ENTER 77

Or, That Darn Cat

[Originally Aired March 7, 2007]

Hurley and Jin find a ping pong table and drag it to the beach. Sawyer asks where the hell they got it, and Hurley tells him it must have flown out of the hatch when it exploded. Sawyer thought the hatch imploded. So did I. Wevs. Don't ask questions like that, Hurley suggests. Anyway, they've no ping pong balls, so they're out of luck. Sawyer asks Paulo why he took his magazine. Paulo offers to give it back but Sawyer realizes the dude was taking a crap with it and he tells him to keep it. And I ask again why Paulo and Nikki were added to the cast. In the jungle Sayid and Locke bicker about the magical directions on Eko's murderstick. Locke hears something, and he peers through the bush to see the man with the eyepatch from five or six episodes back. I guess the magic murderstick was right. He has a dwelling, a barn-ish looking building, and is wearing a Dharma jumpsuit. There is a giant satellite dish on the roof. Back on the beach Sawyer coughs up a ping pong ball. He challenges the other survivors to a game. If he wins he gets all his stuff back. If he loses, Sun tells him he can't use any nicknames for one week. Damn. That's one hell of a wager. Locke and Sayid spy on Mr. Eyepatch and Sayid puts down his rifle and decides to go in and talk to the guy. Rousseau says, fuck this, I'll be out in the car and leaves. Flashback and Sayid is working as a chef in Paris and one of the restaurant's customers, Sami, tells him he is a great cook and offers him a job at his restaurant. In the jungle Sayid approaches the building and sees a horse and a cat. Then Patchy shoots him. Ouch. It's just in the arm, so it's okay. He yells he didn't cross the line, so why are they fucking with him. Sayid says he's not who he thinks he is, that he is a survivor of a plane crash. Patchy approaches and Locke springs out and makes him drop his weapon. Patchy introduces himself: "My name is Mikhail Bakunin and I am the last remaining member of the Dharma Initiative." Mikhail and Kate help Sayid inside while Locke fucks around being unhelpful. Mikhail tells them he was in Afghanistan and after the Cold War he responded to an ad about saving the world. Eleven years ago the Dharma initiative sent him to this station, The Flame. It's a communications station. Meanwhile, Locke finds a computer and it asks him "Shall we play a game?" Locke answers yes and I am pretty sure the whole world will be nuked any moment now. Sayid asks Mikhail what happened to the other Dharmas. "They’re all dead, of course. They foolishly initiated a war against The Hostiles, the purge they called it." Oh, okay. Does he mean the Others? Well, that wouldn't make much sense, would it? Mikhail continues on, telling them that the Hostiles told him to stay on his side of the valley and they'd leave him alone. In flashback, Sayid strolls into Sami's restaurant. Sami introduces his wife, Amira, to Sayid. As they shake hands, Sayid notices her arms are scarred from being burned. Is this him, Sami asks. Yes. Suddenly Sami and his friends jump on Sayid and beat the shit out of him. Back at his place, Mikhail talks to the cat, and calls her Nadia. This freaks Sayid out. Mikhail says the cat is named after Nadia Comaneci because they have the same birthday. Mikhail pulls the bullet from Sayid's arm and offers his guests some iced tea. He sees Locke playing chess on the computer and warns him he's wasting his time, the computer cheats. Locke replies "I’ve played a lot of computers and I'm pretty sure they don’t know how to cheat. That's what makes being human so distinctly wonderful." Kate and Sayid whisper saying Mikhail's story doesn't make much sense. Sayid believes Mikhail is an Other. And that he's not alone. On the beach Sawyer and Hurley face off on the ping pong table. Hurley serves, Sawyer returns. Hurley slams the ball and Sawyer misses it. Uh oh, it's gonna be a slaughter. Mikhail and Sayid chat about the Flame. It's a hub. All the other stations are attached to it. So is the submarine homing beacon. Then Mikhail asks them why they're all bullshitting since they all know what's up. Then a big ass brawl breaks out between Sayid and Mikhail and Kate. Until Kate gets her rifle and Locke gets some rope. Flashback to Sayid chained up in a basement or somewhere. Sami asks "You were a torturer, were you not, in the Republican Guard? Do you not recognize one of your victims? Do you not recognize the woman you tortured? Do you not recognize my wife?" Sayid responds "I was in the Republican Guard and, yes, I was an interrogator. But I have never seen your wife. Maybe she saw me at the same facility, but I do not know her. I can remember every face of every person I interrogated. What do you want from me?" Sami says "I want you to admit what you did. And if you don’t, you will leave this room in a bag." At Mikhail's, Kate asks who he knew he wasn't alone. The horse was saddled for someone much shorter. Locke says whoever is hiding is good, because he's looked everywhere. Not everywhere, says Sayid as he pulls back the rug, revealing a trap door. In flashback, Sayid takes another beating, refusing to admit he tortured Amira. Sami is about to pound Sayid further until Amira stops him. Locke absent-mindedly plays computer chess (he's proving quite helpful, ain't he?) as Sayid and Kate explore the basement. Sayid notes that the place is wired with C-4. Uh oh, that can't be good. Meanwhile Locke beats the computer and suddenly Dr. Candle appears on screen. He offers options on what to do in certain situations. "Has there been an incursion of this station by The Hostiles? If so, enter 77." Locke is about to key that in when suddenly Mikhail puts a knife to his throat. Downstairs Ms. Klugh pounces on Kate but Kate kicks her ass and drags her upstairs. Now there's a standoff. Mikhail offers to trade Locke for Klugh. Locke says it's bullshit, if Mikhail was going to kill him, he'd have done it already. Klugh yells at Mikhail in Russian, there is confusion. Then Mikhail shoves Locke away and shoots Klugh. Damn. That was fucked up. Mikhail tells Sayid to shoot him. At the beach, Hurley apologizes to Sawyer for beating him at ping pong, and gives him some porno mags. Then he tells Sawyer Kate will be okay, because she's with Sayid and Locke. Sawyer tells him "Get bent, Hugo." At the Flame, Locke messes with the computer again and enters 77. Sayid asks if everything Mikhail told him was a lie. Only the part about being Dharma. Everything else was true. Sayid whips out a map of the island. It shows all the stations and their electrical connections. Rousseau returns and tells Sayid to kill Mikhail. In flashback, Amira visits Sayid and tells him how she used to be afraid to leave her apartment. Until she saw some kids torturing a cat in the ally. So she rescued it, and that gave her a reason to go out. The cat bites her on occasion, because sometimes it forgets that it is safe. But she understands. And she asks Sayid to admit what he did. Sayid cries, "I remember you. I remember your face. Your face has haunted me ever since I left Iraq. I am sorry. I am so sorry for what I did to you. I am sorry." She forgives him and agrees to let him go, proving herself better than her captors. Back in the jungle, Locke tells Sayid he was playing computer chess. Then Mikhail's house explodes. Oops. Sayid freaks out "That place was our one hope of communication with the outside world!" Locke shrugs, saying he just entered 77 on the computer. The cat watches as they head into the jungle.