Lost 2.13: "The Long Con"

Cafe Society
201

Real quick, 'cause I’m on a business retreat and really shouldn’t be doing crack like the SDMB:

Re: Sawyer - good points all - I /like/ the way Sawyer pulled off the con and the “I’m a bad man” bit but in reality I don’t think he’s a bad man either.

I think that the grandstanding is in character (“New Sheriff” speech) but I think the real goal was to get the guns outa the self-righteous self-appointed leader pricks’ hands (I mean Locke and Jack both here) and he couldn’t help but wave /his/ d*ck in everyone else’s face. Grandstanding is in character - but I don’t think he really wants or cares to be the Leader. . . The point was to knock the other big guns down several pegs - and make /them/ subservient for a change. A gesture that’s been sorely needed. . .

202

I don’t get this. Sawyer is the only one to trust because he’s the only one who says who he is? What he is, is a CON MAN. What you can trust about Sawyer is that he will never, ever tell you anything straight. You never know when you’re being conned or manipulated. Even the “I’m a bad man” speech could be coldly calculated to manipulate Charalie’s emotions.

Sawyer is absolutely the least trustworthy person on the island. In this case, I suspect he used his conning techniques to get the guns away from the yahoos, because he knows they were about to do something very, very stupid. But that doesn’t make him a good guy, it just means he’s got a heightened sense of self-interest and doesn’t want the group involved in a war with the ‘others’.

And of course Sawyer is a bad person. He’s taken innocent people, gained their trust, and stripped them of everything they own. He may have had a moment of weakness in his last con, but that’s only because he apparently fell in love with her. If he hadn’t, he would have had no problem walking away with everything she had. And he’s clearly done it many times before. And the only reason he abandoned that other con in the flashback we saw was because there was a little boy, who Sawyer empathized with because he had the same thing done to him as a child.

And speaking of that, he’s got no problem hunting down the guy who conned him and killing him in cold blood, even though the guy was retired, when he goes around doing the same thing. And he even made a mistake at that and killed an innocent man. So he’s evil and also a hypocrite.

Maybe he’ll turn good after the Island twists with him. Maybe Sawyer’s weakness isn’t his conning, but the fact that he does occasionally feel twinges of guilt about it.

203

Explanation: He’s hot.

This actually transmutes any number of what might otherwise be perceived as character flaws into attractive attributes, and excuses the rest.

*I’ve got the meanest man in the land,
But his love is that sticky brand;
His kiss just lingers on my lips,
And thrill me to my fingertips.
People say I’m a fool,
He’s heartless and also cruel.
But outside of that, he’s all right with me!

I said for fun, “I don’t want you no more.”
And when I said that, I made sweet papa sore;
When he pawned my things, I said, “You’re a dirty old thief!”
And he turned around and knocked out both of my teeth.
Outside of that, he’s all right with me!*

204

Was there any resolution as to what happened to Sawyer’s partner in the long con, Gordie (played by Kevin Dunn)? I would assume that in a later episode, Gordie will show up again to extract some justice of his own.

205

Two points: I don’t want to go back and find the appropriate posts to quote.

It was Goodwin, not Ethan, who said they took the “good ones”. The lostaways didn’t have anyone kidnapped by the others, except for Walt and Claire, I don’t believe Ethan ever gave a reason for why they wanted Claire and BB barely acknowledged that they took Walt.
In season 1 when Saywer and Kate were playing a drinking game I believe he commented that he’d never been in love. So either he lied then, or he wasn’t really in love with that chick he conned.

206

Then what did he mean when he said, “I love her” when he was in his fevered stupor?

207

Well, that came after he and Kate bonded. I think the inference is that it’s Kate he loves.

Unless as I said he lied and he loved the chick he conned and he was thinking of her in his fevered state.

208

Except when Jack mentioned to him that he said he loved Kate, Sawyer seemed very taken aback, which made me think it wasn’t Kate he was talking about when he said it. Then, when I saw this ep, I assumed it was Cass he was really talking about, but maybe it’s not.

209

But IIRC, the “I love her” comment in the hatch came right on the heels of him asking where Kate was. That would support that it WAS Kate he was talking about. I think his “being taken aback” was more because he didn’t remember saying it aloud, much less in Jack’s hearing.

210

There’s no way to know – it could be interpreted just about any way.

Kate wasn’t a topic of conversation when Sawyer said that, and he wasn’t exactly in the moment. The pronoun could refer to anyone. Hell, he might have been having a fever-dream about a boat he was keen on. Jack assumed he meant Kate, and said so – but there’s no reason to think that reflects on anyone but Jack, who’s viewing things through the filter of his own preoccupations.

Later in that episode, when Kate and Sawyer are together, Sawyer looks right at her and asks “Why did you kill me?” and Kate reacts as though she believes Sawyer has been “possessed” by her wicked stepfather. Again, we can’t make any inferences about how Sawyer feels about anyone in particular from this, his words are more of a rorschach for Kate to respond to, to let us know about her confusion and conflict over the supposed origin of her “bad boy” hang-up.

Nothing’s set in stone, they can take it wherever they want to.

The “truth” game doesn’t tell us anything about the objective truth, only Sawyer’s self-assessment, or how he wishes to portray himself to Kate.

It could be that he really loved Cassidy, and is trying to convince himself that he never did, as a coping mechanism.

