LOST Rewatch: Collision

Credit: tle1lost.wordpress.com

The tension of the previous two episodes comes to a conclusion in "Collision," when we finally catch up to the moment where Sayid is cradling a dying Shannon in the rainy jungle--while Ana Lucia still pointing her gun forward and while everyone else stands in shock.

As is her style, Ana quickly takes charge and uses her gun to reassert herself. She threatens Sayid and he responds by pulling out his own gun. (Where are all these guns coming from?) But Eko knocks Sayid unconscious with his trusty tree limb and Ana eventually gets him tied to a tree while she struggles to figure out what her next move should be. But she appears to be coming a bit more unglued as time passes. She knows that what she did was wrong and unforgivable, but Ana won't let herself show any weakness and admit a mistake. (Sounds like she'll fit right in with the rest of the plane crash survivors, doesn't it?)

The other Tailies are thinking that Ana might have gone too far in trying to deal with the shooting, but they are too cowed by her (and indebted to her for helping them survive the Others assault during the previous 48 days) to stand up and forcefully tell her that she is wrong. Everyone that is but Mr. Eko, who decided to pick up Sawyer and bring him back to the Beach so that he can get some medical attention.

And we all know that nothing makes Jack more upset that being thrown into a situation that he isn't in control of. So when a mysterious Eko appears on the shoreline with a bleeding, feverish, unconscious Sawyer . . . well, he first gets to doctoring and then gets to posturing and . . .  well, that is about as far as Jack gets. (He's best at doctoring and that involves getting Sawyer into the Swan station shower to try and get his temperature down.

Oh . . . the Flashback for this episode? It's about Ana Lucia's previous life as a cop. And she was pretty much as big a hot head then as she is now on the Island. She draws her gun at every opportunity, mouths off to her superiors, and stomps around as if she is supremely confident. (I guess I should be fair and point out that she is recovering from being involved in an officer-involved shooting at a previous crime scene where she was hurt and hospitalized and then put into a psych evaluation rotation. And, as we later learn, she was pregnant during the shooting incident and the baby was lost and her fiance/boyfriend left her in the aftermath of it all. So, I guess she has some right to be upset.)

But back on the Island, she is impulsive and abrasive and threatening to our man Sayid. He's mostly in shock after the death of Shannon, so he talks to her in the calm way he has when he is experiencing a Moment of Revelation. And Sayid knows that he did plenty of bad things in his life pre-crash, so maybe he deserves having Ana torture and kill him? At least that is what he is suggesting.

But Ana comes to her senses and lets him go. And she reluctantly arrives at the Beach to join up with the rest of the survivors of Flight 815. Sayid has Shannon's body; Ana has her guilt; Sawyer has a life-threatening fever; Jack has new unresolved issues to be tense about; Locke has someone new to talk to (Eko).

And we have a new dynamic on the Island.