Episode 608 - Sawyer Goes on a "Recon" Mission

I've seen and heard a lot of complaints about this week's episode, "Recon", which, let's face it, was a set up episode for things to come. But the impressive depth of featured character Sawyer's flash-sideways, in my mind, made it all worthwhile. So, away we go...

A pile of dead Others! More Sideways DHARMA survivors!! A new mystery to debate!!! All this, plus shirtless James Ford2 knocking more boots than a tree full of shoe elves, in "Recon"

Flash Sideways - James Ford2

Right from the get-go, I'm not calling this guy "Sawyer2" anymore, since we learned this week that Sideways James Ford, while still obsessed with finding and getting revenge on Anthony Cooper2 (he should try Locke2's wedding...) zigged where his island counterpart zagged, and never became a con man. As such, he never took on the "Sawyer" moniker.

Of course, we first meet James2 in bed with a vixen (Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, most recently of "Prison Break,") pulling the old "pidgeon drop" where he lets his briefcase full of cash spill open (hello, Season 1 flashback). But this is not the start of a con. It's actually a sting operation. James2 is a cop, and his partner (part of a daring rescue after Ford gives the wink-wink codeword "LaFleur,") is Miles2 Straum!

Aside #1 - it seems these two "lawmen" are destined to work together, with James acting as the Alpha partner, regardless of the reality...

As James2 methodically searches for the real Anthony Cooper (he doesn't seem to be following the Terminator "kill all Sarah Connors" plan), Miles2 overhears him. James2 covers (badly) by saying Cooper was someone he met on his trip to Palm Springs who was going to give him Lakers tickets. But Miles2, after trying to score one of those tickets, changes the subject, and reminds James2 that he's setting him up on the date with a woman "who works with my dad at the museum." When James2 balks, Miles2 asks if he wants to die alone, then, letting James2 in on the fact that he smelled the lie about who Cooper is, Miles2 adds, "you know you can tell me the truth."

Aside #2 - given the small number of episodes that are left, it's safe to assume that "my dad" refers to Pierre Chang, and not some adoptive alternaverse papa Straum. So now we know that, in addition to the Linuses, and (presumably) the Goodspeeds, the Chang family also willingly left alterna-DHARMA and didn't end up dying in the purge (that never happened). Further evidence that Chang left DHARMA? Miles2 became a cop, instead of a bitter, angry, Daddy-issue ghost-whispering swindler. Also love the shout out to island Sawyer's surmising he was meant to be alone, when Miles2 asked James2 if he wanted to die alone.

James2's blind date turns out to be a very flirtatious Charlotte2. Still an archaeologist, she plays with the notion that she has an Indiana Jones whip, but then she doesn't allow James2 to get off with the "why I became a cop" story that he tells all the girls. So James2 reaches deep down and levels with her - he became a cop because there came a point in his life where it was that or criminal, and he chose cop. That moment of intimate conversation turns into a passionate roll in the hay at James2's place (and, yes, ladies, Josh Holloway gave you another shirtless scene to drool over). As post-coital James2 goes to fetch the couple water, Charlotte2 looks for a t-shirt, (and spots a copy of Watership Down on James2's dresser, a book he was apparently destined to read) but stumbles upon James2's hidden, private "Sawyer" file. James2 finds her flipping through it, gets enraged, and throws her out at 3 in the morning.

Aside #2 - the implication seems to be that, in alternaverse, Jacob never gave young James2 the pen that he used to right his revenge letter, which nudged the boy in the direction of using the law instead of flaunting it. But, at the end of the day, cop or criminal, it was all just a means to an end - a lifelong vendetta quest against the man who took his parents.

And yet, we know that in Alternaverse, Anthony Cooper is not quite the same slimeball he was in island world. This Anthony Cooper, whatever his past, managed to reconcile and have a relationship with son. Will Cooper's redemption be enough to stop James2 from killing him? Will it even have to be...

The next day, in a cute little Easter Egg moment, James2 bumps into Liam Pace, at the police station to find his drug-busted brother, Charlie (apparently, LAPD has only one station in alternaverse, where all detectives, and all drug users booked at LAX convene). Miles2 confronts his partner, and is pretty steamed about how James2 treated Charlotte. James2's curt explanation is only that she "opened the wrong drawer." Fed up, Miles2 asks why James2 was in Sydney when he said he was in Palm Springs. James2 blows up at him and the break up as partners (can cops actually just "declare" they're not partners anymore?) James2 then gets his signature "alternaverse look in the mirror" shot, but unlike his more contemplative former flightmates, he angrily punches a hole in the mirror.

James2 comforts himself, not with rage, angy sex or thieving, but with a cold beer, a TV dinner, and an episode of Little House on the Prairie. As Jeff Jensen writes, "James sulked by eating microwave dinners and watching Little House on the Prairie. An inspired, perfect choice for a guy who, like the tragic hero of his favorite novel, Of Mice and Men, dreams doomed dreams of home and hearth and living off the fat of the land with family and friends. In the scene, Charles Ingalls tries to assuage his daughter's mortality angst with some Highway To Heaven touchy-feelies: 'You can spend your whole life worrying about what's going to happen. People aren't really gone when they die, because they live in memories. Memories that sustain us until we see them again.'" This seems to motivate James2 into "do the right thing" territory, and he goes for the same innate "I brought you a single, droopy sunflower" move that made Juliet melt in DHARMA times. But Charlotte2 is a tougher nut to crack, and she tells him he blew it.

James2 then goes to reconcile with Miles2. In a move that island Sawyer would never make, he gives his partner the "Sawyer" file, then tells him his sad story. He confesses he went to Australia as part of his quest to find Sawyer, and it paid off with the name "Anthony Cooper." He then confesses that, if he finds him, he'll kill kim. The reason he told Miles2? So that his partner would talk him out of it.

Aside #3 - I really believe James2 in all of this. First of all, that he only "got a name" in Australia. When we saw him get off the plane, this was not a man who just killed someone, only to find out it was the wrong the person. No, this was a guy who seemed at peace, presumably because he gained new intel. I also believe that he meant it when he said he wanted Miles2 to talk him out of the murder. This is a James Ford who found himself in law and order much earlier than his island counterpart, and figured out the man he wants to be. He may never forgive Anthony Cooper, but he's the bigger man. Which I why I hope and believe he'll earn his reward - when he and Juliet2 go Dutch for coffee.

But the reconciliation moment is cut short when a car fleeing from some other cops crashes into James2's unmarked sedan. The fleeing driver bails, and James2 chases. This driver is dressed exactly the same outfit that dark Charlie wore when he assisted James2 in the kidnap Sun to get the guns gambit in Season 2. James2 catches the suspect, pulls back the hood, and recognizes Kate2 as the person he assisted at the airport (talk about a not cop-like thing to do!) "Son of a bitch!" is James2's expression as this sideways storyline ends, for now...

Island - Team Locke (Starring Sawyer)

The "main" story can really be summed up in a few broad brushes...

Sawyer tends to ailing Jin in Claire's tent (why we didn't see them during the Temple massacre), and promises to help Jin find Sun before they leave the island.

Flocke returns with the "we chose to leave at sunset" Others, and promises protection for his new band of Others (especially young Zack and Emma - and isn't Zack getting a little too old for that ratty old teddy bear?), and, while he tells them that the Black Smoke killed those who stayed at the Temple, he tells only Sawyer that he, himself, is the Black Smoke.

Claire takes Kate's hand, a sign of reassurance, during the Flocke talk, only to then try to slit Kate's throat for taking Aaron. As Kate struggles to get free of Claire, Sayid, who just told Kate he is "not alright," just stares and doesn't help. But Flocke pulls Claire off, and slaps her hard for "inappropriate behavior."

Flocke tasks Sawyer with taking an outrigger to Hydra island to recon the Ajira survivors who "I believe intend to do us harm."

Sawyer reminisces at the bear cages when he sees Kate's old sun dress, then finds the Ajira plane. He follows drag marks to a pile of corpses (the remaining Ajira survivors), who seem to have died without having been shot or stabbed. There he encounters Zoe, a mousy woman who claims to be the last survivor of the flight.

Sawyer calls Zoe's bluff, and pulls a gun on her. She whistels, and out come 6 armed men, who take Sawyer to...the submarine they arrived on.

Flocke talks to Kate to apologize for Claire, then reveals that he had a "crazy mother," who caused "growing pains" that he's still dealing with, a revelation he tells her because Claire will be a crazy mother to Aaron if she reunites them.

Sawyer is taken past a few of Zoe's companions erecting a sonic fence like the one surrounding the DHARMA barracks, and onto the sub, where he is marched past a double-padlocked door with a sentry stationed outside. Nobody wants to answer his question about what's inside (mystery debaters, begin! My favorite theory that I've heard thus far comes from my buddy, Grant, who emailed me right after the episode with a one-word answer - "Desmond").

Sawyer is then taken to see Charles Widmore, who laments how little James Ford knows. Sawyer lays it out simply - in exchange for safe passage for the specific people in the boat he brings back to Hydra island (presumably Kate, Jin and Sun, and maybe Claire and/or Sayid), he will tell Locke (who both of them know isn't Locke) that the coast is clear, so that Widmore can have a free, easy, served-on-a-silver platter chance to kill Flocke. This makes Widmore smile.

Sawyer then returns, and tells Flocke everything, including his promise to assist Widmore in killing Flocke. He makes it clear that he knows that Flocke knew he wouldn't find Ajira survivors when he went over there, but in a show of what "Flocke" calls loyalty, he says now that Widmore is expecting them to come straight to him, he'll be caught unaware by their change of plan. The loyalty thing is all about his deal with Flocke to get him off the island.

When Kate asks Sawyer why he's helping Flocke, Sawyer tells her he ain't helping - and they aren't going to leave on the Ajira plane. His plan is to get the Widmore and Others forces trying to kill each other, then grab Kate (and other 815ers?), steal the sub, and get out that way.

