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Let's be honest, Episode 5: ...And Found was a bit of a yawner. Props to Lindelof et al, though, for having the balls to stick to their "it's all about character" guns and give us an epsiode almost completely devoid of meaningful action or plot-development despite the fact that the next episode is three weeks away. (Quite the next-level cop-out, however, revealing new Dharma logos and whatnot via the interwebs).

I liked the Sun/Jin back-story (him being an ambitious country-boy cum frustrated populist-hero cum ruthless mobster is playing into all kinds of dope Rhygin/Pretty Boy Floyd archetypes,) but it didn't seem to reveal much of anything about any of our ongoing mysteries. Perhaps there is a Boston connection between Sun's uninterested Mr. Perfect and one of the female characters, and perhaps Jin's dickhead boss at the hotel has some nefarious Hanso Foundation/international weapons trade connections or something, but who knows?

We didn't learn much back on the island either. We knew Adebisi Mr. Echo was a badass, now we know he's a stand-up fellow as well. Ana Lucia... still tough, still a bitch. The only real new information was our brief glimpse of The Others, or The Others' muddy cankles to be more precise. This brief, obscured by shrubbery, view revealed a few interesting things...

• The Others kill folks dead. Yikes.
  
• The Others wear no shoes, leave no tracks, and appear to glide/shuffle on palm-fronds rather than just walking like the rest of us.
• Some of The Others appeared to glide/shuffle by twice, or perhaps there are twins or clones among them.
• Many if not all of The Others seem to be either pre-pubescent or in possession of an unlimited supply of Lady Bics.
• One of The Others had a teddy-bear (much like Desmond--remember Desmond?--with his stuffed bunny and Walt with his stuffed polar bear).

I'm seeing these folks as kind of "Children of the Corn" types but more similar to the desert-dwelling, water-preserving, worm-riding Fremen in DUNE; they are dangerous, they are masters of their physical environment, they are in control of a valuable secret, and they are fundamentally misunderstood.