Lost Recap

From EW :

We learned a lot extra about Sayid and are having trouble determining whether Charlie's obsession with Claire and her baby, Turnip Head, is okay or not so okay. And the biggest news of all: It was Locke who sabotaged Sayid's efforts to triangulate the radio signal. Locke said that he ''did what was in everyone's best interest'' and that ''back then'' the castaways were all so focused on getting off the island that they weren't ''seeing things clearly.'' Okay, but judging by the progress on the raft and next week's previews, it seems they're still pretty focused on that goal.

I'm not sure what changed for Locke, but his sudden opening up to Sayid was kind of a tease — it suggested we might finally figure out what the hell he's been talking about this whole time, but we didn't learn very much. Especially after seeing him possibly die in the previews, I figured this episode would open up the Locke box of secrets. Let's go through our Locke checklist. Dead? No. Strange? Completely. Liar? Sometimes. Evil? Maybe. Powerfully omniscient being? Oh, yeah. But we already knew all of this. So here's what else happened.

The gang gathered round to bury Boone. Jack asked Shannon if there was anything in that pretty little head of hers she'd like to share. Stupid question. It seemed no one would say a word until Sayid swept in with an honorable speech about the young, courageous lad that can be paraphrased thusly: ''I'm hoping to bang his sister.'' Suddenly Locke appeared, all revved up from presumably spending the night with his face pressed up against the glowing Hatch. He confessed that Boone had fallen inside a plane, not off a cliff as he'd previously said. He was sorry he'd lied, and he called Boone a hero, which prompted Jack to tackle Locke to the ground. I can't blame him, really. None of the islanders had the privilege we had of watching multiple episodes of the prophet-disciple bonding that went on between Locke and Boone. For all Jack knew, Locke was a killer.

But wait! Before anything else could happen, Jack needed to sleep. Hmmm. Did he really? The soul-sister tag team of Kate and Sun convinced him of it, and right away we knew something was off. How about Kate insisting to Jack that she ''strongly advised'' him to nap? She's doesn't really have the medical training to assess his need for sleep, which suggested to me that she was strongly advising him to stay out of the risky Locke killing until it was over so that the rest of the peeps would still have a hunky doctor to take care of them. Kate's scary, but I enjoyed her matter-of-fact delivery of the line ''I crushed up some sleeping pills, put 'em in your juice.'' (Where did they get juice? Is this Oceanic Airlines-brand juice? Coconut? Jesus? Turnip?)

Meanwhile, Shannon decided that Locke killed Boone. It's not really rational based on their conversation (high points: ''I know what it feels like to lose family'' and ''I'm sorry''), but then again Locke could have increased his credibility by changing into a shirt that wasn't soaked with Boone blood. Shannon ran to Sayid with her theory, and asked him to ''do something about that.'' And . . . it's flashback time.

As it turns out, Sayid knows more than a little about taking big risks for people he cares about. A snooty CIA agent named Melissa conned him into pumping his college roommate (who belonged to an Australian-based Iraqi terrorist cell) for information about stolen explosives by promising Sayid he'd get to see the Woman in the Photo, Nadia, again. If he didn't, she'd have Nadia (whom she called Nora) arrested. After learning that his friend, Essam, planned on blowing himself up in a truck (all for the Greater Good, of course), Sayid acted like he'd go along with Essam until crunch time, when he confessed that he was working for the CIA and in it for a woman. Distraught, Essam told Sayid, ''I hope she makes you whole again,'' before shooting himself. For extra irony, Sayid's insistence on claiming Essam's body before taking off to search for Nadia put him on the doomed Oceanic flight.

Okay, downer. What a dreadful paragraph. Luckily, despite all the hate and deceit and gunplay, the happenings on the island were on the whole more upbeat than the happenings in Sayid's memory. For example, Jin can now say the words good and no. Charlie, Hurley, and Sawyer presented Three Men and a Baby: Tropical Edition while keeping an eye on Turnip Head for a few hours. Hurley also put in a solid effort as a heavyset James Brown who felt good. I'm convinced that it takes two people to write Hurley's lines: One to write them, and another to come in and pencil a ''Dude'' at the beginning of each. Dude, he's so predictable! Dude, I mean awesome. Dude, I didn't mean anything by it.

Now, I love Charlie, too, so it pains me to even suggest this, but did anyone else experience an alarming visual of Charlie drowning the baby after he ''mistakenly'' substituted the word drowned for washed during ''The Itsy-Bitsy Spider''? I thought that was funny — honestly — until my eyes widened with speculation. . . . Oh, man, now I just want to take it back. All the hobbit lovers are going to crash the message board. But it's too late. For a minute there (and at other points throughout the season), I was definitely spooked. Charlie was really intent on taking that baby away from Claire. I know he's like in love with her and a really decent guy — I'm just throwing it out there. Throw it back in my face if you wish. Okay, ouch.

Locke and Sayid had a surprisingly reasonable conversation, after Locke finally wrung out that bloody shirt. As much as he wanted to help Shannon, Sayid the former interrogator knows when he's being lied to, and he believed most of what Locke said about the found plane. He kind of had to, once they actually arrived at the plane. I liked how Sayid went the extra mile to assure us viewers what that powdery substance was. He smacked those luscious lips together and immediately pronounced, ''Heroin.'' Well, that was easy. Thanks (dude).

Then things got almost as bad as Sayid's flashbacks, except not quite, because those involved death. And this episode didn't! Huzzah. That ''necklace'' of Jack's, the one he's probably always had on but this time we all noticed in his first few scenes and pointed out to our Lost-watching buddies as something of key importance, was missing. It's hard to say who stole the key to the gun-filled briefcase. Shannon ended up with the gun, but I'm going with Kate as the one who probably slid the key off Jack's neck. She's slithery like a snake.

Jack, Kate, and Sayid sprinted to an exact location in the jungle, because the jungle's convenient like that, and found Locke at Shannon's gunpoint. Instead of whipping out the gun Locke just gave him and freaking everyone the hell out, Sayid performed Tackle No. 2 of the night and took Shannon to the ground, just as he's always wanted to. Locke's head bled, but that was it. Boom. Shannon, you Lost.

For the penultimate tying-flashbacks-to-the-present line, Sayid told Kate, ''There's always a choice.'' This time, he went against love (if that's what it is). Sayid might have lost out with Shannon, who flipped out and walked (rather calmly, I thought) away from her brief Lockedown. (Not funny.) But now Sayid can take us further with Locke, whom he called ''our best hope of surviving.'' I admire the difficult balance this show has managed to achieve concerning the group's collective opinion of Locke. It's easy to distrust him day to day, but you can tell the castaways all somehow sense he's in charge and leading them through whatever/wherever this island is. We only get hints of this acknowledgement, but it looks to be more prominent in the weeks ahead.

What do you think? Is Sayid truly in love with Shannon, or does he just feel the need to protect someone? How does Walt know about the Hatch? And what happens when Turnip Head runs out of diapers?