Maybe he’s got a spot for Kate that he hasn’t acknowledged to himself.

Since so much of the mechanics of the show depends on the baggage that the losties have brought with them from the past, I tend towards thinking that the relationship between Kate and Sawyer isn’t so much about them as it about psychological transference stemming from their existing unresolved relationship issues. Sawyer is hung up about his feelings for Cassidy, and Kate happens to be the only person around who matches her type. Kate is hung up about her feelings for Wayne, and Sawyer happens to be the only person around who matches his type.

He’s not asking about Kate though, specifically – and he’s totally out of it. He says, “Where is she?” and Jack says “You mean Kate. I sent her out to get some food,” and then Sawyer says “I love her.”

But he’s delirious, and stays delirious for quite some time after that exchange. We don’t know that Sawyer would have said anything different if Jack had responded, “Your grandma? She’s giving Hurley some reverse-cowgirl action out on the golf course.”

Jack assumed that he meant Kate because Kate had been looking after him – but that entire time, he was completely unresponsive, and probably had no idea that Kate was tending to him.

211

For giving us that visual image you deserve a thorough beating with a Jesus stick.

212

Assuming that Goodwin and Ethan are in cahoots with BB (which I’m not certain of), I’d put the Scott or Steve murder in their with the kidnapings. And although Ethan didn’t kill Charlie, he tired to, and would have succeded if Jack hadn’t found him in time. We do know that Charlie said “they only wanted Claire”, so that strongly suggests Ethan was working with someone other than Goodwin (who was either dead or still camping out with the tailies).

213

I think Locke locked up the heroin mainly to ensure that Charlie didn’t obtain it again. I don’t think he would ever deny it to Jack if Jack needed it for medical purposes. If Jack kept it with other medical supplies (not locked up), then Charlie might go after it.

214

But do we really know that? Those were the headers on one of the web sites that popped up, but there’s been plenty of misleading info on those web sites. I don’t recall anything specifically about “remote viewing” and “life extension” and such on the actual show… There were a few things mentioned in “the film” that they watched back at the start of the season, in the hatch, but I don’t recall those two topics, for instance, mentioned in it. I’m not so sure we can consider things appearing on those web sites to be canon, quite yet.

You mean Goodwin, right? The one who infiltrated the Tailies, and said that to Ana Lucia? Because I don’t think Ethan ever gave that much info – just “I’ll kill you if you follow me!” and the like.

215

Why not? If they’re intentionally put there by the writers of the show, why is that any different than making it onto screen? Well, maybe it’s a bit different in the sense that it’s a little easier to try to ignore that stuff if they write themselves into a corner.

Yeah, I meant Goodwin.

216

You misunderstand me. I have no problem with Locke putting the drugs in the gun cabinet and locking it up. But when he went to hide the guns from Jack at the end of this episode, he took the heroin too. Otherwise Sawyer wouldn’t have had it and Charlie couldn’t have remarked that he had the opportunity to take a statue all along.

Locke should have left the drugs in the gun locker where Jack could get at it and Charlie couldn’t. Instead he put it with the guns - which he was hiding specifically from Jack.

217

I’m willing to forgive many of the perceived character fluctuations mentioned on this thread. I’ll chalk them up to sickness, island mojo, stress, phone withdrawl, or electromagnetic brainwave interference. I Want To Believe.

What I won’t forgive, and what has me really worried about the direction the writing is taking, is the line delivered by Ana Lucia on the beach in which she confused Steve and Scott. An old joke, sure, but a joke her character can’t possibly pull off because half of the Steve/Scott pair died before she even met him (them?). How is it possible that she could confuse a man she just met with another man who died before she arrived on the beach?

That line sits like a fat stinkin’ turd in an otherwise thought-provoking episode.

218

Well, I seem to recall that there were some misleading items on one or more of those sites, too – little secret links or codes that would take you to a letter or a presumed page of a show script, which turned out to be a false lead.

Ah, got it now. And yes, that’s a good point. No reason to take the statues out of the room along with the guns.

219

Yeah, I was confused about that, too. I figured they probably want us to believe that even the middies are still confusing Scott and Steve. Frankly, I can’t remember which one died. But, of course, if I was on the Island and interracting with the guy who lived every day for several weeks, I’d probably not be confused anymore.

Chalk it up as a throw away in-joke.

Unless… were Scott and Steve identical twin brothers?

220

What confuses me is that Locke didn’t know Charlie was following him. Locke, the master of the woods, king of the jungle, duke of the wilderness - gets followed by Charlie the wanker and doesn’t even know it?

The explanation Charlie gives is that Locke was so concerned about the guns that he wasn’t paying attention to anything else. But if Locke was concerned about the guns then he’d be paying even more attention than usual to whether anyone was following him. The point was to hide the guns where they couldn’t be easily found. And he knows that not only is Kate a fairly good tracker, but that she might very well try to help Jack get the guns from where they were hidden. He should have been worried about leaving a trail. And if he’s worried about leaving a trail, he’d definitely be paying attention to whether anyone was following him.

So, what gives? Other than the “sickness” or lazy writing, I can only think of one explanation that would make sense: Locke wanted the guns to be found. He knew Charlie was following him. Why? God only knows. Most likely it’s either the sickness or lazy writing. But if there is a reason for Locke wanting the guns to be found, then it might also be the reason he took the heroin along with the guns.