One of Them
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One of Them is the 39th episode of Lost. The episode was directed by Stephen Williams, and written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. It first aired on February 15, 2006 on ABC. The character of Sayid Jarrah is featured in the episode's flashbacks.
Plot
A torturer is made
In flashback, the 1991 Allied invasion of Iraq is underway. Sayid is seen burning documents with fellow soldiers. Some are resisting, and as Sayid's commander orders them to continue, American troops burst in and attempt to identify the commanding officer. Sayid tries to lie, saying that their commanding officer has abandoned them, but the American soldier doesn't believe him.
Sayid is held captive by the Americans, who have found his CO. Acting as a translator, Sayid attempts to get this officer to reveal the location of a captive American pilot. Sayid's CO tells him to grab the American's gun and kill as many as he can. A DIA agent named Inman orders Sayid to torture the Iraqi officer; Sayid initially refuses, but agrees after the agent shows him a video of Sayid's family being gassed on the officer's orders, and learns that the pilot had been executed. Sayid is eventually released by the Americans, who are pulling out. Inman tells him that the day will come when Sayid needs information from someone, and that now Sayid will have the means to get it; however, Sayid vows never to torture again.
Henry Gale
On the island, Ana-Lucia takes Sayid into the jungle, and he tells her to go back after seeing a woman walking nearby. Sayid follows the women quietly; it is Danielle. She tells him she was looking for him and was going to come to his tent that night. She asks Sayid to follow her, but he doesn't trust her, since the last time they met she set up a diversion and stole Claire's baby. She gives him her gun as a symbol of trust.
She takes him to a man she captured, who is in a net hanging from a tree. Danielle tells Sayid not to let him go, because she thinks he is "one of them". The man identifies himself as Henry Gale from Minnesota, saying he crashed in a hot-air balloon on the island about four months ago. Sayid frees the man, who attempts to flee before Danielle shoots him in the back with an arrow. When Sayid says she almost killed him, she replies that if she wanted to kill him she would have done so already. She says that he must be tied up and brought to their doctor.
Meanwhile, Sawyer is unable to sleep due to a chirping noise coming from the jungle. He asks Jin to help him but he ignores Sawyer. Sawyer goes into the jungle and finds Hurley eating from a hidden stash of food from the hatch. Hurley says a tree frog is making the noise. Sawyer blackmails Hurley into tracking the tree frog, agreeing not to tell anyone else that Hurley has a secret stash of food. Soon afterwards, Sawyer makes some rude remarks about Hurley's weight, Hurley decides to go back and leave Sawyer alone to search for the frog. He says that although he stole food, people still like him, unlike Sawyer. Sawyer then apologizes and convinces Hurley to carry on.
A survivor or an Other?
Sayid brings Henry to the hatch and tells Locke the man claimed he and his wife were in a hot air balloon that crashed on the island. Jack interrupts and notices Henry's injury. Sayid says they wanted to learn as much as they can about the man while he is still wounded. Jack intervenes and treats the man by removing the arrow from his shoulder. Sayid asks Locke to change the combination so he can find out more by torturing Henry. Sayid tells Jack to put him in the armory so no one else will see him. There, Sayid closes the door behind him, locking out Jack and Locke.
Sayid interrogates Henry, who says he and his wife, Jennifer, were in a hot air balloon crossing the Pacific Ocean when they crashed four or more months ago on the north shore. He said he was rich because he owned a company that mined for non-metallic minerals. Sayid picks up on this and questions his use of the past tense. Henry admits he's taken to thinking of his life in the outside world as something in the past. He continues, saying he met his wife at the University of Minnesota. She got sick three weeks before, starting with a fever, degrading to delirium and ultimately resulting in her death. He describes his hot air balloon and says he dug his wife's grave near where they crashed. Sayid then moves forward and grabs one of Henry's fingers, holding it with the pliers. He then starts questioning more ferociously, threatening to break Henry's finger.
Meanwhile, Sawyer and Hurley find the frog. Hurley offers to release it two beaches away, but Sawyer suddenly kills the frog by crushing it in his hand.
The timer hits zero
Henry is unable to recount the specific details of burying his wife. Sayid believes he is lying about his identity, stating he would know every last detail about digging his wife's grave. Henry then realises that Sayid had lost someone close to him on the island. Sayid beats Henry as Jack and Locke listen from outside. Jack takes action by holding Locke, telling him he will only let him go if he opens the door. The timer goes below a minute and Locke complies by unlocking the armory. Locke arrives at the computer and begins typing the code. However, in his haste he mistypes and has to waste time correcting it. As the timer passes zero, Egyptian hieroglyphs are displayed accompanied by the sound of a machine "spooling up" like a jet engine turbine. Locke presses two buttons on the computer, which are presumably the code, and after he hits the 'Execute' button, the timer resets to 108 and the sound dies down. Jack stops an enraged Sayid, who yells "He's lying!" several times, and locks a bloody Henry back in the armory. Jack recalls to Sayid how Danielle tortured him because she thought Sayid was an "other". Locke agrees with Jack stating, "To Rousseau, we're all 'others.'"
Sayid is then back on the beach talking to Charlie about what happened in the hatch. He thinks Henry is an "other" because he feels no guilt about torturing him. He states that Jack and Locke will never understand that feeling, because they have forgotten what the Others have done to them. He asks Charlie if he remembers how the Others hanged him from the tree and kidnapped Claire. He says that the Others are merciless.
Trivia
- Kate's father, Sam Austen, is seen in Sayid's flashback; he is in charge of the questioning of an Iraqi captive. He is seen holding a picture of Kate when she was younger when he was in the back of a truck talking to Sayid, but Sayid never sees the picture.
- Henry Gale is the name of a real-life 20th-century physicist who worked in the fields of astrophysics and magnetism. Henry is also the name of Dorothy Gale's uncle from The Wizard of Oz. In the same story, the wizard was also a man from Kansas who ended up in Oz when he was caught up in a storm while flying in his balloon.
- The displayed Egyptian hieroglyphs are transliterated as "swDʒ" (pronounced as 'swedja'). This is a causative verb meaning "to die". The last sign (the so-called determinative) represents a baton pointing to negativity.
- The hieroglyphs appear to be the same as those in The Valenzetti Equation, which features in The Lost Experience. In the experience, it is releaved that the Hanso Foundation is attemping to solve this equation, but its exact use is still unreavealed.
- Clancy Brown (who played Joe Inman in Sayid's flashback) and Terry O'Quinn both featured in the short-lived TV series Earth 2.