Global Island Aside -

So what is Sawyer's game? He told Jin he's about helping to rescue Sun. He told Flocke he's about honoring their deal (and Flocke can't be that stupid, can he?). He told Widmore he'd betray Flocke for safety (after telling him he knows that Widmore tried to have them all killed three years earlier), and he told Kate he's duping all the rest of them, but she should trust him. I like to think the truth is somewhere in what he told Jin (with whom he bonded in DHARMA times) and Kate (who he remembers loving thanks to his bear cage visit).

Is Claire really going to play nice with Kate? Why would Flocke help her along for so long, only to try to have Kate keep her from Aaron?

What is going on with Sayid "I stare with darting eyes but no discerable reaction" Jarrah? Do he and Claire have a stronger bond now than simply both being kind of nuts?

Last week, when Flocke told Ben to meet him at Hydra island, what was he really trying to get Ben to do? Be a decoy for Widmore? For that matter, I have to believe it was Smokey himself who killed the Ajirites. Widmore's people had guns, but that pile of bodies had not been shot (unless the set dressers simply got lazy).

What is it that Widmore wants? Killing everyone on the island seems to be a way to wipe out Jacob's candidates, which would seem to assist Flocke. But he seems to genuinely want Flocke dead. Of course, that may just have been a false assumption Sawyer made, but then what's with the sonic fences? Before this episode, I thought there would be some sort of kahoots between Smokey and Widmore. Now...

For that matter, and apropos of nothing in this episode, I think back to Season 4, when, in the wake of Keamy killing Alex, Ben somehow summoned the smoke monster to attack Keamy and his group. Why was Smokey so willing to be directed to specific victims, when he had candidates in the group he left untouched? For that matter, why would Smokey do anything at Ben's beck and call?

And then there's the mystery of the locked submarine compartment. I did like the whole Desmond theory (if for no other reason than Henry Ian Cusick has remained in the opening credits of each episode despite only appearing so far in the first 5 minutes of the 8 hours we've seen so far this season). Doc Jensen has another explanation. But it's an explanation that first requires his theory on what/ who Smokey really is. This one's a doozy, but there is a certain logic to it...

This was the real re-con of ''Recon'' — Fake Locke's bid to get Sawyer to commit patricide one more time by killing Charles Widmore. Which is all to say, meet the Man Behind The (Smokey) Mask:

Daniel Faraday.

Not the Daniel Faraday who was shot and killed by his crazy mother in 1977. And not the fetal Daniel Faraday who was growing inside his pregnant mother when she shot and killed adult Daniel Faraday back in 1977. I’m saying: It’s a freaky fusion of both, a disembodied mutant hybrid soul, essentially left behind on the Island as a consequence of the Jughead time reboot that also rebooted pregnant Eloise Hawking. It’s possible that this entity may have been grafted onto an eternal supernatural being that has lived on the Island performing some great spiritual function that it has now tired of. Or it could just be a feral supernatural force that’s been left to develop and grow haphazardly on its own, possessed by the dream of one day becoming a real human being again. Either way, Smokey Faraday is all kinds of wrong — and I think that’s why his father, Charles Widmore, has come to the Island. To take responsibility for his own Abominable Faux Son, and put it/him out of its/his misery. What does Charles have locked up in his submarine? A secret weapon. A weapon more powerful than the dream of vengeance that possessed Sawyer and Claire for so long: It’s the toxic brew of guilt and love, damnation and redemption. Her name was Theresa Spencer. She’s the woman that Daniel Faraday once loved, but whose mind he broke as a result of his time travel experiments that his psycho mom spurred him toward, a woman that Charles Widmore kept alive on his own dime for years, just so he could use her for this very moment.

What I don't like about this theory is its tendency to delve into the high-falutin, mumbo-jumbo stuff that sci fi typically gets scoffed at over, which ultimately makes no sense because if you use enough "soul" and "transdimensional" language, things no longer seem to have to make sense. But what I do like is how well the pieces fit - Daniel clearly was the only character we've seen to have serious mommy issues (even if they only became clear at the moment of his death), and if his back in time to die Odyssey really did somehow turn him into Smokey...who was there 120+ years earlier...well, that would correspond with Flocke's "crazy mom" story. And let's face it, the Theresa Spencer thing was seemingly out of character for Widmore, unless he had a purpose he was working towards. But I can't imagine the big mystery of the locked compartment is really "that comatose chick we saw for one scene back in Season 4, who was awake in one scene in Season5." It doesn't feel epic or monumental enough, and the producers like to shy away from writing anything into the show that requires the viewer to have too crazily obsessed a recall for all things Lost to fully appreciate. So I just give you Jensen's theory as a nifty bit of mental experimenting, and leave it to you to decide if it has merit.

Anyway, next week promises to be a watershed moment for Lost, when we'll finally get Richard Alpert's backstory (and, if Kristin Dos Santos at E! Online is to be believed, the answer to what the island is). So until then, when we reconvene for Ab Aeterno, Namaste!