Back Story: Sayid is working in a restaurant. He's offered a job by a man who compliments his cooking. Sayid goes to see him. He's introduced to the man's wife and the situation proves to be not so much a job interview as a set-up. They think Sayid tortured the wife when he was in the Republican Guard. He's held prisoner and tortured, though he insists he didn't do it. The wife finally gets a confession out of Sayid by overemoting and sticking her chin up in the air a lot (seriously, this bugged me) and he weeps prettily. It's not entirely clear whether he actually did it or not--this one could go either way.
Jungle Story: Sayid and Locke continue to look for the Others. When Sayid hears a cowbell (more cowbell!!) in the jungle, they discover a ranch, complete with cow, satellite dish, and one-eyed proprietor who shoots Sayid first and asks questions later. His name is Mikhail Bakunin, and he claims to be the last living member of the Dharma Initiative. Sayid chats with him for a while, prying out some complicated but possibly somewhat accurate information regarding Dharma and the Hostiles. Apparently the Hostiles were there long before Dharma was. Here's where I'm a bit confused--are the Hostiles the same as the Others? Because I'm thinking maybe they aren't--or are they? Or are the Others part of Dharma? I wish they'd move this show back to 8 so I could be awake while it's on because my brain doesn't work after 9.
While Sayid chats, Locke finds a chess game on one of Mikhail's computers and can't resist the temptation. Eventually Mikhail gets hostile and Sayid takes him out. Searching for Mikhail's accomplice, Sayid and Kate discover the entire house is wired with explosives. Winning a chess game unlocks a Dharma video menu on the computer. (This seems awfully sophisticated given the obvious antiquity of the computer.) Mikhail's accomplice proves to be the African American Other featured in the Previously On so we'd recognize her when we saw her. She's not too talkative. There's a standoff--the woman tells Mikhail to kill her and he does. Sayid takes Mikhail prisoner instead of killing him as Mikhail requests. Sayid has found a map to the Barracks, a good-sized community somewhere on the island. Even though they now don't need a guide, he refuses to kill Mikhail. This seems to be because of his cat-triggered flashback, although this doesn't explain his lack of reluctance in earlier situations where he's tortured people. Maybe it was okay then because there was no cat to remind him it's bad to torture people. Unable to access communication options on the computer, John blows up the house by Enter(ing) 77 to indicate an incursion by the Hostiles.
There was an awful lot packed into this episode, and attempting to follow it was not helped by the fact that there was a commercial break every five minutes. Remember the good old days when you could expect at least fifteen minutes between commercials? Also, did they really have to have all those close-ups of Sayid's shoulder wound? I almost puked. Other than those quibbles, a good episode, although in many ways it was one of those installments that left you feeling like a lot of questions were answered, but when you go back and think about it, they really weren't. I liked the Sawyer-Hurley ping pong battle even though it happened mostly off-camera, and it was nice to see a Sayid-centric episode again.
