Season 5, Episode 8:
LaFleur
"Is three years long enough to get over someone? Absolutely."
Written by Elizabeth Sarnoff and Kyle Pennington.
Directed by Mark Goldman.
Sawyer: Now we wait for him to come back.
Juliet: For how long?
Sawyer: As long as it takes.
Immediately following Locke's disappearance into the well, the remaining survivors above ground are taken far into the past, to a time when the four-toed statue was still standing. Locke turns the wheel, and a final flash occurs, taking the group to 1974. Sawyer and Juliet save a DHARMA Initiative worker named Amy from a group of Others, who killed her husband Paul. Amy brings them back to the Barracks. Sawyer, using the name Jim LaFleur, invents a cover story, and Horace Goodspeed tells him he and his people will be sent off the Island on a submarine the next morning. When Richard arrives looking for his men, Sawyer helps to maintain the truce between DHARMA and the Others by telling Richard he is from the future and using his knowledge of events in 1954 as proof. Horace agrees to allow Sawyer to stay for two weeks, and Sawyer convinces Juliet to stick around while he waits for Locke to return.
Three years later, Horace and a heavily pregnant Amy are married. After an argument, a drunken Horace starts throwing dynamite in the woods, and Amy goes into labor. Sawyer, now the Head of DHARMA Security, convinces Juliet, working as a mechanic, to deliver the baby, which she succeeds at. It's revealed that Sawyer and Juliet are now in a relationship. Sawyer gets a call, and rushes out to meet the people Jin has just found on the Island: Jack, Hurley and Kate.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Alcohol-Induced Stupidity: After an argument with Amy, Horace gets drunk and starts throwing dynamite around the jungle.
- Anachronic Order: The episode flashes back and forward between the events immediately after Locke turned the wheel and three years later, when Sawyer, Miles, Juliet and Jin are all respected members of the DHARMA Initiative.
- Atrocious Alias: Miles considers Sawyer's chosen name of "Jim LaFleur" to be terrible, which Sawyer justifies by saying he had to improvise.
- Bait-and-Switch Gunshot: When Sawyer approaches the Others as they attack Amy, one of them points a gun at him, there's a gunshot, and the Other falls down dead, having been sniped by Juliet from the bushes.
- Call-Back: Sawyer proves to Richard that he's not part of the Dharma Initiative by asking him if the Others buried the Jughead bomb like Faraday told them to.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Horace gets into a drunken argument with Amy and misses the birth of his son because he's angry that she's held onto some of the belongings of her dead first husband, Paul.
- Despair Event Horizon: Daniel completely breaks down after Charlotte's death, to the extent that he doesn't even notice when he nearly walks into the sonic fence around the Barracks.Juliet: One more step, Dan would've fried his brain.Sawyer: His brain's already fried.
- Dramatic Irony: Horace tells Sawyer that he isn't DHARMA material after the audience has already seen that he will be their Head of Security three years later.
- Glasses Pull: Sawyer slowly and dramatically takes his glasses off when he sets eyes on the other survivors (especially Kate) for the first time in 3 years. This quickly became a widespread meme
. - How We Got Here: At the end of "316," Jack, Kate, and Hurley are found by Jin wearing a fresh DHARMA jumpsuit and driving a new-looking DHARMA van. This episode covers what happened to Sawyer's group that they are now working for the DHARMA Initiative.
- Indy Ploy: Most of Sawyer's plans, from the story he spins the DHARMA Initiative about the survivors having been in a shipwreck while looking for the Black Rock to convincing Richard he is from the future, are completely made up on the spot, but all work perfectly.Juliet: James, are you sure you know what you're doing?Sawyer: Not yet. But I'll figure somethin' out.
- Madness Mantra: Juliet finds Daniel kneeling next to the site of Charlotte's death, muttering "I'm not gonna tell her" over and over to himself, referencing the futile warning he knows he's destined to give her as a child not to return to the Island.
- No Body Left Behind: A variation. After Charlotte's death, her body doesn't move with the survivors during the next time flash, so from Daniel's perspective, it disappears as it is left in the distant past.
- No-Sell: Richard easily bypasses the sonic fence at the Barracks.Richard: That fence may keep other things out, but not us.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: It's not clear what Sawyer managed to do to convince Horace that he and his friends really were "DHARMA material" or convince Juliet to stay on the Island in the space of just two weeks.
- Put on a Bus: Daniel is the only one who isn't seen as a member of the DHARMA Initiative after the Time Skip. It's later revealed that he was doing research for DHARMA at Ann Arbor.
- Relationship Upgrade: Sawyer and Juliet are revealed to have fallen in love during the Time Skip.
- Seamless Spontaneous Lie: Sawyer uses his old Con Man skills to spin an elaborate story to Horace about the group having been in a ship wreck while searching for the Black Rock on the spot.
- Stable Time Loop: It's implied that the well leading to the frozen wheel was built in that specific spot because of Sawyer bringing the rope back in time and leaving it in the ground.
- Sue Donym: Sawyer's alias, Jim LaFleur, isn't particularly far removed from his real name, James Ford.
- Taking Up the Mantle: With Jack and Locke both gone, Sawyer takes up the position of leader to the remaining survivors, helping smooth things over between the Others and the DHARMA Initiative and getting himself and his friends new jobs with them.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: After years of heartbreaking failures and watching countless women die without being able to save them, Juliet finally delivers a healthy baby on the Island.
- Time Skip: Three years pass between the two time periods shown, allowing for Sawyer and Juliet's Relationship Upgrade, Horace and Amy's marriage, Jin becoming fluent in English and all of the survivors becoming members of DHARMA.
- Trust Password: Sawyer convinces Richard that he is not with the DHARMA Initiative, and therefore their truce has not been broken, by revealing his knowledge of the Jughead bomb and Richard's meeting with Locke in 1954.
- Undying Loyalty: Sawyer swears to wait as long as it takes for Locke to return, and he means it.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Downplayed with Amy. She tricks the survivors into walking through the sonic fence and being knocked unconscious after they saved her life, but they are total strangers who seem to have mysteriously appeared from nowhere on an Island with a hostile indigenous population and they have endangered the truce between DHARMA and the Others, so it's understandable that she doesn't immediately trust them completely. After the Time Skip, she becomes close friends with Sawyer and Juliet.
- Wham Shot: After the well disappears in a time flash, the survivors look up to see the back of the four-toed foot statue, standing tall.Juliet: Wherever John went, he's gone. And wherever we are is before that well was ever built.Miles: Yeah, I'd say way before.
