LOST: The Darkness

Three episodes down, fifteen to go. Overall, this was definitely not one of my favorite episodes, but it had some interesting scenes between Jack and Dogen. It also reintroduced the 2007 version of Claire (after briefly seeing her for the first time since Season 4 last week). In this episode, we saw what happened next with the alternaverse Kate and Claire (is every flash-sideways going to begin at LAX and show the characters' immediate journey, or will we pick up months later with a few of them; for example, showing Sayid after a few months of futilely looking for Nadia would be interesting). The pair start off on bad terms when Kate hijacks the cab Claire is in, but they end up as buddies when Kate (foolishly) takes Claire to the hospital even though she is a fugitive. Claire's doctor is none other than Ethan Rom, but in this reality, he goes by his family name of Goodspeed. And when Claire mentions the name Aaron, Kate seems to recognize it, similar to the way alterna-Jack seemed to realize something wasn't quite right last week.

Back on the Island, Sawyer escaped the Temple and Kate and Jin went after him. They told Aldo (played by Rob McElhenny of Always Sunny fame), but each had their own motives for leaving. Jin wants to find Sun, and Kate wants to apologize to Sawyer before fulfilling her intention of finding Claire. The scenes with Sawyer in the Barracks and on the dock are some of the better aspects of this episode.

Back at the Temple, Dogen and Lennon perform torture on Sayid to see if he is "infected." I liked how, eventually, Dogen gave up a bit of information (are we finally going to learn about the sickness?), but why did he not just outright tell Jack? Also, it's pretty clear now that I was wrong about Sayid; his body is not a vessel for a reincarnated Jacob. The question now is, why did Jacob tell Hurley to bring Sayid there? And why did the ankh contain a message instructing the Others to heal Sayid? I would say that Hurley's dead people are manifestations of Titus, but it appears that (1) he can't leave the Island (and Hurley was seeing people off-Island), and (2) Titus can only be in one place at a time (as opposed to the First Evil from Buffy, who is everywhere). Finally, Claire returned in 2007, sporting a rifle and some messed up clothes/hair. The show treated this like a big revelation, but they have been hinting at (if not outright confirming) this plot point for a while now.

Sadly, Ben, Richard, and Titus were not in the episode, but next week's episode is most likely based on Locke/Titus (it's called "The Substitute," which is how Eloise Hawking referred to Locke's body when she told Jack he needed someone to stand in for his father on Ajira 316).

Up next: I swear I'm going to talk about Rome at some point...