Lost - Three Minutes

*** / ****

Three Minutes allows us to get a good peek inside the camp of the Others. Back and forth, this episode shows us Michael’s journey to find his son, being taken captive by the Others, asked questions about his son, getting a brief chance to talk with his son (and learn of testing conducted on him), and receiving orders to make sure that a select group from the Oceanic return with him (under the guise that they will help him take his son from the Others, considering he found their community and knows where to find them). If Michael wants to get his son back, he must only bring with him Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Hurley. These four are the ones the Others want in exchange for Michael and Walt to go free. Michael will do whatever he can for his son. Alternating between that thirteen days he was away from the Oceanic camp and “present day” where he must endure secret knowledge that he murdered Ana and Libby, look at Libby’s blood on the floor (and try to clean it up, with help from Eko who tells him of a boy in an English church concerned about going to hell for beating a dog with a shovel), be present as his peers mourns Ana and Libby’s burial and funeral, and attempt to keep Sayid from joining the “hunting party”; Three Minutes gives an episode’s chronicling of events that were so unknown to us during the middle of the second season.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Sayid communicates to Jack that he believes Michael has been “compromised”, understanding that a father will just about do anything for his son. Look at what he’s willing to do at the orders of the Others’ Ms. Klugh (April Grace). Klugh is very cold, deliberate, of few words, and scientific. Questions about Walt are quizzed to Michael with a stone cold expression, and he can barely make sense of this line of interrogation. Why is Walt seemingly such a “lab rat”? Why are Klugh and her people so interested in Walt anyway? Why did “Danny” (Michael Bowen) take blood from Michael? One curious question posed to Michael is had he noticed Walt appearing in other places. Shannon did see Walt before Ana shot her, remember? When captured by the Others, Rousseau’s daughter (Tania Raymonde) asks Michael if Claire was okay and given birth. She even asks if the child was a boy or a girl. This young woman, Alex, tries to comfort Michael when Gainey’s Other goes out to confiscate the guns from Jack and Sawyer by threatening to kill Kate. As Michael had told Jack, the camp he sees when carried to where the Others supposedly live has them in tepees and tents, in rags, cooking fish, living very simply. Again, I kept in mind that nothing is as it seems. Michael does indeed see the Others guarding the door of a bunker/station. Although they might look impoverished and worse for wear, this could all just be an elaborate hoax to trick Michael. Just the same, Klugh has Michael right where she wants him and parading Walt in his face like a dangling carrot he cannot secure is the right bait to motivate him into action.

________________________________________________________________________________

Eko was actually led to the computer Locke has now abandoned by this magnetic pull on his cross necklace! He now spends all his time punching in the numerical code and has give up on the church, much to Charlie’s dismay. Charlie attempts to continue to build the church but alone he’s just not able. There is this really neat sequence of events I really liked involving Charlie…something I rarely say. Vincent, Walt’s dog, brings Charlie one of those heroin statuettes. Pulled from Sawyer’s tent, Vincent actually leads Charlie to all of them. Charlie, in a good place finally, decides to toss all of them into the water, not knowing that Locke noticed this from a distance. Charlie even finds vaccine for Claire and Aaron, giving them over to him. Finally, during the funeral, realizing what Hurley lost, Claire holds Charlie’s hand. She has forgiven him. Eko’s purpose has changed and Yemi’s visions seem to be his reason for staying at the computer. Locke cuts away the cast from his leg after soul searching. What he does now is up to him…or is anything regarding him on the island truly up to him?

___________________________________________________________________________________

Sawyer admits to Jack he slept with Ana. Jack, obviously, asks him why he’d share that. Sawyer kind of cops to it…Jack is as close to a friend as Sawyer has on the island. In the previous episode, Sawyer gives a weeping Kate a shoulder to cry on. He gets the guns and brings them to the bunker. Sawyer certainly gets Sayid involved in the hunting party although Michael wants him not to come. This stirs Sayid’s curiosity (like Sawyer said, why wouldn’t you want Sayid on a hunting party?) and Michael’s suspect behavior (Sayid knows how to read people) sparks his belief that he’s been compromised. With Sayid confiding in Jack about his suspicions, Michael’s orders might just fall apart. Hurley’s resistance towards coming on the hunting party does seem to be a gum in the works, but Libby’s funeral changes his mind. So with Michael needing the right people to come along (again, why these certain people?), will he be successful? Or will Walt be kept from him forever?

________________________________________________________________________________

Alex’s behavior and how Michael isn’t harmed, just questioned and sent on a mission further gives the Others this enigmatic purpose. At least Walt is shown alive and well, trying to reveal details about his stay with the Others to Michael, but damned Klugh assures he doesn’t get to say much. Are there any guarantees the Others would live up to that bargain with Michael anyway? If Walt is a “very special boy”, why would they be so willing to let him go? Are Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Sawyer more valuable than Walt? It would seem so. But, to once again beat the dead horse…nothing is as it seems, right?