The Tail Section

I’ve heard all the complaints (heck I’ve made a few of them): Sawyer has gone soft; They are softening Sawyer too much; Sawyer wouldn’t do that; I want the old conniving Sawyer BACK! Ladies and gentlemen, not only has Sawyer returned to his old ways, he has exectued what will no doubt be the highlight of his esteemed career as a grifter.

For those who watch passively and have not noticed, the flash-backs often serve to show us how a persons past affects their present on the island. In the case of "The Long Con", Sawyer’s back story is a heart rending vignette: will the con-man foresake love and redemption for the prize? Juxtapose that with present day island, a sereptitious scheme playing out before our eyes, hidden within the hues of island politics; distrust, the others, paranoia, and revenge. It’s a con that transcends the tv. In this con, we are the marks as well as the powers that be on the island. So much for Sawyer’s Mr. Niceguy turn.

"The Long Con" refers to the state of the art in the grifters trade; a con that is cultivated over time with calculated steps. A series of deceptions that function on the mark’s most rudimentary facilities, subliminally programming them for the pay-off moment when they willingly give up the prize, as if it were their own idea. It’s a study in cold duplicity that only the season one Sawyer could pull off.

There are several cons going on in this episode: Ana Lucia and Jack are conning Locke out of the combination to the gun cabinet with empty promises of mutually agreed deployment; Ana is eluded, by Sawyer, to be conning everyone by kidnapping Sun; Sayid, still a reticent griever, accepts a distraction over catharsis; perhaps everyone is fooling themselves with their sense of safety. The place is an emotional seebed for the cunning sawyer and his schemes.

In the beginning we meet "Cass", one of Sawyer’s marks from the past. Sawyer goes into the same routine he used in "Confidence" man, only this time his target is a little more street savvy. She immediately fingers Sawyer as a con man. Defeated, he trys to back out, disgraced. But Cass has something else in mind. Seems she is a little "turned on" by the black arts, and wants to learn the trade from a master. Adrenaline freak? Imp of the perverse? Who knows, but Sawyer is all too willing to take on a sleep-in protege.

Back in real time, it’s all about arms control. Jack has accepted a request from Locke to keep all of the guns in the armory. It is clear after Shannon’s shooting, and Michaels emboldment that Locke does not want any more craziness with the hatch weaponry. Locke forms a pact with Jack that guns will only be removed with both of them in agreement. However, later on, when Jack meets up with Ana in the jungle, we find Jack is playing Locke for a fool. Ana wants to know if Jack has secured the combination. It also comes out that they are having trouble getting recruits for their "army". Seems the face to face with the Others has given people a sense of security; a comfort Ana readily mocks.

Following a tip from Locke, Jack raids Sawyer’s tent and reclaims a bottle of pain killers. The con man protests to no avail. "You don’t have a stash anymore." Jack informs him as he storms back to the hatch, and the first hand is played.

In Sawyer’s past we watch as he trains his apprentice in the ways of the con. She proves to be an adept, and enthusiastic study; quickly trading trepidation for boldness she urges Sawyer to teach her the art of the grand scheme. The long con. What she doesn’t know, but surely we suspect, is she is already in one. Seems she has a bit of money stashed away. Around six-hundred-grand, a figure that causes Sawyer to exclaim, to our amusement, that they should take the money and spend the rest of their lives sipping drinks on a beach somewhere.

Meanwhile, in the garden Sun is kidnapped in the middle of a freak rain shower. Sawyer and Kate, who are nearby, hear her screams and rush to her aid to find inexplicably that she has escaped the kidnappers while unconcious. This doesn’t set well with Sawyer who later plants the idea in Kate’s mind that it was Ana who kidnapped Sun to help kickstart their Army. Kate is all too happy to take that concept to Jack who is struggeling to keep a kvetching gun-hungry Jin at bay.

In the end paranoia wins out, and while Jack Ana and a small posse contemplate raiding the gun cabinet, in violation of Locke’s weapon treaty, Kate convinces Sawyer to alert Locke. Locke is hard pressed for a short term solution and asks Sawyer to mind the button while he moves the gun. A task Sawyer agrees to only because it will "piss off jack".

As Sawyer’s back story continues we meet Gordie, the con man who found Cass, anxious to know if Sawyer has honed in on her life savings. Sawyer is beginning to have second thoughts about going through with the con. Gordie isn’t too happy about this idea. He informs Sawyer that if he does not go through with the con, he will kill them both. In another "Easter Egg Of Little Signifigance" Kate’s mother turns out to be their waitress. (whoop-de-doo)

On the island, Jack arrives at the hatch and is livid that the guns have been moved. He returns to the beach to confront Locke. In the midst of their heated bickering, gun shots ring out from the jungle. Sawyer walks out holding a gun. Everyone, including Locke, is bemused. Sawyer tells the rest how they stole his stash while he was out trying to get them rescued, and furthermore how he doesn’t like the chain of command here on the beach anymore. There is a new sherrif in town, and if you want a gun, you have to talk to Sawyer. Sawyer now controls the guns.

Meanwhile, Sayid and Hurley play around with Bernard’s short-wave radio and pick up a radio station playing 40s music. Hurley makes the geek-bait comment that the transimission could be coming from "any time".

Those who are students of dating the show will be interested in this: the copyright date of "The Bad Twin" (A book which will be making into print out here in the real world in may) is 2001.

Numbers fans will also appreciate the fact that the call signs for the radio station contain the 23rd, 24th, and 15th letters of the alphabet.

The capper? Sawyer could not have done all of this alone, who was his accomplice? None other than the anti-locke: CHARLIE. In the finale of Sawyer’s flashback we watch as he finishes his con of Cass, taking everything from a woman who claimed to love and wanted to protect. As Charlie struggles to understand the ugliness of the Sawyer machine, the man himself offers up the simpliest summation: "I’m not a good person Charlie. Never did a good thing in my life."

The Long Con is, albeit a little predictable, a serpentine of plot and theme transference. It’s best enjoyed if suspend knowledge that at least a few of the major turns are woefully foreshadowed with spot lights and fire-alarms. In the end, I just couldn’t help but like it.