My Evil has to be far removed from reality though.

I think that was my especial problem with this. It's still absolutely true that I don't identify or sympathize, pretty much ever, with people being deliberately evil, but what especially got me here was that we had this guy and his small, genial life being smashed by His Assholeness, and my reaction, from the way the script was written, was not supposed to be "God, you are a fucking menace, and you should be in jail for the rest of your life", my reaction was apparently supposed to be "aw! Poor Sawyer-woobie! Tricked by that mean conman!" I'm used to victims being ignored, but to have the death of a innocent not only completely devalued but indeed actively used to evoke sympathy for his murderer revolted me, and was realistic enough (I've seen it in real life), to trigger all my buttons.

So mostly I'm going to blame poor writing. I really, really do not get the Drew Goddard love. I think that's at least three things I've seen written by him, and none of them especially impressed me (though Anya and bunnies was at least amusing, if slapstick.)

I missed the zombie reference. I'm so embarrassed.

He didn't use the 'z' word, but he talked about Ethan rising from his grave or something.

I was thinking vampires, myself. But a lot of the Lost folks seem to keep pointy sticks about, so I figured it would work out.

Oh, I guess vampires make more sense, what with Ultimate Drew.

I'm sticking with zombies.

I thought zombies, myself. Unless Ethan had been bitten* before he was shot.

[ *By a vampire. But I guess you have to be bitten to turn into a zombie too, so I'm not sure why I think zombies make more sense.]

I have an easier time imagining spontaneous zombies.

I have an easier time imagining spontaneous zombies.

Does this have anything to do with living in Houston?

Tropical climate and all that.

My mind went to vampires in the scene when Hurley mentioned the possiblity of rising from the dead. I was sure Ethan's fingers were going to move on the hand shot. My personal viewing history selected vampires, but zombies may have been on his mind.

eta: To be on the safe side I think Hurley should check the grave in a couple days to make sure it isn't disturbed.

At the risk of rewriting Jessica's post. Take this:

I like Sawyer because he's snarky and hot, and he can't do anything right except flirt with Kate. So far, we've seen him fail to pull off a con job, fail to exact revenge for his parents' deaths, fail to give the marshall a painless death, and fail to track a boar. It's not that he's a bad-boy, it's that he's so bad at being a bad boy.

And switch Spike for Sawyer, and BBoC for Kate, failed kill the Slayer schemes for Sawyer's and you have the exact reason Mr. H looked at me halfway through the ep and said "So Sawyer's Spike?"

My favorite Shakespeare play is Titus Andronicus because I love Aaron with an unholy love. So so evil right up to his death where he repents any good he may have done.