S6Ep8 - Recon

Hello my dear friends -

Remember when I mentioned in early February that I'm working on a book and that my Lost posts would have to be significantly shorter this season... and then I proceeded to still spend hours on them? Unfortunately, "e's Bite-Sized Recaps" are now going to have to kick into effect. Not only am I in the thick of interviewing people about stuff that will be in my manuscript (which is due in May), but I also saw the draft of my book's jacket for the first time yesterday.

!!!!

For those of you who watch Saturday Night Live, once I laid eyes on the cover I felt like shouting, "'Cause this here's REAL!" There's no turning back now, I MUST finish this book.

So... here are my short and sweet thoughts on Recon -- hope you still find them insightful! And to any new Long Live Locke readers... if you roll your mouse over the pictures in my posts secret messages will pop up -- ooohhh, ahhhh.

Flashes first...


I FOUGHT THE LAW
AND
THE LAW WON

That hussy messing around with Sawyer wasn't the only one fooled by his undercover brotha-ness. As I stated in my "LAX Part 1" post, I was absolutely positive that in the sideways timeline, Sawyer was still a con man and had set his sights on the gullible, happy-go-lucky multimillionaire otherwise known as Hurley. I love it when I am wrong (only with things related to this show) -- I totally didn't see it coming that Mr. James Ford was a cop. My favorite part of the episode happened very early on when he uttered the code word "LaFleur" and that chick was like, "Le What?!?"

I was also very happy to see Miles as Sawyer's partner -- they make a good team. So good, in fact, that Miles could sense Sawyer had been hiding something from him. Maybe in the alt timeline Miles can read more than just corpses? Anyway, even though Sawyer was on the right side of the law in this version of events, he still was hunting the man who scammed his parents. Meaning, the main issue he needs to find peace with in his life has not been resolved in the alt timeline -- unlike Jack's daddy issues and Locke's acceptance of his paralysis and Ben's quest for power.

Sawyer knew the guy he was looking for was "Anthony Cooper" and had been making calls in his spare time to try and track the con man down. Eventually in the last flash he spilled the whole story to Miles and admitted that he went to Sydney because he thought he had a hot lead on Original Sawyer... but alas, it was a dead end.

The problem now is that we know Locke is the son of the man Sawyer's after, and that he's currently in LA and enjoying an apparently healthy father-son relationship. It may even be possible that Cooper changed his way years ago, maybe right after what happened with the Ford family. But who wants to bet we're going to see Locke's happy world get blown to hell when Sawyer finally realizes that the revenge he's been seeking can be carried out just a few miles away? (Oh Lord, what if it's at Locke's WEDDING?) That's the way I'm leaning... of course the other possibility is that Sawyer gets ready to kill Cooper, Locke intervenes and convinces Sawyer that his father's a changed man, and then Sawyer can finally put it all behind him and everyone lives happily ever after. It could happen. It's the alt timeline -- anything could happen!


'CAUSE YOU KNOW IT'S OVER
BEFORE IT BEGAN

In the midst of Sawyer and Miles' bickering about what Sawyer was hiding, Miles set his partner up on a date. We all thought it was going to be Juliet, didn't we? Yes. So once again I was blindsided when it ended up being Charlotte -- though since Miles did indicate the woman was a colleague of his father's "at the museum," maybe I shouldn't have been as surprised. Regardless, there was Charlotte all dolled up and RAAWWWRRR-looking at the restaurant, and it was only a matter of like two seconds before she and Sawyer decided they needed to take a roll in the hay. That part kind of freaked me out, to be honest. They did not seem right together. I wish I could erase it from my mind.

Then Charlotte had to get all snoopy (it's in her blood... she's a digger), find the forbidden portfolio and get kicked out of Sawyer's place wearing nothing but a blanket. Later Sawyer regrets reacting so harshly and, classy guy that he is, shows up at her door with a six-pack (of beer... 'cause he had his shirt on). My brother wrote me that he was positive Faraday was going to pop up behind Charlotte at her place -- skinny tie in full effect -- and taunt Sawyer. "Don't hate the playa, hate the game!" That would've been AWESOME. You missed a huge opportunity there, writers. I didn't think about the possibility of Faraday making an appearance, but I WAS 100% positive that Sawyer would end up running into Juliet as he walked down the hall of Charlotte's building. I think I'm still in denial that Juliet wasn't in this episode. Aren't they going to meet for coffee and go dutch, like her dying words hinted? I just don't get when that's going to happen now. I WANT TO SEE IT HAPPEN, dammit!

One more thing about Charlotte -- it did enter my mind that she might've been looking a little too hard in that drawer for a t-shirt. I mean, why would she be digging furiously underneath all of his other clothes? It was kind of like she was hurrying to try and find something before he came back in the room, which doesn't really jibe with the situation. But... I might be grasping for straws -- it's probably too late in the season to think that she, Miles and Miles' dad are part of some sort of conspiracy revolving around Alt Sawyer. So let's turn to the bigger story line -- the one about how all of the 815ers just can't seem to stay away from each other in LA.


