SOLITARY

Or, What Goes Around Comes Around

[Originally Aired November 17, 2004]

Sayid's big flashback moment reveals he used to torture infidels for the Iraqi army. His newest prisoner is an old childhood friend, a woman named Nadia. She has been tortured before and will tell Sayid nothing. Back on the island, Sayid finds a cable leading from the beach into the jungle. He follows it into the jungle and is snagged in a trap. Sayid wakes to find himself tied to a bed, someplace with electricity, His captor asks "Where is Alex?" repeatedly. When he can't answer sufficiently he is shocked. The torturer has become the tortured. Sayid tells his captor he is the survivor of a plane crash and he came looking for the source of the distress signal. His captor reveals herself as the voice on the recording. Her name is Rousseau. She tells him her boat crashed and she and some others were stranded on the island. When they became sick she killed them all. Sick with what? She also tells him there are other people on the island, she can hear them whispering in the jungle, and she seems to think he is one of them. Meanwhile, Hurley salvages some golf clubs and balls and builds a two-hole course. The course proves a good distraction and stress reliever for the survivors. Sawyer tries being nice for a change. Back in Iraq, Sayid is told to execute Nadia, but instead helps her escape. Meanwhile, there is growling outside Rousseau's burrow, and she runs off to confront whatever is outside. Sayid escapes, taking her maps. Rousseau captures him again in the jungle, but decides to free him. He asks who Alex is, and she tells him he is her son. Sayid runs into the jungle, and as he does, he hears whispering.