VHS NOTES: Not much to report of interest as this was
recording off syndicated TV. There was an ad for the DVD release of the remake
of Clash of the Titans as well as previews for House in
syndication.
I remember looking at the episode
titles when they were coming out in February of 2010 and thinking when I saw
this one that it had to refer to Sayid, the former soldier. Even the fact that
‘con’ was part of the title didn’t clue me in. (And it’s far from the only con
we see when we get to the flash-sideways.)
Of all the characters on Lost Josh Holloway’s Sawyer has by far shown the
greatest emotional range: he is the closest to having the most redemptive arc
that we’ve seen any of the characters on the series see during the run. But it
has been a long and in many ways harder road for James Ford then any character
on these series.
When we first met him, it really
looked like Sawyer was going to be the heavy on the series. The first time he
actually made himself known is was getting in a fight with Sayid in the Pilot
and his position as the redneck with cliched views and frequently unenlightened
nicknames made it hard to like him. The fact that he was always clashing with
Jack, who seemed to be the heroic lead of the series, made some think early on
one of the major conflicts would be between the two of them; the fact that they
quickly became either side of a love triangle with Kate would have been the
major plot in a more traditional series.
But Lost was never that
kind of show and like every other character on the plane, Sawyer was just as
broken as everyone else. The difference was, he would hide with a mask of angry
sarcasm mixed with self-loathing that spend so much time driving everyone else
away.
Everyone on Lost was
clinging to their past when they came to the island: only Sawyer had a literal
reminder of it. When he was eight years old his mother had an affair with a
confidence man named Sawyer who stole their life savings. His father killed his
mother and then himself while the eight year old James hid under the bed. As we
saw in his flashback in The Incident, James started writing the letter after
his parent’s funeral when his pen ran out of ink. Jacob walked by and gave him
a new one. His uncle found him and saw the letter. He offered him the chance to
tell him to let it go because: “What’s done is done.” James must have realized
the purpose of that message years later, but he lied to his uncle about
finishing the letter and it shaped the course of his life for the next thirty
years.
Eventually James Ford became the man
he was chasing and spend his adult life pulling the same kind of cons the real
Sawyer had. But every time he did so, we would quickly learn that James himself
was the easiest man to con. He had to be, he spent so much time fooling
himself, either that he could be something different (as he did with Cassidy)
or that he couldn’t be. Throughout his past Sawyer was always being conned and
a con by man named Hibbs got him to Sydney where he thought he was killing the
real Sawyer until it was too late to take it back.
On the island Sawyer essentially
became the hoarder and general store, loathed by everyone because he made them
pay for all the goods he salvaged. Jack hated Sawyer when he found him going
through the dead bodies for goods even though Jack was doing the exact same
thing. Jack claimed to being doing it for an altruistic purpose but we quickly
learned that Jack was trying to maintain the law of the land, even though they
were in the jungle.
Sawyer’s attitude throughout
Season 1 was contrary to Jack’s speech of ‘Every man for himself is not going
to cut it.” Everyone had to come for him for good and frequently debase
themselves for it (particularly if you were Jack). Kate was the only one who
was capable of penetrating his exterior because they were kindred spirits and
she very quickly learned how to manipulate him. Sawyer didn’t mind; they were
outlaws.
Sawyer has, as he mentioned to
UnLocke, been trying to get off the island more than anyone else. He helped
build the raft that was for their first rescue attempt, but when the Others
went after Walt he was shot trying to protect him – something that Michael
didn’t appreciate. When he dug the bullet out of his shoulder, he spent much of
the first half of the season worsening from an infection as the Tailies rescued
them. He collapsed and nearly died and by the time they rejointed the other
survivors, he was something of a hero. Sawyer couldn’t handle that, so he used
Charlie to execute a con of Locke and Jack so that he could take all the guns.
This appeared to be a game changer in Season 2, but in fact nothing really
changed, and many wondered if it was sloppy writing. I’ve always thought that
Sawyer was never comfortable being liked and did what he did because he needed
to be hated.
