Thursday, July 16, 2009

1.08 Confidence Man

Follow along! The episode guide for "Confidence Man" is in Finding Lost, pp. 51-55.

The thing I’m enjoying most about the rewatch so far is remembering what it was like seeing them for the first time, and how it was such a big surprise that Locke was paralyzed, or Sun spoke English, or Jack’s dad was such a dick, or, in this case, that Sawyer is a conman who is emulating the man who destroyed his life. Talk about taking the redneck bully and turning him into a complex guy with major issues.

Fun stuff I noticed:
• All of the non-Sawyer plot material acted as a bridge between the first section of season 1 and the next. Sayid leaves; Sun infiltrates herself within the group a little more; Charlie and Claire get together.
• I commented in my season 1 Finding Lost guide that pregnant women shouldn’t be eating peanut butter, so it’s a good thing Charlie gives her the imaginary stuff. I wrote that book after my first pregnancy, and yet, by the second one, only three years later, I was told by my doctor to go ahead and eat all the peanut butter I wanted, and now they let you give peanut butter to babies under a year old. New studies are showing that peanut allergies may be caused by people NOT giving peanuts to kids, so they never develop an immunity to it. Give it 5 years and it’ll be banned again. But in 2004, Charlie’s doing the right thing.
• I loved that Sayid refers to his years of torturing as being “communications.” It sort of fits with life on the island: getting anyone to communicate is like pulling teeth.

Things that have new meaning:
(I couldn't decide between a pic of Angry Sawyer and Vulnerable Sawyer, so I've chosen both. You're welcome.) ;)
• Throughout the series, Locke is the one guy who never tells a lie, and who is brutally honest no matter what. He marches into the Others camp and announces who he is (in several different eras). He is consistently honest, even when it would be advantageous to him to lie. And yet here, he actually creates his own long con against Sayid by making him believe Sawyer is the bad guy. We’ll never see Locke pull off something like this again, by not only lying, but pointing the blame in the wrong direction. We’ll know by the end of season 1 that he’s the guy who clocked Sayid in the head (something I’d forgotten about until I saw him do it in “The Moth,” and then thought, “Oh YEAH! THAT’S why Sayid hates him so much”).
• This isn’t from the episode, but just a fun fact: at the 2008 Comic Con, Darlton told the audience that in the Exposé episode, they were going to include a gag where Nikki and Paulo are in the jungle and they find Shannon’s inhalers, look at it, and toss it aside. HAHA!!!
• Sawyer says his investor is from Toronto. It was actually me. And in the world of Lost, that means I’m evil.
• After seeing the finale, I could only picture that little boy writing the letter on the steps of the church and his uncle trying to stop him. That letter takes on a whole new meaning when you’ve seen the genesis of it.
• When the woman’s husband is talking to Sawyer in the restaurant, he says, “What is this, a loophole?” THAT word means something entirely different to us now!
• Watching Jack punch Sawyer in this episode, I can’t help but think how they’ll pummel each other senseless in “The Incident.” But at the same time, Sawyer develops a real hatred for Jack, and yet the man sticks his fingers into Sawyer’s arm to pinch an artery closed. Eep.
• The end of the episode we hear “I Shall Not Walk Alone,” and not only do I LOVE that song, but one of the lines refers to taking the hand of “my mother Mary,” and we later discover that Sawyer’s mother’s name is Mary. :::chills:::

32 comments:

J.W. said...

Y’know, I never knew “con man” stood for “confidence man” until I saw the title of this episode. (I’ve lived a sheltered life.) By the way, funny peanut butter stuff, Nikki!

What I liked:

-There was some great character development for Sawyer.

-I like how the writers planned out the whole bottle rocket/flare thing just so Sawyer would have an alibi when it came to figuring out who attacked Sayid and destroyed the equipment. I also like how they wisely did not show a closeup of Sawyer when his rocket went off, so we could question the alibi.

-The twist ending was well done. Season 1 of Lost had the best twist endings.

What I didn’t like:

-The episode was stagnant, breaking the forward momentum that had been building up. It was almost a filler episode, leaving us in the same place at the end as where we began.

