Notes on LaFleur

Enough good stuff has been written about "LaFleur" that I won't do the proper way-too-long review I usually write. But here are some general notes about the episode:

-I really enjoyed how the writers incorporated Sawyer's conman skills into the episode. He's not the natural leader that Jack is, but he pulled through nonetheless in his detailed cover story to Horace. Sawyer's come a long way, and he totally earned his place as one of the show's best characters this episode. It also perfectly makes sense why he'd want to stay beyond simply waiting for his friends to return: the island has helped him come a long way from being the tortured antagonizer he was when he crashed.

-The episode was leading up to Sawyer's reunification with Kate, which naturally leads to the question of whether or not he still has feelings for her. But when you look at the time frame, it shouldn't be an issue. Sawyer knew Kate for a total of 108 days. He then spent about another week pining after her before seriously considering Juliet as an alternative. He then spent three years with Juliet. They didn't get together immediately? Fine, let's say two years: he's been as good as married to Juliet for that long. Compare that to his fling with Kate.

All this is to say that I really hope the writers don't create a lot of manufactured romantic drama about Kate's return. Yes, you know I think Juliet is awesome and Kate is an annoying drag, but put my thoughts aside completely and look at the time line alone, and it's a joke.

-So what are the odds: Bernard and Rose pop up in a few episodes as prisoners of Richard Alpert's Others, or we simply never hear from them again? Or Option C?

-A shift in Faraday's time travel philosophy this episode: his "whatever happened, happened" line makes it pretty clear that he now thinks there's only one time line: Sawyer et al won't change the past by being members of the Dharma Initiative because they were "always" there. (From a storytelling perspective, that'd be the best option because it mostly avoids paradoxes.) The thing is, doesn't that mean Ben will have met them?

-Whether Saywer and friends have met and interacted with Young Ben is obviously a question that will be answered soon. But I think the show dropped a major hint near the end of the episode: a scene in Dharma Town began with a close-up of a chess board, but we couldn't see who was playing. Then it zooms to Sawyer, heading home to Juliet. Doesn't Ben like to play chess?

-Another issue: Daniel saw Charlotte as a little girl, but that was in 1974, and according to Ben in Season 4, Charlotte was born in '79 in England. A lot of people are saying it's a mistake, but I think it's easy to explain: naturally, her "official" biography would leave out her time on the island, and probably set the date of her birth at the time she moved. Her mom tried to make her forget her time with Dharma.

-So whatever's making babies die on the island in the 2005 present wasn't an issue in 1977. So what caused the shift? The Purge is the only big event I can think of. I'm inclined to think we haven't seen it yet but we'll know when it happens.

-Speaking of the Purge, did Charles Widmore order it? If he was chronologically the leader of the Others directly before Ben, the time line matches up well, and Ben told Hurley last season that the leader at the time ordered it. Richard can be cold, but I've never thought of him as pathological.

-Finally, the re-appearance (presumably) of the four-toed statue. Decidedly Egyptian in nature, as is the Ankh necklace and Richard Alpert's eyeliner. The thing is, Richard Alpert doesn't wear eyeliner. Nestor Carbonell's eyes just look like that. Happy accidents. Either way, I'd love to learn the history, although now that the time-jumping is (possibly) over, they might be stuck with giving us paragraphs of exposition.

TAGS: Fourtoed Statue, Juliet, Kate, Lafleur, Sawyer, Season 5
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