1.16 - Outlaws

Kate and Sawyer share secrets from their pasts while hunting a boar which seems to have a particular dislike for Sawyer. A connection between Jack and Sawyer is revealed.

If you'll excuse me, I've got some revenge to attend to. --- Sawyer

When you look a man in eye and you point a gun at him, you find who you really are, mate. And, should you find you're not a killer, there's no refund.
That won't be a problem. --- Laurence, Sawyer

Look, I appreciate the help but you don't have to. I killed Ethan; I can bury him.
Yeah, until he rises from the dead. Dude, I know how this works. This is going to end with you and me running through the jungle screaming and crying and he catches me first because I'm heavy and I get cramps. --- Charlie Pace, Hugo "Hurley" Reyes

It's fate. Some people are just supposed to suffer. That's why the Red Sox will never win the damn series. I have a son who's about your age. He's not like me; he does what's in his heart. He's a good man... maybe a great one. Right now, he thinks that I hate him. He thinks I feel betrayed by him. But, what I really feel is gratitude and pride because of what he did to me; what he did for me. It took more courage than I have. --- Christian Shepherd

All I'm saying is that what happened with Ethan will be with you for the rest of your life.
Any suggestions?
You're not alone. Don't pretend to be. --- Sayid, Charlie Pace

Flashback: A young Sawyer is in his room. His mother comes in and tells him that "he" is there. She tells Sawyer that she loves him and to hide under the bed and not to come out no matter what happens.

Sawyer hides and his mother leaves. We hear yelling and her telling someone to leave or she will call the police. There is a gunshot and we hear a body fall to the ground.

From his position under the bed, Sawyer sees a man enter his room. (All we see is the man's boots and legs.) The man sits on the bed and, after a pause, there is another gunshot.

Sawyer suddenly wakes up in his tent. He hears a noise and looks around to see a boar standing in his tent and rooting through his belongings. Sawyer yells and swings at the boar with what looks like a baseball bat. The boar runs off, taking the tent with it.

Sawyer chases the boar into the jungle but loses it. He stops suddenly as he hears a strange whispering sound all around him. A whispering voice seems to say "It'll come back around."

The next morning, Sayid arrives to find Sawyer attempting to repair the remains of his tent. Sayid finds this amusing but Sawyer is still angry. Sawyer tells Sayid that if any of his stuff goes missing he will come looking for him.

Sawyer asks Sayid what it was he heard when he escaped from Rousseau. Sayid says his mind was probably playing tricks on him but he thought he heard whispering. Sawyer asks what the whispering said and Sayid, suddenly suspicious, asks Sawyer if he heard something. Sawyer abruptly cuts off, saying he didn't hear anything.

Flashback: Sawyer arrives in a hotel room, a woman with him. The two are being quite affectionate and Sawyer is leading her to the bed when a man speaks up, saying the situation is awkward but he needed to say something before it became embarrassing. The lights turn on and Hibbs is revealed to be sitting in a chair.

The woman wants to know what is going on but Sawyer is able to convince her to go downstairs and wait for him in the bar. Sawyer then tells Hibbs that he said the next time he saw him, he would kill him. Hibbs responds that he has something that will make them even. Through a series of contacts, he has found out about a man named Frank Duckett. Duckett used to be a con artist like Sawyer, until one of his cons resulted in the husband of the woman he conned killing his wife and them himself. "Frank Duckett" was the man responsible for what happened to Sawyer's family. Sawyer asks where Duckett is and Hibbs tells him Australia.

Kate is giving her gun back to Jack and asking if anyone wondered where they came from. He says no one asked and probably assumed they came from the Marshal. He adds that everyone else probably assumes the Marshal was on the flight alone.

Kate asks if Jack got all the guns back and Jack says all but one. Kate asks who didn't return theirs and Jack tells her to guess. She realizes that Sawyer still has his.

Kate says that she can get Sawyer's gun back and Jack says he doesn't want her to; he doesn't want her to owe Sawyer anything. Kate says she speaks Sawyer's language and will get it back.

At the caves, Claire approaches Charlie who is attempting to bundle some pieces of metal together. She asks if he wants to go for a walk and Charlie says he can't; he has something he needs to take care of. He takes the bundle of metal and leaves.

Sawyer is in the jungle and finds the tarp from his tent. The boar suddenly appears and charges him, knocking him into a mud puddle. The boar runs off.

Kate appears and seems amused at the situation but Sawyer insists that the boar is out to get him. Kate dismisses the idea and tells him to have Locke kill the boar. Sawyer says that he will get the boar himself and leaves, saying he has some revenge to take care of.

Flashback: Sawyer, now in Australia, finds his way to a machine shop. There, he talks to someone who sells him a gun. The man reminds Sawyer that guns are illegal in Australia but Sawyer tells him that he won't turn him in. The man then says that he won't take the gun back if Sawyer decides that he can't kill whoever it is that he is after. Sawyer says that won't be a problem.