At the end of Season 2 he, Jack,
Kate and Hurley were conned by Michael about who the Others were and went on a
rescue mission that turned out to be a trap. He spent the first half of Season
3 locked in a polar bear cage while Ben used him to manipulate Kate, who in
turn was there to manipulate Jack. When Jack managed to save them by
sacrificing his freedom, Kate turned around and went on a rescue mission while
Sawyer tried to be his old nasty self. It was becoming harder, particularly
when Hurley conned him into being a temporary leader but then Locke reappeared
and conned him into saying he’d captured Ben and he wanted Sawyer to kill him.
That was also a con – Locke needed to kill his father to join the Others, and
he knew that Anthony Cooper was the man who had been the original Sawyer.
When James learned that in The
Brig, he finally got a chance to play out the scene he’d been imagining in his
head for nearly thirty years. Like so many people on the island, the reality
was nothing close to the fantasy. When Cooper behaved – well, like Cooper –
Sawyer snapped and strangled him with chains. But having realized his lifelong
ambition, he was just as empty as before.
He spent the rest of Season 3 in a
dark place and it took awhile for him to find a purpose. But when the
mercenaries came to kill everybody at the Barracks, he found it, risking his
life to save Claire, threatening Locke if ‘he touched one hair’ on Hurley’s
head and leading the survivors through the jungle, through mercenaries and
smoke monsters. When Claire disappeared he spent a day searching for her before
returning to the beach. In his final sacrifice of Season 4, when the helicopter
he was flying was in danger of not getting back to the freighter, he jumped
off. It was a great sacrificial act – so it must have been devastating when he
got back to the beach and saw the smoke rising from their boat.
With all of the former leaders
gone and the island blooping through time, Sawyer found himself in a position
no one would have found him capable of taking in Season 1: a leader. He
deferred to Dan about the time jumping and to Locke about getting back to the
Orchid but he was also being more open then before, confiding about how much it
hurt to have lost Kate. When the bloops stopped, and the survivors were left in
1974, Sawyer decided to pull the greatest con of his life.
As we saw in Season 5, he
convinced the Dharma Initiative that he was Lafleur and he and his group had
gotten shipwrecked. He managed to take the two weeks they were given to find
their people into three years, and in that time he rose to the point where he
was the new head of security in Dharma. But just as always James was conning
himself as much as everyone around him. He seemed to forget the fate of Dharma
and had built a life for himself. When the people he’d ostensibly spent the
last three years waiting for finally showed up, he was more concerned about
preserving the con then figuring out what to do next. Even when Hurley reminded
him of the Purge, he shrugged it off, saying it wasn’t his job to save these
people.
Over the last few days James lost
everything he’d built for the last three years: his reputation at Dharma, the
relationship he’d spent three years building with Juliet and his leadership. He
didn’t believe for a moment that Jack’s plan for dropping the bomb at the Swan
was a good idea, but he went along with the rescue attempt. As a result Juliet
paid the ultimate price.
We don’t know the Sawyer in the
first half of Season 6. There’s no fight in him anymore; his anger is muted; he
doesn’t even seem to care that he’s taking orders from a dead man. We don’t
know where’s he been while everything with Claire and UnLocke was going down,
but in the opening of this episode, he doesn’t seem to care that much anymore.
There’s nothing left for him on this island, and the only thing he can find any
motivation for is to leave. The fact that there’s nothing more waiting for him
in civilization then there is here doesn’t matter anymore. He now seems to
agree with UnLocke: he lived here for a while, but this was never his home.
