Monday, April 14, 2008

Season 1, Episode 8: Solitary

Sayid is bored. Striking out on his own may have been a bad idea. He's just sitting on the beach, staring at some stock photos that you get when you buy a picture frame. You know the ones I'm talking about. Finally he sees something that piques his interest: A cable running from the forest out into the ocean. Maybe if he pulls hard enough he can pull the island back to some main body of land.

Jack is changing Sawyer's bandages and Sawyer is being a dick. Same old, same old. Jack gets annoyed and tells him to change his own bandages, also they are out of Hannah Montana ones. He finds Kate staring off into the distance dreamily, thinking about what Sayid is doing right now. Jack assures her that Sayid is a trained soldier, he'll be okay. What Jack doesn't realize is that Sayid was trained to be a soldier in Iraq, they didn't really cover jungle survival, but how different can the jungle be from the desert?

Turns out a lot. Sayid SEES a trip wire, stares at it for a few seconds and then proceeds to spring the trap which leaves him hanging upside down out of a tree by his ankle. Nice going, Jack, he's doing just great on his own. A good King Doctor wouldn't have let this happen. Cut to nighttime, Sayid is still hanging around, getting delusional from all the blood rushing to his head, but luckily for him, someone cuts him down. Too bad he passes out before he can see who it is.

Jack is treating an old Harry Potter's back rash. Hurley is worried about the general populace's spirits. Jack doesn't have time to worry about fun, though. "Things could be worse, Hurley."
"How?" Hurley responds. For once I agree with someone on this show.

Meanwhile, things are worse for Sayid. He's tied to an old bed mattress and an old French lady is shocking him with a car battery and asking him "Where is Alex?"
"Who's Alex? Did you name a polar bear Alex? Because if you did... umm... bad news..."

Flashback.

Sayid is interrogating some dude in another language. Luckily, with some camera tricks, they change the language to English so that I don't have to read subtitles. TAKE A HINT KOREAN STORY LINE. The dude he's torturing doesn't know anything. Afterwards, it sounds like Sayid is getting a promotion or something, but he stops paying attention when he sees a pretty lady walk by in handcuffs. I stopped paying attention when Charlie Pace was no longer on screen.

Flash present.

Locke comes back from a night hunt with some dude named Ethan. Total Dweeb. They found some suitcases, so they give them to Hurley to rummage through. He finds a kickass Hawaiian shirt. Score. Walt sneaks over to talk to Mr. Locke. He wants to go out hunting with him, but Michael catches him. Nice try, kid. Meanwhile, Hurley finds something in the suitcase worthy of him muttering, "Woah, dude," to himself. Judging by his reaction it could be anything from a new airplane to a half eaten Twix.

Sayid, on the other hand, is still getting shocks from a car battery. The crazy jungle lady starts talking in French. She's the lady from the recording! Oh, it's like they're old friends. Except she punches him in the face and he passes out. Judging from the flashbacks, perhaps they are old friends. He wakes up to find that absolutely nothing has changed. She seems to be the survivor of... something, and she talks about some other people, maybe. She starts asking who the woman is in those stock photographs he has. He has apparently named her Nadia.

Flashback.

Oh, it's the girl from the handcuff thing earlier. Sayid has to interrogate her. Bummer. Looks like they're friends or something. Or at least they used to be, when they were kids. Except she didn't punch him and he didn't pass out, so it's too early to tell. She used to pick on him. Well... the tables have turned. Payback is a bitch. She's been tortured before, though, so it's cool.

Flash forward.

French lady finds an old bullet wound that Sayid has. Makes some small talk. He's still tied to the bed frame. She asks about Nadia, he asks about Alex. Neither of them answer the other.

Cut to Walt, who is bored, it's as if he's watching this with me. Michael tells him to find a way to keep himself entertained. Hurley, on the other hand, is almost beside himself with amusement for some unknown reason. Jack is just happy he doesn't have to look at him for a while.

Back at crazy French lady's house, she doesn't believe Sayid about, well, anything. Boring. Oh, we find out that Nadia is dead because of Sayid. Then French lady starts stroking his face and saying she's sorry and we all get a little creeped out. Then all of a sudden she says, "I want to show you something."

Michael drew up some plans for a shower. Jack is impressed, but Charlie Pace runs in looking concerned because Hurley of all people has something important that everyone should see. This certainly is cause for alarm, but things take a turn for the awesome when we find out that Hurley has found a set of golf clubs and constructed one of the shittiest golf courses I've ever seen. Michael and Jack are pissed, Charlie Pace seems amused. Hurley raises the very good point that their lives suck and they need to have some fun. It's as if he broke the fourth wall and was talking directly to me.

