Lost - Season 3, Episode 19 - "The Brig" Recap/Review

Hello fellow Losties!! Another great episode last night, written by the talkative producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. On their official podcast, they called "The Brig" a "turning point" episode, but it didn't feel too big on revelations or plot points, but rather build up for the next three season-ending episodes. Still, it was a great episode that focused on one of my favorite characters, John Locke, and used one of my new favorite plot devices: in-island flashbacks!

The episode starts with John reviewing a red file above a cackling campfire. Someone off-screen is making muffled noises. John tells the person to shut up, no one can hear them. He then throws the file into the fire.

We next see Kate and Sawyer lying together naked. Kate stirs and says she can only sleep in her own tent. Sawyer shrugs it off and says, "Fine, I gotta pee anyway." Kate leaves and Sawyer gets up to go. On his way through the camp, he sees Hurley and Jin looking mysterious. They ask what he's doing. He says, "Going to pee." He then asks what they're doing. They say, "Same." (Funny.) Sawyer continues into the jungle. He doesn't get a chance to do his business before Locke comes out of the brush and says he's come looking for him.

Sawyer wonders if Locke is done with his "blow up everything that could get them off the island" tour and accuses him of being an Other! Locke says he hasn't joined them, he's infiltrated them and kidnapped Ben and he wants Sawyer to kill him! Sawyer protests, "I'm not a murderer," he says (ha!), but Locke says that he read a file the Others had on him. Locke knows about the man who Sawyer killed in Sydney, the man our Sawyer thought was the original Sawyer and the reason his parents are dead. Sawyer says NO, first, of course, but quickly changes his mind and follows Locke into the jungle.

Flashback time! And the best kind of flashback. We jump right to the end of the episode, The Man From Tallahassee, with John looking at the captured Anthony Cooper. John, looking bewildered, says, "What is this?" John goes to take off Anthony's gag, but Ben warns him to be careful. John still takes off his father's gag and then Anthony bites his hand, hard. They leave the room and in the hall outside, Ben says that they're leaving, that they're going someplace new, rather, Ben says, an "old place." Ben asks John if he wants to come with them and John agrees. Ben then tells John he may want to say goodbye to Kate, who's in a building nearby - which we saw in the episode, Left Behind, when Locke came to visit Kate and he had a bandage on his hand and everyone on the Internet was like, "Where'd that bandage come from? OMG what is it the monster???" Well now we know.

Back at camp, Charlie is gathering food in the kitchen. Jack shows up and asks him where he's been. He said him and the guys went on a camping trip. Charlie, of course, is nervous and says it was fine, there was "male-bonding." Jack smiles and says they should invite him next time. He takes the food (on a cool-looking little platter) to Desmond's tent. Jin takes the food to Naomi inside. Charlie tells Desmond and Hurley that maybe they should tell Jack about Naomi. Desmond is adamant that Jack can't be trusted. A little role reversal since last week it was Desmond defending an Other (Mikhail). They decide they need to tell someone, but not Jack, someone they can definitely trust.

In the jungle, Sawyer and Locke (a very unlikely duo) are walking through the jungle. Sawyer asks Locke about what else was in that file. Locke says, "not much," and then goes on to talk about Sawyer's mom and dad, his criminal records, and his con man past. Sawyer, angry, pushes Locke to the ground, pulls out a knife, and demands to know if he's being conned. If, like Locke says, he has Ben, why doesn't he just kill him himself. Locke says he's not a killer. "Neither am I!" shouts Sawyer. Sawyer lets him go and says he'll bring Ben back to camp, but he won't kill him. Locke thinks Sawyer will change his mind once he hears what Ben has to say.

Flashback! A note on the screen informs us this is "3 Days Ago." The Others have set up a temporary camp in a field with a lot of of quaint looking tents. Tom comes up to John and tells him Ben wants to see him.

Ben's tent looks a lot like his house in Otherville, there are bookcases and chairs and a sense of stuck-up-ed-ness. John walks in just as Ben is listening to the recorded message Juliet left in the Staff station in last week's episode. John asks what he's doing and Ben tells him Juliet is a mole working in his former camp. He also tells him that the Others are planning a raid of the beach camp to take the pregnant woman (presumably more than just Sun), but he shouldn't worry. They've done it before (Claire?). Ben then asks John to hand him his cane and Ben shows off his newfound ability to walk, coming back slowly, ever since Locke joined them.

And then Ben tells John that in order to be free, he must kill his father. In the background, tied to a giant wooden pole, is Anthony Cooper, still gagged.

Back in camp, Hurley comes upon Sayid (hey man! where ya been??) chopping trees. Sayid says Hello quickly and figures Hurley is just come to bullshit and make jokes like he normally does. When Hurley doesn't say anything, Sayid stops and looks at him seriously for the first time. Hurley asks, "Can you keep a secret?"

Together, they go back to Desmond's tent where Sayid asks Charlie and Jin standing guard outside if they've told Jack. They say, "No," and Sayid smiles. He enters the tent, greeted by a smiling Desmond and recovering Naomi. Sayid introduces himself and asks her questions about how she got to the island. She says her company was hired by a woman named Penelope Widmore to search for Desmond and that she had given her coordinates to search for. The coordinates were in the middle of the "bloody" ocean and she didn't expect to find anything. Until the clouds parted and she saw the island. Then, suddenly, as she was approaching, her instruments went dead and she crash landed.

Sayid is skeptical. He asks Desmond if he actually saw her helicopter. Naomi smirks, "Remind me not to rescue you," as she unveils her satellite phone.

