S1Ep21 - The Greater Good (Sayid'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 faithful Lost friends,

Sorry I was not able to get this message out before last week's episode...
all work and no play makes e very bitter...

Now I'm on the plane back from LaGuardia and going through and editing some message board posts (shout out to "Fritz" who is sitting directly behind me right now). Despite the fact that I am really excited to have stumbled upon a new board with hilarious posters, at the same time I'm annoyed that I didn't check this board before because I'm sure I missed out on some funny stuff. I guess that's what I'll do this summer because I'm a loser.

As my flight was delayed the typical hour on the tarmac and now we are circling around above Chicago unable to land for some reason, I've pasted in an extra long thread of posts from two different sites. Also you should know that I am still writing this recap without having seen "Born to Run" (the next episode) as our group at work went bowling that night, so I am not "tainted" in knowing what happens after this episode.

(Complete side note: While we were bowling (next to Brian Williams and the crew from NBC Nightly News, I may add...), my co-worker Fritz (mentioned above) comes up to me and goes, "Do not look at the TV..." (they had tons of TVs mounted all over the bowling alley). So of course I look up and what is on but Lost. So I'm freaking out because I know I do not have the self-restraint to not peek at it throughout the night. I run up to an employee and say "You MUST change the TV channel now!!!!" and I explained my dire situation. He actually was sympathetic to my plight and asked what he should change it to, to which I replied, "Just anything but ABC!!!!!"

Shortly thereafter, the light went off in someone's head at the bowling alley and they changed it to NBC, which you would've thought they'd have done in the first place since NBC Nightly News had 12 lanes reserved the whole night! Duh. Crisis averted.)

While I didn't hate "The Greater Good," I didn't love it either. There were many people "on the hate train" (their term) on the boards though, so be prepared for lots o' negativity in the message board section. And the good news is that the majority of people are joining me in my Hate of Kate.

Very, very little was new in this episode, so there are really only a few things to ponder and recap:

1) Boone's Funeral.... or, "The Booneral"

Yep, you read that right... and if you're like me, you laughed out loud.
The people on the boards used this phrase and I was dying laughing. Most people felt it was in poor taste that Jack went all loco on Locke while Boone was being hoisted down six feet under. Many people attributed Jack's behavior to his extreme loss of blood during the transfusion in the previous episode. And they think that blood loss/fatigue is also the same reason why in the last episode he invented... drumroll please: "Amputron 2000." That's what people on this new board were calling Jack's ridiculous luggage-compartment-door-as-guillotine method of trying to chop Boone's leg off. I love it.

I do think Jack is going crazy and I think we all need to pay attention to his behavior in the remaining episodes. His face seems to be all twitchy and in general he's just acting wacked out. Why are you running around in circles in the jungle again, Jack? Sit your ass down and sleep or you are worthless. He is annoying me. I am glad that Kate "drugged" him, it made me hate her a little less.

2) Locke, Wash your D@mn Shirt!

Seriously.

Etiquette Rule #1: Don't go loco at funerals.

Etiquette Rule #2: Do not wear a shirt soaked with the blood of the person who died to that same person's funeral, nor should you attempt to go have a heart-to-heart with said dead person's sister in aforementioned shirt.

Etiquette Rule #3: Do not then attempt to CLEAN blood-soaked shirt in the pool of everyone's drinking water because the stains are never going to come out, it's nasty, and you have at least one other shirt that everyone knows about. Plus, you can surely make another shirt of boar skin if really desperate.


3) "Hotty McGorgeous Eyes"

The girls on the boards were quite enamored with Sayid's friend. As was I. But I can't claim credit for making up that nickname.

4) Locke's Favorite Pastime: Whacking People on Their Heads

I don't know if the writers screwed up (doubtful) or there's something we don't know (likely)... but if you remember way back (to quote NWA: "How far we goin' back? WAaaaaaY back!") to the beginning of the season, in the pilot episode, Locke was NOT with the group of people who heard the French transmission. And they all swore that they would not tell the others about the transmission so as to not freak them out. The knockout of Sayid happened very early in the series, too ("The Moth" - Charlie's first flashback). So Locke is claiming to Sayid to have knocked him out because it wasn't a good idea to be led to the source of a transmission stating over and over again that "it killed them all"... but how did Locke even KNOW about the transmission at that early point? So the only explanations for Locke knowing all of that stuff so early on are: 1) Someone from the original group who heard the transmission told him (and before you say it was Boone... remember that they didn't start hangin' together until way AFTER Sayid was knocked out) or 2) Locke has other means of finding information (if they are in a time loop or a virtual reality game then that could be why he knows a lot of information, or if his encounter with Lostzilla (new board's term for "the monster") revealed things to him).

5) Sayid CHOSE his fate

I thought the coolest thing about this episode, besides the awesome Sayid/Locke scenes, was that we learned at the end that Sayid wasn't supposed to be on the flight, but in essence sealed his doom by doing "the right thing" and staying to bury his friend. Some people wondered if his friend's body was also on the flight a la Jack's zombie dad. Possibly...

