LOST Rewatch: Three Minutes (COV115D-19)

Credit:  tle1lost.wordpress.com

"Three Minutes" follows hot on the heels of the events of "?". The Lostaways are still trying to understand the events of "Two For the Road" while the fresh graves of Libby and Ana Lucia remind them of what they don't know.

They don't know who "Henry Gale" actually is. Nor where he has gone. (Though Michael has some ideas about that.)

They don't know the truth of how Ana and Libby died. (Though Michael definitely know the information about that.)

They don't know that Michael has plans to lead a few of them--Jack, Kate, John, Sawyer, and Hurley--into a trap. (Though Sayid has suspicions about that.)

They don't truly know what the Others are up to . . . or what is going on with Walt. (Though the events of this episode clue the viewer a bit closer into THAT.)

We get several mini-FLASHBACKS in this episode, not into anyone's far past. But into the thirteen days prior when Michael ran away from Swan Hatch in search of Walt. We see that he was chased by Jack and co. and how Michael was caught up by Capt. Beardo and his merry band of boat-going others. How he was gagged and in the wings when Beardo confronted Jack and co. about the line in the jungle that the Lostaways were not to cross. We see that Michael was taken back to the primitive-seeming camp that the Others have on some unknown part of the Island--huts alongside an ocean bluff. Michael sees another Dharma-sealed door to what looks to be a fifth Hatch. But there is no entrance.

Michael is held in a hut and not permitted to see anything or talk to anyone but a mysterious woman called Klugh. She is given the name "Miss Klugh" in the credits . . . clue . . . get it? (Don't worry. It won't really add up to anything in the end.) She is the one that tells Michael that only Kate, Jack, Sawyer (here identified at James Ford), John, and Hurley are to return with him. Miss Klugh gives Michael a hand-written list of these names. If he can lure these people to them, the Others will give Michael a boat and he and Walt can go free . . . off the Island? After promising to make that happen, Michael gets to see Walt for three minutes in the hut. It is the first time we've seen Walt since he was on the boat at the end of Season 1--minus a few visions here and there in previous episodes. Their reunion is tearful and it properly motivates Michael to carry out the plan--which will result in the two tragic deaths and the freeing of "Henry."

Other random thoughts while watching this episode:

1. At one point, Sawyer--while insulting Hurley and Kate in order to argue that Sayid should be included on Michael's mission--says the following: "Look if Pippy Longstockings and the Grape Ape get to go, then I vote for the Red Beret." It's the most amazing example so far of Sawyer's particular word salad of pop culture references/insults/nicknames. And my kids were so confused by it that they didn't even know how to respond.

2. One of the Others takes blood from Michael by simply jamming a hypodermic into the meat of his upper shoulder and I just laughed out loud. Of course, that isn't how you draw blood. But it is so stupid its' funny.

3. Charlie is demonstrating that he is no longer beholden to the heroin by throwing the remaining Virgin Mary statues into the ocean waves. Ignoring the fact, naturally, that he is barely getting the statues past the breakwater and that they will wash ashore in the tide within hours. But . . . now that I think on it a bit unless Nigerian souvenier making is very high quality, the seams on the statues won't be enough to protect the heroin from seawater. So . . . I guess Charlie did it right after all.

4. And speaking of the ocean bringing things back to the Island, something does come back at the very end of the episode. A fancy-looking sailboat! I wonder who is inside?