S1Ep16 - Outlaws (Sawyer's second flashback)

[This message was initially sent as an email to friends, it was loaded into this blog 2.5 years later]

Hello my dear friends,

I was disappointed in this episode, having had high hopes after it was being touted as one of the best three episodes of the season. However, it was chock full of good information, so here is the recap:

1) The whispers

Before this episode, people thought the whispers were: 1) People watching the castaways, who are actually in some sort of virtual-reality game, 2) Voices from the present trying to wake the characters up from a real-life coma, 3) Government figures talking about the experiment going on on the island that the castaways are unknowingly a part of, 4) A sign that someone has come down with "the sickness" and is going crazy, 5) Some sort of sound trick... they are actually people talking somewhere else on the island.

In this episode, Sawyer heard the whispers on separate occasions when he was alone in the jungle. It was clear that one of the things he heard was "It will come back around," which we learned at end were the dying words of the man Sawyer killed. While in the past there have been many different theories on what the whispers actually are, to me this episode makes it clear that the whispers are specific to the person hearing them (as in, Sayid is going to hear different things than what Sawyer hears), and that they are related to things that are haunting that person (as in, they are not happy childhood memories). Some people think now that only characters who have killed people will hear the whispers ... we know that Danielle (French woman), Sayid and Sawyer have all killed people, and so far they have all heard them. This theory can be built upon or trashed depending on if anyone else hears the whispers in future episodes. Also, on the "killing people" topic, we now know that at least 5 people on island are killers: Danielle, Sayid, Sawyer, Charlie and Kate. And Ethan if he's not really dead. That's kind of a lot of people. Someone said on the boards, 'Was this Oceanic Flight 815 or Con Air?"

2) I loved Terminator 2, so was happy to see Robert Patrick in the role of Hibbs. It was interesting when he said to Sawyer, "We both know you ain't
the killin' type..." he said this kind of sarcastically, and BEFORE
Sawyer killed the shrimp guy, so it leads me to believe Sawyer has killed someone else before that? Not sure.

3) The woman Sawyer was messing around with in the beginning is Michael's (Walt's dad) wife in real life.

4) In Homecoming, everyone on the boards wondered, "Now that the guns are out, do they go back in?" and at least THAT question was answered... the guns ALL went back into the case.

5) Jack made an interesting comment to Kate - "I don't want you to owe him anything." Jealousy because he likes Kate, or hates Sawyer, or a little of both?

6) MANY people on the boards think Ethan is NOT DEAD. He was CLEARLY still breathing in the shot of his body where Hurley and Charlie were burying him. However, I think this was just the fact that he was a LIVE actor and had to breathe. Hello?!?!?!!? Anyway, everyone was like, "Why wouldn't they BURN his body to be sure?" Point taken. I did like Hurley's comment about "I know how this is going to end, with us running and screaming through the jungle, and he'll catch me first."

7) Some good lines in the episode: ... Kate to Sawyer after she learns he's bothered by the boar: "Go tell Locke and he'll kill it!" Sawyer to Kate after her diatribe on boars not trying to seek revenge, "Thank YOU, boar expert." Sawyer to Kate after the I Never question about one-night stands, "I gotta drink for each one???"

8) Things learned from the I Never game: Kate was MARRIED. Was this the "man that she loved, the man that she killed?" The thing that has bothered me IMMENSELY about this scene is that Sawyer said "I never killed a man" and Kate drank. What is bugging me is WHY Sawyer would say that. Because remember, ONLY Jack and Hurley know that Kate was the criminal on board the plane, Sawyer did NOT know this. Is it just me, or is that a really strange thing to bring up in I Never? They go from wearing pink to having one night stands to being in love to KILLING someone? The only thing I can think is that he is on to her because in the pilot episode she pretended to not know how to use a gun, but then in ‘Homecoming’ they gave her one of the guns and she all of a sudden knew what was going on. But it still seems like a stretch. No one has brought this up on the boards that I can tell. Anyone have any ideas? If the time warp theory is correct and they actually are reliving a period of time over and over and some characters realize it and others don't, then this could make sense. Sawyer could've found out in a previous time loop that Kate killed someone.

9) Some more info revealed about Locke: His sister Jeannie died when he was young, and he had a foster mother. Once again, Locke seemed to appear right at the perfect time and tell Sawyer the story about the dog who his mom thought was his sister reincarnated. Ending with a "it's not your fault" sort of moral to his story. Although I was confused by this, because by the end of the episode when we see that Sawyer killed the WRONG person, I didn't understand what Locke's point with that story was. It wasn't Sawyer's fault for killing some innocent guy? Or it wasn't his fault that his dad killed his mom and then himself, so Sawyer just needs to let it go now? If it was the latter, then I guess it kind of makes sense. Regardless, Locke still rocks.

10) We learned Sawyer's real name MAY be James. At least that's what he called himself to the guy he thought was the real Sawyer.

11) So... the big twist near the end was that Sawyer had met Jack's dad in the bar. And they both kind of led to each other's demise... Sawyer helped Jack's dad drink himself to death (remember, Jack's dad died later that same night... was found in an alley by the police), and Jack's dad encouraged Sawyer to take care of whatever he needed to in order to be at peace. Obviously Jack's dad didn't know that entailed killing someone, but he was the one saying, "What are you sitting here for? Go do it!"

12) And finally, Sawyer had several chances during this episode to redeem himself and turn over a new leaf. He could've actually told Sayid that he also heard the voices, but then got all snotty again. He was mean to the little baby boar (even though he didn't end up killing the big one), and at the end he clearly started realizing, if not fully realizing, that he was talking to Jack's DAD. But yet he chose to end the conversation and not share with Jack the things that his dad said about him before he died. Unlike other characters such as Charlie and Sayid who have faced demons in their flashbacks and then kind of shed them, Sawyer hasn't.


There has been a big theory on the boards about the fact that since we are finding out that all of the characters have some sort of "six degrees of separation" thing going on before the crash, that perhaps they each hold the key to another's "redemption" and that that is the way off the island/out of purgatory/out of the game/to stop the time loop/choose your own theory.

Charlie needs Claire to prove he can take care of someone, Sawyer can help Jack get over his bad relationship with his dad if he tells him the stuff his dad said when they talked, Sayid can make Shannon see that she is not totally worthless, etc., etc. But it doesn't really work so well for a lot of the other characters, so I'm not sure how deep this theory can really go. However, I do think it may become more obvious as time goes on.

No posts from the message boards this week as there really wasn't anything too earth-shattering being debated regarding this episode, and because it's late Monday night and I am severely pressed for time to do the other recap!

- e