Previously: NotLocke led; Sawyer, Claire and Sayid followed; Kate came along for the ride. Also, we were given to understand that there would be Leonard Cohen. And, uh, you guys? I hate to spoil things... but there was no Leonard Cohen. I feel cheated.

Island Timeline

Camp NotLocke is a dump. There, I said it. Sawyer recaps to Jin that he's with Locke, or whoever that dude is that can get them off the island. Because, you know, like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, he has tried in his way to be free. (Okay, I feel better now.) Jin, this episode's designated Kwon, wants to find Sun. There, he said it. NotLocke returns with his flock of cast members and extras, giving Sawyer and Kate an excuse to Very Meaningfully greet each other. Kate checks out Claire's hovel and sees her little pig fetish baby thing. "What is that?" she asks Claire, logically. "It's all I have," Claire says sadly. Or something like that. This is about where Kate finally gets the message that, Claire? She crazy.

NotLocke gathers the campers and tells them it's time to move on. Cindy, on exposition duty for this episode, asks what happened to the people who stayed at the Temple. NotLocke explains that the black smoke killed them, but assures Cindy's charges that he'll take care of them. Sawyer's all, uh, dude? Getting off Island? Huh? They go aside for a private chat. Sawyer, ever-practical, wants to know how he knew to get those people out of the temple. After a little existential angst, NotLocke reveals, "I'm the Smoke thing." Sawyer does not run screaming, or question his decision, or anything that sensible people do. Instead, he verifies, and NotLocke confirms. "All I want to do is leave," NotLocke moans. "Kill or be killed. And I don't want to be killed." Great, glad we cleared that up. NotLocke takes Sawyer to the little outrigger and sends him on a recon mission to Hydra: Go over, check out the Ajira plane, gain the remaining passengers' trust, and come back.

Over on Hydra, Sawyer stops by the cages where he was held hostage, pausing to fondle Kate's old dress. Truth be told, it's kind of gross -- the dress, and the fondling. He moves on. There's the plane, and there's the scattered luggage, and there's a path into the brush, and there's a pile of dead people. Ew! Also, there's someone running through the brush. Sawyer gives chase and tackles her. Sawyer tackles the woman, who turns out to be Tina Fey as Sarah Palin as Liz Lemon. Only she says her name's Zoe. She says that she and her fellow passengers were hanging out, waiting for someone to rescue them, and then she went to collect firewood and came back to find everyone dead. Yeah, I hate it when that happens. So, they're trying to get information out of each other, and neither's really giving it up, until Sawyer pulls a gun and demands answers. She responds by whistling for her rifle-toting buddies. Sawyer complies with their instructions to drop the gun and get down on his knees. "Take me to your leader," he smirks.

So they take him to Widmore's submarine, passing a bunch of people setting up some pylons. Zoe leads him through the halls (or whatever you call them on a submarine). Sawyer pointedly notes a padlocked door; Zoe pointedly tells him it's none of his business what's in there. She takes him to Charles Widmore. Sawyer's still a little sore about that whole "sent a freighter to kill us" thing. Sawyer proposes a deal: He'll go back and tell NotLocke the coast is clear, so that NotLocke will skip over to Widmore's doorstep; in exchange, Sawyer wants protection for his people and safe passage off the island. They shake hands warily.

Meanwhile, back on the main island, Kate can't help but notice that Sayid's acting a little... weird. But before she can get much further in her thought process, Claire grabs her from behind, throws her down and holds a knife to Kate's throat. Sayid watches impassively. And then NotLocke has to spoil everyone's fun by pulling Claire off and scolding her like a deranged puppy. "She took Aaron!" Claire whines in protest. "You disappeared. She did what she had to do," NotLocke points out, reasonably and uneffectively. Finally, he hauls off and slaps Claire across the face, and sends her to sulk by the fire until he has a minute to deal with her.

Apparently having dealt with Claire, Locke finds Kate weeping prettily among some vegetation. He apologizes for Claire's behavior: He was the one who told her that the Others had her baby. Claire needed something to keep her going, somewhere to channel her angle, so NotLocke gave it to her. Kate's all, very insightful, DEAD MAN. But he's promised to keep everyone safe, including Kate, and he wants to show her something. He holds out her hand, but she gets up her own damn self. She may be stupid, but she's not crazy.

Kate follows NotLocke to the beach. You know, she has really nice hair for someone on an island. It's very thick and voluminous, and the color is as rich as you see in those home hair dye ads. Sorry, but it's just really obvious that even if the rest of her has been living the hard life, her hair hasn't. Anyway, NotLocke points out Hydra, where he sent Sawyer, and invites her to sit down to a little chat. He slowly explains that he's not a dead man; long ago, before he looked like Locke, he had a crazy mother. She was disturbed, and he had some growing pains. Dude, I had growing pains. They would shoot up the side of my legs and I wouldn't be able to walk for half an hour, and I'd just be standing there in the middle of the hallway at school, waiting for them to pass. Yeah, those sucked. And... not the kind you were talking about. 'knevermind. Locke's talking about the kind of gorwing pains that give you problems you're still trying to work your way through, problems that could have been avoided had things been different. And now, Aaron has a crazy mother, too.