Charlie is with Hurley. With them is the body of Ethan, wrapped in a cloth. Charlie says that since he killed Ethan he can bury him and indicates that he doesn't need Hurley's help. Hurley says he might, if Ethan suddenly comes back to life and starts chasing them through the jungle. Charlie simply starts digging, using the metal object he was working on earlier as a shovel.

Later, Hurley finds Sayid and asks if he ever suffered from Gulf War Syndrome. Sayid mildly points out that "that was the other side". Hurley corrects himself and asks if Sayid ever had "shellshock", which Sayid identifies as Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

Sayid asks why Hurley is asking and Hurley says he is worried about Charlie. He points out that Charlie shot someone and says that Sayid may want to talk to him.

Kate finds Sawyer examining a footprint and tells him that it came from Boone. She says that she has been following Sawyer for some time and that he has followed everything except the boar.

She then tells him that she will help him for "carte blanche". Basically, anytime she wants something from his stash, she gets it. Sawyer puts her off at first but eventually accepts.

Later, by a campfire, Sawyer pulls out an airline minibottle and starts drinking. Kate says that Jack had been looking for the liquor cart and Sawyer responds by saying that it was a good thing he found it first.

Kate asks for a bottle and Sawyer says she doesn't have her "carte blanche" yet but that he will give her one if she plays "I Never" with him. He explains the game. Each of them will take turns saying "I never" followed by some statement. If they have done the thing in the statement, then they drink. If they haven't, they don't. Sawyer starts with an example. He says "I never kissed a man." Since Kate has kissed a man, she drinks.

Kate says she never implied that she had been to college, when she hadn't. Sawyer drinks. Sawyer says he has never been to Disneyland. Kate doesn't drink. Kate says she never wore pink. Sawyer drinks, to Kate's amusement. Sawyer says he never voted Democrat. Kate doesn't drink and says she never voted. Sawyer drinks.

Sawyer says he has never been in love. Kate drinks. Kate says she never had a one-night stand. Sawyer drinks. Sawyer says he has never been married. Kate takes a small sip, saying "it didn't last very long". She then says she never blamed a boar for her problems. Sawyer drinks.

Sawyer says he never pretended to want "carte blanche" just to have an excuse to spend time with the only other person on the island who just "didn't belong". Kate drinks. Kate says she never carried a letter around for 20 years because she couldn't get over her baggage. Sawyer drinks.

Sawyer says he never killed a man. There is a pause, then Kate drinks. Another pause, then Sawyer drinks. He looks at Kate.

"Looks like we have something in common after all." he says.

Flashback: We see the scene again where young Sawyer is hiding under the bed. We see the man's legs as they enter the room. Suddenly, the man is replaced with the boar. There is a gunshot and we hear "It'll come back around."

Sawyer suddenly wakes up. Kate is shaking him. They look around and their camp is trashed. Apparently the boar came in the night and destroyed all of Sawyer's gear, even urinating on his shirt. Kate's pack was untouched. Suddenly they hear something in the brush. Sawyer pulls the gun but it turns out to be Locke. Locke says he was out looking for salvage, came across their trail and stopped to be friendly.

Locke then asks what happened to their camp. Kate explains about the boar. Sawyer insists that the boar is out to get him.

As Locke makes some coffee, he tells Kate and Sawyer about an incident from his childhood. His sister, Jeanne, was killed playing on some monkey bars. His stepmother blamed herself for the incident and her mental health started to deteriorate, to the point that others were afraid she may try to hurt herself.

Then, one day, a golden retriever with no tags or other identification appeared. The dog stayed with them, staying in Jeanne's room and sleeping in Jeanne's bed, until his mother passed away. Then, the dog vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.

Kate asks if the dog was Jeanne come back and Locke says that that would be silly. But, he says that his mother thought it was; that she thought Jeanne had come back to let her know that the accident wasn't her fault. He looks at Sawyer as he says this and smiles. Sawyer looks thoughtful.

Flashback: Sawyer arrives at the shrimp truck run by Frank Duckett. He asks if Sawyer wants shrimp and Sawyer says that he does. As he prepares the shrimp, Duckett indicates that he recognizes Sawyer as an American and asks where he is from. Sawyer, who identifies himself as "James", says he is from Tennessee. Duckett continues to make small talk.

While he is working, Sawyer has pulled the gun and cocked it, but doesn't seem to be able to raise it. Duckett finally turns with the shrimp but finds that Sawyer has left.

Somewhat later, Sawyer is in a bar, drinking. When he orders another round, another patron at the bar says that he has forgotten his wallet and asks for a handout. Sawyer orders him a drink too. The other patron offers his thanks. We see that the patron is Christian Shepherd; Jack's father.

Shepherd comments that Australia is as close to hell as you can get. Sawyer seems to be somewhat amused by this and asks him to elaborate.

