5.9 Namaste

Summary and Spoilers

This episode picks up where La Fleur left off; Sawyer is reacquainted with his ‘friends’ Kate, Hurley, and Jack on the North Point. After shocking them by mentioning that the year is 1977, he rushes back to camp. Juliet helps him formulate a plan: a sub is arriving the following day with new Dharma recruits. Juliet will add three names to the list, and the new arrivals will take jobs at Dharma. That part goes well, although Jack is appalled at being handed a ‘workman’ suit and janitorial duties.

Back at this first meeting, Jack tells Jin that Sun was on the plane that crashed. Jin rushes off to the Flame station, where Dharma employee Radzinsky grudgingly checks with the other stations but finds no evidence that a plane has crashed (of course, we know this is because the plane crashed 30 years later). An intruder breaks through the perimeter and is assumed to be a hostile, but on closer examination, it’s a handcuffed Sayid who is forced to pretend to be a hostile to avoid possibly getting shot. Jin alerts Sawyer to Sayid’s capture; Sawyer arrives and safely takes him back to camp and locks him up (for his own safety) while trying to figure out the next step.

The other people on the plane have crashed on the sister island; they are ½ mile and 30 years away in the present. Ben sneaks away from the group and Sun follows him (and Frank follows Sun). Ben has discovered 3 outrigger boats; he plans to take one across to the main island. Sun agrees to accompany him. But when Ben turns his back, Sun oars him in the head and takes Frank with her instead. On the other island, they are greeted by Christian, who shows them a dusty group Dharma photo from 1977, and tells them that they have a big journey ahead of them.

On the first evening, Jack visits Sawyer at his house and is shocked to find out that James and Juliet are now a couple. Up to now, Sawyer has seemed like a sensible, controlled, fair man since he joined Dharma, but with Jack in the room, he becomes a bit more confrontative. It’s obvious that these guys don’t like each other and are highly competitive. Jack wonders why Sawyer is reading a book and not coming up with a plan; in rebuttal, Sawyer questions Jack’s leadership in his last island stint. Juliet leaves them alone to catch up on old rivalries.

Sayid is alone in his cell. In the evening, an owlish young bespectacled boy who calls himself Ben brings him a sandwich.

Comments

Sayid, Kate, Jack, and Hurley have landed in 1977; the remainder of the people on the plane have landed on the sister island in the present (about 30 years later). It looks like Christian can lead people through a doorway to travel from one time frame to the other.

We meet Ben as a boy, and Ethan (Anna and Horace’s child) as a baby.

Lost is much improved now that the setting has returned to the island(s).

I’m normally not a big fan of time travel, but here it is used well to place our survivors within a different part of known history. It also now gives more value to all that we learned about the early days of Dharma.

If young Ben is on the island, and older Ben arrives there, will he get sick and die the way Charlotte did? Even if you accept the theory of time travel, I don’t think it can be used to have two of you where there is only really one of you.

Memorable Moments

• The crash landing

Quotable Quotes

Sawyer: We're in the Dharma Initiative.
Jack: They came back to the island?
Sawyer: No. We came back. And so did you. It's 1977!
Hugo: Uh... What?

Sun: Why are you leaving?
Ben: Why are you staying?

(Sun knocks Ben out with an oar.)
Frank: I thought you trusted this guy.
Sun: I lied.

Hurley: Okay, so it's 1977.
Sawyer: Yep.
Hurley: And you guys are all members of the Dharma Initiative.
Sawyer: Yep.
Hurley: Well you do realize those dudes get wiped out, right? I mean, I saw the pit where all the bodies got dumped.
Sawyer: I ain't here to play Nostradamus to these people. Besides, Faraday's got some interesting theories on what we can and can't do here.
Jack: Did you say Faraday? He's here?
Sawyer: Not any more.

Jack: We need to find the rest of the people from the plane.
Sawyer: If there was a plane, Jin'll find it. So we got about ten minutes to make Intake, or you're all going to be camping in the jungle for a long time. There aint another batch of recruits due in for six months.
Jack: What do you think?
Kate: I think we should listen to Sawyer.
Hurley: I vote for not camping.

Kate: So the woman who told you how to get back, did she mention it would be thirty years ago?
Jack: No. No, she left that part out.

Hurley: What if they start asking us questions we can't answer, like who's President in 1977?
Sawyer: It's not a damn game show, Hugo.

Juliet: Have you and Horace settled on a name for him?
Amy: Yeah, we have. We're going to name him Ethan.

Young Ben: Are you a hostile?
Sayid: Do you think I am?
Young Ben: What's your name?
Sayid: Sayid, what's yours?
Young Ben: I'm Ben.
Sayid: It's nice to meet you Ben.

Jack: So, where do we go from here?
Sawyer: I'm working on it.
Jack: Really? Because it looked to me like you were reading a book.
Sawyer: I heard once that Winston Churchill read a book every night. Even during the blitz. Said it made him think better.

Jack: I got us off the island.
Sawyer: But here you are. Right back where you started. So I'm going to go back to reading my book and I'm going to think. Because that's how I saved your ass today. And that's how I'm going to save Sayid's tomorrow.