Also perhaps there is meaning in WHY people were on the plane. Sayid was supposed to be on another flight but requested the switch himself. Compare that to Claire being handed her ticket by the psychic, who knew the flight was going down. Most other people had seemingly innocent reasons for being on that particular flight (except Sun, who was going to escape Jin but then had a last-minute change of heart)... so this may not be a big deal, but you never know.

6) The theme of "the greater good"

Although this episode may not have revealed much in terms of the story line, I think the theme of the episode is a major theme of the show overall. Many people assume that the camp will divide into two groups... those who follow Locke and those who follow Jack. You could argue that both Jack and Locke THINK they are doing things for "the greater good" of everyone... Jack has (for the most part) unselfish reasons for helping everyone and running around trying to be the savior ... whereas Locke also thinks his actions are justified and are in everyone's best interests, but there still may be some less than noble motivations involved. Locke has withheld information, lied, manipulated people and been fairly shady in general, all to get "the Island" to reward him. Maybe he is doing it in hopes of finding a way for them to all get off the island, but he's said enough in the past to make me believe he doesn’t want to leave. But do NOT GET ME WRONG: I still love me some Locke! The most!

7) Sayid / Locke interaction

The scenes with the two of them were great... they are, IMHO, two of the best characters television has seen in a very long time. The end scene:
Sayid: "And now, you will take me to the hatch." Locke: *Dumbfounded look*
Sayid: "John, no more lies." AWESOME.


8) Best Lines:

Charlie naming the Demon Baby Turniphead.
Sayid's previously mentioned "John, no more lies."
Jin's attempt at English: "Good."


POSTS FROM THE MESSAGE BOARDS

- Hurley, Sawyer, and Charlie will get a spinoff where they share an apartment and raise an orphan when this show is over. Just wait.
- The one thing that I have learned from Lost this season: never trust someone with a file folder containing information you want. Things will never turn out well. This is especially true if the person with the information wants a morally compromising favor from you.
- The Booneral was really sad...until Jack went crazy and then anemic.And I was just thinking..."What could Kate do to make everyone hate her more?" Then she drugs the only doctor on the island, which didn't help at all. I'm sure that was healthy since he recently gave up a load of blood.
- I really hope they take Kate on the raft. Please get rid of Kate.
- The only parts that interested me were Sawyer and Hurley's baby hijinks and Jack finally shutting up and taking a nap. I mean, I hate Kate and all, but even I was ready to slip Jack some 'ludes or something just to shut him down for a minute or ten.
- Anyone else get the feeling she's drugged a man like that before?
- And someone please get the keys to the gun briefcase and for the love of all that is good in this world, KILL KATE NOW. Could she be any more annoying? Drugging the island's only doctor after he's given several pints of blood to Boone. Brilliant. If nobody shoots her, could she please be eaten by the Lostzilla?
- Too many questions: Why didn't Sayid push more about why Locke conked him on the head? How did Shannon find the gun case (as has been asked)? Why doesn't Jack know proper etiquette for a funeral? Why was Kate the voice of reason? How did the CIA know Sayid was in love with Nadia? Why wasn't Charlie and Hurley's singing able to cheer me up from this terrible episode?
- If I were one of the extras I'd be pretty freaked out by now. They're marooned with a trigger-happy brat, a knife-throwing sensei, an arsonist, a heroin addict, a torturer, an escaped fugitive, a hothead doctor, a hothead architect, a hothead thug who doesn't speak English, and Lostzilla. Not to mention the dead baby-snatcher and the psycho who electrocutes people. Get a place on that raft, people!
- I guess the Sayid/Shannon ship has gone the way of the Titanic, which, by the way, would be a great name for the Raft O' Doom they're building.
- So now that everybody hates Locke, I guess there's no chance that they will all chip in and get him a new shirt.
- I love love love me some Sayid and I LOVED his scenes with Locke. Their mutual distrust was a thing of beauty. Sayid's power of knowing when people are lying to him approaches superhero proportions. And it did give us that last great line - "no more lies". So GOOD.
- What a waste of a good tarp.
- While all the wack jobs want to blame Locke for Boone's death, it WAS an accident. Boone was an adult, and willingly went up in the plane, and STAYED in the plane after Locke told him to get out. Locke didn’t rig the plane to fall, and didn’t fake his weakness to get Boone into the plane. He freaked out (like 99% of the population would) and left when he got to camp. What difference would knowing that Boone fell in a plane have made? Probably very little. Bad luck and gravity killed Boone.
- Also how sad was it that duty to his friend landed Sayid stranded. I think was a deliberate poke at everyone who says that it was fate that brought all of these people. I don’t think so. I think it was conscious choice that ended in an unfortunate way.
- Loved the fact that only Sawyer could calm the demon baby down, resorting to reading specs from an auto mag, no less. I also join others in questioning how Shannon knew where both the gun case AND the key were. I'm sure it's no secret on the island that Jack has the key, though the fact that he keeps it around his neck was not public knowledge. But, as far as I remember, only two people knew the location of the case: Jack and Kate. I hate to think badly of my honey, but could Kate have had anything to do with Shannon's finding of the case?


- e