From the beginning, with the creation of a former Iraqi soldier as one of the main characters, Lost has not been shy about commenting on the “war in terror.” Usually, however, this commentary manifests in subtle ways. "One of Them," however, takes that subtlety and shoves it up your Abu Ghraib.
Episode #2.14, "One of Them"
Written by Carlton Cuse & Damon Lindelof
Directed by Stephen Williams
Guest Stars: Clancey Brown (Joe Inman), Marc Casabani (Tariq), Michael Emerson (Henry Gale), Mira Furlan (Danielle Rousseau), Lindsey Ginter (Sgt. Austen).
Air Date: February 15, 2006
Sayid and Ana, whom he seems to have truly forgiven as their brief encounter was without animosity, see Danielle in the jungle and Sayid confronts her. She takes him to a man she has captured in the exact same net, I'm convinced, used to trap Luke and company on Endor. She believes the man to be an Other, and when Sayid cuts him down, Danielle puts an arrow in the man's back.
In flashbacks of Sayid, the most underdeveloped of the really interesting characters, he is captured by coalition troops (or allies or whatever the fuck we called ourselves that time) at the end of the first Gulf War. Sayid's fluent English makes him stand out and the Americans enlist him to extract some information from Tariq (Casabani), Sayid's former commander.
Sayid is lulled into this by Joe Inman (Brown, The Shawshank Redemption, voice of Mr. Krabs on Spongebob Squarepants), whose rank—if he has one—is not revealed and who is only alluded to being a member of the U.S. military. He shows a video of Tariq using sarin gas on an Iraqi village, which number-mongers probably noted had a DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency…or is it Dharma Initiative Association?) film reel number of 23108-42.
Armed with vengeance, Sayid questions Tariq about a captured American helicopter pilot. But when Tariq proves resolute, the Americans give Sayid a box of “tools” with which to extract the information. This is important, when you consider the political statement being made. We knew before that Sayid tortured for the Republican Guard; the assumption was that the evil Saddam Hussein or one of his minions taught Sayid in the ways of torture. But no, it was the Americans who gave him this skill set, which is timely when you consider what has occurred at Gitmo and elsewhere. In fact, the fact that the Americans outsourced their torture to someone else occurred not just in this episode, but in the current war as well. But more important than the political message, I feel, is the social one. Sayid doesn’t blame America for making him into a monster. He admits that there was always a part of him that was capable of these atrocities.
When the Americans pull out of Kuwait, Inman lets Sayid go and tells/warns him that his new craft will come in handy again. Sayid swears that he’ll never do to another human being what he did to Tariq. But we saw him do it to Sawyer and he does it again to Danielle’s prisoner. Sayid conspires with Locke to keep Jack out of the armory, where Sayid locks himself in with the man, to find out who he is, where he came from and most importantly, if he’s one of them.
The man’s name, we discover, is Henry Gale and he claims to have crashed on the island four months previous when he and his wife were attempting a pan-Pacific hot air balloon trek. Personally, I hope he is an Other. Otherwise, this is swiftly becoming the most populous deserted island ever. There are eastern European nations with smaller populations. Short of torture, there’s only one true way to discover if he’s legit: the time-honored anagram test. "Henry Gale" can easily be rearranged to "angry heel," which obviously relates to the short-tempered jerk personas displayed by past Others. "Argyle hen" is another option; it doesn't seem to relate at all, but it sounds cool. Go ahead and use that for your band's name if you want. But perhaps most telling, is "Hal Greeny," which, let's face it, might as well be "Al Green;" one of Green's songs, Call Me, contains the lyrics, "What a beautiful time we had together/ Now it's gettin' late and we must leave each other." Could it be more obvious?
Actually, there's little proof yet of which team Henry suits up for, but I kept focusing on that one millisecond after Jack pulls Sayid off and closes the armory door. The camera focuses on Henry and there's just a sliver of a smirk on his face. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I just feel that Sayid's outburst—transferring his grief over Shannon for distrust and hatred of Henry—was a red herring to throw the viewer off the trail of this newcomer.
While Sayid is quietly engaging Henry inside the armory, Jack and Locke square off outside over the use of torture. Locke points out that Jack was instituting an army—proof that they are at war—and Locke feels that extreme measures are justified under extreme circumstances. Jack, who took an oath to do no harm, is obviously against the idea. Similar debates are taking place now in the real world, making this yet another timely aspect of the episode. When Sayid goes apeshit and starts attacking Henry, Jack finally gets Locke to open the door by keeping him from the computer when the timer starts to sound. Locke stumbles over the numbers and the counter reaches zero, a chilling moment. Then the numbers start to flip and change to black and red hieroglyphics. But just as the last—most likely phallic, based on the other ones—image is about to show, Locke gets the numbers right and the counter returns to 108. What the hell was that about?
Speaking of what-the-fuck moments, what was with Sawyer’s obsession with the croaking frog? The tiny beast is hidden in the jungle somewhere and Sawyer is apparently incensed by the repetitive noise. He blackmails Hurley, who has been stockpiling the Dharma food after all, into helping him track the thing down. Eventually they find it and Sawyer crushes it in his hand, bringing the tally of beasts he’s killed up to two (polar bear) while the list of ones he’s spared remains at one (boar). Maybe Kate’s horse will tie it up. Hopefully all this will make sense later, but right now I’m scratching my head.
Matt Baker has a Che t-shirt in his closet that he never gets to wear.