Back in island-themed-flashback-land, Locke is sleeping outside when he is woken by Ben. Ben says, "it's time," and leads Sawyer up to the pole holding his father. Ben gives him a knife and says he must kill Cooper. The Others gather around to watch. Ben removes Cooper's gag and Cooper starts to talk condenscingly about his son, saying he doesn't have the guts. Locke gets angry and shoves the knife up to Cooper's neck. But he doesn't plunge it in. After a tense moment, he gives the knife back to Ben. Ben, smiling proudly, announces to the Others that he's not the man they hoped he would be.

In the jungle, Sawyer and Locke come upon their destination: The Black Rock. For those of you who don't remember, or haven't been watching Lost since the beginning, a quick recap of the Black Rock. It was first mentioned by Rosseau in the first season and was on a map Sayid captured from Rosseau also early in the first season. Rosseau took a few gallant survivors to the Black Rock to retrieve some dynamite to blow open the "Hatch" or the entrance to the Swan station. That's when we learned the Black Rock was actually a ship that grounded on the island long before any of the current inhabitants appeared here.

Locke says he's in the brig of the ship. They enter the scary ship and walk through its black, skeletal remains. They come upon the Brig and Locke opens the door to reveal a man with a hood on making noises. Sawyer moves closer to investigate and Locke shuts and locks the door behind him. Sawyer gives in to curiousity and removes the hood from the prisoner. Big shock. It's not Ben, but Cooper!

Near the beach, Hurley sits by Sayid who is playing with the sat phone (reminiscent of early Lost episodes when Sayid was always playing with some radio equipment). Sayid gets the thing to work but the signal is blocked for some reason. Kate walks by and asks what that is. The two try to cover up the truth for a moment before spilling the beans about Naomi.

In the Black Rock, John Locke waits outside the Brig. Rosseau enters, quiet as a mouse. Locke peaceably asks what brings her to the ship. Rosseau says, "Dynamite." John aims his flashlight at a wall and says, "Help yourself. But be careful."

2 Days ago, John is sitting on a hill overlooking the Others camp. He unfolds the bandage from his hand and sees his wound completely healed. Richard Alpert walks up and sits down beside him. Richard starts to talk bad about Ben, how he is wasting their time playing fertility doctors. He says Ben wanted to humilate him in front of the camp because he knew he wouldn't kill his own father. John asks, "Why?" Apparently, the Others know John was paralyzed before he got to the Island and is obviously special. Ben likes to be the only special person around and wants to discredit John as much as he can. Richard seems to be ready for new leadership. He hands John a red file and says, "If you can't kill Cooper, maybe you can find someone else who can."

In the Black Rock, Sawyer is pissed. He doesn't like cells and he feels like he's trapped here along with this strange man. The two of them start to talk and Cooper reveals he's Locke's father and that he conned Locke out of kidney and, oh, threw him out an eight story window. Sawyer locks on a specific word, "Con?" He starts to pester him with questions and it is slowly revealed that this man, Anthony Cooper, was the original Sawyer who seduced his mother, stole his father's money, and caused his father to shoot his mother and then shoot himself. Sawyer's purpose is clear. He attacks Cooper and chokes him to death with his own chains. Locke then walks in and says, "Thank you."

In the last flashback segment, marked "Yesterday," John wakes up to see the Others pulling up camp. He goes to Ben and asks him what's going on. Ben says himself, "we're leaving. Your staying." And Cooper's staying with him. John seems genuinely hurt. He wants to go with them, but Ben says that the only way they'll accept him back into their group is if rids himself of the baggage of his father. He says they'll leave a trail he can follow, but he shouldn't bother coming back without his father's body.

Back in camp, Kate goes to see Jack, who is having lunch with Juliet. She wants to talk to Jack privately but Jack won't have it. Anything she says could be said in front of Juliet. Kate continues to look hurt by this new relationship. In a huffing and puffing voice, she says that Jack's "friends" are keeping something from him. That a woman landed on the island and has a satellite phone that could get them all rescued. Juliet then says that they should "tell her," but Jack disagrees. He stands up and storms away, towards Desmond, Charlie, Jin, and Hurley, I assume.

Outside the Black Rock, Sawyer is recovering from murdering a man. Locke thanks him again and tells him that Cooper "had it coming." He then says that he's not coming back with Sawyer to camp - he has his "own journey" now - but that Juliet is a mole and the camp should prepare for a raid by the Others. Sawyer says he's been saying Juliet's not to be trusted since the beginning, no one will believe him. Then Locke gives him the tape recorder with Juliet's message on it. Before they part, Sawyer asks Locke if it's true what Cooper said, that Locke was a cripple. Locke says, "Not anymore."

In the last scene, we see Locke pull the covered body of Anthony Cooper onto his back and walk into the jungle.

* * *

Like I said earlier, there wasn't many big revelations or mysteries answered, but man, A LOT happened, especially in regards to Locke. He's pulling a Danielle Rosseau, the whole Going it Alone thing, stark contrast to the team work efforts on the other side of the Island in caring for our newest character, Naomi.

The episode was tense, very well-paced, and extremely well-written. It wasn't quite the turning point they hinted at, that seems to be coming next week with an all-out political brawl between Jack and most of the other main characters. From the previews, it looks like John quickly finds the Others again and maybe rejoins their ranks? What is his plan? And what is Ben's overall intentions? And is Juliet good or bad? Is Kate pregnant? Will Charlie finally bite the big one?

So many questions!! Only three episodes left.

Next week's episode is entitled "The Man Behind the Curtain" and the flashback sequences alone will be quite a shock. I can't WAIT to find out what happens!

Images this week from the wonderful Lostpedia and the enhanced screencap from losteastereggs.