Flashback: In Paris after the first Gulf War, Sayid is imprisoned by a man who claims that Sayid interrogated and tortured his wife. Sami demands that Sayid confess and acknowledge his wrongdoing, but Sayid insists that he was not the interrogator responsible for his wife’s scars.
The Island: Sawyer tries to win his stash back by playing a ping pong match against Hurley, but Hurley’s had far too much practice. Once the game is over, Hurley makes a peace offering and tries to reassure Sawyer that Kate will be all right with Sayid and Locke.
Sayid discovers a farm with a satellite dish, and recognizes the man watching the animals. It is the eyepatch-wearing man he, Locke and the others saw on the monitor in the Pearl station. Sayid goes into the open in order to make contact, the man shoots him in the arm. When Locke and Kate run in with weapons ready, he claims it was a mistake – that he believed they were part of the Others, violating their truce. He introduces himself as Mikhail, and says he is the last surviving member of the Dharma Initiative. The rest were killed when the launched an ill-fated attack against the Others, who had been on the island before Dharma arrived. Mikhail claims the Others – or hostiles – agreed to let him stay at the Flame station as long as he did not venture into their territory.
Locke finds a computer with a chess game and begins to play it, despite Mikhail’s claims that the game can not be beaten. After Mikhail removes the bullet from Sayid’s arm, Sayid tells Kate that he believes that Mikhail is lying – and that he is not alone. Soon after, Mikhail drops the fiction and attacks Sayid and Kate; they get the upper hand, and leave Locke to guard the unconscious and bound man while they explore a hidden basement. They find many Dharma manuals and documents there – along with Ms. Klugh. But Locke gets distracted by the chess game long enough for Mikhail to get the drop on him. Mikhail wants to exchange prisoners, but Klugh has other, more drastic plans to make sure the castaways get no information from her. And when Locke finally beats the chess game, he discovers that Dharma’s communications equipment no longer works – and that Dharma has drastic plans of its own to keep the Flame station out of hostile hands.
written by Carlton Cuse & Damon Lindelof
directed by Stephen Williams
music by Michael Giacchino
Guest Cast: Mira Furlan (Danielle Rousseau), Rodrigo Santoro (Paulo), Kiele Sanchez (Nikki), April Grace (Ms. Klugh), Andrew Divoff (Mikhail Bakunin), Francois Chau (Dr. Marvin Candle), Shaun Toub (Sami), Anne Bedian (Amira), Taiarii Marshall (Waiter), Eyad Elbitar (Arabic Man)
Notes: Ms. Klugh last appeared in the season 2 finale Live Together, Die Alone. Locke and Sayid observed Mikhail from the Pearl station in season 3’s The Cost of Living.
LogBook entry by Dave Thomer
Disturbed by recurring nightmares about Leoben, the Cylon who held her captive on New Caprica, Starbuck visits an oracle, who unsettles her even further with a prediction that Leoben is coming to find her. After this encounter, Starbuck is reluctant to seek further help with her nightmares, even though Anders is willing to accompany her to see a psychiatrist. During fleet refueling operations, a routine recon flight becomes anything but when Starbuck spots a Cylon raider and pursues it, nearly getting herself killed in a storm in the planet’s atmosphere. But afterward, on Galactica, a review of her gun camera footage shows no Cylon ship, and both Starbuck and her superiors start to wonder if she’s fit to fly. Apollo, convinced that she’ll overcome her problems, puts her back in the pilot’s seat and even offers to be her wingman…but it could prove to be their last mission together.