(OK. Two things. One: NotLocke may be the only character on this whole show who doesn't have Daddy issues. But he does have Mommy issues, so, yeah, someone in the writers' room needs therapy or something. Two: This is where the fan-assumed parallel to the Biblical Jacob and Esau breaks down. Their mother wasn't crazy. Conniving, yes, but definitely not crazy.)

Back among the trees, an apologetic Claire thanks Kate for taking care of Aaron. She flings herself into Kate's arms, sobbing. Kate realizes that, yep: She really, really crazy. Meanwhile, Sawyer returns and confronts NotLocke about not really sending him over to find passengers from the plane. NotLocke just wants to know what Sawyer found. Sawyer lays it out: Widmore's in a swub docked off Hydra; his crew's setting up those pylons to keep Smokey out; Sawyer told Widmore that he'd send NotLocke into a trap, leaving NotLocke plenty of time to change his plans; and NotLocke's still going to get him off this island, right?

Sawyer finds Kate poking at a campfire, cooking rabbit, of course. He fills her in on the day's happenings. His brilliant plan: Let Widmore and NotLocke fight it out, and he and Kate will get the hell off the island. The fact that neither of them can fly a plane is of no consequence: They're taking the sub. Oh, he can fly that? This should be interesting.

Sideways Timeline

Sideways Sawyer is a cop. But not just any kind of cop. The kind of cop that gets to screw beautiful women on company time, if that's what it takes to get the bad guy. Tough job. (Also, he's not called Sawyer in this timeline, but I'm going to call him that anyway, because it's easier.) When he's not detectiving, he's trying to track down the guy responsible for his parents' deaths. He has a partner, one Miles Straum. As far as Miles knows, Sideways Sawyer definitely did not spend his recent vacation in Sydney chasing down Anthony Coopers. Miles' father works at a museum with a single woman, and since Miles has a girlfriend and James Ford is single, it's blind date time. The girl anthropologist in question turns out to be Charlotte, and it only takes a couple of scenes for them to hit the sheets. She is very pale. Around 3 a.m., she asks to borrow a t-shirt, and Sideways Sawyer directs her to a dresser drawer. (There's a stack of books on the dresser. The top one is "Watership Down," because the show is on a mission to work in every rabbit reference they can. Now, don't quote me on this one, but I think I also spotted "A Wrinkle in Time" in there -- which works for the overall show, but is an awfully strange book for a grown man to have out where any one-night stand can see.) Why Charlotte decides to go hunting through the drawer for more than a t-shirt isn't explained, but it doesn't really matter. Point is, she comes across a photo of a boy and his parents, and then finds a folder with "Sawyer" written on it. Said folder contains an article about young James' parents' murder-suicide. Sideways Sawyer finds her with the stuff and kicks her out.

The next day at the station, Sideways Sawyer brushes off a guy looking for information about his brother, who was arrested at the airport (Liam Pace looking for Charlie, of course) and gets intercepted by Miles. Miles is pissed, but not about the date. Something sounded funny about Sideways Sawyer's story, so Miles looked into it and found out that Sideways Sawyer was not in Palm Springs at all. "You lied to me. We're supposed to trust each other," Miles pouts. "So, Jim, what were you doing in Australia?" When Sideways Sawyer won't tell him, Miles breaks up with him. (As partners. I'll leave any other speculation to the slash writers.) Sideways Sawyer punches a mirror. Like he needs any more bad luck.

That night (presumably), Sawyer walks into apartment 245. Beer in hand, he sits down in front of an episode of Little House on the Prairie. Charles is giving Half-Pint one of those speeches about how life is about living life one day at a time, loving each other, and remembering people who died. Or something like that. Point is, it has an effect on Sideways Sawyer. He tracks down Charlotte and presents himself at her door with -- wait for it -- a sunflower. (He also has a six-pack of beer. As you do.) Charlotte, the only woman on this show with a lick of sense about men, informs him that, no, he may not come in; you don't get to kick her out at 3 a.m., get lonely or guilty or whatever, and come around with puppy eyes and a pathetic flower and expect that all will be forgiven. Yes! Thank you! Hear that, guys? Maybe it's better if you didn't, because I'm totally stealing it. (Er, not that I ever have occasion to use it. Nope. Nuh-uh. Not me.) Sideways Sawyer leaves the flower at her suddenly-closed door, but takes the beer.

The next morning (presumably), Sideways Sawyer is waiting for Miles outside of the station. He entreats Miles to get into the car, and hands him the Sawyer folder. Miles, logically, asks, "Who's Sawyer?" Sideways Sawyer explains that Sawyer was the reason that his parents died in a murder-suicide when young James was nine. (Not eight, as in the previous timeline. Okay, then.) Sideways Sawyer's mission in life is to track down the guy and kill him. And he didn't tell Miles any of this because he'd try to talk Sideways Sawyer out of it. It looks like they're on their way to some make-up policing when their car gets hit by another car. (This may be an alternate timeline, but it's still "Lost," after all). A woman jumps out and runs. They follow her -- in their car, because it turns out that a car is faster than a person. They apprehend the running woman who did not make this calculation. It is -- wait for it -- Kate. You know, that handcuffed woman that Sawyer sort of helped escape at the airport. "Son of a bitch," Sideways Sawyer drawls.

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