Warden is waiting inside for him, along with an agent from the Treasury Department. Turns out, it was all a setup, a con, to find out where Munson had hidden the $10 million. Sawyer tells them where Munson hid the money, and the Warden tells him that as agreed, the last 6 years of his sentence would be commuted. The Agent asks him how he wants his "commission", and Sawyer tells him to open a new account in a bank in Albequerque, in the name of Clementine Phillips, and to make sure she never knows where the money came from. Aw.

As Benry, Sawyer and some Others hike up a hillside, Benry tells Sawyer that it's not too much further, that there's something up there he wants him to see. Benry tells him that there is no pacemaker in his chest, that his heart is not going to explode: "The only thing we put into you is doubt." He then pulls the bunny, alive and well, out of his man-purse and explains to Sawyer that the bunny didn't die, they just gave him a sedagive - I mean a sedative. Sawyer punches Benry in the face, but B stays cool as a cucumber.

They walk a little further, to a cliff. Sawyer cannot believe his eyes as he looks out over the ocean and sees another island.



Benry tells him that he's looking at "your island" and that the island he's standing on is like Alcatraz and there's no way he can escape, there's nowhere to run.

(Now I know why they needed a sub to get Colleen back and why the rain hit the beach so much later in the timeline)

He tells Sawyer, "We did all this because the only way to gain a con man's respect is to con him. We're a lot better." Benry says the funny thing, though, is that it wasn't the pacemaker that kept him in line, it was when they threatened Kate: "You work so hard to make her think you don't care, you don't need her." But no man is an island, Sawyer.

Next week: The island grows restless!!