It says a lot about Sawyer – who
we’ve seen be conned in his past over and over and has been conned by such
polar opposites as Ben and Hurley, and who was conned by Locke into killing
Cooper – knows within five minutes that
he is not in the presence of John Locke even though UnLocke spent the first few
days on the island convincing people who’d known him for longer that he was who
he said he was. He has not fallen for the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled,
but he seems just as willing to take the deal he’s been offered. Then again,
back in Season 4, Sawyer went with the real John Locke and Ben, who at the time
he thought was the villain of the piece, in order to stay alive. Sawyer doesn’t
trust this devil any more than he did Ben back then – he’s just as quick to
pull on a gun on him – but Locke talked him out of it then and UnLocke talked
him out of a couple of days ago. In neither case does he trust the tale he’s
been told, but improvisation on short notice is the gift of the con man, and as
we have seen Sawyer has been gifted at it when he needs to me. He clearly
senses a similar need now. When UnLocke tells James that ‘he’s the best liar
he’s ever met” he clearly means it as a compliment, and considering what we
already know about him, this is game recognizing game.
In the sideways world when James
Ford tells Charlotte that there came a point when he had to make a choice
between being a cop and a criminal, anyone who was a fan of television even
before the era of Peak TV would know how narrow the distinction was. Hill
Street Blues and NYPD Blue both gave countless examples of cops who were
criminals and in the early days of Homicide Frank Pembleton told the
rookie Tim Bayliss that he’d never been a good murder police because he didn’t
think have a killer’s mind. (Frank would be proven wrong.) By the time Lost premiered,
it was so much part of the dialogue that many of the cops on The Wire were
considered dirty when in fact they were all part of a broken system and on The
Shield Vic Mackey led a Strike Team that was as so much more about causing
crime than it was stopping it.
And one of the worst-kept secrets
about Sawyer on the island is, for all his belief in being a lone wolf, he was
always willing to protect, if not necessarily serve. For all the contempt so
many had in him, Jack was willing to trust him when things got rough: he gave
him a gun over Kate when the time came to track down Ethan – and Sawyer in turn
gave his original gun to her. I’ve
mentioned the previous occasions he’s gone on treks to help other people and
the fact is he was in charge of security for Dharma by the time the Ajira
flight returned. Like Sayid, Sawyer’s had a divided nature, and there’s an
argument that James (who people have called him more and more as the series
continued) was the good person and Sawyer the monster.
That’s no doubt the reason then
when Charlotte opens a drawer in his apartment and finds the Sawyer file, he
reacts so vehemently. In the sideways world, James Ford has separated himself
from Sawyer and he wants to keep that part of him hidden.
Josh Holloway has always been
remarkable in every season of Lost but he takes his game to a different
level in the flash-sideways. James is clearly broken and is doing a better job
of hiding it than he did in the real world. Even the casual observer has been
noticing during each of the flash-sideways there have been pauses when the
characters are looking at their reflection, sometimes in a mirror, sometimes in
the glare of a window or as in Ben’s case, that of a microwave. In this
episode, after his confrontation with Miles, James looks at himself in a
changing mirror – but unlike all the other observers, he clearly doesn’t like
what he sees and shatters it with his fist.
The metaphor would be blatant if
it were not for the fact that after he sees himself, he goes home, microwaves a
TV dinner and starts watching Little House on the Prairie. (There’s a
larger significance to this but as we know young James was a fan of the show
growing up.) James makes an effort to reach out to Charlotte, who slams the
door in his face. But after that James Ford goes to his partner Miles and
basically tells him everything he never really told anybody on the island,
except under duress. And he also admits something he may never have been able
to admit to himself, certainly not when he was on the island: that he planned
to kill ‘Sawyer’ when he found him.
In a way, it’s fitting that in
this world his partner is Miles, and not just because Miles was his deputy in
Dharmaville and clearly his friend after all that. As we all know during the
real timeline Miles was as much a grifter and a criminal as Sawyer was, just as
prone to insults and contemptible to everyone.
