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Twitter'Lost': Confidence Man
OK, so I wasn't a mega fan of "The Moth." Sorry, but I come not to slavishly lay praise upon my favorite show, but recap fairly, accurately, and impartially as possible. I didn't care for the stereotypical storyline, Oasis-esque back story, and beat-you-down-with-bluntness imagery. But Lost redeemed itself with its next episode, which featured what seemed like another conventional back story, only to sucker punch us at the end on multiple levels. Plus, half-naked Sawyer! Joy!
Confidence Man
4) In Short
"I can haz martyrdom?"
8) On the Island
Kate's walking along the beach, and comes across a pile of Sawyer's stuff. Out of the ocean comes the wet, topless owner of said stash. (This happened a lot in Season 1.) Once clothed, he comes across Boone going through his jungle stash. Dude had a lot of stashes, none of them particularly hard to find, apparently.
Jack's tending to a wounded Sayid, fresh from having his clocked cleaned while trying to triangulate the source of the French woman's signal. Seems "butt whuppings" are contagious, since in comes Boone, butt freshly whupped by Sawyer. Turns out Boone was looking for inhalers for his asthmatic sister, who is so embarrassed by her condition that she doesn't want anyone to know. (I had "chlamydia," not "asthma," in my office pool. Dang.)
This sets off a chain of events in which a lot of people say, "Give them back!" and Sawyer says, "Nuh uh!" and other people say, "Yea huh!" and Sayid eventually says, "I have ways of making you talk," and then Kate says, "I can exploit our 'connection'," to which Jack says, "I'm going to passive aggressively ignore that, and pretty much everyone else you do until we're rescued," and Sayid says, "Stop making ocular booty and let me torture him already!" (I'm kinda paraphrasing here.)
Turns out Kate's kiss is on Sawyer's list. 95% of the female audience starts licking the screen without realizing it, but Kate's against it initially. Kate points to Sawyer's mysterious letter as proof of Sawyer's inherent humanity, citing the tender way in which he handles it. The letter is written from the perspective of a young boy, addressing "Mr. Sawyer," who states that Sawyer's bilking of his family's income led to his father to kill both his wife and himself. Well, there's that, then.
When Shannon's breathing starts going down for the count, Jack punches Sawyer twice. Oddly satisfying, honestly. When she gets even worse, Sayid says, "Punches are nice, but sliced bamboo strips jammed under the fingernails are way more effective, I find." And boy, is he right. Gruesome, gruesome scene as Jack and Sayid both lose a little bit of themselves in torturing the already tortured Sawyer.
Sawyer eventually agrees to reveal the location of the inhalers, but only to Kate.
Kate finally agrees to kiss, and my, it's getting warm here in Island Gitmo, isn't it? Turns out he never had the inhalers in the first place, and I turn to my dictionary and see if there's a picture of Sawyer under the word "martyr." Luckily, Sun's Island-made asthma medication saves the day. (Remember when she was Island pharmacist? Yea, the show doesn't, either.)
Sayid loses his mind over the revelation that Sawyer doesn't have the meds, and ew, knife into the bicep! Thanks for the present, Locke! I scream, you scream, we all scream for lacerated biceps! Jack bandages Sawyer up and Sayid, horrified by what he's done, essentially sends himself to Exile Island, vowing the make a map of the Island a find the signal source himself.
Sawyer, freshly bandaged, talks to Kate. Turns out the letter in question was not addressed to Sawyer, but written By him as a child (1976, to be precise). The murder/suicide? Executed by his own father. The man we see bandaged before us? One using an alias, a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, as it turns out, given the events in the flashback.
On the beach, Charlie makes his first overtures of real friendship towards Claire. At first, he tries to get her to come to the caves, but eventually decides to stay by her side and be a helping hand. He tries to get her food (an endeavor that starts his almost-as-adorable-as-the-one-with-Claire relationship with Hurley), but is unsuccessful in locating her favorite food item. This culminates in the "invisible peanut butter" scene, which you either love or hate. I'm in the love camp, but I can see why one wouldn't be.
15) Off the Island
Sawyer's in bed with a foxy lady. He's all tender and suave and Lifetime Movie-esque. Course, this would be "Conned Out of My Income: The Jessica Story," as Sawyer "accidentally" lets a suitcase full of money spill onto the hotel room floor.
Turns out, there's $140,000 in the suitcase for an oil-refinery deal in which a $300,000 share will triple their investment in two weeks. He also says that if he acts now, he'll also get a set of steak knives, a Shammy, and "Freedom Rock" on 8-track. Naturally, Jessica buys this hook, line, and moron.
At lunch with Jessica and her husband, Sawyer fakes disinterest in dealing with people he doesn't really know. Alanis Morrisette would dub this technique ironic, don'tcha think? Sawyer eventually agrees to let Mr. Schmucktastic to hold onto the $140,000 briefcase, a kind of prototype Deal or No Deal scenario, as a gesture of good faith in the eventual investment.
