A Case of the.... Lost - Episode 5-11 Revisited

A little light on the reader feedback this week. C’mon readers, send me your thoughts!

Over at my blog, “The Blog of Steel(e)” offered this:

This is pure speculation, but I'm thinking that maybe Richard is Faraday's father, based on how the bearded Other asked him if he should tell Ellie first. Like you said, if Widmore's in charge, why should Ellie matter? Maybe her and Richard were "together," and created little Daniel. Also, I read somewhere else, EW, I think, a theory that the bearded Other who approached Kate and Sawyer with the guns could be young Tom Friendly, which would be pretty awesome.

Click the "Read More" link for the full column.

While the idea of Richard being Daniel’s father is interesting, I’m not sure I buy it. Or that I’d want for it to happen. For one, Daniel most definitely appeared to recognize Ellie when they encountered each other on the island in the 1950’s. He certainly didn’t share that familiarity during his interactions with Richard. Additionally, one of the most alluring aspects of Richard’s character is that he’s this almost-mythical entity. He doesn’t age, and he seems even more in tune with the island than Ben, Widmore, and Locke. He’s also heavily involved with recruiting, evident through his mainland interest in Juliet and Locke. There’s just something so mystical and mysterious about him, and I feel like giving him a relationship with a female Other and having him father a child makes him just a tad bit TOO human.

That being said, the idea of the bearded Other being Tom is absolutely awesome. He’s now one of the very few “name” Others that we don’t really know anything about. He doesn’t appear to be a scientist like many of the rest. So what did he do? Why was he the apparent “Other” spokesperson during the early seasons? I’m eager to find out more about him, and to discover that he’s been with the group since the 70’s is rather interesting.

One thing that struck me as odd while reading the comments on the EW.com Lost review was how many viewers felt that this episode was the conclusive proof that Kate is in love with Sawyer and that these two are soul mates. Ummmm, what? Sure, she was giving him the gooey eyes every now and again, but that was expected. I mean, these two had an undeniably close relationship that came to a very abrupt, unexpected, and emotional end. Reuniting after three years is bound to drudge up those old emotions. But does that mean she’s in love with him and no longer has feelings for Jack? I just don’t see it that way. In my opinion, the episode just as easily could have acted as their “closure” chapter. Here’s what I said in my original column (slightly abridged):

In a lot of ways, it did sorta feel like they were providing us with a resolution to the whole Sawyer/Kate ordeal. I’m not so naive that I believe that this was their “closure” episode, but I do believe it could play as the first step towards leading to that point.

Think about it: Cassidy insisted that Kate only took Aaron to fill the void left by Sawyer (an obvious case of emotional projection). But when it came time for Kate to return to the island, what was her motivation? Was it Sawyer? No. It was doing the right thing for Aaron. And when she required solace, she turned to Jack (despite the fact that she knew she’d likely be seeing Sawyer in less than 24 hours). On top of that, Sawyer sent his fair share of signals as well. Sure, he assisted Kate. But the gesture wasn’t for her, it was for Juliet. He even explicitly stated that the two of them wouldn’t have worked, and that the “new” him is meant for Juliet.

But yeah, all of that equals Kate and Sawyer being soul mates.

I also think it’s easy to overlook that even though we’ve only had, like, three episodes of Sawyer in Dharma-land – opposed to the four and a half seasons of him with the Losties – you have to keep in mind that in their universe, he’s known Kate for about 100 days and that he’s known Juliet for over three years. While an emotional connection doesn’t necessarily equate to the amount of time you’ve spent together, to me there really shouldn’t be any competition.

For that matter, a lot of people were upset that Sawyer sided with the Dharma folks instead of Sayid when he was being held captive. Again, he’s known Sayid for less than four months. He’s lived with the Initiative for three years. Who would you feel more loyalty towards?

And I think all of this brings up an interesting, yet rarely mentioned, idea: How much does Sawyer now know about the island? In addition to being head of security (and one would assume, relatively highly ranked), he’s also shown a personal relationship with Horace and Amy, the First Couple of the Dharma Initiative. It isn’t outside the realm of possibility that they’d trust Sawyer with some confidential information. Along with that, every now and then we see Juliet reveal some gem about the Others that we hadn’t known (they speak Latin! They can heal people!) Throughout their three years together – much of the time, we can assume, in a relationship and living together – it’s easy to imagine that she’d share some secrets with him. If you want to extend his social circle even further, Richard seems comfortable enough around him that it’s likely they’ve talked more than just that time in the 1950’s and that night in 1974. Sure, Sawyer was never the inquisitive type when it came to all of these island mysteries, but with so many sources of information, he must know more than he seems.

Hey, just think about how long it took him before he revealed that youngster Ben was living with them.

And, as always, enjoy the latest installment of Lost! Untangled: