LaFleur

This article or section is under construction Expect many and frequent revisions to this content.

"LaFleur"
Season	5
Episode number	8
Airdate(s)	March 4, 2009
Flashback	Sawyer
Writer	Elizabeth Sarnoff & Kyle Pennington
Director	Mark Goldman
Guests	Reiko Aylesworth - Amy Nestor Carbonell - Richard Alpert Patrick Fischler - Phil Doug Hutchison - Horace Goodspeed Kevin Rankin - Jerry
Co-stars	Carla Buscaglia - Heather Christopher Jaymes - Doctor Molly McGivern - Rosie John Skinner - Other #1
Transcript	LaFleur transcript

"LaFleur" is the eighth episode of Season 5 of Lost and the 91st episode overall. It was originally broadcast on March 4, 2009.

Synopsis

On the Island

Unknown (but ancient) time period

File:FourToedFull.jpg

A statue, seen from the Orchid well by Sawyer, Jin, Juliet and Miles.

After another flash, the well at the Orchid site (which Locke had descended into) disappears leaving Sawyer holding a rope that leads into the ground. He tries to rescue Locke but Juliet stops him, pointing out that they are now in a time before the well was ever built. Miles then draws everyone's attention to something in the distance. They look up and see the back of a gigantic statue. At the same time underground, Locke sets the frozen wheel on its proper axis sending everyone above through a particularly violent time flash.

1974

Afterwards, all agree that this flash felt different and, noticing that their headaches have faded and their nosebleeds have stopped, they surmise that they are done traveling through time. Sawyer, noticing the well wall is in place again, quickly runs over, grabs the rope mechanism, and jumps in feet first, only to find the well itself is not present, and he is standing ground level. Sawyer says he's going to wait until Locke comes back, when Juliet asks how long he intends to wait, he replies, "As long as it takes".

Sawyer decides that they will head back to the beach to see if their camp is there (or build a new one if necessary), though Juliet notes that they don't really have much of a plan. On the way to the beach, they hear gunshots. Moving towards them, they see a clearing with two Others standing over Amy and a dead Paul. Sawyer and Juliet move out rifles at the ready and Sawyer tells them to put their guns down. One of them starts to shoot at Sawyer but is shot by Juliet before he can fire. The other is then shot by Sawyer. Amy convinces them to bury the 2 bodies of the Hostiles and carry Paul back. At the sonic fence Juliet yells for Daniel to stop as he approaches the fence. Amy disables the fence and walks through. Sawyer, Jin, Juliet, Daniel and Miles follow and are knocked out by a high-pitched noise. Amy has put earplugs in her ears and was unaffected by the noise. Sawyer wakes up in a room with Horace and explains that the group was on a salvage boat that wrecked looking for the Black Rock. Horace tells Sawyer that the group will have to leave the next morning on the sub.

That night Richard Alpert shows up. Horace goes to speak to them then returns and anxiously asks Sawyer and crew how well they buried the bodies. Sawyer convinces Horace to let him go outside and talk to Richard, where he tells Richard that he is responsible for killing the two men, then asks him if they buried the bomb. He mentions Richard's meeting with Locke 20 years earlier and tells him that he and his people aren't with the Initiative. After getting the story of what happened to his people, Richard tells Sawyer that they still require justice. Sawyer returns and tells Horace the Hostiles want Paul's body. Horace and Sawyer go to talk to Amy, telling her that they'll face whatever they need to if she doesn't want to give up the body. She agrees to give it up but takes an ankh necklace from around her husband's neck first. As Sawyer leaves the room, Horace tells him that they can stay for two weeks, when the submarine is scheduled to return to the island.

1977

Jerry plays some music and begins dancing with Rosie. Suddenly, Phil bursts in, angry that the two are neglecting the monitors and worried about what their boss, LaFleur, will say. Jerry attempts to calm Phil but then the two see someone on the monitors by the sonic fence. They identify the person as Horace who appears to be drunk and throwing lit dynamite into the forest. Despite their initial reluctance the pair run to one of the houses and wake their boss, LaFleur, who turns out to be Sawyer. Sawyer collects Miles and the two proceed out to the sonic fence where they retrieve a passed out Horace. Sawyer takes the man back to his home, where Sawyer is greeted by Horace's wife Amy. As Sawyer explains what happened, Amy goes into labor.

Sawyer calls in Juliet to do a c-section because the doctor is an internist. (Pregnant women normally travel to the mainland when they are due to deliver.) Sawyer steps outside the infirmary and waits for news of the baby. Jin shows up and tells him that they haven't found anyone in their grid searches. Juliet comes out and says that Amy gave birth to a boy.

Later, a smiling Sawyer strolls through the Barracks and picks a flower. He returns to the house he now shares with Juliet, as she prepares dinner. He gives her the flower and tells her she was "amazing today." They declare their love for each other and share a kiss.

Horace wakes to find a bespectacled Sawyer watching over him. In a reversal of roles, Sawyer asks Horace how his head feels leaving Horace respond "It hurts." Sawyer informs him that he missed the birth of his son and inquires about the fight between Horace and Amy that led Horace to pass out in a drunken stupor. Horace had found the ankh which had belonged to Paul among Amy's things, leading Horace to question Amy's love for him. Horace is unsure whether 3 years is enough time for Amy to get over Paul. Sawyer tells of his love for a girl (Kate) with whom he had a shot but reluctantly lost his chance. She has been gone for three years and though he had difficulty forgetting her in the beginning, he finds now that he barely remembers her face. Sawyer states that 3 years is "absolutely" enough time to get over someone.

In the morning, Sawyer and Juliet are asleep in bed when they are awakened by a phone call. Jin is calling with urgent news, and as Sawyer gets dressed, he doesn't tell Juliet the nature of the emergency. He drives his blue DHARMA Jeep out to the North Valley alone and waits for Jin to arrive in a DHARMA van. They park their vehicles opposite one another and the van's passengers emerge: first Jack, then Hurley, and finally Kate. Sawyer is shocked to see his friends as he takes off his glasses in disbelief.

Trivia

General

• LaFleur means "the flower" in French.
• Along with "Meet Kevin Johnson" and "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham", this is the third Lost episode which takes its title from a main character's pseudonym.
• This episode is unique in its handling of time in two different ways. Firstly, while title cards have been used in the past to indicate times or places, this is the first episode which has used them for this purpose for both the present-day and flash segments. Moreover, while "Ji Yeon" utilized both a flashback and a flashforward, this episode was the first to have a story segment which was both a flashback and a flashforward. The 1977 scenes were a flashforward because the depicted events three years after the preceding episodes' on-Island storyline (continuing from the end of "This Place Is Death"); they were also a flashback because they immediately preceded the events at the end of "316". In a way, they were also present-day scenes because the final parts took place immediately after Jin finds Jack, Kate and Hurley in "316".
• The amount of time that has passed, three years, matches between the time the Oceanic 6 spent off the Island, and the time those left behind spent on it.
• Rosie is wearing a Geronimo Jackson shirt.
• A fan-based joke revolving around Richard Alpert and "guyliner" is referenced in this episode by Sawyer who explains to Horace he was referring to his "buddy out there with the eyeliner". The joke has been debunked in interviews with the actor playing Richard, who has very dark eyelashes.

Production notes

• Ben, Desmond, Sayid and Sun do not appear. Hurley, Jack and Kate appear without lines. Locke appears only in footage reused from "This Place Is Death".
• This is the first Sawyer-centric episode since early season 3's "Every Man for Himself".

Bloopers and continuity errors

• Daniel Faraday sees a young red-haired girl at the Dharma Initiative camp in 1974 whom he believes is Charlotte Staples Lewis. But when Ben recited her biography in Season 4 -- information he supposedly got from Michael aboard the Katana -- he said Charlotte was born July 2, 1979. She would have to have been born 10 years earlier to be the age she is when Faraday sees her. (Although due to the other inaccuracies in Ben's information about her, it is possible this is not a continuity error after all.) This is only a potential continuity error as numerous possible story elements could still explain the discrepancy in Ben's information (for example, the young Charlotte traveling through time as others have done could force her to lie about her date of birth in the off-island world). It remains possible that the girl was not Charlotte, and Daniel was mistaken.
• Sawyer's beard noticeably changes between real and fake throughout the 1974 portions of the episode.