-Boone tries to explain Shannon’s sudden asthma by claiming she’s had it but she’s good at hiding it. But considering it was never mentioned before (and I don’t think again after this episode), it really does seem like a sloppy writer’s solution to figuring out what Sawyer could have that would be worth torturing him. It would have been nice had her asthma been mentioned at least once before, even if only in private.

-So Charlie gives up heroin, and he’s all fine now, joking with Claire? I know at this point he was one of the leads in the cast, but they should have left him out of the episode.

Kate said...

Wow. The thing about "Mother Mary" is pretty chilling. It seems so fitting to me, that his mother was named Mary. Both in a Virgin Mary sense and a Magdalen sense. Sawyer obviously views her in a very, very high light--the look on his face when "Tom Sawyer" messes up her name is like "I'm about to strangle you with that chain"...which he does. But then again, she also had an affair with that guy which makes her less than innocent. As always, Lost chose the name well. I'll come back with more later.

Anonymous said...

I had forgotten until watching again that Locke tried to cast suspicion on Sawyer by implying he was the one who whacked Sayid on the head, even going to far as to explain how he could have set up a delayed flare, in order to destroy his alibi.

Why? What's in it for Locke (aside from deflecting suspicion from himself) if Sawyer takes the blame? And how would it benefit Locke to have Sawyer killed? His plan almost worked.

I'm very disappointed in Sayid in this episode, he's normally savvy when it comes to deception, and yet he believed Locke when he implicated Sawyer and disbelieved Sawyer when he said he didn't have the inhalers.

Something fishy there. >:(

V said...

Josh Holloway is a much bigger man than Matthew Fox. They hid this with some well-chosen camera angles when they were nose to nose in this episode. But it is easy to see when they finally have their big fight in Season 5. If Juliet hadn't called him off, Sawyer would've killed Jack.

Jazzygirl said...

One of my fav lines:
Jack to Saywer: stand up
Sawyer: Why? You wanna see who's taller?
LMAO!!!
Okay, had to get that out. Anyway, I enjoyed seeing this episode as Nikki said, in regards to the letter. We've seen the genesis of it finally and I couldn't help but think of that scene when he's reading it. And BTW, this group of episodes have really got me thinking about that YouTube clip of all the LOST characters as kids and has been welling up all over again!

Batcabbage said...

I always cringe every time I see Jack pull that knife out of Sawyer's arm. Blurgin!!

I like the fact that Michael DeLuise has come a long way since Encino Man (California Man, I believe, elsewhere). Joking aside, I love how Sawyer, when he sees they've got a kid, immediately drops the whole thing. Goes a long way towards cutting through the surface 'con-ness' to his character beneath. Yeah, I'm a Sawyer fan. Not as much as Batkitty, of course, but still.

Oh, yes, and Claire isn't the only Aussie who loves peanut butter. I love it. Batkitty loves it. Only we call it peanut 'paste' here in Oz. Yes, we're a strange and mysterious people on this enormous island...

Susan said...

IMDB lists Matthew Fox as slightly taller than Josh Holloway.

I don't know if you'd call this a lie, but when everyone thinks Jin burned the raft, John tries to convince everyone that the "Others" did it when he knows Walt did it.

I have to wonder if Sawyer is telling the truth about the book and the inhalers. He tells Kate that the book washed up, but when she picks it up, it looks worn and dirty but doesn't look like it spent any time in the water.

J.W. good call on the asthma. The only other mention we get is in the Exodus flashback where Shannon is looking for her inhaler on the plane and Boone hands one to her. I guess we're supposed to assume that Jack's Jedi trick and Sun's home remedy did the job.

Anonymous said...

This is the episode that permanently hooked me on Lost and began to solidify my character preferences. I had loved the pilot and let out a little gasp with the surprise twist of Walkabout, but this episode was the beginning of my Lost obsession. I had been looking for a standout character that I could attach myself to and rout for, but up to this point I hadn’t found him or her. I usually prefer characters that are misunderstood outsiders with a heart of gold and with Confidence Man, I finally found him in spades. (Up till that point, I really couldn’t stand Sawyer.) Funny, now going back and re-watching the first episodes again after 5 seasons, I see Sawyer in those early episodes in a whole different light.

Unfortunately, this was also the episode that changed my mind about Jack. The moment Jack agreed to allow Sayid to torture Sawyer and then helped Sayid, pretty much made Jack persona non grata to me. I have never been able to get past the fact that a doctor, who has taken an oath to do no harm, condoned the torture of one human being in hopes of helping another. I guess it makes sense in the context of some of his flashbacks. Doctors sometimes have to make hard choices, like Jack choosing to save Sarah instead of Shannon’s father; but that’s not the same as purposely hurting someone and possibly putting their life in danger to try to help someone else. Yes, Jack saved him in the end, but that’s what Jack does. Sawyer had it right in his little speech to Jack. He was/is the hero and fixing things is what he does. If Sawyer had actually died, however, the survivors no doubt would have viewed their de facto leader in a completely different light.

Oddly, I didn’t blame Sayid for the torture, although he was the one who instigated it. I guess I just put more of the blame on Jack since I don’t think Sayid would have gone through with it if Jack had not given permission.

As far as Locke throwing suspicion on Sawyer, that didn’t bother me in this episode, but really did bother me when we found out later that Locke was the one that had hit Sayid. Why did he do it? Well, we have since found out that Locke never wanted off the island. Off island he was a “nobody”, but on island he could not only walk, he was a “somebody” who was admired and respected, a leader and advisor. But you can’t be a “somebody” if there is nobody else around to recognize it. So Locke wanted to keep everyone else there, but he certainly at that point didn’t want anybody to know that. His plans to keep everybody from leaving the island didn’t become overt until the third season.

Why didn’t Sayid see through Locke’s ruse? Perhaps he didn’t want to. There were already bad feelings between him and Sawyer. They didn’t like each other nor did they trust each other; so when Locke suggested that someone else had something to gain by staying on the island, Sayid’s first thought was the one person he already had issues with. And Sawyer’s refusal to cough up the inhalers was a perfect excuse to exact a little revenge under the guise of helping another castaway, although I do believe Sayid prime motivation was helping Shannon. On the other hand, would have Sayid suggested torture if Sawyer hadn’t been someone he disliked?

Anonymous said...

One more thought for now:

On considering the sudden asthma problem that Shannon had, I read the original script (network draft) for this episode and the woman with the problem was not originally Shannon. The woman was a 40’s something castaway named Marybeth and instead of Boone the man involved was her 50’s something husband Richard. I suppose what happened is they thought “why bring in 2 background characters for one episode. Instead of a husband and wife, make it a brother and sister and we can use 2 of our regulars, who otherwise wouldn’t have had much to do in this episode”. Perhaps that’s why Shannon never showed any signs of a problem before this episode; she wasn’t the character that was originally supposed to have the problem. Of course, after that episode Shannon never had a problem again anyway. Well maybe the island finally got around to healing her. Lol. Problems like that do seem to go away on this show. Charlie seemed to get over his drug addiction fairly easily, but Jack’s ability to get over his drug addiction in season 5 was nothing short of miraculous. He never showed any signs of withdrawal from the oxycodone and that’s some pretty powerful stuff right?

The ending caught me totally by surprise. For me, the fact that the letter wasn’t written to Sawyer, but was written by him was the second biggest twist of the season (behind Locke being in the wheelchair). The whole episode was a revelation and Sawyer’s, vulnerability, self loathing and even suicidal demeanor made look at the character in a whole new way.

Susan said...

I don't think Sayid needed Jack's permission to torture Sawyer. Sayid has always done what he wanted and I think he considers himself a kind of co-leader. Jack respects Sayid's ideas and usually goes along with them.

EvaHart said...

I always love rewatching this episode, its great seeing a proper Sawyer storyline for the first time and is the first of many great ones we will eventually see!

I also noted the fact Locke tried to set Sayid up against Sawyer, what a liar. what does he have against Sawyer anyway?

Again i have always wondered why we never see Shannon with her ashma again. Maybe the island healed her of it?

