LOST - Where Are We? - 6.08 – Recon

Apologies for the late entry. This is the busiest week of the year for the office where I work, and it’s been a series of long days, later hours, and exhausted nights. But LOST is a sanctuary, and here’s where we are:

Recon was an episode of intrigue and careful positioning of characters for future developments. Sawyer was quick to make promises of joint escape to fellow Survivors, and quicker to pledge his loyalty to any Island mass-murdering despot who needed placating. Kate got a hard, fast dose of crazy-town reality, in which her one-time allies revealed themselves to be mesmerized unresponsive apathetic shell of a man, a bipolar hand-holding throat-slitting mad-mom, and a walking corpse with mommy issues. Widmore's allegiance may still remain un-illuminated, but at least we're allowed one less group of people to keep tabs on as a very final punctuation mark was put on the short, sad story of the Ajira 316 survivors. And all the while, the battle for the Island continues to take shape…

The Altered Universe:
The AU provided us with more of the same this week, shedding further (though not particularly shocking) light on who Sawyer is by way of another "what-if" scenario that promises to ultimately be something more. As usual, the importance of the AU still lingers beyond viewer perception, but the clues continue to arrive via comparisons and character convergences. Sawyer's life is presented as very similar to his Original Timeline existence -- the one key difference being that when deciding what profession would best serve his vengeance-quest, Sawyer chose cop instead of criminal. He may very easily be the exact same self-loathing, charismatic SOB he was when Flight 815 crashed in the OT, but this time his profession has furnished him with a caring partner in Miles. While he still clearly has no particular love for the law (planning murder, letting Kate escape in 6.01 [LA X]), AU Sawyer has what OT Sawyer never did: someone to run his credit reports, arrange blind dates for him, and ultimately keep him in check. And character convergences? Sawyer meets up with not only one (Miles), not only two (Charlotte), not even just three (Charlie’s Brother, Liam), but four (Kate) other characters. The characters are rapidly converging into groups in the AU, leading me to wonder if circumstances will eventually fling them all together again as a group. To what end is the big question, but maybe that’s when Desmond will mysteriously show up again…

The Sickness:
Rather than rendering Claire specifically “evil” the way The Others would like to spin it, the sickness seems to have wiped away her rational thought: one minute she’s glaring at Kate, the next minute she’s holding Kate’s hand, the next she’s trying to slit Kate’s throat, and then she’s hugging Kate in a tearful embrace. I can’t agree with Dogen that everything she ever was has been wiped away, but I’ll certainly agree that she’s a raw, un-tethered, almost child-like version of her former self. Sayid, on the other hand, still seems somewhat shell-shocked at what’s befallen him. But neither of these people follow the Man in Black (MIB) completely mindlessly. They’ve got to be baited, appeased, and controlled. And for the time being, it seems the MIB is manipulating Kate into watching/controlling Claire for him.

The Man in Black & His Agenda:

So, does he REALLY want to leave the Island? That’s the million dollar question of this mystery. He’s talked big about wanting to “go home,” and promised Sawyer and his new Other followers that they’ll all be leaving together, but all we’ve really seen him do is take steps to eliminate his enemies. He wiped the Temple Others out, and he may very well have destroyed the last of the Ajira 316 survivors. He told Richard in 5.15 (Follow the Leader) that he would “deal with them,” and chances are that he did. He admitted to Sawyer this week that the Others’ primary purpose has been to protect the Island FROM HIM – so either Jacob and the Others have been making a terrible mistake in the importance of their mission (dubious), or the MIB is still in the process of murdering and/or manipulating everyone off what he hopes will soon be HIS Island. So if he is indeed arranging a legitimate mass exodus from the Island, I think it’s all a sham to get the Candidates (that I suspect he can’t kill) to leave the Island of their own accord. At this point in the game, I’m guessing that he himself is going nowhere. Or, if he IS planning to leave, then I suspect he’s certainly not planning to leave the Island intact behind him…

Widmore's Return:
As in my analysis last week, I still suspect Widmore might be on the MIB’s side. Sawyer jumped to the conclusion that Widmore was anti-smokey from the new arrivals building of a makeshift sonic fence, but that could easily just be a precaution of Widmore’s to make sure his dark ally doesn’t turn on him quickly. Sawyer threw his bargain at Widmore before Widmore had barely said a thing, and the look on Widmore’s face when Sawyer offered to help him kill Smokey seemed to be one of amusement to me. Personally I think he was pleasantly surprised that Sawyer was jumping to conclusions. I mean if anyone other than Smokey has reason to be pissed at Jacob and the Others, it’s the man they banished from the Island for harboring an off-Island family. Widmore wants to possess the Island, and I’m pretty sure doing so is going to require a little help from his Smokey friend. Sure, Widmore could be his own faction in this, but with the story wrapping up, we need sides to form, not branch out unendingly!

And that's where we are!