Season
3, Episodes 11 and 12- “Enter 77” and “Par Avion”
Summary:
While
working as a chef in Paris, Sayid meets Sami, who wants to hire him at his own
restaurant. Sami takes him captive and claims he tortured Sami’s wife Amira,
but Sayid does not remember her. After she tells her story, he tearfully admits
to remembering, but Amira decides to let him go in the spirit of forgiveness. Sayid’s
search party stumbles on the eyepatch man in an old building. His name is
Mikhail and claims to be part of DHARMA, manning the Flame station which
communicates with other stations and the outside world. Sayid is convinced
Mikhail is actually an Other – a quick fight ensues, with Mikhail being tied
up. They search the basement and find the building is wired with explosives,
and Ms. Klugh in hiding. A hostage standoff occurs, with Mikhail killing Klugh.
Sawyer requests a ping-pong match to win back his stash but loses to Hurley. Locke
wins a game of chess against a computer and is prompted by Dr. Candle to enter
“77” if there has been a hostile incursion. Sayid decides to take Mikhail
prisoner instead of killing him, and the Flame explodes from the computer.
In
flashback, Claire is in a car accident, where her mother is put in a coma. In
the hospital she meets Christian Shephard, who is her real father, and suggests
they turn off Mrs. Littleton’s life-supporting machines. Before boarding the
plane to give her baby away, Claire makes peace with her mother. On their way
to the Others’ location, Mikhail says the Swan implosion hindered the
underwater beacon that allows travel to and from the island, and they find a
sonar fence. Locke tosses Mikhail into the fence and he seemingly dies. The
party climbs a tree branch up and over the fence. Claire plans to catch a seagull
and tie a note to its leg to be found, but is constantly foiled by Desmond
hunting for boar, and receives no help from Charlie. Desmond scales some
seaside rocks to grab a seagull and he admits to Claire that he saw a vision of
Charlie slip and die while trying to get one. They write a message and send the
seagull off. The search party finds the Barracks, and Jack playing football
with Tom.
Review:
I remember initially being very excited
about “Enter 77” and thinking that it gave us a big trove of information to dig
through. Seeing it again, it actually doesn’t provide a whole lot, as the Flame
is mostly just a communications station. I was pleasantly surprised that we
avoided cliché and not only had Sayid be smart enough to see through Mikhail’s
lies, but got a quick turnaround to “the next stage”. Sayid knows he’s lying,
and Mikhail knows that he knows. Other shows would have them fake it for a
while, but they blow it up pretty quickly here, which is nice. Ms. Klugh is
unfortunately wasted. She was never terribly compelling but seemed the more
even-keeled of the Others we have seen up to this point.
The flashback with Sami and Amira does
not appear to have any deep impact on the story after this, but it does have a
good message, which Sayid utilizes. Sparing Mikhail ultimately leads to them
navigating the sonar fence and Mikhail saving Naomi. Sparing people is
apparently part of Sayid’s redemption. The ping-pong match is whatever. Maybe
it would have been more interesting to have them play a game of chess instead,
as a complement Locke, but neither Hurley nor Sawyer seem like the type. Notice that Locke says "humans cheat" at chess, which will be echoed in episode 13 when he says the Others are cheating at living on the island.
“Par Avion” marks the middle of the
show, and Claire’s message acts as a little recap of where we’ve been. It’s a
weak idea, but it’s the only one they’ve got.
I really don’t have too much to say about it. It actually ends up being
more of a Charlie and Desmond story, which speaks to how tangential Claire is to
the plot at this point. The Christian Shepard revelation never actually felt like
a revelation since not much is actually done with it, even after Jack finds
out. I’ll have a bit more to say on this when we get to “Something Nice Back
Home.” So yeah, “Claire looks for a seagull” is not the most engrossing story
they’ve ever told, especially when compared with Jack’s rescue party. It would
have been cool if the message was found at some point; even by a dangerous
party.
The sonar fence thing with Mikhail is
curious. The fake-out of his death (it was on a non-lethal setting, he tells us
a few episodes later) is sort of lame, although it’s interesting way to “go”,
if he were to actually go. Anyway, it’s a fun obstacle which helps remove
Mikhail’s knowledge from the team’s arsenal, even though it goes completely
against Sayid’s decision from “Enter 77” and he doesn’t seem that broken up
about it. It’s mainly time-filler until we get to the end, where Jack and
Friendly are playing football like old pals. Because it’s been three episodes
since we last saw them, it’s enough to conceivably have a change in the status
quo, so we’re as shocked as Kate is. Memorable ending to an otherwise middling
episode.
Connecting the Dots:
According to Darlton, Mikhail’s entire backstory
is true except for being part of DHARMA.
Mikhail outright says that they (the
characters who were not kidnapped) were not on the list because they are “flawed,
weak, and frightened”, confirming that the Others only kidnapped whom they
deemed as good people. The flawed, weak, and frightened characters are the ones
who need the island the most, and thus are the candidates for Jacob’s position.
Mikhail’s comment “the John Locke I
knew” is (presumably) about being a passenger with a disability. He acquired
the flight manifest the day of the crash and grabbed information from the
passengers using the Flame station.
Ranking:
1.
Tricia Tanaka is
Dead (9/10)
2.
The Cost of
Living (8.5/10)
3.
Flashes Before
Your Eyes (8.5/10)
4.
Enter 77 (8/10)
(We don’t get as much relevant information from the Flame as I thought the
first time around, but it’s a tense standoff all the way through.)
5.
Par Avion
(7.5/10) (The seagull story is nothing to write home about [no pun intended]
but the jungle adventure keeps it above-average.)
6.
Not in Portland
(7/10)
7.
Further
Instructions (7/10)
8.
The Glass
Ballerina (7/10)
9.
Every Man for Himself
(6.5/10)
10. A Tale of Two Cities (6.5/10)
11. Stranger in a Strange Land (4.5/10)
12. I Do (4/10)
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