Another quirky thing I noticed was during the torture scene Saywer says this to Sayid
"Well aren't you the brave one"

That line made me laugh as Naveen Andrews stars in the 2007 film "The brave one" with Jodie Foster. It's not a bad film although Naveen is only in it for about 5 minutes as he is brutally murdered at the start. Shame.

Didn't really notice anything else except how good looking Sawyer is when he is being beaten up... Is that strange?

Looking forward to carrying on the rewatch next week!

Kate said...

Hahah, trust me Eva, that's not strange at all--notice my icon. =P None of my friends think he's good-looking, in fact they think he's horrendous. I don't understand it. It makes my heart sad. :(

Just as a random fact, I was so excited when I was first watching the show and I saw Sawyer reading Watership Down--I love that book and I have the exact same edition that he was reading. I read it again as soon as I saw that just because. <3

Nikki Stafford said...

Katey: None of my friends think he's good-looking, in fact they think he's horrendous.

Um... not to diss your friends, but... are they BLIND?! Heeheee...

Batcabbage: I love that you said that, because when Claire said she's the only Australian who loves peanut butter I thought, "Uh... I will never go to Australia." Glad to hear she was lying. But peanut paste? Ew. ;)

EvaHart: LOL on the island curing Shannon's asthma! If I were a writer, that would be EXACTLY the excuse I'd use. I mean, come on, if it can heal paralysis and cancer for goodness sake, it could cure cancer. I was never bothered by them not mentioning it again, because I always assumed the eucalyptus did the trick, as Susan said above. But I like your explanation better. :)

JW: I agree that season 1 had the best twist endings. From that point on, they saved their twists for the finales. ;)

Anonymous said...

@Susan. I agree Sayid didn’t need Jack’s permission to do what he did and there is no doubt he is his own man, but the fact that he asked for Jack’s permission led me to believe he would not have done it unless Jack was willing to go along with it. Of course, Jack does, more often than not, follow Sayid’s advice. As you said, Sayid does have strong leadership abilities, but he is also very much a team player.

Speaking of Jack, I have to say my negative thoughts toward him have mellowed since the season 3 finale when his inability to control and fix things exposed his vulnerability and allowed his demons to take hold. Knowing that and watching the torture scene again, I can see the anguish in Jack’s face listening to Sawyer’s screams and realize in some ways Jack was as tormented by allowing this to happen to Sawyer as Sawyer was by the actual torture. And Sayid’s guilt led him to leave the beach camp. I think it haunted Sayid for a long time. I remember Sayid telling the tale to Ana Lucia the next season in the episode Collision.

Well, I’m off to read Nikki’s post of the Moth. I’m going a little out of order here.

Ali Bags said...

@batcabbage
I always cringe every time I see Jack pull that knife out of Sawyer's arm. Blurgin!!

I was watching this ep on my laptop with headphones and the sound effects were VILE!

Katey: None of my friends think he's good-looking, in fact they think he's horrendous.

I agree with Nikki - I find this statement puzzling. My friend has never seen an episode of Lost and she said' Oh is that the programme with that delicious man' (and she didn't mean Jack)

By the way - just thought I'd mention I'm flying to Oahu on Monday.

Paithan1 said...

So, why does Sawyer need to do penance? Not his fault his mom fell for a con man & dad killed them both...so why does he keep beating himself up? And how about the fact that Locke overtly lies & Sayid doesn't pick up on it (when he obviously knows that Sun is lying about speaking English.) And yes, why does Locke pick on Sawyer?

Batcabbage said...

@Jennifer: I think the reason that Locke picked on Sawyer (so to speak) is because he was the most viable candidate. He's scavenging everything, no one really knows anything about him, there's already a sense of mistrust. It suited Locke's purpose at the time, to draw attention away from himself. I think it was just for convenience, and nothing personal. It kinda foreshadows that coldness that the Others would need from a leader, I think. Just like when Locke gets Sawyer to do his dad, it wasn't personal, he was just the best candidate (albeit for personal reasons, Locke's dad being Tom Sawyer and all, and that Sawyer had killed before - even though he'd been duped into that by the T1000). Sorry, long post, but there you go.

Nikki Stafford said...

Jennifer: Batcabbage covered off the Locke bit, so I'll answer the other part of your question, Why does Sawyer have to do penance?

I think Sawyer's doing this to himself as a really weird way of getting back at Sawyer. He lost his parents when he was 8 years old. He then spent years trying to hunt down the man who killed his parents so he could punish him. But he couldn't find him. At that point he was so consumed by grief and rage, he decided he would find a different way to punish him. So, he changed his name to Sawyer and began acting like an ass so people would punish him. And everything that is done to him, he imagines it's being done to the real Sawyer. Bring on the bamboo shoots... he'll take it because he believes it's happening to the real guy. Make Kate hate him... good, because it's like she's hating the real Sawyer. Stick a knife in his arm... Sawyer will take it because he's imagining doing it to the other guy.

And this is why we see a sudden switch in his behaviour in season 4. He kills the real Sawyer at the end of season 3, and in season 4 there's no reason to punish himself anymore. So he stops being the sarcastic dick, and starts pitching in. He begins referring to himself as James, and lets others do it, too. By season 5 he's chosen another pseudonym, and he takes on the guise of that man the same way he slipped into the Sawyer persona. LaFleur is the sheriff of Dharmaville, he's helpful, he's responsible, and he's settled down with another woman. But the guy who falls in between both these characters is James Ford, and here's hoping season 6 is all about him. :)

I hope that helps!

Kate said...

@ Nikki & Alli:

Tell me about it! They have to be crazy right? I remember the first time I blurted out about my love for Sawyer when they first started watching and they all just stared at me like I was a raving lunatic...it's seriously saddening to have to keep all my comments inside when I watch it with them. They're all HUGE Jack fans, and I'm a Jack fan too but...but...Sawyer. How? Why? Anyway, it's nice to come online and be in the land of my people! Hahah!

@Sawyer's Penance:
Wow! Great points Nikki, I'd never looked at it that way before! If I could add in a bit of my own musings on the matter too, I always Sawyer's "penance" as not penance at all but as an outlet for his pain. We can tell just from his story as a child that it is in Sawyer's soul to be a man of action, passion and anger. He planned to kill a man from the age of eight! Basically-Sawyer is hardcore. He's not a crier, and I don't mean that just in a "he's so cool, he doesn't cry" kind of way, it's just that he really doesn't have that sort of capabilities like normal people to just let things go, get his pain out. Instead it builds up inside him with absolutely no outlet until he can pay it off as he originally intended (which was to kill the real Sawyer).

So all those years while he searched, his pain just kept manifesting into more pain and more anger, and of course angry men do things they regret, so that added guilt to his payload, and in his mind he couldn't let any of these things go except by killing the real Sawyer. So he was stuck in this place of horrible pain and I think that, on top of what Nikki said--he found that the only way to deal with all his emotional turmoil, pain, guilt and anger was to make himself numb and to be numb he had to be hated. It's like people who harm themselves physically because they can't find an outlet, I think that was Sawyer's outlet until he could accomplish his task. I think it was a guard for him too--because if everyone hates him, nobody expects anything from him, nobody cares about him and nobody bothers to deal with him, then nothing more can happen to him. He can live in his own little bubble until he can manage to pop "Sawyer" and finally step out into the world as James Ford--a person he's really never been before all his life.

I agree Nikki! Let's hope Season Six gives us the real James Ford! Good or bad, I think it's high time he gets a chance to stand in his own skin for once!

Anonymous said...

Nikki and Katey:

I loved all your points about why Sawyer feels the need for penance and they all make perfect sense. I had a little different take on it in hindsight. Mine is a little simpler. When Sawyer got on the plane in Sydney, he had just killed a man; he had just killed the WRONG man. (When we get to Outlaws, notice the look on his face when he realizes this.) I think the horror and guilt of killing an innocent man pushed his self loathing to new heights. He felt he needed to be punished for his crime (yet his instinct for self preservation kept him from admitting to it). So he did everything he could to make people hate him and exclude him and the torture was icing on the cake. I guess one of the reasons I believe this is that in his flashbacks, I don’t really see the self loathing he has on the island. Of course, at this point in the story, we had no idea that Sawyer had just murdered someone shortly before getting on the plane, but looking back on it, it makes a lot of sense to me.

Anonymous said...

Something occurred to me after rewatching this particular episode. Why does Kate end up vacillating between Jack and Sawyer, probably the two worst candidates on the island? In these early episodes, Jack regards her with suspicion and tells her what to do, while Sawyer treats her like a piece of meat.

Then there's Sayid, who treats Kate as an equal; valuing her ideas and opinions and showing her respect. What sealed it for me was his kissing her hand before he left. ::sigh:: It's a shame Sayid and Kate never got together; they're both strong, independent and savvy, and she probably, in a lot of ways, reminds him of his lost love, Nadia.

(I'm shuddering just thinking of having to re-watch the upcoming Sayid/Shannon match. Blecch.)

JennM said...

I didn't ever really think of Sawyer' actions as "Sawyer" as penance. I thought of it more as an outlet for pain. Sawyer was clearly deeply hurt by the tragic events in his life. He channeled his pain into his persona, which in turn made a lot of people inflict pain on him. You know how people used to break a soldier's finger in the field before performing an amputation to take the focus off the bigger pain? I imagined Sawyer's actions and the pain and awful feelings they brought as the equivalent to the broken finger in the metaphor.
Perhaps the reason for his turnaround after he kills the real sawyer is that the "amputation" has finally been performed—there's no need to inflict that other distracting pain, because the man responsible for the big pain is finally gone.
Anyways, that's just another way of thinking about it, or just the way that I understood it. But I really enjoyed reading everyone else's interpretation of Sawyer's adoption of Bad-Sawyer's identity.

Kate said...

Yeah, Jenn--that's exactly how I saw it too about Sawyer. I think there were probably lots of things involved, but I think it was his pain-outlet largely.

Chelsea said...

During this rewatch I noticed the same thing about "Mother Mary." Very cool!

Erin {pughs' news} said...

Sawyer "not good looking"? I am of the completely opposite opinion. He is lovely to look at, his accent is charming, and when he's being good, he's really very lovely. He's a "complex guy" and we're learning all about who he is, why he is that way, and seeing his transformation from redneck jerk, to a good guy. I luuuuuurve him. I even talked my husband into letting me name our baby, Sawyer! (not. even. kidding!)

Remember how Nikki felt when Ben shot Desmond and she was ready to go kick some writers' asses? That's how I felt when Picket (was that his name?) was going to kill him in front of Kate on the Hydra island. Total despair!

Anyway, sorry to ramble. Just had to put in my two cents!

Also: can't remember where we were discussing this but... As far as questions we want answers to in Season 6, how about this one? Why did Desmond see Claire getting on a helicopter? Did that vision change? Will she still get on a helicopter (assuming she's alive)? I've always felt so sad that Charlie sacrificed himself to make sure she'd get rescued, and she then she didn't.

Paithan1 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Paithan1 said...

@Batcabbage: Thanks for the clarifying on Locke.

Thanks to everyone for the insight on Sawyer. I have found that I look at him now in Season 1 with much more sympathy than the first go around (and for many of the reasons people posted about here.)

I hope people don't think I'm stupid but doing this rewatch just brings up stuff that I would never have thought of back in Season 1. And sometimes I find it hard to reconcile who these people now are and who they were back in Season 1.

Rebecca T. said...

Look at this, leave for less than a week and miss out on all sorts of fun :( Gonna get my two cents worth in anyway and then scramble to catch up...

Locke totally lies about not seeing anything with the "monster"

Re: peanut butter in Australia. We have some good friends who moved to Australia and they always asked people to mail them American peanut butter because they said Australian peanut butter is not like ours.

Re: Sawyer... I think a part of it is also the fact that he became the very man that he despised. He became Sawyer and he hates the fact that he started down that path, but it's almost like he doesn't know what else to do with himself. He's anchorless, drifting around trying to find the man that, not only killed his parents, but also effectively set him on the wrong path.

