Starting with this week’s entry on Lost - I have decided to use a bullet-point format for my television commentaries. Also - I don’t plan on providing an episode synopsis - as I feel those people that watch the show are the one’s interested in reading these posts - and they don’t need me spoon-feeding the plot. And in the off-chance they missed the ep, there’s always Itunes (or Itube or whatever Apple is calling their television on Ipod service. I’d Google it - but c’mon people, I’m writing about television - how much ambition can I possibly lay claim to.) Anyway - on to this week’s episode of Lost, titled ‘The Long Con’ and featuring a Sawyer flashback.

1. I’ve read a number of complaints on Internet message boards (not a great forum for wasting one’s time and patience) - that the Lost flashbacks are doing nothing this year to advance the plot. The day I let the ADHD horde start dictating the proper ebb and flow of narrative is the day that I… woah, is someone baking brownies, oh cool, The Winter Olympics, I gotta call Janet Jones and have her drop a dime down on the Yugoslavian Curling team - NO WAY!!! There’s a Final Destination 3 - Screw you George Lucas. This is how you do a trilogy… where was I. Oh right - Lost flashbacks. I believe last year they did a lot to flesh out these characters - showing us who they were before they took that ill-fated flight and the emotional baggage they stowed away prior to boarding time. This year - the flashbacks tend to act as commentary to the machinations brewing on the island - thus in this week’s Sawyer flashback - we watch as Sawyer brings a protege through an elaborate shell game called ‘The Long Con’ - where the matchstick man aims to score big by roping their mark into the con itself - making them feel a willing participant to the whole endeavor - when in fact, the con man is waiting to drop the boom and double-cross them. So - we see this con played out - as Sawyer orchestrates a long con on the island aimed at liberating Jack and Locke from their precious stash of weapons.
2. The episode was very effective in it’s main goal - reestablishing Sawyer as one bad mofo. Thus far this year - he has been edging closer and closer to the Han Solo-esque lovable rogue - but in one fell swoop - the survivors and the audience were reminded that Sawyer is not aiming for redemption, as some of the others are. He’s in it for self preservation.
3. My thoery on the conclusion of Sawyer’s flashback - where he meets a business associate in a diner and confesses that he does not want to go forward on this ‘long con’ against the woman he is falling in love with. The associates says that if he doesn’t comply, he’ll put a bullet in Sawyer and the girl. Sawyer then goes forward with the con - meeting the girl at her house - confessing his crime - and in pointing out a black car waiting outisde her house, says that if she doesn’t pay $600,000 the occupant of the car will kill them both. He then makes it look like he is going to dupe the associate - sending the girl off with a duffel bag that she believes is loaded with cash (when in fact, he has pulled a ‘bait and switch’ on her.) Once she leaves, we see Sawyer go to the car - which is revealed to be empty. My personal feeling - there was no associate. That meeting in the diner was all in Sawyer’s head. I believe the associate was Sawyer’s conscience - thus his flashback illustrated his constant internal struggle between right and wrong - and as has occurred in the past - no matter how hard Sawyer tries to be good, he ends up coming out worse - tying in nicely with the great deception he ultimately pulls on the survivors.
4. There was a treasure trove of hints (or red herrings) for eagle-eyed viewers to find(read - those with Tivo.)

Here are some I picked up on or read about later:

• Locke is observed - searching the vast library of books contained in the hatch. Sawyer asks what he is doing - makes a quick Dewey Decimal system reference and then abandons that line of inquiry. From eps past - we deduce that Locke is looking for additional pieces of that mysterious film strip (which one section was already found hidden in a Bible.) The book he happens to be paging through is Ambrose Bierce’s An Incident on Owl Creek Bridge - which tells the tale of a Civil War soldier - who is about to be hung on Owl Creek Bridge when suddenly fate intervenes and the rope breaks. The story then follows the soldier as he makes his escape through the wilderness - finally arriving at his home. As he flings the door open and catches his wife’s beaming countenance - the reader is slapped back to reality as a trap door swings open, the rope draws tight and the soldier’s neck snaps. The whole tale had been a fantasy running through his mind in those few seconds before death. One theory floated among Lostralians is that this whole adventure is running through one passenger’s mind as the plane is crashing - that there never was an island - just a wish-fulfillment fantasy among one of the doomed passengers of Flight 815. I’m not sure the appearance of An Incident on Owl Creek Bridge is so much a clue - as it is a a wink by the writers - that implies - ‘Yes, We’ve heard that one too.’
• In a similar vein, Hurley finds a manuscript entitled Lost Twin among the luggage. We spy the cover page - which reads Lost Twin by Gary Troup. Gary Troup is an anagram for… Purgatory. Once again - another popular theory. Me thinks someone is having fun with us.
• Hurley and Sayid apply a little McGuyver moxie on a short-wave radio they find - and after a brief struggle - pick up a crystal clear Glenn Miller recording. Miller - disappeared famously - in a plane crash during World War II. In walks synergy.
• Also on the music front - the episode’s soundtrack also features Patsy Cline playing in a diner scene. Cline also died in a plane crash. That same diner scene - features a blink and you’ll miss it meeting between Sawyer and Kate’s mother (who from Kate’s flashback we know is a waitress in a diner.)

Next week - the counter hits ZERO!!!