It's interesting -- but I don't know if the writers have thought this through yet -- the "lifeboat" concept. Because, as large a group as this is, and as seemingly-paradise a place as they washed up, why would they snap immediately to the lifeboat mentality?

More to the point, how? Small groups have managed to overcome personality conflicts to create a main goal and work toward it, but large groups, it gets more and more dicey. More opportunities for competing leaders, less interaction with every individual in the group, more mouths to feed, less opportunity to cement power by offering or withholding a key survival component (since whatever it is, it can't possibly go around to everyone).

The castaways from the Bounty survived, by snapping to a familiar leadership pattern (although a number of them starved to death anyway). The survivors of that plane crash in the Andes similarly had a schema around which to cohere: they were a sports team (plus extra people). The Essex, the whaling ship on which Moby Dick is loosely based, lost almost all its crew, in part because the three surviving dinghys were separated; but even so, it was the 'outsider' crew-members -- several black recruits from the bigger cities of Massachusetts, as opposed to the white Nantucket crew who were practically all 2nd cousins -- who died first.

I imagine some of the probabilities lie on individual personality -- note that the only military guy on Crashy-Crashy Island is a refugee from a dictatorship, so that's out as a leadership method -- but because this is fiction, they also lie on what crazy thing the jungle will think up next.

So is this some kind of record time for the woobiefication of a bad boy?

Oh, I doubt it.

Yeah, I like Sawyer. But not as you know, my favoritest person ever that I want to spend ever so much time with. I enjoy the character, which is whole 'nother thing. He is interesting to me, not because woobie, but because of the conflict he engenders.

What I see is the reactionary stuff. Of course there should be organized efforts. Of course there should be education. Of course there should be shared resources. But they're still at the point where (presumably) half the people are living on the beach because they believe they will be rescued. This is a major mentality chasm, and one not conducive to the things they should be doing.

I'm about where Liese is WRT to why they haven't started setting up their community for the long haul. They're still in a kind of shock and denial. And, hey, Michael's going to start on the Aquaduct, yeah?

Sawyer. Sawyer, Sawyer, Sawyer. See now, what I like about Sawyer so far is that I don't think he'd take kindly to woobification. I think he'd nickname the apologist something... not nice. And I would laugh. I like to think his motivations for joining in the reindeer games last week were not because he was all hurt and lonely, but because he's self-serving: "Kate's hot, maybe I can get with her if I pretend to listen;" or, "Well, shit, if we're stuck here, I'm going to need something from one of these twits eventaully, so...;" or, "Damn, I'm bored. Think I'll go poke at the morons." This is the dream to which I will hold firm. Also? He's hot.

How long have they been on the island now? Two weeks?

I think last week was the first time I was really unhappy with the Sawyer characterization itself (as opposed to rolling my eyes at his apologists), since I have little of Jen's hope that his sudden turnaround was anything other than the writers mining his torture for sympathy before trying to make the character a snarky heartthrob in the fashion of daytime soap rapists. But he was definitely enjoyable earlier on when he was the annoying gadfly who wasn't necessarily doing anything wrong.

I was also disappointed that Jack was so blasé about having treated torture as a second resort rather than a last one, and on someone who turned out not to be the guilty party after all. I mean, I understand his and Sayid's reasons for doing so, but he should be tearing himself up over what happened instead of enjoying a leisurely golf game with adoring spectators. Also not thrilled that a dig about Kate liking Sawyer prompted him to abandon even halfhearted gestures of responsibility for the injuries, since I'd like to think violating his Hippocratic Oath in fairly brutal fashion should cause more upset than his prospective girlfriend of two weeks not joining him in shunning a rival.

I'd like it better if the mistakes seemed to have consequences that last a little longer than the teaser of the next episode.

Yeah, totally with you on that, Matt. I'm still hoping for some longer term ramifications. But since we haven't bothered with the ramifications of some simpler, more obvious things like, say, smack withdrawal, I'm not altogether too confident.

From what I've heard, smack withdrawal is rough for a few days (Charlie should be pining for a pair or two of unsoiled jeans in his size now), but then basically over, and it's nowhere near as difficult as alcohol withdrawal. He'd still be psychologically addicted, but not suffering physical withdrawal. And since we haven't (yet) run into a field of poppies, symptoms shouldn't recur while on the island.

I have little of Jen's hope that his sudden turnaround was anything other than the writers mining his torture for sympathy before trying to make the character a snarky heartthrob in the fashion of daytime soap rapists.

I suspect you are correct, though I shall continue to dream. I am actually disturbingly good at ignoring turns I don't like in favor of my own interpretation.

Couldn't agree more with your issues re: Jack and the torture. More likely futile hope... they'll deal with that at a later date.

Here's what's been bugging me, and I apologize if I missed the discussion earlier, but... Why did Sawyer not give it up and admit he didn't have the inhalers before he got pieces of wood jammed under his fingernails? I mean, my "Yeah, screw you and the horse you rode in on," attitude of defiance would stop well short of torture if it came to something as ordinary (though certainly important; breathing is good) as "Do you have an inhaler for the asthmatic, or don't you?" It seemed anti-self-serving, so I don't get the motivation for the character.

I suspect the writers were trying to get at Sawyer having something to prove by keeping silent, but it's lost on me. (Did I just write "lost on me"? That's so sad.) I mean, yeah, if people are unjustly persecuting you for something significant, ideally you hold your ground and you buck up as best you can, right? But this? This was not that.

It seemed anti-self-serving, so I don't get the motivation for the character.

He was being Faith, and exacting penance from people who didn't know what game they were playing. He's not only self-serving, he's self-destructive (within limits).