Last week I mentioned that Lost should have always been a cult show and I hoped (in my heart, not in the article) that the producers would try to make Lost be even more of a cult show and forget that it also is (or was, if ratings are to be believed) a hit network show.  This week’s episode, “The Brig,” proved that if you send these thoughts out into the universe, well, they just might true.  Of course, I’m ignoring the fact that this episode was written and filmed several weeks before I put said thoughts out into said universe, but Oprah has taught me not to dwell on meager things like infallible logic as far as positive thinking is concerned.
“The Brig” was fan-damn-tastic, a really terrific, dark episode in a spring full of great episodes.  Can I find five awesome things about it?  Just try and stop me.

The Performance of Kevin Tighe – Anthony Cooper is a man who has stolen Locke’s kidney, pushed him out of an eight story window, destroyed the lives of two people on the island, and generally proved himself to be the slimiest person this side of … oh, let’s say basically any Bush cabinet official, and yet, last night all I could think was, “Man, this guy’s really evil.”  There was not one thing sugar-coated about the portrayal of Locke’s father (aka the original Sawyer); here was a man who believed that he was in hell and embraced the fact that he deserved to be there, without showing one ounce of remorse.  Angry and defiant to the end of his miserable life, Anthony Cooper showed that network TV doesn’t always have to be learning and hugging and sharing and caring (are you listening, recent sub-par episode of Veronica Mars?).  Sometimes TV can be just about an awful, awful guy.  And that’s awesome.

Ben might be an Insecure Jerk – I mean, he’s always been a jerk in general, but now all of his jerkiness might be coming from the fact that he’s incredibly jealous of Locke.  We’ve seen Ben as vulnerable, both real (when he has a tumor) and fake (when he was pretending to be Henry Gayle), and we’ve seen Ben as powerful, like when he came off of the ferry at the end of Season 2 looking like the Destroyer of Worlds, but we’ve never seen him be, well, petty.  But it makes perfect sense (assuming Richard Alpert was telling the truth) for Ben to be concerned about his place in the Others’ hierarchy, especially in light of his recent medical problems.  Michael Emerson has created an outstanding character, and the more layers that he gets to add to Ben, the better.  His almost childishly defiant, “He’s not what we thought he was,” about Locke, was a great addition to the character.  Somebody mean and in power is scary; somebody who’s insecure and in power is, honestly, even scarier.  And even more awesome.

Boom Goes Rousseau’s Dynamite – More often than not, foreshadowing in a TV drama is this clunky thing that bursts into the room like the proverbial bull in a china shop, and then pretends to be inconspicuous.  Last night’s appearance of Rousseau was the exact opposite.  Locke’s just waiting for Sawyer to do his thing and then Rousseau walks in.  He says her name, she says his, he asks her why she’s there, and she says dynamite.  He points it out to her and she takes a whole box of it.  And that’s it.  Rousseau, who wouldn’t go into the Black Rock at the end of season 1, Rousseau, who now knows that her daughter is alive and well and living with the Others, Rousseau, who’s been known to blow up her own house just to make sure it isn’t infiltrated by anybody else, ROUSSEAU TAKES A WHOLE BOX OF DYNAMITE.  And we sit at home knowing that she’s going to have to use that stuff in the next few episodes (if I had to guess, I’d say in the finale), knowing that the woman’s as unstable as the dynamite she’s carrying, and we salivate at this foreshadowing like the producers of Lost have set up some sort of Pavlovian experiment and Rousseau’s coming in and ringing the bell.  The whole exchange took less than a minute, and everybody’s talking about it.  Which makes it awesome.

Nobody Trusts Jack – As well they shouldn’t, him being in the Others’ camp for a week and coming out unscathed.  Still, the beach dwellers of old would have trusted Jack unconditionally, and it’s nice to see all of them exhibiting some common sense.  Sayid doesn’t dare trust anybody (even believing that parachuter Naomi might be an Other too) and it’s good to see that people are coming over to his way of thinking.  A rash of kidnappings will do that to a group.  Sure they seemed paranoid at first, because it’s Jack, and what bad thing would he do?  But Jack’s terse exchange with Juliet (“We should tell her,” “Not yet,”) makes that paranoia appear to be, well, common sense now.  And next week when Sawyer goes back to the camp with the tape recorder that proves Juliet’s a mole … well what’s going to happen to Jack then?  This plot line, she is awesome.

Sawyer Kills Sawyer – Maybe I’ve been raised on too much network TV, but I thought that there was no way, just no way that Sawyer would actually kill Anthony Cooper.  I figured there’d be some sort of redemption, some sort of learning, and when you saw that Sawyer’s gun didn’t even have bullets, I figured I had to be right.  But wow was I ever wrong.  Sawyer strangled Cooper with his bare hands and a chain.  Strangling is a tougher death to watch than shooting; shooting you move your finger slightly and somebody’s dead, but strangling requires you to get very, very close to someone and watch the life seep out of him.  Lost didn’t shy away from that, and the moment that precipitated it (Cooper tearing up the letter that we’ve seen Sawyer treasuring since the pilot episode) was the perfect impetus for Sawyer to go medieval.  It was dark and horrible and redemptive and damning.  It was awesome television.

Five awesome things (and I left out a bunch of stuff), and next week is all about Ben’s flashbacks.  I have a feeling I may need to expand the list of awesomeness.