HAVEN'T WE MET?
YOU'RE SOME KIND OF BEAUTIFUL STRANGER
YOU COULD BE GOOD FOR ME
I'VE GOT A TASTE FOR DANGER

In the final flash segment, right after Sawyer hands Cooper's file over to Miles and tells him about his plot to kill the man he holds responsible for his parents' death, a car crashes into them from out of nowhere, and since it was nearing the end of the episode I was thinking "Oh, here we go again, who in the hell is THIS going to be?" I was not counting on anyone obvious. Since we already had Charlotte and Charlie's brother Liam make cameos, I figured it would have to be another semi-random. Like Abaddon or Claire's psychic or Mr. Eko or somebody crazy like that. But once we saw a person bust out of the car, then I knew it was Kate with the po-po after her yet again.

She fell into Sawyer's trap and when he slammed her up against the fence they were both like, "Hey... I know you, I know you!" I have to admire these characters' memories. There is no way I would recognize anyone I spent a matter of seconds with on an elevator days earlier. But then again, maybe if I shared an elevator with the likes of Sawyer it would be a different story.

Before we flip over to the Island events, can I just say that I used to freakin' LOVE LOVE LOVE Little House on the Prairie and really got a kick out of seeing Sawyer watch it? I read all of those books and watched the show like a maniac growing up, and that series is why I continue to love Jason Bateman to this day, thank you very much. Ah, the memories. Well, I'm actually still trying to forget the memories of people calling me "Nellie" back in grade and middle school (you know, 'cause of my last name), but there's no need for me to get into that right now.



Enough reminiscing... on to the Island!


NOW THIS LOOKS LIKE A JOB FOR ME
SO EVERYBODY JUST FOLLOW ME
'CAUSE WE NEED A LITTLE CONTROVERSY
'CAUSE IT FEELS SO EMPTY WITHOUT ME


Finally, it's revealed where Sawyer's been... he's been helping nurse Jin back to health at Camp Crazy Claire. But they've soon got company; Fake Locke returns with Claire, Sayid, Kate and all of the Others who decided to tag along. Cindy and The Kids are there, too, and when they ask what happened to everyone who stayed behind, Fake Locke had to break it down for them like this: they're all dead. Sorry in advance for the nightmares, little boy who looks like a girl because he has hairbands in his hair.

Then Sawyer and Fake Locke go off to have a private chat and Fake Locke tells Sawyer straight-up that he is Smokey. THANK YOU writers for finally squashing any remaining doubt left in those who didn't want to accept this until they saw Fake Locke physically transform into a puff of blackness. (Remember the FX budget? That scene was never gonna happen.) Sawyer strangely took this news in stride. I guess after all he's seen on the Island nothing would be that shocking, but a dude who can morph into a giant killing machine made of clouds seems like it should still rank pretty high on the WTF-o-meter. But I digress.

Their walk-n-talk leads them to the beach, where Fake Locke tells Sawyer that he needs him to bust over to Hydra to scope out the situation. Of course I then thought Sawyer was going to be shot on his way there... by time-traveling Juliet, of all people. (Some of you wrote me after I mentioned this in my last post, asking what I was talking about. I'm talking about the scene in "The Little Prince" where the time-traveling Losties are in the outrigger and are shot at by an unseen group of people, also in an outrigger. Juliet fires back -- and appears to hit one of them. But then another time flash whips them into a different year, so we never saw who was in the other canoe.)

Sawyer agrees to Fake Locke's plan and sets out for the other island.


SMACK THAT

Fake Locke rejoins everyone else just in time to save Kate from Crazy Claire. Maybe this is awful, but 1) I thought it was HILARIOUS how Sayid just sat there all bored-looking while Claire jumped Kate and had a knife at her throat and, 2) I thought it was even better when Locke up and slapped Claire across the face. Snap out of it, woman! Kate's reaction was priceless -- she realized she was with a bunch of really messed up peeps and was kicking herself for her new No Tagging Along policy. She could've been chilling with Hurley and Jack instead of coming face to face with the evil Squirrel Baby and then being attacked by a weave with a life of its own while Dead-Eye Sayid was off in la-la land replaying some of his all-time greatest ninja-breakdancing moves in his head. (He decided his best was still the twist-kick-neck-snapper he used on an Other in "Through the Looking Glass, Part 1.")

After calming Claire down, Fake Locke took Kate to the beach, told her what he'd asked Sawyer to do, and then revealed that he knew how she must be feeling after seeing Crazy Claire, because his mother was cuckoo, too. His exact words were, "Because... my mother was crazy. A long time ago, before I... looked like this... I had a mother, just like everyone. She was a very disturbed woman. And, as a result of that, I had some growing pains. Problems that I'm still trying to work my way through. Problems that could have been avoided had things been different."

