March 16, 2010

What did you think of 'Recon?"


Post your thoughts on 'Recon' in comments.

What did you think of Sideways Sawyer compared to Island Sawyer?

7 comments:

Joyce Saenz Harris said...

He's a cop! Sideways Sawyer is a cop! (And his partner is alt-Miles!) But he's not "Sawyer," he's just LAPD Detective James "Jim" Ford.

And sadly, alt-James still is carrying the trauma of his parents' murder-suicide, still determined to find the real Mr. Sawyer who caused the tragedy. And he's chasing after one Anthony Cooper.

Jim's blind date with alt-Charlotte Lewis was kind of a shock, but they seemed to be getting along just fine until Charlotte looked in the wrong drawer and found Jim's secret past.

And wouldn't you know it, Jim and Miles end up chasing and catching fugitive Kate Austen, whom Jim recognized from the airport.

On the Island, James is pitting UnLocke and Widmore against each other. He's on the side of neither one, he tells Kate. He knows now that UnLocke is "that black smoke thing."

So he's conning both of these adversaries to some extent. Of course, Jim has also extracted promises from both Widmore and Smokey to get him and his friends off the Island.

And while Widmore still wants the Island, he is most definitely NOT on Man in Black's side. His people are even putting up a security perimeter of sonic pylons, like the ones the Dharma Initiative and the Others used, to keep the smoke monster out of the Barracks.

All in all, a fun episode.

My only disappointment tonight: No alt-Juliet. Well, maybe they will meet later; a cop and a doctor might well meet up on a case.

And I still think Juliet might be alt-Jack's ex, and David's mother.

Kevin Krause said...

I have to say that I love the so-called Sideways World stories much better than the Island stories. In fact, I've ceased to care about what the island's secrets/mysteries are.

On the island, we're seeing the same crap over and over. Original castaways are captured by "others" with guns. Then they capture the others. Then another group of others captures them. And so on.

Much more interesting are the alternate lives of the original cast members. We're already emotionally invested in the characters thanks to excellent casting and writing. And there are no contrived devices to fill plot holes, like "the island won't let us" do this or that.

It's just good old fashioned storytelling without mystical smoke vapors and goateed samurai dudes.....and the tiresome and obscure geeky references to music, literature, history, etc.

So let's just have Jacob, Widmore and the Man in Black get it over with and blow up the island and everyone on it and focus on the alternate world.

Perhaps there could be some cool transition from the island world to the alt world that would explain it. Maybe something on the island allowed them all to go back in time and live their lives differently with no memory of what transpired.

Jen Emily said...

Loved Sideways Sawyer. A cop. I was shocked. But it makes sense now that I think about it.

I love that Miles and Sawyer are friends off-island. It one of the things that seems like it's meant to be, regardless of where they are. Like Kate being there for Claire when Aaron is born.

It was great to see Charlotte "Just Like Indiana Jones" Staples again. Too bad Sawyer freaked on her.

It's interesting that Sideways Sawyer hasn't dealt with his parent's murder-suicide. At all. Glad he told Miles.

So, this whole idea of the candidates being touched by Jacob has be wondering. What would have happened if he hadn't touched them. It seems that is Sideways World (where perhaps they weren't touched by Jacob), some of them are working out their issues, especially Sawyer, Locke and Jack. Kate and Claire remain to be seen. And Sayid, I'm not sure about that.

Speaking of Kate, it was great that she showed up in Sawyer's flash sideways. And even better that he recognized her. Did he recognize her from the airport or will out Sideways Losties have "memories" of the island at some point?

Kevin, I'm still into the island mysteries and what it all means. But with the exception of the Sayid episode, I've been more interested in what happens in the Sideways World than the Island World. Although I do want to see how Sawyer's con will play out and who he asks besides Kate to play along.

Joyce, in previous comments on previous episodes you brought attention to mirrors. Tonight, we saw Sideways Sawyer smash a mirror in the locker room of the police station.

And, as lover of all things Little House on the Prairie, I loved the scene with Sawyer watching the show. I wonder what the lines Pa spoke about life being about loving each other and realizing that people aren't really gone when they die means in respect to the show?

Joyce Saenz Harris said...

Jen, I loved that "Little House" scene too. Remember that Sawyer had watched it as a kid, growing up in a trailer? Obviously James still loves the show as an adult -- and it seems to have nudged him into apologizing to Charlotte. Although she was not having any of that: "You think you can come over here with your puppy-dog eyes and your one sad sunflower and I'll just melt?" Never mind, Jim -- you just need to meet Dr. Juliet.

Speaking of alt-Jim and women, he certainly did get the sack action in this episode. The opening scene with the sting operation was quite funny. Notice that she called Jim "Jimmy" and then "Dimples"? (Well, he does have 'em.) And how cool that his safety word was "LaFleur." That name has to mean something to James Ford. I always wondered if it was maybe his mom's maiden name.

I definitely did notice alt-James studying himself in the copshop mirror and then smashing it with his fist (his left hand was bandaged later). Last week, Ben looked at himself too -- not in a mirror, but in the glass of the microwave while he nuked Roger's organic entree.

It's interesting that the one in Sideways World who hasn't studied his reflection is Sayid. The only time he was noticeably reflected was in the glass of Nadia's front door. And as the "Sundown" script noted, there was "something off" about that reflection: Sayid's face was distorted by the glass, and divided so that it showed as half dark, half light.

Joyce Saenz Harris said...

Oh, and one other little thing I noticed. There has been a lot of talk on the LOST fansites about whether, in Sideways World, the plane that landed in LA was Oceanic 815. The flight was never actually named in "LA X," and some were positing that -- because of the S6 "mirror" themes -- it might've been Oceanic 518, or some other number.

But last night, Miles ran James' credit card and confronted him with the truth -- that he had sneaked off to Sydney and "got back two days ago on Oceanic 815."

So now we know for sure, it was the same flight on the same day.

Joyce Saenz Harris said...

BTW, I think there's no question that Smokey, not Widmore, is the one responsible for the massacre of the Ajira 316 redshirts.

In "The Incident," UnLocke tells Richard that after they see Jacob, they must also "take care of" the other Ajira passengers. Richard asks what he means by that, and UnLocke replies: "You know what I mean."

This makes me think that in fact the "purge" of the Dharmaites may have been carried out by the Others at the behest of MiB, rather than on Jacob's orders. MiB seems to be pretty fond of mass killings. And if he made the Others believe the purge order came from Jacob, they doubtless would have carried out his command.

Unknown said...

Being the geek that I am, I actually ran the tail number of the Ajira plane (visible when Sawyer visits the island). Sadly, N9748C has been used by several fictitious aircraft in many movies and TV shows. Damn. I thought they'd at least try for a little sideways reality.