"We're in hell, huh?"
"Don't let the air conditioning fool you, son. You're here too. You are suffering. But don't beat yourself up about it. It's fate. Some people are just supposed to suffer. That's why the Red Sox will never win the damn series. I have a son who's about your age. He's not like me; he does what's in his heart. He's a good man... maybe a great one. Right now, he thinks that I hate him. He thinks I feel betrayed by him. But, what I really feel is gratitude and pride because of what he did to me; what he did for me. It took more courage than I have. There's a pay phone over there. I could pick it up and I could call my son. I could tell him about all this. I could tell him that I love him. One simple phone call and I could fix everything."
"Why don't you?" asks Sawyer.
"Because I am weak." says Christian, intensely. He pauses. "This business that you have, will it ease your suffering?"
"Yeah." replies Sawyer.
"Then what are you doing here?" asks Christian.
Sawyer waves a hand dismissively. "It ain't that simple."
"Of course it is." says Christian. "Unless you want to end up like me. Of course it is."

On the beach, Charlie is stripping the husks off of coconuts. Sayid approaches and asks if he is doing all right. Charlie, somewhat angrily, dismisses him by saying that he killed Ethan because of what Ethan had done to them, that Ethan deserved to die and that he would do it again.

Sayid pauses then tells him that when he was a soldier in Iraq, he was a neighbor of someone who was a policeman. One day, someone planted a bomb in the policeman's car which killed his wife and children. They caught the bomber and Sayid volunteered to be on the firing squad. He did his duty with no remorse. However, since then, he wakes up at night, playing the incident over and over in his mind.

Charlie says that it sounds as if Sayid is the one who needs help. Sayid sighs and says he just wanted Charlie to know that he isn't alone and that he shouldn't act as if he was. Sayid leaves. Charlie looks thoughtful.

Elsewhere, Kate and Sawyer find the boar's wallow. They hear something and Sawyer runs into the bushes, coming out holding a boar piglet. He starts waving the piglet around and calling for the boar. Kate is not amused by this and tells him to put the piglet down before he hurts it. Sawyer laughs and Kate kicks him in the leg. Sawyer falls and the piglet runs away.

Sawyer stands up, now angry at Kate. She tells him to find his own way home and leaves.

Flashback: It is raining in Australia. Sawyer has returned to Duckett's shrimp truck and sees Duckett taking trash out to a dumpster. Sawyer follows him and calls out "Sawyer". Duckett turns and Sawyer shoots him.

Sawyer kneels beside the dying Duckett and starts reading his letter. Duckett doesn't seem to know what Sawyer is talking about and gasps that he would have paid the money back to Hibbs. Sawyer is confused for a moment then realizes that Hibbs set both of them up; Duckett owed money to Hibbs and Hibbs tricked Sawyer into killing Duckett for him. Duckett looks up at Sawyer and gasps "It'll come back around." before dying.

In the jungle, Sawyer is suddenly confronted by the boar. He pulls his gun and aims it at the boar, then hesitates. After a moment, he lowers the gun. The boar watches him for another moment then retreats into the brush.

Sawyer looks around and sees Kate watching him from the side. He stares at her for a moment, then says "It's just a boar" before turning and walking off.

At the beach, Charlie walks up to Claire and asks if she is ready for a walk now.

Sawyer finds Jack chopping wood. He points the gun at Jack and tells him to "stick 'em up". Jack turns to him and, somewhat annoyed, asks if Sawyer is trying to be funny. Sawyer says that he is and gives the gun to Jack. Jack takes the gun and says he asked for it two days before. Sawyer says that he wasn't going to until Kate asked him. Jack asks what Kate gave him in return and Sawyer responds "Nothing she wasn't willing to part with."

Jack shakes his head and says "That's why the Sox will never win the series." Sawyer stops suddenly and asks Jack what he meant. Jack says that it was something his father used to say; that his father went through life knowing that everyone hated him but instead of trying to do anything about it he just put it down to fate.

Sawyer, a look of realization on his face, asks if Jack's father was a doctor too. Jack confirms what Sawyer has realized by saying that his father was a doctor but that he died in Australia. Jack, suddenly curious, asks why Sawyer is so interested in his father.

Sawyer pauses for a moment, thinking. "No reason." he says finally before turning and walking away. Jack looks after him for a moment then, with a shrug, goes back to chopping wood.

We learned of Sawyer's background and about the letter he wrote to the original Sawyer in Confidence Man. This is also the episode in which Sawyer was tortured and in which he and Kate "made out".

We learned that Jack's father had died in Australia in White Rabbit and what Jack had done that drove him to Australia in All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues.

Charlie killed Ethan in Homecoming.

Sayid heard the strange whispers in the jungle at the end of Solitary.

What are the whispers in the jungle?

Was the boar somehow the reincarnation of Frank Duckett? Was it even real? Was it a phenomena similar to the appearance of Jack's father in White Rabbit?

The Lostaways crashed on the island sometime in September of 2004. The Red Sox won the World Series in October of 2004; though of course they would have no way of knowing that. Since this episode aired in February of 2005, the repeated comment that the Red Sox will "never" win the Series is an obvious joke.