Season 3, Episode 4:
Every Man for Himself
In flashbacks, Sawyer is in prison. He meets a prisoner named Munson, who has hidden $10 million, and tells him the warden is after his money. He is visited by Cassidy, who tells him that he is the father of her daughter, Clementine. Sawyer angrily refuses to have anything to do with her. Sawyer cons Munson and splits his money with the warden in exchange for a reduced sentence, though he arranges for his share to be given to Clementine.
At the beach, Desmond behaves strangely, trying to get Claire to move down the beach. He uses a golf club to build a lightning rod next to Claire's hut. That night, lightning strikes the rod, as Charlie looks on, amazed at how Desmond could have predicted it.
At the Hydra, Colleen is brought in after being shot by Sun. Sawyer tries to enact an escape plan, but is foiled and subdued by Ben. He tells Sawyer he has put a device in his chest that will kill him if his heart rate gets too high. Juliet gets Jack to help operate on Colleen, but he is unable to save her. Danny swears revenge on the survivors, and beats up Sawyer. Jack notices an x-ray with a spine tumor and the facility, and realizes the Others want him to operate on someone. Ben tells Sawyer that he lied about the device in his heart, and that they are on a separate island a few miles off the coast of the regular Island, making escape impossible.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Borrowed Catchphrase:
- Charlie calls Desmond "brother" when he finds him talking to Claire.
- Kate uses Jack's "Live together, die alone" when she refuses to leave Sawyer behind and escape.
- Fanservice: Sawyer's Shirtless Scene in prison and Kate's Toplessness from the Back while changing clothes.
- Insane Troll Logic: Danny decides that Sawyer, of all people, is responsible for Colleen's death, when he knows for a fact that Sawyer was imprisoned on Hydra Island at the time she was killed, although it's implied he just wants revenge on the survivors in general and doesn't really care who he kills. The fact that he already hated Sawyer doesn't help. Lampshaded by Sawyer.Kate: Why did he do that?
Sawyer: Hell if I know. These people ever make any sense to you? - Irony: The warden lampshades the fact that Sawyer managed to lie and cheat his way out of prison.
- I Will Only Slow You Down: Sawyer doesn't think he can escape due to his booby-trapped pacemaker, so pleads Kate to run when she escape her cage, but she refuses to go without him.
- Misplaced Retribution: Danny decides to target Sawyer for revenge when his wife Colleen is killed by Sun.
- "No Peeking!" Request: While Kate and Sawyer are locked in cages in front of each other, she needs to change out of the filthy clothes she's been wearing for days and instructs Sawyer to turn around. Sawyer momentarily complies, but as she strips in the background, Sawyer cocks his head and catches a glimpse of Kate's Toplessness from the Back, which causes his pacemaker to start beeping and Sawyer promptly douses himself with a bucket of water to cool off.
- Please Put Some Clothes On: Sawyer's heart rate starts going crazy when Kate is changing in front of him, and he tells her to hurry up and get dressed so that his pacemaker doesn't go off.
- Prison Episode: Sawyer's flashbacks are about his time in prison, while in the present, Jack, Sawyer and Kate are prisoners of Ben and the Others.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Juliet brings Jack to the Others' medical facility against Ben's wishes to help operate on Colleen.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Sawyer explains in detail to Kate his plan to electrocute Ben when he comes near his cage, and naturally it fails when he tries it, since Ben turned off the power before going there.
- Wham Shot: At the end of the episode, Ben walks Sawyer to a cliff to show to him that he's on another island, separate from the Island they crash-landed on.
- Why Am I Ticking?: Ben has a device installed on Sawyer that will stop if his heart rate gets too high, and gives him a watch so it starts beeping when it's getting up. But later it turns out it was just a lie to control Sawyer.
- The Worf Effect:
- One that involves mind games rather than fighting. The episode was designed to show that Ben is capable of conning even the series' most capable Con Man, Sawyer, and he plays him like a fiddle with the fake pacemaker trick.
- Ben also gets a more traditional one, as he beats the crap out of Sawyer with a baton to prove that, despite his diminutive stature, he is a physical threat as well as a Chessmaster.
