LaFleur: If you've never seen "Hands on a Hard Body", the documentary about a Longview, Texas competition to win a new truck by keeping your hands on it as long as possible, I highly recommend it. It is hilarious. At one point a veteran of the competition is waxing philosophical about the nature of the competition and comes up with this gem (best enjoyed while envisioning a THICK East Texas drawl): "It's a human drama thing."
...And that's how I felt about this episode. No real answers but just a thick layer of complication in the relationships between the Losties. I am, of course, referring to Juliet and Sawyer. Throughout the "3-years ago" parts of the episode we see the two of them align and then, near the end, Sawyer convinces Juliet to "give him two weeks" to allow him to convince her to stay. That alignment turns into three years and romance, just like the blossoming of une fleur. The depth and nature of that relationship is explained in their profession of love (preceded by the giving of an actual fleur) near the end and in the fact that they seem to live together. Horace's fight with Amy brings up the question of what happens if/when Sawyer and Juliet ever meet Kate and Jack. Sawyer basically says he is over Kate. We don't have to wait long, though, to test the validity of that because guess who's back? Kate. Oh and Jack, but I guess Juliet's love for Jack won't be as big of a deal because we never see Juliet's angst or thoughts on the matter. It's a human drama thing, y'all.
The other side of the flowering metaphor is the blossoming of Sawyer as a leader. In the "3 years later" parts of the episode it seems that Sawyer (aka James LaFleur) is a feared/respected leader of the Dharma initiative folks. At the very beginning of the episode the Dharma guys run to get Sawyer when Horace goes a little nuts. Sawyer may arguably be THE leader because the doctor obeys Sawyer even though he is concerned about what Horace would think/do.
Even though this episode is more about the character interactions and not the island, some subtle island mystery things come up. First, it seems that Sawyer knew to look for the returning Losties. Jin came up to Sawyer early in the episode and said, "We finished grid 1-3 today. No sign of our people." Sawyer says that we'll keep looking for them "as long as it takes." Then, at the end of the episode Jin finds Hurley, Jack, and Kate. Jin was looking for them on Sawyer's order, but how did Sawyer know to look for them? Did Sawyer talk to Jacob?
Second, 30 years ago (or whenever Sawyer, Juliet, Miles, etc. are) people can have babies on the island. That brings up the old, un-answered question of why the babies/mothers in Ben's camp died. Third, I also wonder if there is something to the fact that it was 3 years after the Oceanic 6 came back and 3 years after the Losties stopped time traveling that they met. Fourth, we still don't really know what the Dharma Initiative is, but I'm not sure that it has some mystical criteria for the people who are living there. Why? Because Horace tells Sawyer "You're not really Dharma material" and then let's him stay after Sawyer talks Richard Alpert into keeping the truce.
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