Now this is Lost at its finest. Season two has had some hiccups, including the series’ worst episode to date. But “The Long Con” features a perfect mix of character development, plot twists, full use of the ensemble cast and, for the ladies, plenty of scenes with a topless Sawyer. Jesus, this episode had more six packs than Sam Brady’s apartment during one of his notorious Jack Bauer marathon orgies.
Episode #2.13, “The Long Con”
Written by Leonard Dick & Steve Maeda
Directed by Roxann Dawson
Guest Stars: Beth Broderick (Diane), Kim Dickens (Cassidy), Kevin Dunn (Gordy)
Air Date: February 8, 2006
The episode opens on a familiar scene of late: Jack and Locke clashing over issues of trust, leadership and prophylactic preference (Jack prefers Trojans, Locke’s a lambskin man). They are putting all the guns into a safe and Locke reluctantly tells Jack the combination. Since numbers are so important on this show, I’ll note that the combo is 7-33-18. Just like all those idiots who played 4-8-15-16-23-42 in the lotto after Hurley’s breakout episode, please don’t change your locker combination to this. Please.
This is the set-up for what proves to be a con game full of twists and switchbacks. I typically absorb movies and shows passively, not trying to guess whom the murderer is or, in a situation like this, who’s grifting whom. But, like The Sting or Matchstick Men, the plot kept evolving and pointing at different characters and I couldn’t help but suspect Ana then Kate then Jack in turn.
Sun is working in a garden, a scene I could watch incessantly. They could show Sun sitting in a chair or eating a Big Mac for an hour and I’d tune in. But this idyllic scene is shattered by a freak rainstorm and an alleged kidnapping. Kate and Sawyer discover Sun unconscious from a head wound in the jungle, her hands bound and a hood nearby. Like Sawyer, I immediately doubted the Others. How did she get away?
Kate is quick to suspect Ana, who she thinks faked an Other kidnapping to rouse support for her and Jack’s new militia. (If you find topical political overtones in such a scheme, you are obviously a terrorist-loving traitor. Support our troops or else!) Sawyer sets her down this path when he points out that the hood in Sun’s abduction is different from the one Kate wore when the Others grabbed her. “It’s all in the details,” he says, probably calling her “Freckles” or “Dimples” too. I’m not quoting any of his pet names for others. In fact, I enjoy the glower he displays every time Locke calls him James.
Sawyer says the same thing about details to Cassidy (Dickens, Hollow Man) in a flashback. When Sawyer tries to con her out of her divorce settlement, she catches on and insists that he teach her the ropes of goldbricking. He does, taking her along on small time scams. But she wants to do a big job, a long con. She offers her $600,000 dollars as bait and that’s when we meet Sawyer’s real partner, Gordy (Dunn, Stir of Echoes, Dave). Cassidy was the mark all along and if Sawyer doesn’t get her money, Gordy’s gonna stick a lead Q-Tip in his ear. (I’ve been working on my noirish phrases, how was that? Ah, fuck it.)
On the island, Sawyer tells Locke that Jack is coming for some guns to hunt down Sun’s attacker. Locke responds by hiding the weapons. As they argue, again, about delegating leadership, a few shots ring out and Sawyer emerges, gun in hand. Even though it makes perfect sense – it fits his conman, rebel character and the flashbacks couldn’t have foreshadowed more – I didn’t expect Sawyer to take the guns. He’d been getting a little soft lately; I mean, he had Kate reading makeover tips to him out of a thirty-year-old chick magazine. All season, Sawyer has appeared to be a man seeking reform, and he seemed to have achieved it with Cassidy. But no. He takes her money and he takes their guns. He is what he has claimed to be all along: a bad man. I still feel he’ll atone for his sins, but one and a half seasons is too quick for such a transformation. Give Sawyer a few more years before he starts campaigning for sainthood.
The big question behind Sawyer's long con is motivation. He claims that while he was on the raft, Jack and others took his shaving cream. Kate thinks his impulses are more subconscious, that he hates himself so much that he secretly wants everyone on the island to hate him too. Her theory is more believable than the motivations he attests, but I suspect there’s more to it.
The final scene has Hurley and Sayid trying out the Tailies’ revamped radio. They pick up Russo’s distress call, then search a little more and get a garbled radio signal. It evens out to reveal Glen Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade,” a song that first hit radio waves during FDR’s presidency. Hurley gets excited before Sayid explains how ionospheric influences can carry radio signals hundreds of miles, so the signal “Could be coming from anywhere.” “Or any time,” Hurley adds. Anything on this show is possible, but I believe the writers put that last part in there just to rile up all the forum lizards that pick at every aspect of this show. Theories abound on Lost boards all over the internet about where or when or what dimension the survivors are, who they are, if they’re dead, who’s fucking who, what their favorite Charles Bronson movies are, the elemental makeup of the beach sand, if Sawyer could beat Mighty Mouse in a fight, ad nauseam (emphasis on the nauseam). I’ll bet they’re all in a froth right now about what Hurley’s comment means, and the writers are having trouble controlling their chortles.
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it can’t stop raving about his stay at the Hotel Corral Essex.