Now, as I've said too many times to count, I don't think they're ever going to reveal the Man in Black's name. And I'm still leaning toward thinking that he's some sort of devilish figure. But many Lost fans started calling the Man in Black "Esau" from the first moment we saw him in the Season Five finale, because in the Bible Jacob and Esau were warring brothers. Esau was supposedly a kinda hairy hunter dude, and Jacob was "a simple man." And guess what? Their momma had some issues. I'm not going to go much further than that except to provide this link I found which gives a quick overview of how their mother (Rebecca/Rebekah) helped screw over Esau. There are SO MANY parallels between this story and the Jacob/Man in Black subplot on Lost that someone could write a book about it... but that person's not gonna be me. Though I thought I'd at least bring the Jacob/Esau story up at this point as some food for thought.

However, since I must always try to play devil's advocate (pun intended) wherever possible, I think that another valid theory is that Real Locke's memories are still inside of Fake Locke (the Man in Black knew Real Locke's dying thoughts, and we've heard him used Locke's trademarked "Don't tell me what I can't do!" line, too). Locke's birth mother was kind of nutso -- remember that she told her son he was immaculately conceived and then proceeded to sell him out to Anthony Cooper, his birth father, who was badly in need of a kidney. I think that qualifies for crazy. And I think I just convinced myself that Fake Locke is drawing from Real Locke's memories, despite the fact that he said "before I looked like this" in his speech to Kate. Keepin' hope alive, yes I am!


BUT DON'T PLAY WITH ME
'CAUSE YOU'RE PLAYING WITH FIRE

Sawyer makes it safely to Hydra, fondles Kate's old dress at the cages, and then comes across a nasty stinkin' heap of dead bodies. One chick named Zoe is still alive, and immediately 1) I thought she was Grown-Up Annie... but then reconsidered because she was asking Sawyer SO many questions, and 2) My husband yelled, "Hey, that girl was the roommate in Singles!" (He was right.)

Zoe was on Widmore's team, and soon Sawyer was face to face with the man himself in the depths of the submarine. Widmore seemed surprised that the Man in Black had taken Locke's form, but nonetheless, he wanted him delivered on a platter, and Sawyer said he'd do just that if it ensured he and his friends could take leave of the Island once and for all. It was a deal. Then Sawyer went back (without getting shot at, phew... but you KNOW that scene is just around the corner...) and spilled everything to Fake Locke. No one should've been surprised that Sawyer was going to try and play both sides. He said as much to Kate, and then told her that he planned to use the sub to escape. Did anyone else think the last scene was a little anticlimactic? "We're not takin' the plane... we're takin' THE SUB." As if that was some huge twist or something? I was like, "Huh? Why is that how this episode ended?" But whatever. We'll see how well Sawyer's plan works. Won't he need to know the exact coordinates to follow in order to be able to break free from the Island's grip, though?


I'M NOT THE MAN THEY THINK I AM AT HOME
OH NO NO NO

Last week I ended with my thoughts on Widmore, so I'm going to close out that same way this time around. I still think Widmore's up to no good, although it's becoming a little clearer that he is not on the same "side" as the Man in Black. Since we know that the Man in Black is also Smokey and Widmore's team was putting up a sonar fence -- pretty much the only thing (besides Magic Ash + Alive Dogen) that can keep Smokey at bay... AND since Widmore seems eager for Sawyer to bring the Man in Black to Hydra, it seems like he intends to fight, kill and/or capture him.

But that doesn't mean Widmore is on Team Jacob. He could just be out for himself -- he's always been driven by wanting to regain control of the Island. He was so insulted and blinded by rage when Ben banished him that he's pretty much dedicated the rest of his life to finding a way back. While Ben recently learned how pointless this sort of quest for power can be, Widmore isn't quite there yet.

Even though I am no fan of Widmore's, there's something that makes me very sad about the thought of Fake Locke/Smokey killing him. I hope that doesn't happen. And I hope he has Desmond hidden away in that locked room in the submarine, for God's sake. We've seen Des for only a matter of minutes this season, and it was waaay back in the premiere, at that. It's been too long. Lost fans demand to hear "brotha!"


BEST LINES OF THE EPISODE

SAWYER: LaFleur.

CHICK: Le WHAT?

[Kate looks at Squirrel Baby in horror.]

KATE: What is THAT?

SAWYER: What happened back at the temple? How'd you know to rescue everybody from that smoke thing?

LOCKE: I didn't rescue them. I am the smoke thing.

KATE: Sayid, are you alright?

SAYID: No.

A GENTLE REMINDER

This is a gentle reminder because I know those of you who spoiled me on next week's episode (a full week before we saw the preview for it) only did so because you thought I would be excited. But I really, REALLY don't want to know what's coming up in future installments, so please -- even if I wonder about something in a post that you have intel on, don't share it. I'd like to continue to be blissfully ignorant about the ten hours we have left. Thank you!

And I didn't get to it this past weekend, but I definitely will be posting the March contest this coming weekend, so stay tuned for a chance to win another cool Lost t-shirt.

Until then,
- e