At a pool hall, Sawyer's partner in con can't believe he left the money with his marks. Sawyer insists this is the only way the deal will get done. His boss demands the cash, plus fifty percent, by the following day. Back at the marks' house the next day, the deal's done, but Sawyer sees their son, which prompts hismto call off the deal, leave the money, and rush out of the house. In slo-mo, to boot.
16) The Mythology
None. Completely character-based. No monster, no hatches, no rockets that defy the space-time continuum. Just fierce character development.
23) The Moment
The kiss, right? I mean, uh, um, yea. It's the kiss.
42) In Retrospect
- Locke gives himself away when questioned by Sayid when he says, "So it would seem whoever attacked you has a reason for not wanting to get off the island." Hitting Sayid was just the appetizer for the main course of the "Locke Blows Up Anything Useful For Leaving" Season 3 World Tour.
- The start of Charlie/Claire and Charlie/Hurley relationships are both featured in this week's B story. The latter provided Charlie's ultimate salvation, and the latter grounded the show when the events on the Island got a leetle too strange for some people. But both have their deepest roots starting here.
- Not only do we now now Sawyer's real name, but we also know Sawyer's real name. If you know what I mean, you know what I mean. And if you don't, I sure as hell ain't gonna ruin the surprise.
- Not that this came out of nowhere, but we really learned for the first time that are "heroes" make Hancock look like Donna Freakin' Reed by comparison. These are some dark, messed up protagonists, y'all.
108) In Summary
A taut, tense, character-based episode which excelled on the Island and paid off in the flashback as well. Josh Holloway made his mark in the episode as more than a simple hunk of man meat, and the torture scene raised the show's stakes significantly. More importantly, the events of this episode led to a fateful excursion down the beach for a former member of the Republican Guard. Thumbs up all around.
Leave your thoughts about this episode below!
Ryan also posts every 108 minutes over at Boob Tube Dude.
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Zap2it Twitter Talk 
Hey Ryan, I "wasn't a mega-fan" of this review -- it wasn't up to your usual great fare (HA!)
And I'm a woman, and I didn't swone (how do you spell that word) for "half-naked Sawyer" (I'm a Jack fan myself).
This review wasn't one of your best (you do realize that I'm kidding, right?)
For someone as p***ive-aggressive as Jack, he sure throws a mean punch.
In one single episode we went from severely hating Sawyer to feeling sorry for him, in a way. He certainly proves his point, that he is a complex man, sweetheart. I also believe he may be the only character whose main mystery is explained in 1 episode. I mean with the other Losties we get things unraveled slowly.
All in all, for a complete character-driven episode, this episode was well worth the re-watch.
For some reason I thought the Sawyer reveal didn't come until later in the season. Also, I think having Boone and Shannon so involved in these early episodes made at least his end result more powerful.
Here's more evidence of Sun really changing since the beginning of the series. She's gone from an inhaler making, surgery ***istant, gardener to an other killing, Widmore threatening, company takeoverer (if that's a real word).
The torture scene was a little needless and silly, in my opinion, given that neither Kate nor Sayid really wanted it to happen in the first place, so they could have outvoted Jack and told him to grow some balls and find another way to get the info out of Sawyer. Like torture him all on his lonesome instead of leaving his spine on the beach and having the convenient "Why, yes, I have tortured people before; it was my job, thank you for asking. How are the canapes?" character do the dirty deed for him. This was probably the genesis of my overall dislike of Jack (and, ironically enough, why this scene reminded me of another Jack who also seems to think that torture is a perfect means to an end--even if Mr. Bauer has the cajones to wield the knife himself). Also, since Shannon was already so disliked, would anyone on the island really have cared if she started the Long Wheeze To Hell? I'm not squeamish by any means (I'm German by birth and my ancestry is made up of all kinds of mercenaries and less-than-kind folk), but having seen the episode again, I really, really didn't care for much of it.
What I did like, as stated above, was the burgeoning friendships of Charlie with Claire and Hurley. For one thing, it just fit: both Hurley and Charlie are a little bit like overgrown (well, maybe not THAT overgrown in Charlie's case--Hobbit and all that) kids, so it would stand to reason that they'd buddy up; plus, since Claire seems so young herself, her growing relationship with Charlie just seemed right. These types of bonds are what eventually gave the show its heart, far beyond the bizarreness of the rest of what goes on during an average episode. It keeps things grounded--otherwise, Lost would just be one very, very long Twilight Zone-***-The X-Files episode.
I had forgotten that Sun was the one who eventually "saved" Shannon with her old-world remedy. Given how downright dangerous and crafty she can be, it was cool to see her intelligence used for more than just hostile takeovers and serious revenge. Pity that her usefulness on the island seemed to change with the tides.
