I wanted to push my self to write more on my blog, so I decided upon writing about LOST episodes that “changed the game”. My emphasis on game changing, means to me that the episode had a moment or scene where something was revealed that changed the way I perceived the show. So without further ado, I’ll start the list off.
Every Man for Himself was the fourth episode of season 3. Stuck in the middle of the 6-pack of fall episodes, before the very long wait of 17 episodes that ran back to back in the spring of 2007. This series of episode has gotten a bad rap, after re-watching all the episodes the past six months, I’ve found new appreciation of being stuck in the Dharma Zoo. This episode was the turning point of that arc.
The back story was all about Sawyer and his willingness to con anyone if it favors his own skin. Off island Sawyer really was a scallywag, and his preference for the long con is showing strong in the back story. The characterization really highlighted Sawyer’s past character, and really around this point the back stories were getting a bit repetitive. Still they managed to have Sawyer pull a fast one, and was an enjoyable story, and left a few breadcrumbs for fans to hold on two in the larger arc of the story. Besides, who doesn’t like Bill Duke as the prison warden.
On the island, we are seeing Sawyer and Kate bond as they try to figure a way out of the animal cages. Ben catches a whiff of this and pulls Sawyer out of the cage, after beating him real good with his Daredevil cane. The first glimpse of a Dharma test bunny is revealed as Ben demonstrates to Sawyer what will happen if his heart rate goes to fast.
Sawyer and Kate get a glimpse of a hooded Jack getting ferried to the Dharma operation station, to operate on Colleen (who was shot by Sun when the Others stole back Desmond’s boat). The operation is futile, and an enraged Danny (Colleen’s husband, and the main warden of the Others’ prison camp) goes to take out his rage on Sawyer. Sawyer gets the best of him by pummeling Danny’s fists with his face a few times, then to add insult to injury revealing, unbidden, his love for Kate. (wait, maybe I have that backwards…)
Anyway, the point is that Sawyer is too worried about his imminently exploding heart to put up a fight or over exert himself anytime the pulse monitoring watch goes off.
The real game changing scene was after a long hike, Ben reveals that he conned the con-man, and Sawyer doesn’t have a heart monitor and he faked the rabbit’s demise. But that wasn’t the reason he brought Sawyer on the trek, the real reason was just over the last rise. The image of Ben and Sawyer on a bluff over looking a wide expanse of ocean to the main island. Jack, Sawyer and Kate weren’t only imprisoned, they were trapped on another island.
Stand by for more Game Changers in the days to come.