After a botched attempt at escaping, Sawyer is knocked out, strapped to an operating table, and drugged. When he wakes up, Benry is looming over a bandaged Sawyer. He places a caged rabbit on Sawyer’s chest, and then proceeds to rattle the cage until the bunny falls over dead. Benry explains that the rabbit was fitted with a pacemaker designed to shut down when the rabbit’s heart rate reached a certain level.

You guessed it. Benry fitted Sawyer with a similar device, causing our conman to suddenly decide to walk the straight and narrow. This abrupt change of heart (bad pun) shifts Sawyer’s “escape at all costs” mentality to a “sit back and get the lay of the land” complacency.

Kate, as anyone could guess, picks up on this change, and refuses to buy into it. Meanwhile, the Others are dealing with a situation of their own. Sun’s handiwork has placed one of their own on the operating table, and Jack suddenly finds himself scrubbing in to perform an emergency surgery.

Revenge is certainly in order, and with the promise of an island death next Wednesday, one has to wonder if our dear Sun’s days are numbered. Of course, there is still the issue of her child.

Perhaps Jin may risk his own life to save hers? We’ve been told that Jin will learn who the true father of Sun’s child is soon – perhaps she spills the beans during Jin’s dying moments?

This is, of course, all speculation. Meanwhile, back in our flashback we learn that Sawyer is in jail for a con, and it appears that he may be a father. A daughter named Clementine? Let’s take stock, how many of the male Losties are fathers? How many have father issues?

While Jack struggles to save a life, and ultimately fails, one has to wonder whether or not he is actually being conned by Juliet and company. The woman on the table is Cole, Pickett’s wife, and when she codes, Pickett decides to take out his pain and anger on Sawyer.

While Sawyer is beaten to a pulp, Jack notices an x-ray depicting a man in need of spinal surgery to remove a tumor, and his suspicions seem validated as he is a specialist in just such a field. Why is he being played? Who do the x-rays belong to? Why do the Others need someone like Juliet, a fertility doctor, on the island?

Sawyer’s jailhouse flashback depicts the truth behind his con, and we are given yet another Sawyer-related literary reference – the conman is seen leafing through Of Mice and Men. Aside from his complex mixture of crude ruthlessness and deeply hidden intellectual, Sawyer is most interesting as a conman who is perpetually susceptible to being conned.

This time around, the con is a doozy. When Kate plans an escape, Sawyer tries to convince her to trudge along without him, but she refuses. Eventually Benry shows up, and escorts Sawyer on a hike intended to prove a point.

As Sawyer climbs a hill after Benry, his heart monitor starts beeping, and it turns out that Sawyer had been conned from the get-go. The Others never put a pacemaker in Sawyer’s chest; instead they caused him to doubt.

It gets better. Benry reveals to Sawyer that they are, in fact, on a separate, smaller island just off the coast of their beloved island. So, the Hydra station is on a separate island altogether. For whatever reason, Benry hoped to earn Sawyer’s respect by out-conning the conman, but why?

Next Week: I’m…completely…lost, and I love it. Next week is episode 5 of the first 6 episodes in season 3. That means, the second to last episode before an almost 3 month hiatus for the show. Someone dies, and it’s not Sawyer. We get an Eko flashback, which means Eko regains consciousness. And hopefully we get more news regarding Sun, Jin, and everyone’s fave Sayid. See you next week!

Mario Anima