One thing I've noticed about Sawyer, which I've seen previously, but really came to the fore in this episode: he sweats dirtier than any man I've ever seen. Even if he's fresh out of the sea and as clean as he could get on the island at this point, he just seems to perspire mud. Kind of like a little girl I babysit when I was 14--I'd get there just after Jenny got out of the bath and was dressed to go to bed, and within five minutes, no matter what she did or did not do, her hands would be sticky. She was like a tree frog. So it is with Sawyer, I guess. Of course, given the title of this episode, maybe it's like that old yarn about a certain con man being so full of **** that he tanned from the inside out. Who knows?
And for A-Rob...this is the Lost blog. Made-up words fly through here all the time. I know, because I've put down several meself. We're just favish that way. :P
You know I'm a fan of yours, Ryan, I really am, but reading this recap was a little bit of torture:
"to which Jack says, "I'm going to p***ive aggressively ignore that, and pretty much everyone else you do until we're rescued..."
Did you mean everyONE or everyTHING? Cause if you meant to say everyONE, kudos on being scathingly ironic...even though Kate's only "done" one person in her time on the Island.
"The latter provided Charlie's ultimate salvation, and the latter grounded the show when the events on the Island got a leetle too strange for some people."
Pretty sure you meant to say the former (Charlie/Claire) and the latter (Charlie/Hurley).
"Not only do we now now Sawyer's real name, but we also know Sawyer's real name."
At first that made me do a double take, until I read the next sentence and got what you meant. But you still meant to say "now know".
Anyway, I don't mean to be a jerk and nitpick, just thought someone should let you know.
Dark Disciple,
I'm not sure what episode you were watching, but Jack did not come up with the idea of torture so there was no reason to "outvote" Jack. The torture was Sayid's idea. Jack was pretty happy with just punching out Sawyer. Sayid then decided that there was a better more effective way. Frankly, Sawyer deserved the smackdown because he allowed Shannon to suffer needlessly when he knew darn well that he never had the inhalers. Yet, he let everyone THINK he had them and waste precious time.
For the record: 1) Sayid decided to torture Sawyer; 2) Sayid carried the torture; and 3) when Jack tried to stop said torture, Sawyer told Jack to butt out.
I'm not saying that Jack wasn't complicit. He certainly was, but the idea that Jack needs to grow a pair and own up to something that he never initiated, and yet Sayid and Kate are the poor innocents sitting on the sideline is laughable.
I enjoyed this episode overall, and I enjoyed the insights we learned about the characters and that all of them have a "dark side" to them when pressed.
This was the first episode where I began to like Sawyer and I was so resistant to it because like Debra I am all for Jack. Somehow on this show it's like you are either for Jack or Sawyer but rarely both. A choice must be made. During this rewatch I will make a concerted effort to embrace Sawyer w/o guilt and feeling that I am betraying Jack.
I thought the torture scene with Sawyer was something Sawyer intentionally brought on himself and it was uncomfortable to watch. Jack did seem to be the one that got the looks as if he was solely responsible for the torture but like Patricia that notion is completely false. I think as a leader Jack is held to a higher standard and the thought is that he could have stopped the torture but allowed it to happen, which brought down his stock.
I did like the friendships that Charlie began to cultivate and it did seem that these people would mesh well together.
DD - OMG you are so right about Sawyers sweat. I couldn't put my finger on it but yes Sawyers sweats dirt.
I know Sawyer was contemptible in the start, but everyone he deals with, apart from Kate and Hurley, treat him as if he is sub-human. We know from the following seasons how soft and caring he really is. I can't help but feel that if some of them tried to understand him and spoke to him openly and honestly, like Kate and Hurley do, that he may have been different at the start. Everyone just demands things and goes through his stuff without even asking. I don't know of anyone that likes having their things (whatever they are) rifled through by other people.
And I liked the part when Jack attacks Sawyer while he is getting water and he only stops punching him when he realizes that Sun and Jin are watching him in horror.
Great episode. Both the on-island events and the flashback were of top quality. And that kiss is one of the best of the entire series.
I really liked that this episode featured the 'moral' Sayid who is remoreseful of his actions. It makes his descent into a souless killer in season 4 much more tragic.
I've also been a long time lurker, and finally decided to speak up about how much I love reading everyone's comments on a very regular basis (while I'm at work of course!)
How far I've come from the night I accidentally saw part of Walkabout and wondered WTF? before changing the channel. Last summer I had the opportunity to watch the Pilot online and was immediately hooked and proceeded to watch Seasons 1, 2 & 3 over the course of about 3 weeks in order to prepare for Season 4. Some of the episodes on the "now shut down" website were really crappy, so I am enjoying watching them on DVD and seeing things for the first time.
I'll try to work up some comments/theories to post in the future, but know that I am here, watching.
Oh, and I've been in Sawyer's camp since the pilot, no question.