Even at this early point in the series’
run, it is clear that deception and lies are a fundamental part of Lost. We’ve seen enough in the early flashbacks to
know that every character is keeping secrets about their pasts from everyone
else, and only occasionally reveals aspects of their lives when it suits them.
Now, as we look at the story of Sawyer, we find ourselves meeting the first
major character who made a living telling lies – though, as will be the
case with practically everyone we meet on this show, the person he’s trying to
fool the most is himself.
Sawyer has spent the series after the
crash behaving contemptibly and not merely by the standards of Jack. He doesn’t
follow anyone’s orders, whenever he opens his mouth is with an insult (and
usually, in one of the series’ highpoint’s, a derogatory nickname) and he seems
to be making a profit off everybody’s misery. We’ll learn Locke has a reason to
point Sawyer in Sayid’s direction as a suspect for his attack, but I have a
suspicion that it wouldn’t have taken much to do so anyway: at this point,
Sawyer seems to be the person everyone’s hates.
In ‘Confidence Man’, however, we get insight into Sawyer and, as you’d
expect by now, Kate’s the one who manages to drag it out of him.
Kate and Sawyer are clearly attracted to
each other for more than the ‘bad boy’ aspect of it: we already know that
Kate’s a criminal and we’re not entirely shocked to learn that Sawyer’s one,
too. The difference at the opening of the episode seems to be that while Kate
seems to take the harsh treatment she gets from Jack as something she deserves,
Sawyer openly seems to want and even enjoy the hatred that he gets from
everyone else. When the crisis involving Shannon’s inhalers begins in earnest
and Boone instantly blames Sawyer for having her inhalers, Jack doesn’t even
consider for a moment that Boone might be mistaken; he just ups and searches
his stuff and then outright demands it. At this point, this is as much due to
his contempt for Sawyer and the jealousy he clearly feels about Kate’s obvious
attraction to him then any real suspicion that Sawyer might have them. We know
he’s been wanting to beat him up for a while, and when he does throw a
punch at him later in the episode, the only shock is that Sawyer doesn’t fight
back.
Sawyer has a habit in bringing out the
worst in people, which shouldn’t shock us because he’s clearly an expert at
manipulating people. This is clear in every aspect of the flashback where he
tries to separate the couple from their money, by doing everything he can to make
it seem that they’re the one’s who want to give it to him. He’s clearly great
at making people trust him when he has to, and on the island its clear he can
make them loathe him when it suits his purposes. Sadly for Sawyer, his ability
to do so brings him into contact with a person just as capable of acting on
them.
When berating and beating fail to work,
Sayid says that there are ways to make him talk – and reveals another part of
his past. Apparently when he was a communications officer in Iraq, his job involved
making people communicate. And Jack, who
only a few hours ago told Kate: “We’re not savages,” is more than willing to
become one in order to suit his own purpose.
Torture was becoming a part of popular
culture at this time; by this point 24 had made it central to so much of
the action in the series. Lost would
discuss the same issues but use more subtlety and spend as much time discussing
the effectiveness of it as well as the effect it has on the people who do it
(something that we will see very clearly in the very next episode). Sayid
clearly has the stomach to do what he needs to, and Jack very clearly doesn’t
when he sees it in action. Eventually Sawyer agrees to tell Kate – but only for
getting what he wanted when she came to see him in the first place. (And I have
to say, Kate really didn’t seem to mind that much when she had to ‘give in to
his demands.’) The fact that Sawyer never had the inhalers shows just how far
he’s willing to go along with a deception – and when Sayid erupts on him, you
get a feeling that even that’s not far enough for him.
But the writers have been pulling a con
on the viewer as we see in the last flashback – we think we’ve watching the con
that led to him getting the letter that he’s been reading on and off since we met
him, the one that cause a child to write him and tell him off the deaths of the
parents we’ve been watching him con all the way through. But when he actually
sees a child as part of the family, we see Sawyer gutted for the first time at
this point in Lost’s run and he walks away.
Then, in an incident that will rarely be
repeated for much of the series run, Sawyer tells Kate the truth about his
past. He wrote the letter after his father
murdered his mother and killed himself after a confidence man named Sawyer
pulled a con on them. He has spent his life since chasing down this man with
the intention of ‘giving him this letter’ though even now he leaves unspoken
the implication. (It will become clear that he knew what was coming in the next
episode centered around him) And in one of those cruel ironies that surrounds
so many of the characters on Lost, he became the very man that he was
chasing. The fact that he now considers himself ‘Sawyer’ explains a lot of his
behavior so far and for much of the next couple of seasons – he thinks by his
suffering, the original Sawyer suffers as well. (I think now is the time we
have to give a shoutout to that letter, which had no more right to survive the
plane crash then he did. Given how much will happen to Sawyer in the next
couple of seasons, I’m amazed it stays intact until…well, you’ll see.)
Much of what is happening on the island
involves the characters trying to find a way to let go of their pasts and it’s
already clear that most of them can’t even as they struggle to survive. In the
final minutes of the episode, this is particularly clear for Sawyer as he hold
a lighter to the letter that has effectively ruined his life as much as the
death of his parents. Now he’s on an island in the middle of the ocean with the
chance of rescue remote and he should try to welcome something resembling a
fresh start. But he can’t. He pulls the lighter away and just sits there.
Sayid, however, has faced his past and it
horrifies him. But rather than try to redeem himself, he decides he must go
into exile. When he leaves the beach, ostensibly it is to map the island, but
he knows it’s a story he’s telling Kate (he admits as much in future episodes).
His farewell to Kate is sad because it seems like a true goodbye more than
anything else. It is ironic how much animosity there is between Sawyer and
Sayid. Both men are filled with self-loathing; the sole difference being Sawyer
forces others to take it out on him, and Sayid can do enough damage to himself
on his own. We know the nature of television well enough to know that Sayid
will return to the camp at some point (then again, this is Peak TV and
character death is inevitable even this early on in a series). We just don’t
know what could force him to change the path he’s on. In the next episode we
learn that, and the revelations are staggering for the series.
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