Recurring themes

• Amy gives birth. (Pregnancies)
• Juliet successfully delivers the baby without letting the mother die. (Redemption)
• Someone is playing chess in the barracks. (Games) (Black and white)
• Sawyer and the others lie about who they are and where they came from. (Deceptions and cons) (Secrets)
• Paul is killed. (Death)
• Security was monitoring Polar Bears. (Animals)
• Daniel sees a young Charlotte. (Children)
• Sawyer and Juliet are together. (Relationships)
• Two of The Others are killed. (Death)
• Daniel says "whatever happened happened". (Time) (Fate versus free will)
• The episode takes its name from an alias adopted by Sawyer. (Nicknames)
• Sawyer refers to Charlotte as "Red", calls Daniel "Mad Scientist" and "Plato", and calls Miles "Mr. 'I Speak To Dead People'" and "Bonzai". (Nicknames)
• Sawyer the criminal becomes lawman (Good and bad people) (Redemption)

Storyline analysis

• Sawyer says his name is James "Jim" LaFleur. (Deceptions and cons)
• Sawyer pretends to be the captain of a ship. (Leadership) (Deceptions and cons)
• Sawyer decides to wait for John Locke to come back. (A-Missions)
• Sawyer and his group become members of DHARMA.(A-Missions) (Deceptions and cons)
• Two Others kill Paul. (Crimes)
• Sawyer and Juliet kill 2 Others. (Crimes)
• Sawyer and Juliet become a couple after spending three years together (Relationships)

Cultural references

• The ankh: The Egyptian hieroglyph is a symbol of eternal life and fertility. Egyptian gods are often portrayed carrying it by its loop, or bearing one in each hand, arms crossed over their chest. The four-toed statue appears to be holding one in each hand. Paul's necklace was also an ankh. Amy takes the ankh from Paul, and successfully gives birth on the island. (Religion)
• Phil and Jerry, brownie eating 1970s hippies, seem to be references to Phil Lesh and Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead.
• "Candida": This song by Tony Orlando and Dawn is playing in a DHARMA station while Jerry is dancing with Rosie.(Music)
• Plato: Sawyer calls Daniel "Plato". Plato was a philosopher in ancient Greece, famous for creating Plato's "cave allegory" and the author of the Republic, source of the story of Atlantis.

Literary techniques

• In 1974, when Sawyer wakes up from the sonic fence incident, Horace asks him "How's your head?" and Sawyer replies, "It hurts." In 1977, when Horace wakes up from his drinking binge, Sawyer asks him "How's your head?" and Horace replies, "It hurts." (Juxtaposition)
• Sawyer explains that three years is absolutely enough time to get over someone he has loved and that he doesn't really remember Kate's face anymore. The next morning, Sawyer sees that Kate has returned to the island. (Irony)
• Daniel sees a young Charlotte, as Charlotte said before she died. (Foreshadowing)

Episode references

• Sawyer institutes a new con, referencing actual episodes from the Island's history to make his story more convincing:
  • The French science team's ship crashing on the reefs and its passengers later landing on the island. ("Solitary") ("The Little Prince") ("This Place Is Death")
  • The disappearance of the Black Rock, which landed on the Island. ("Exodus, Part 1") ("Exodus, Part 2")
  • Sawyer's firsthand knowledge of the Black Rock. ("The Brig")
  • The expedition of the Christiane I, whose purported purpose actually was to find the wreckage of the Black Rock. (Find 815)
• The four-toed statue is seen in its original form, after part of it was previously seen as a ruin. ("Live Together, Die Alone, Part 1")
• Juliet mentions that she used to live in the barracks, and points out her house. ("A Tale of Two Cities")
• Juliet agrees to stay on the island with Sawyer for two weeks, but ends up staying three years. ("One of Us")
• Sawyer speaks to Richard Alpert about the events that happened in 1954, including the bomb and the fact that he is waiting for John Locke to return. ("Jughead")
• Daniel mentions Charlotte's death. ("This Place Is Death")
• Daniel sees a young Charlotte, as Charlotte said before she died. ("This Place Is Death")

Unanswered questions

Unanswered questions
Do not answer the questions here. Keep the questions open-ended and neutral: do not suggest an answer. More details...

For fan theories about these unanswered questions, see: LaFleur/Theories

• What is the significance of the giant statue?
• Why are women unable to carry a child to term later in the Island's history?
• What is the nature of the truce between the Dharma Initiative and the Hostiles?
• Where are Rose, Bernard and the other survivors?
• What is the significance of Paul's ankh necklace?
• How did Jack, Kate and Hurley get to 1977?
• Why wasn't Richard concerned about the sonic fence?
• Why do the Hostiles want Paul's corpse?
• What happened to convince Horace to let Sawyer, Juliet and Jin stay on the island?
• Why did the time shift stop after Locke left the Island?

External links

• ABC Medianet Press Release (2/13/09): Press Release