Every Man for Himself

For this episode's prespoilers, see: Every Man for Himself/prespoilers

Synopsis

In the Hydra Island

Jack begins the episode with confronting Juliet about the conflicting authorities with the Others. Juliet insists there is a common authority, and it is not Ben who makes the decisions, but she is shown up when Ben demands that she come quickly. Colleen has arrived, wounded by Sun.

Sawyer decides to strike back against his captors and plan an escape. His idea is to move the water pipe leading to the trough and connect the electricity from the warning button to the water which leads outside the cell to electrocute himself and the Other standing in the water. He almost gets his chance when Ben comes very close to the puddle. Ben asks Sawyer how old he is (at first Sawyer says 32... then admits to being 35) and how much he weighs (Sawyer says around 180). When Ben steps into the water, Sawyer grabs him and pokes the button several times, but there is no charge. Ben tells him they turned it off, and then proceeds to beat Sawyer with collapsible baton.

Sawyer is strapped down to a table. Jason and Matthew come and stand over him while Tom and Ben watch. Sawyer starts yelling, and then one of the two men tells him to bite down on a stick, for the pain. Sawyer starts to panic when the other man squirts liquid out of a giant needle. The two lean over Sawyer, while he's screaming through the stick, and Jason tells Matthew "Just do it how they do in the movie..." and Matthew stabs Sawyer with the needle near the sternum/heart (like John Travolta stabbing/injecting Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction). During this, Jack can hear Sawyer's screams through the allegedly broken intercom in his cell.

Sawyer wakes up to find Ben holding a cage containing an albino bunny with the number 8 on its back. As Sawyer begins to question what's going on, Ben begins to furiously shake the cage, frightening the bunny, which panics, then falls still. Ben tells Sawyer the bunny had a pacemaker in him, and that so does Sawyer. He is told if his heart rate reaches 140 his heart will explode, and is given a watch that monitors his heart rate which begins beeping if it goes over 125. Then Ben declares that he will do the same to Kate if Sawyer misbehaves or tells Kate what happened to him.

Sawyer is brought back to his cage, and Kate is given some new clothes. When Kate begins to change clothing, Sawyer becomes interested, and his watch goes off, so as Kate questions him, he douses cold water on himself and angrily shrugs her queries off.

Juliet rushes in to ask Jack to help her save Colleen. She is covered in blood, and brings Jack to the operating room where he sees some interesting X-rays on the wall. Ben, Tom, and Pickett are watching from an observation room. Jack and Juliet try to save Colleen, but she suffers a cardiac arrest and Jack asks for a difibulator. Juliet tells him that this has not happened before, and that they do not have the batteries for the defibulator again. Jack immediately goes into emergency mode, but he cannot save her.

In a fury, Pickett goes outside to the bear cells and drags out Sawyer, then beats him beside Kate's cell. He demands to know if she loves him, and keeps punching Sawyer in the face until he is very raw and bloody. Kate, sobbing, throws her arms through the cell bars and clutches Sawyer from behind. She finally cries she does love him, and to stop. Pickett leaves.

Ben has left Jack handcuffed to the table where Colleen's body lays, purposely. However, Juliet arrives. She tells him that she is a fertility doctor, and has not experienced death much before. Jack says she couldn't have done anything (neither could he) - and Juliet asks if he's saying that to make her feel better. He scoffs that he doesn't care about making her feel better. When Juliet goes to unhandcuff him, he tells her that the X-rays outside are of a man in his 40s with a large tumor on his spine. Jack says he is a spinal surgeon, and knows he is there to remove that tumor in the X-ray. He asks who is he really there to save.

Kate manages to escape through a hole in the top of her cell. She is disturbed that Sawyer will not talk about what they did to him, and demands they escape together. Sawyer tells her to go alone, but she will not, trying to break his lock. When Sawyer says "if you really love me, run" --- Kate tells him that she only said that to make Pickett stop hitting him. She returns to her cell, explaining "Live together, die alone."

Later, Ben wakes up Sawyer and takes him for a walk. Sawyer makes a joke about Ben killing the rabbit, and jokes that Ben would like Of Mice and Men for its puppy-killing. The further they climb up a ridge, Sawyer's heart monitor goes off, and he is uncomfortable with this. Sawyer asks if Ben brought him up to the mountain just to kill him. Ben stops him and tells him that he doesn't have a pacemaker in him. He brings out the bunny labeled 8 and tells him the bunny only had a sedative and isn't dead, because they aren't killers. Sawyer tells him that it could be another bunny, and Ben agrees, yet showing him the rabbit was not the point of this walk.

As they climb over the hill, Sawyer is stunned to see another island across from the one they are on. Ben announces that the nearby island is Sawyer's island, and that he cannot escape from his cell, because he will have nowhere to go. Ben also quotes from Of Mice and Men, saying that even men get lonely and mentions Sawyer only gave in when he threatened Kate and perhaps Sawyer should be aware he's only trying to distance himself from her, when he really does need her. Ben tells him to return to his cage, and Sawyer, unsettled, follows.

In the Midsection Beach

Desmond tells Claire she needs to move down the beach, so he can fix her roof. Claire insists it is fine, as does Charlie, who says he can fix it himself. Desmond reluctantly agrees and walks off.

He then meets with Paulo and borrows a golf-club from him. Desmond constructs a large tower, with the club at its top. Hurley asks if it's art, and Desmond says no, that it's an experiment. He also turns down the fruit salad Hurley offers. Just as Hurley is about to leave, Desmond suggests he wait a moment.

A spontaneous rainstorm falls on them. Claire's roof is broken, and water splashes over Aaron. Claire and Charlie sweep him up and cover him, with Charlie staring at Desmond.

Just then, a lighting flash occurs, and the lightning strikes the tower, making it a lightning rod. The wires that Desmond used appear to be burning. Charlie first looks around in shock, but then stares confusedly at Desmond.

Flashback

This episode centered around Sawyer, in prison, after he conned Cassidy. It begins with him fighting in a ring with a fellow inmate, and he wins the match. As they walk back to their jail cells, he sees a man beating up another inmate; his friend tells him it's Munson recently jailed for stealing 10 million dollars from the government. Sawyer wins Munson's trust after he predicts the Warden will try and take his money and use his wife against him.

When Munson meets with his wife, Sawyer meets with Cassidy and is very cruel and abrupt with her, even after she throws down a picture of a baby. The infant is Clementine, Sawyer and Cassidy's daughter. Sawyer leaves angrily, but later he betrays Munson and tells the Warden where the cash is. He had told Munson never to get attached because you'll only get hurt because of it. The last six years of his sentence are commutted, and when asked where to put his commission for giving up the information, Sawyer tells Treasury Agent Freedman to put it in a bank in Albuquerque under the name of Clementine Phillips. When the Warden asks who this is, Sawyer avoids answering replying only, "We done?"

The episode makes a number of references to the novel Of Mice and Men.

Trivia

The episode derives its title from a line delivered by Sawyer to Jin in "...And Found": "In case you haven't noticed it's every man for himself, Chewie." Sawyer tries to get Kate to leave him behind by repeating the mantra, only to have Kate counter with Jack's more altruistic axiom; "Live Together, Die Alone."
Munson's 10 Million was hidden in a store quick facility off 4 41 in unit 23c
Sawyer's prison id number was 8 40
The white bunny that Ben uses to show Sawyer how the pacemaker works was numbered 8
- This is almost certainly another Stephen King reference, since in the book On Writing he describes a caged white rabbit with the number 8 painted on it as an example of the power of words to transmit pictures and ideas.
- The idea of the white rabbit is a running theme of the show, even referenced in one episode title. Ironically, most characters are led out into the jungle after their white rabbits (as when Jack follows Christian in the episode that introduced the idea), but Sawyer is led to remain caged after he sees the real white rabbit.
- This could also be another reference to the book Of Mice and Men as rabbits are also a motif.
Sawyer calls Munson Costanza, most likely to reference the time he is in prison as being 1998, the end of Seinfeld (1990 - 1998) when they all ended up in prison.
Like in the scene where Jason stabs Sawyer in the heart with a needle, the movie Pulp Fiction also features one character stabbing another character with a needle.
Pacemakers do not work the way Ben described. Rather than applying a "kick-start" to the heart when the heart is excited, pacemakers deliver a small shock during every cardiac cycle to regulate heart rate. Implantable defibrillators do work in a similar manner to what Ben described, responding to various types of cardiac arrhythmia with a high voltage shock. Implanting either device is a delicate procedure requiring several specialized devices and specific training. Immediately following surgery, most patients will be able to feel the device both from the inside and through the skin.
Sawyer calls Pickett "Chinatown" in reference to the injured and bandaged nose of Jack Nicholson's character Jake Gittes in the 1974 Roman Polanski film Chinatown.

Theories

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See the Lostpedia theory policy for more details.

The Hydra Island

Otherville must be on the main island, because:
- ... Ethan and Goodwin were able to go to the crash sites on foot. The smaller island, that Ben tells Sawyer he is on implies that none of the castaways have yet circumnavigated the main island. This might explain why Ben wanted Desmond's Yacht so badly. Desmond himself must not have circumnavigated, because he says he was on the same heading constantly when he tried to escape.
- ... at the end of A Tale of Two Cities the camera pans out to show smoke billowing from the two crash sites, both on the same island as Otherville. However, during the pan-out, intervening water could have been hidden by a mountain.
- The wide shot of Otherville shows that it is on an island much more than twice the size of Alcatraz. For comparison: [[1]]
The island shown to Sawyer was an artificial mirage activated by the Others.
The Others have a submarine or Galaga to transport themselves between the islands. Evidence:
- The Others easily got aboard Desmond's sail-boat, and without getting wet.
- Ben says to Juliet, "The sub is back!".
- This would also explain why they were so upset at hearing the Losties had a boat. Potentially, they could find the second island.
The main island and the Hydra Island are connected through the area of the underwater hatch -- and the Others may not know this. (Portions of the Swan were blocked off, and the Blast Door Map mentions conduits, including escape conduits, several times.)
Sayid once discovered a cable in Solitary, passing from the forest into the sea. This could be a way for the Others to communicate between the main island and the Hydra island.
- Or perhaps the power-source for their island
  - Also, if this is true, then the Other's island is in fact hidden from the view of the main island because Sayid clearly would have seen the other island when he found the cable.

The Others

As season 3 continues, the Others will be shown to be more divided and more and more fallible. This is an ongoing trend.
- Tom and Juliet seem to be especially reasonable and slow to anger.
  - Tom was nice to Kate about her clothes, and apprehensive with Pickett about enacting revenge on the losties. Also expressed concern to Ben about Sawyer dying at Pickett's hand.
  - Juliet may be acting to gain Jack's trust.
Because the others do not understand what happened when the "sky turned purple", they are likely remnants of lower ranking members of the Dharma Initiative, or they are test subjects themselves. The fact that they lost communications may imply that they are scientists involved in a double blind study, and thus have been kept ignorant of certain aspects of the experiment.
- Or, they were never a part of DHARMA to begin with.
The Others are unaware of what caused the violet sky/loud noise preceding the Swan hatch implosion. Tom mentioned it disrupted communications but he didn't seem to be that sure of the cause.
- The Others seem to no longer have contact with the outside world since The Discharge.
Jack's interactions with Juliet at the beginning of the episode show him beginning to play Juliet and Ben against each other, just as Ben played Jack and Locke against each other when he was their captive.
Given Ben's discussion of Alcatraz, he may have lied to Jack about living on the island all his life.
- Or he may have watched a documentary on Alcatraz.
When Jack is about to preform the emergency surgery, he sees X-rays of a man's spine with a tumor on it. This leads to the assumption that one of the Others has a cancerous growth. If this is true, it means that the Others do not benefit from the island's healing powers.
- If the X-ray is of Ben's spine, this may be because he has spent his entire life on the island and is therefore immune.
  - This may also have to do with what Isaac told Rose in S.O.S.: that different places have different sorts of energies, and his home did not have the right sort of energy for her. It could be that the Island does not have the right kind of energy for Ben; its sort of energy could even have a malignant effect on him, potentially having caused the tumor. This ability both to heal and to harm would fit well with the long-running theme of duality.
- This may be because the Others, their village and testing facility are not on the Losties' island, but on the smaller island nearby, as Ben told Sawyer.
  - However, it is not clear that Utopiaville is on Hydra Island; visual evidence may suggest that it is on the main Island. All we were told and shown is that the Hydra is on a separate island.
- Or The Xrays are really of Sawyer and the Others gave Sawyer a seditave to relax him so they could take out the tumor.
  - Juliet said there were no doctors, much less spinal surgeons, so how would they be able to remove the tumor?
Ben cannot leave the island, because he has a tumor on his spine. The island is keeping Ben alive, but it cannot fully heal his tumor.

Sawyer

The bank in Albuquerque to which Sawyer has his reward diverted to is the same bank where Kate staged a robbery in Whatever the Case May Be.
Clementine is not a real child, but rather Cassidy is putting the con on Sawyer.
- Sawyer may be aware of this anyway (since he is a better con than her) and wants her to have her money back since he seemed unwilling to take her money in the first place but did so in order that she would not be killed.
  - Of course, she could be an even better con than him all along and it's all some elaborate long con but that seems unlikely.
The reason for Sawyer's flashback was to show that Sawyer is willing to betray his own short-term friends for long-term goals. Just like he betrayed Munson to get out of prison, he will betray his fellow lostaways in order to be free. Knowing Sawyer's history, the Others will send him back to the camp to carry out a mission in exchange for his freedom (Michael-style redemption).
- Hence the title of this episode, "Every Man for Himself"
- It does not necessarily show a willingness to betray friends. The man he betrayed in the flashback was never a friend, he was a mark from the start. Sawyer's entire interaction with him was in order to con him into giving up the location of the money. This is a different situation from what he is in now as the losties were not set up as being marks from the start and there is no evidence that he is interacting with them towards a specific goal as he did in prison.
- His flashback also shows that he cares more about people then he's willing to admit, and his tough exterior and self sabotaging his personal relationships is him actually trying to con himself. (e.g., risked his life to try and save Walt in Season 1, gave up guns/meds when he knew it was for a legitamate need in season 2, told Jack that he was the closest thing that Sawyer has as a friend, deposited his reward in his daughters bank account this episode)
The idea of depositing the money in the bank for Clementine is similar to the plot of the Charles Dickens book Great Expectations. In that book, the protagonist is a poor street kid who is suddenly deposited in the house of an old matron and supported with funds from a mysterious benefactor. This benefactor insists on not being identified. When the protagonist comes of age, he learns that the benefactor is, in fact, his father and a criminal.
- Pip's (the protagonist's) benefactor was not his father, but an escaped convict that Pip met in a cemetary and showed kindness to. The two situations are not completely analogous.

Desmond

Desmond may have built the lightning rod because he saw that the lightning strike would hurt Claire, Aaron, or Charlie; it may have been a last resort after he could not persuade them to move down the beach.
Desmond's ability to see (and apparently change, based on the lightning rod experiment) the future may be important in changing the variables of the Valenzetti equation.
- Given that we don't know what Desmond saw, he may not have changed the future (or present) as the case may be.
Perhaps by disarming the Swan transferred some of its powers to Desmond. If the intention of the Dharma Initiative was to change the numbers of the Valenzetti Equation, perhaps Desmond has (at least temporarily) become a human personification of the Equation. He doesn't "need a button to push" like Charlie stated. Desmond is the button.

External links

ABC Press Release

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