Island Reality; New Otherton: Kate fills her canteen at a spigot attached to one of the cottages. James walks right past her and into his old home, where he closes the door. She caps her canteen, picks up her backpack and heads off. We cut to...

Island Reality; Temple; Unholy of Unholies: As Dogen prepares tea, Lennon gestures towards Jack and asks his boss: "He swallowed it?" Dogen says, "Yes." He brings the tea to Jack who is naturally suspicious. "What's this?" Lennon says, "Tea." Dogen takes a sip, as does Jack. Then, Jack asks: "Why would you people want to kill Sayid?" Dogen and crew believe Sayid has been "claimed." Dogen explains: "There's a darkness growing in him. Once it reaches his heart, everything your friend once was will be gone." Jack asks how he can be sure. Yoko says, "Because it happened to your sister." The music takes us up and out to...

Jungle: Jin makes his way through the jungle; he stops at a river to take a drink, but stumbles across a complication. The Templars have recovered from their Kate attack, and capture Jin. When Aldo Nova wants to kill Jin, Justin tries to talk him down. Since it's no use, Jin tries to run, but he gets his foot stuck in a trap. Aldo points his gun at Jin and looks ready to shoot, but someone shoots Aldo Nova twice, instead. Next, the shootist takes Justin down. Jin looks up to find his unlikely savior. Is it Kate? Oh hells, no. It's CLAIRE and she's gone all Rousseau! She drops her gun, brushes her hair from her eyes, squints and...fade to black. Bad Robot!

Well, for an episode that feels mostly like a foundational piece, there's an awful lot here, isn't there? First up is Sayid versus the Templars, but to even talk about that, I have to go back much further. The show has always had a thing for black and white, hasn't it? Getting to the guts of it all -- Jacob wears a white shirt and black pants. I expected him to be all in white, and in the time between the season 5 finale and the season 6 premiere, I misremembered him as being all in white. But he isn't. Jacob wears a white tunic and black trousers, which immediately makes me think of the Chinese concept of Yin Yang. In Yin Yang, black and white aren't enemies; they're complements. Yin Yang is balance, not a contest. So, it seems our choices are thus: Jacob is good and Esau is evil; Jacob is evil and Esau is good; or Jacob is a balanced force, and Esau isn't. Smokey seems to be either an aspect of Jacob, or his minion. And yet, it seems like, at one point, the Templars used Smokey as their guard-dog. If that's the case, then where's Jacob's (white) aspect or minion? Is it the flashes? Is it the light that Daniel once told us refracts differently on the island? At this point, my brain wants to leak out of my ears, so let me bring it back home to Sayid....