The Brig

***LOST SPOILERS***DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN LAST NIGHT'S EPISODE***

Also, reading this post will expose me as the giant, giant nerd I am.

Another excellent episode of LOST (although as always, that's up for debate). A couple of thoughts, in no particular order:

• I predicted over a year ago that Locke's father would indeed be the real Sawyer (that's not really that impressive - I've made a lot of predictions that haven't come true). Tonight's episode finally resolved that story line which has been dangling since season 1. I hate to say that I took some satisfaction seeing Sawyer reach back to his bad-boy roots and actually kill the old con man. He'd become so warm and fuzzy lately that I didn't think the writers would let us see something that brutal. Josh Holloway put in what is probably his best performance of the series.

• Great seeing Black Rock again - it made the scenes between Sawyer and Locke's dad all the more creepy. I thought it odd Rousseau just popping in for some TNT. My guess is we're going to see her use that dynamite some time before the finale.

• Locke's father claimed that he came to the island after being rear-ended in a car accident, upon which paramedics hooked him up to an IV, and he woke up in a supply closet on the island. Two things are interesting: (i) Having him believe that he was in hell or purgatory was a nice wink by the writers to the fans. That theory has been kicking around since the early days, and although it was not explicitly refuted, I don't think there's more to it. Where-ever they are, it ain't hell; (ii) This car-accident business sounds like the work of the mysterious yet powerful Mittelos Bioscience / Dharma / Wigmore people (whichever). These were the same people who had Juliet's ex-husband serendipitously hit with a bus so she would take a job on the island. I see no reason why they just didn't do the same with Locke's dad. This suggests two things: the all-powerful organization is the "big-box metaphor" Ben describes and that despite the destruction of the submarine, there is still a means of getting to and from the island.
  

• I don't think anyone was surprised to learn Naomi was part of an organization hired by Penny Wigmore, Desmond's true love, to try and find him. Naomi's people are stationed on a barge a mere 80-miles off the island. While surveying from her helicopter, the clouds randomly parted and she was able to find the island. I'm not sure what to make of her arrival and what implications it'll have for the show. Considering they're not being rescued any time soon (because that would be the end of the show, no? Although I wouldn't put something like that past the writer's of Battlestar Galactica), what role will she play?
  

• Jack and Juliet have a secret, but what is it? Is Jack colluding with her to sabotage Ben's infiltration plan? Whatever happened to Jack in his post Hydra-station days with the Others has yet to be revealed, and whatever it is, I suspect it's important.
  

• Why did Ben tell Locke about their plan to kidnap the pregnant women? He seemed rather caviler disclosing that fact.
  

• Whatever that pole Locke's father was tied to in the Other's camp seemed to be a relic from the past - the same past responsible for the four-toed statue we saw briefly in last season's finale.
  

Thoughts? Theories? Frustrations? Only three episodes left until we have to wait all the way till January, 2008 for Season 4. Next week's (entitled "The Man Behind The Curtain") appears to show us the Dharma Initiative in its heyday (!) and the revelation of whatever cards Jack and Julia have been holding up their sleeves.