LOST S6: E8- 'Recon'

Just because I'm losing doesn't mean I'm LOST;

Doesn't mean I'll stop, doesn't mean I will cross.

Just because I'm hurting, doesn't mean I'm hurt;

Doesn't mean I didn't get what I deserve.

No better and no worse, I just got LOST.

-Coldplay

Flash-Sideways: Sawyer's a cop and his partner is Miles? Sweet. When Miles jokingly asked Sawyer if he wants to die alone, other than the appreciation of the wording since "live together, die alone" has been prominent in LOST, I was screaming in my head, 'of course he doesn't! He just hasn't met Juliet in this reality yet!!' Charlotte, you hussy! You look lovely though, and I can hardly blame you, it's Sawyer after all. Welcome back. I found her character more likable in this episode than I ever did on the island. Maybe she just isn't great under pressure or maybe its because as adorable as Daniel was I always thought she and him didn't make sense. She also had my favorite line of the night: "Yes. I'm exactly like Indiana Jones." Saucy.

It was interesting what he told Charlotte about coming at a crossroads in his life and choosing to become a cop over becoming a criminal. Is there some big choice like that in all of our Losties Flash-Sideways realities that made their life go a different direction? (Sayid pushing Nadia towards her brother, Jack ending up having a son...) I think the sense of closure in this Flash was not finding his namesake so that he could kill him, but rather finally opening up to someone (Miles) about the whole thing. Finally allowing himself to rely on someone and not be alone. Trusting and getting close to others is something that Sawyer has struggled with the entire series. Other details of the Flash- Charlie's brother looking for him at the police station, watching Little House on the Prairie. using 'LeFluer' as the code word for the cops to come in at the beginning (the name he was going by with Dharma in the 70s).

The LockeNess Monster: Though he twists his phrasing and manipulates the truth, he doesn't seem to straight out lie. Can he literally not tell a straight out lie the way he can't straight out kill the Losties? After he stopped Claire from killing Kate and had words with her at the fire my thoughts were that he probably whispered to her something along the lines of, 'not yet,' because when he first sent her into the Temple he made her some promise and my best guess is still that the promise was she is the one who gets to kill Kate. I was really almost finding him charming and calming until his conversation with Kate on the beach: He is not a dead man. Crazy mother. Growing pains. Problems that could have been avoided... just like what is now happening with Claire. Oh, and there it is. LockeNess, trying to convince Kate that Aaron should not be raised by Claire. Charm gone. As crazy as Clairseau is acting, I've still got in the back of my mind what was drilled into us so fiercely at the beginning of the series: Aaron should be raised by Claire. Kate's no dummy.

To Be Claimed: This episode had me revisiting the question of exactly what it means to be Claimed. I don't mean the mechanics of it, like do you have to die first, but the outcome. I had been presuming that being Claimed somehow put an evilness in you or brought out the evil that was already inside you, but after this episode I feel like it more, how to put it... muddles a person's thought process and moral compass. Clairseau seemed truly wicked when she oddly held Kate's hand for a moment and gave her a look of death and it was no big surprise when the attack came. After, though, when she sobbed and hugged Kate, she really did seem sincere. Did letting out some of that rage allow Claire to find some, I suppose the perfect word would be, clarity? Not that I think Kate is in the clear now, as I still feel that Clairity could become Clairseau again at any moment, but it does bring me back to my ramblings of a few weeks ago and whether her Mother's Love for Aaron is enough to break through the spell she is under. Sayid was equally bewildering. Just before the attack, the way he said, 'Kate' when she sat down next to him was so robotic like he was trying to register her and what she was to him. When he told her he believed in LockeNess' plan he had a look on his face like he was trying to sort out what was happening, or having some kind of internal struggle and was just giving a default, programmed answer.

Charles Widmore/Hydra Island: Ummm, I admit I'm still a little confused about the pile of bodies, and who is this lady who looks like a poor man's Tina Fey? Seemed odd, somehow, that Sawyer and Widmore had never met before. They shook on Sawyer's proposition, which Sawyer then revealed to Widmore, but Widmore is no idiot. He isn't really just going to sit there assuming it will play out as Sawyer said. Also, I am trying to recall the conversation, but before Sun came back to the island and was all ice queen without Jin, she approached Widmore and they came to some kind of an understanding because they both wanted the same thing, which was to get back to the island. Could it be that Widmore was tracking Sun somehow and that is how he found the island? Are they in cahoots? Well, those details aside, they are on the same team now, all against Lockeness, and Ben is on that team as well, so it looks as though Charles and Ben will have to find some kind of peace with each other.