This Miles is, if anything, more
balanced that James Ford is. He’s clearly friendly with James Ford beyond just
being a partner – he is setting him up on a blind date after all – he clearly
has a relationship with his father, who was notably absent from his life and
the reason he doesn’t want to date Charlotte is because he already has a
girlfriend. (I almost wish we learned more about this to see if it’s someone we
know; is it possible one of the women he was dating was also on the island at
some point?) And Miles is clearly hurt by James’s deception and genuinely
interested in his well-being. When James tells Miles he never told him because
he knew he’d try to talk him out of it, Miles immediately says he was right. James,
it’s worth noting, doesn’t hold that against him and while it’s not clear it
would have been that easy to let go of his revenge, there’s a possibility that
Miles might have talked him down into simply arrested the real Anthony Cooper.
(It’s worth noting the sideways world actually has a more fitting punishment
for the real Cooper.)
Recon is another episode that
demonstrates that everyone else in this world is a little better off. Charlotte
clearly seems less obsessed with finding where she was born then in this world;
while she does do a lot of traveling, the fact that she’s in a museum does
speak volumes that she’s not as globe-trotting as the original one. (Also this
world demonstrates that no matter whether it’s on the island or off, past or in
an alternate world, James Ford will always be able to get laid.) We also lay
eyes on Liam Pace, Charlie’s older brother, who’s come to LA in order to bail
his brother out of jail. We’ll never know if he got clean in this world, or was
never on drugs in the first place, but
it’s nice to know he’s there for his brother in this world when he wasn’t in
the real one.
The biggest question of course is
now that we know that James Ford was a cop why did he help the fugitive Kate
Austen avoid capture at the airport? There’s the fact that he didn’t want
anyone to know he was in Sydney and there would have been paperwork that
revealed it. (Miles was able to find it.) But that’s a big difference from
actually aiding and abetting, which is kind of what he did. (Kate will call him
on this in a later episode.) Maybe even in this world the line between cop and
criminal isn’t as different for James Ford as he lets on.
On the island James now learns
that UnLocke is the smoke monster, something that it’s not clear how many other
members of the group have figured out. (A lot of them know that they’re talking
to a dead man, but only everyone who served Jacob seems to know for sure right
now.) James is still acting like he only wants to ‘get off this rock’, but
there’s a part of him that’s still there: he promises Jin he’ll help him find
his wife and we know James will keep his word. So that means following orders
and going to Hydra Island.
In a sense this journey is as
painful for Sawyer as Jack’s march to the lighthouse was. He passes the polar
bear cages, and its clear that even though he’s done with Kate, it’s still
immensely painful to see her dress among the ruins. Then he sees the Ajira
plane and his expression changes. It’s first time this season we’ve seen him
with something resembling hope. And then he finds a pile of bodies and sees
what’s left of the Ajira crew.
It's a mystery to Lost fans to
this day who killed everyone else, but not to me. I’ve always believed Widmore
was responsible for their deaths. I need to make it clear that the series
ultimately bungled by bringing Widmore back to the island in many ways and much
of his motivations for returning never made any sense in the nature of the
story. For all that we will hear in the final episodes, nothing will ever
convince me Widmore has changed one bit during the course of the series.
This is clear in the conversation
he has with Sawyer. When Locke said he didn’t trust Widmore because he’d sent a
freighter full of soldiers to kill everybody on the island, Widmore told him
that it was to get rid of Ben so that Locke could lead. That wasn’t remotely
buyable given what we’d seen during Season 4. Now when Sawyer tells Widmore
exactly the same thing, not only does Widmore bother to deny, he tries to turn
it back on Sawyer. “How little you must think of me,” he says scornfully. Considering
Sawyer got a far more close-up vision of this, he has every reason to think
little of Widmore.
Widmore doesn’t strike me as the
kind of person who either learns from his mistakes or hires the best people. As
I mentioned during Season 4, everyone on the freighter had conflicted
information, no one trusted each other and the only thing we knew for sure was
that they all met the people on the island harm. (it’s never been clear how
much the team knew going in.) Now he seems to have hired a team of scientists
but they are just as angry, just as heavily armed and clearly just as
untrustworthy. The only thing that’s different between the people on the sub
and those on the freighter is that they are completely loyal to Widmore and
never hesitate in a moment when it comes to obeying his orders.
