LOST: Episode 6.8

Recon

March 23...I don't have my recap ready - I realized this morning that I never finished it! - so this post will act as a place holder for now. I hope to post more when I get home tonight, before I watch the new ep. In the meantime, consider this:

Am I the only one distracted by Josh Holloway's physical appearance this season? He seems changed. There's something about his face that's different. New teeth? Perhaps. He looks puffy, too. And if he didn't have on a wig or at least some sort of hairpiece or extensions in last night's episode, I'll eat my tin foil hat. It's really bothering me.

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Two days later...Well, I wasn't really successful in putting together a coherent recap/analysis of this episode. I'm not sure why. I do know that I felt a little detached while watching it, and I think that's because it aired following one of LOST's best episodes - "Dr. Linus" - and wasn't as emotionally resonant for me as that one was. It was also really plot heavy, which I don't always mind, but when there's so much going on it can be tough to connect with the characters on screen on a meaningful level.

So what I've got here are a whole bunch of notes and questions that I am going to pretty much just transcribe here. Sort of willy-nilly.

• I loved that Alt-Sawyer is a cop, but still obsessed with avenging his parents. He's clearly made better choices in this timeline of his life, and the portrayal of his alternate character fits with the others we have seen so far: They still have their central conflict, or characteristic, but they don't let it define them. Except perhaps for Kate. And Sayid.
• There were tons of callbacks to prior episodes/characters/episode details in the Alt scenes: Miles and Charlotte were the obvious ones (Charlotte looked beautiful but I really would have preferred she turned out to be Juliette); Charlie's brother Liam looking for him at the police station; the code word "LaFleur"; Little House on the Prairie, which Sawyer admitted to watching in a previous ep; "Watership Down"; and Sawyer bringing Charlotte the sunflower, like he did for Juliette.
• So, if Sawyer is a cop, why did he let Kate go at the airport? Now that we know he's a cop, though, it makes his admonishment to Hurley about people taking advantage of him sincere and credible.
• Do you think Sawyer was planning a con against MIBLocke from the very beginning, or at least since the cave, or do you think it wasn't until he found out that MIBLocke is the smoke monster and killed all of the people at the Temple?
• Sayid and Claire really are off their respective nuts. I think they are lost for good.
• What the heck was MIBLocke talking about when he was telling Kate about his crazy mother? For a second there I thought he was implying that, through some time loop thingy, that he was in fact Aaron and Claire was his mother, but I've since abandoned that one (this show makes you think crazy things). Could he have been manipulating Kate into killing Claire? I'm actually starting to feel bad for Kate.
• OK, so MIBLocke's big plan is to leave the Island on the Ajira plane. Who is going to fly it? Or is he just telling a tale to get people to follow him and help him escape? I doubt he can just get on a plane and fly off the Island. I don't know, it just seems too easy. There must be some reason he is gathering followers, something that he needs them for, like maybe he needs to pay a "ferry man" to get off the Island and the toll is like, 20 souls or something. I'm just not seeing a logical plan yet.
• Speaking of a plan, who's going to pilot the submarine, Sawyer?

And speaking of the submarine, what in the world is behind that padlocked door?? I'd like to think it was Desmond (please please please), but I'm not sure that Widmore would have to keep him locked up like that. Next week's episode is called "The Package", so I think it's a good bet we're going to find out.

I will try to get something posted about this week's fantastic Richard Alpert episode tonight, but I am going to NYC in the morning for the weekend, so I may not get to it. But I will try!