Kate/Sawyer: Together again in both realities. I admit, it was nice to see. I don't mean in an I-want-them-to-end-up-together sort of way, I mean in the same way that it was nice to see some of the gang get together on the beach at the end of last week's episode. Sawyer and Kate have always had a great connection and trust and understanding and I truly believe that they will always have each others back and in the current circumstance they are in, that is kind of a big deal. It was especially nice to see since Kate went through a bit of an emotional wringer this episode. I loved how the entire time Sawyer was playing both sides and then he just sits down with Kate and tells her the truth without blinking an eye. I love their history and their friendship. They are both such survivors. It will be interesting to see how things play out with them in the Sideways world.

Other LOST Thoughts, Not Necessarily About This Episode:

Flash-Sideways': I know in the Flash-Sideways sequences we have seen, all of our characters really are the same personalities with the same strengths and weaknesses, just with different life circumstances. I feel like thus far all of the flash-sideways stories have paralleled the Island characters and given them some redemption or closure for things that they didn't get redemption and closure for in the island reality. (Locke realizing that his life doesn't have to be wasted just because he is a cripple, Jack realizing that he doesn't have to turn into his father, Ben making the right choices regarding Alex and his father...) The only one that threw me off was the Sayid episode a couple of weeks ago since he ends up being a killer in both realities. Then I realized that him becoming a killer maybe IS the closure. In both realities he struggled feeling like he was undeserving and needed to be good because of his terrible past, but in the end even Nadia asking him not to didn't stop him from violence. I thought his closure would be about Nadia, and though it does revolve around her, I think it is really Sayid coming to grips with the fact that this violent person really is who he is. but maybe for him the thing he realizes is that really is who he is, sad as it is to say it.

I am viewing the Flash-Sideways of this season much like the Flash-Backs we had in the first couple of seasons. Starting out focused on individual characters with small cameos by the others, then gradually the stories will become more and more intertwined. This makes more confident that we WILL discover the identity of Jack's baby mama and that it will be someone that we already know. Because of David's blue eyes and the age appropriateness, my best guess right now is that it will either be Juliette or Libby. Juliette would make sense because she is a nurse and there was the flirtation with Jack before he left the island and she fell for Sawyer. (Though I still hope that her dying ramblings about getting coffee and going dutch were a conversation with Sawyer). Libby was a psychologist so they could have crossed paths medically, so she is my second guess. (How fun would Hurley be as a step-dad, haha, we still need some Hurley/Libby closure).

Thoughts on Candidacy: Are they going TOO much with the whole, Jack is the front-runner? I feel like they are very much portraying him as the obvious choice, which makes me automatically suspect that it will turn out to be someone else. Someone like Ben? If last weeks episode can be trusted and Ben really has seen the light, then maybe it really could end up with him in charge, but finally the person Jacob needed him to be. Though we have learned that the numbers are associated with our Losties and they are potential candidates to replace Jacob, I still think its not just about their individual potential. Their lives have been crossing in every reality and I think it has taken all of them, and the right chemistry and all of this experience to get whoever will be the chosen candidate into the person and place they need to be. Also, there is a lot of back and forth about 'Kwon'- it was only written once, so is it Sun or Jin? Seems that Jin is the likeliest since all of the other Candidates are male and Kate is still a bit of a wild card with the 'Austen' on the wheel being associated with an unknown number, 51. Could it be both the Kwon's? It seems that when Jacob went to their wedding he touched them both, so for them could it be a package deal? Or, could it have to do with their child? Though, (and I didn't catch this when I watched, but I read it in a comment someone made) apparently in the premiere when they get to LAX and Sun and Jin are detained, Security referred to them as Mr. Kwon and Ms. Paik, Sun's maiden name. Was this a reminder to us by the writers that Sun was not originally a Kwon? If Jacob has been watching them all from the time they were children then the 'Know' must refer to Jin.