This is why I don’t believe any
more than Sawyer Widmore’s denial that
he killed everyone left on the Ajira flight. For more than half a century
Widmore has never cared about innocent casualties and I don’t think he’s going
to suddenly start now. It’s not clear how much he knows about who John Locke is
right now or the real reason he’s come to the island. I think at the end of the
day Widmore is still thinking this mission will end with his reward being the
island. He is an Other after all, and that’s the job description.
Sawyer is clearly more canny than
the original Locke was; he never trusted Ben and he never trusts Widmore. And
while Locke went to his grave never able to decide whether to believe Ben or
Widmore, Sawyer is very clear as to Widmore or UnLocke: he doesn’t believe a
word either is saying. So he has no problem saying one thing to Widmore,
another thing to UnLocke – and yet another thing to Kate.
Kate has spent the time dealing
with her own guilt. She came back to the island to find Claire, and now she
sees who Claire is and she’s devastated. But that’s nothing compared to what
happens when Claire – sweet innocent Claire – tries to cut Kate’s throat and
nearly succeeds until UnLocke pulls her off.
It’s nearly, if not more
terrifying, to watch Sayid during this period. When Claire tries to kill Kate,
not only does Sayid do nothing to separate them, he doesn’t get up or even
react. There’s a blank expression on his face that’s even more terrifying than
the violence we saw him commit at the end of Sundown. Before he was killed
Dogen said that Sayid and Claire were both ‘infected’ but its clear that
infection works in different ways. Claire went from being sweet and docile to
feral and violent and Sayid when from being conflicted to…empty.
We do a get a bit of information
from UnLocke during his conversation with Kate. He tells her that after Claire
was abandoned she was devastated and he came to her and gave her a new purpose.
That purpose was to turn her feral and against the Others. This is far from
noble: it’s exactly what Ben did to turn Sayid into his own personal hitman. He
used her grief to inflict violence.
That said, it’s worth noting that
when he tells Kate that long ago, he had a mother and that she was crazy we’re
more inclined to believe him. Everybody on this island ended up here in part
because of parental dysfunction; why shouldn’t it be true for the smoke
monster? (Yes I know the issue; I’ll get there.) It does make you wonder why he
chose to go after Claire. Is there a part of the Man In Black who, in addition
to just wanting to leave the island, wanted the things everyone else wants? We
see him throughout the final season trying to be friendly and parental, not
just to Claire (and Zach and Emms in one scene) but almost every one of
the other passengers. In truth, this
would be a hard case even if he wasn’t the smoke monster: Locke was never good
at making friends and being loving on the island, and that may be something
even harder for everyone else to get over.
Perhaps that’s another reason that
while many people will follow UnLocke throughout Season 6, they never trust a
word he says. They dismiss his friendly remarks with scorn, they decline his
hand in friendship, and many of them don’t believe a word out of his mouth.
Neither the man he was nor the entity that inhabits him are trustworthy: the
latter is clearly trying to be a bigger con artist than Sawyer ever was.
So that’s why at the end of the
episode we see that Sawyer is at least partially back to his old self. He
clearly doesn’t trust UnLocke, but he is willing to agree with what thing: they
have to leave the island together. The fact that he turns to Kate makes it
clear that he’s hoping that for all his belief in every man for himself that
living together is the only way off the island. To do so, he knows that they’re
going to have the pull off a bigger con then he ever did on his own.
And we want to believe Sawyer can
do it – but we can’t forget how easily it’s been to con him in the past.
IF YOU BELIEVE THE ENDING:
Actually almost all of this tracks as well. I do have issues with Miles and
Charlotte in a larger context of the series finale but as that has more to do
with the ending then the episode, I’m going to let it slide. Trust me, we have
bigger issues to come.