I would also just like to say that Josh Holloway is an amazing actor and I think he gets overlooked a lot of times because of everyone else and because of his good looks (seriously, how can ANYONE not see that?!)
His face and his eyes are so expressive. You feel like you can see all the way to his soul, with the depths of pain and misery in his eyes.

Also (not shipping, just noting) I never realized how complicated the (at this time) triangle was. Kate's kind of fallen for the hero doctor and goes all flirty with him, but Jack's mainly oblivious to it. Meanwhile, I think Sawyer really is falling for Kate and there are deeper feelings behind his request for a kiss (even if it is a bit jerkish the way he asks) and she's all, ewww, don't even think about it, we have no connection, go away.

The thing I noticed the most was the pain in Sawyer's eyes when Kate accuses him of being heartless. I think he was falling for her then and he loves her all the way through, even after she leaves. That doesn't mean he isn't in love with Juliet or that he would have left her for Kate. I kind of compare it to the movie Castaway where the girl moves on and gets married and has kids because she believes her true love has died, but when he shows up alive all of those feelings resurface and begin to tear her apart even to the point where she considers leaving to be with him. In the end, those feelings don't tear her away, though. She knows the right thing to do is to leave.

People point out that Kate and Sawyer only had a few months while Juliet and Sawyer had 3 years. But those were also 3 years where Sawyer didn't know if Kate was alive or was ever coming back. Of course he's going to be torn when she reappears in his life, but I don't think that it would have caused him to give up or walk away from the relationship and love he had with Juliet.

Okay, enough of that.

I love Sayid's line at the end, "I've worse things to fear than what's out in the jungle." I just started laughing. I know, right?!

Anonymous said...

Late yet again! The biggest thing I noticed here was that not one person, of the many folks who spoke to Sawyer, ever said to him, “Shannon is having an asthma attack and I was wondering if you found her inhalers?” Boone tries to steal them because of the book, which may not have been the one from his luggage, and everyone else just demands that he turn them over since they assume he has everything. Maybe he would not have been so churlish if they had just asked.

Celandine

The Rush Blog said...

And yet here, he actually creates his own long con against Sayid by making him believe Sawyer is the bad guy. We’ll never see Locke pull off something like this again, by not only lying, but pointing the blame in the wrong direction. We’ll know by the end of season 1 that he’s the guy who clocked Sayid in the head (something I’d forgotten about until I saw him do it in “The Moth,” and then thought, “Oh YEAH! THAT’S why Sayid hates him so much”).


Are you speaking of the same John Locke who manipulated Sawyer into murdering Anthony Cooper?


I don't know who was behaving more idiotic in this episode - Jack, Sayid, Kate, Boone or Sawyer. All five of them were candidates for Idiot of the Year.

I would also just like to say that Josh Holloway is an amazing actor and I think he gets overlooked a lot of times because of everyone else and because of his good looks (seriously, how can ANYONE not see that?!)

All or most of them gave excellent performances - especially Holloway, Fox, Andrews, Sommerhalder, both Kims and Perrineau. Even Lilly was pretty decent.

And why should Holloway be condemned as an actor for his good looks? He wasn't the only good-looking actor in the cast.

The Rush Blog said...

Perhaps the reason for his turnaround after he kills the real sawyer is that the "amputation" has finally been performed—there's no need to inflict that other distracting pain, because the man responsible for the big pain is finally gone.


I hope this isn't an excuse for Sawyer's act of murder in Season 3. Because as far as I'm concerned, Anthony Cooper wasn't solely to blame. Both of Sawyer's parents were just as responsible - especially Mr. Ford, who seemed to think that murder and suicide was the only way to deal with being scammed.

The Rush Blog said...

Oddly, I didn’t blame Sayid for the torture, although he was the one who instigated it. I guess I just put more of the blame on Jack since I don’t think Sayid would have gone through with it if Jack had not given permission.


I do blame Sayid. And I blame Jack for sanctioning the torture. And I blame Kate for not freeing Sawyer when she had the chance.