French lady shows Sayid a music box she has, which is a less creepy result that I was expecting, so... thank you, tv show. Sadly the music box is broken, but she got it from her "lover".
"Alex?" Sayid asks.
"Robert." She responds.
Jesus, lady, how many lovers did you have on this island? Well, that's the French. Sayid says he can fix it if she unties him, but come on. No one's gonna fall for that one. She seems intrigued, though, but instead of untying his hands, she injects him with something and he passes out again.

Jack and Michael come around, and they're all enjoying a round of two hole golf. Old Harry Potter finds them and sees that they're playing golf. He seems mad at first, but then he wants to play too. They all say no and he walks away muttering something about a broken wand and advada kedavra under his breath.

Sayid wakes up tied to a pole or something. She wants him to fix the box so she moved him to a place where he can work. It's kind of a roundabout way to get him over there, but I guess they have some time on their hands. He agrees to fix it if she tells him her name. It's Danielle... totally a fake name. Danielle is like the 555 of names. Here's here story in a nutshell: She was on a science team, things went wrong, there were sounds... their ship ran aground. It was only supposed to be a three hour tour. Everyone went crazy or something, or the monster killed them. She's not really clear on the details. Zombies or something. She mentions some people called "the others" and a black rock. She can "hear" "others" "whispering". It's all very spooky and over dramatic and not very informative at all, but such is the nature of the beast. I'm referring here to both the monster and this style of narrative.

Flashback.

Sayid brought Nadia some bread. He wants her to help them identify some suspects in a bombing but she won't. Yeah, I was disappointed, too.

Flash forward.

South Beachton has caught word of the new golf course. The annoying kids decide to go. So does Kate. Sawyer makes some sarcastic remarks. Par for the course, though.

Hooray! Sayid has fixed the music box. Now we can listen to that annoying tune for the next 16 years! Finally, something to do. She still won't let him go, though. She starts yelling that it's not safe, but before she can explain there's like a dinosaur yell outside so she grabs a gun and runs outside.

Flashback.

Sayid has to execute Nadia, and I thought I had a bad day at work.

Flash forward.

Sayid escapes from the French lady's fort, grabs some maps, probably so it looks like he did something useful while he was gone, and also he grabs a gun.

We cut back to a golf course with a bunch of people watching one black guy play. It's the 1997 Master's tournament all over again. Everyone playing golf and enjoying themselves. You gotta hand this one to Hurley, but careful he sometimes mistakes fingers for sausages. Walt is kind of pissed because Michael left him alone at the caves. He thought he was with Claire, but she's asleep... which means that the pregnant girl is now alone... back in West Caverberg.

Sayid is running through the jungle, wishing that he had joined the Congo military, but he has a stroke of luck when he catches up behind Danielle and then they have an old fashioned hunting rifle standoff.

Flashback.

Sayid doesn't want to kill Nadia so he helps her break out, shoots his guard friend, shoots himself in the leg, and gives her the gun. She writes him a little note on the back of her picture and runs away.

Flash forward.

Ahh nuts. Sayid's gun doesn't work. Turns out Robert fell for the same trick "when she shot him". In fact, Danielle killed all her friends. The professor, Giligan, Mary Anne. All of them. I guess Nadia might still be alive, which is good news. Except Sayid is now stuck on an island... he tried to convince Danielle to come back to West Caverberg with him, but she won't. She warns him to watch the other castaways but doesn't explain why. Oh, turns out Alex was her child.

Charlie Pace and Jack are battling it out to win the golf tournament. Bets start flying around. Sawyer shows up just in time for the gambling, but no one is happy to see him. Kate takes his bet and so does annoying kid. Awww... they're all becoming friends. Everyone except Locke who is taking out his aggressions by throwing knives at an innocent tree by himself. Walt shows up, though, to keep him company, but mostly because those hunting knives are totally dope, and Walt fucking hates trees.

Sayid is not doing well. He's Lost in the jungle and he starts hearing that whispering the crazy French lady was talking about.

Lost.

2 comments:

Yogurt the Wisenheimer said...

Am I the only one that after looking at the Jungle Book picture immediately had The Bear Necessities stuck in my head all friggin' day????? Yeah!I think so....

m.w. said...

Why did we end here!