Recon (S6X08)
Airdate: 16 March 2010
Written by: Elizabeth Sarnoff & James Galasso
Directed by: Jack Bender
Running Time: 43 minutes
As Lost’s final season lumbered towards its conclusion, a palpable creative fatigue had begun to set in. The show’s architects, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, appeared to have exhausted much of their narrative ingenuity, rendering many plot twists and character beats in Season 6 frustratingly predictable. Yet, amidst the formulaic mythology-dumping and wheel-spinning, occasional flashes of the series’ former brilliance would pierce through. Recon, the eighth episode of the season, is one such glimmer. Its title, deceptively simple, holds a double meaning that cleverly underpins its dual narratives, offering a momentarily intriguing, if ultimately undercooked, character study.
The word “recon”, of course, directly signifies “reconnaissance”—a military scouting mission. This forms the spine of the episode’s primary 2007 Island plot. However, the more ingenious interpretation is as “re-con”: the return of the confidence trick. This is the episode’s true thematic core, centring on James “Sawyer” Ford and his immutable nature as a grifter. The script, by Elizabeth Sarnoff and James Galasso (the latter making his Lost writing debut), delights in playing with this reputation. It introduces us, in the alternate 2004 “flash-sideways” timeline, to a Sawyer who is apparently still plying his trade. After a passionate night with a woman named Ava (Jodi Lyn O’Keffe), he “accidentally” drops a briefcase full of cash, executing the classic “pigeon drop” scam he once pulled on Cassidy. The twist, however, is that Ava is wise to it and pulls a gun. In a delicious moment, Sawyer remains preternaturally calm, claiming it’s all part of an undercover police sting. He gives a code word, and the room is swarmed by officers. The reveal: Ford is himself an undercover LAPD detective, with Miles Straume as his partner. It’s a con within a con, a neat narrative trick that immediately engages.
This timeline’s divergence point occurred in 1977, meaning the foundational trauma of Sawyer’s life—the 1976 murder-suicide of his parents orchestrated by the conman Anthony Cooper—remains intact. Consequently, Ford is a man on the side of the law yet utterly consumed by the same vengeful obsession. He has, like his Island counterpart, travelled to Australia to hunt for Cooper, but lies to Miles about a trip to Palm Beach. His pathos is further underscored by a brief, catastrophic one-night stand with Charlotte Lewis, here appearing as an archaeologist—a poignant, if rushed, echo of their Island connection. This thread concludes with the requisite cosmic nudge as a fleeing Kate Austen literally bumps into him on a Los Angeles street, a moment of fate that feels more like mandated plotting than organic storytelling.
On the Island in 2007, the episode’s “reconnaissance” plot unfolds. The Man in Black (in Locke’s form), having seemingly recruited Sawyer to his cause, dispatches him to Hydra Island to scout for threats. Sawyer finds the Ajira Airways survivors mostly slaughtered and encounters the sole apparent survivor, Zoe (Sheila Kelley). She is, in another predictable twist, revealed to be part of Charles Widmore’s expedition. Captured and brought to Widmore, Sawyer—ever the deal-maker—strikes a bargain. He will return to the main island and lie, reporting the coast is clear, thus allowing Widmore to spring a trap on the Man in Black. In exchange, Sawyer wants passage off the island. Upon his return, he dutifully reports truth to the Man in Black, but later confesses his true plan to Kate: he intends to let the two factions (Widmore and the Man in Black) destroy each other, while he and Kate slip away on Widmore’s submarine. It’s a classic Sawyer scheme, prioritising self-preservation and escape above the cosmic war swirling around him.
In this sense, Recon functions effectively as an exercise in muddying the narrative waters and setting a more elaborate stage for the final showdown. While the battle lines had seemingly crystallised into Jacob’s candidates versus the Man in Black’s followers, Sawyer’s machinations reintroduce a third, selfish variable. The arrival of Widmore, with his own murky agenda and advanced technology, further complicates the potential alliances, creating a volatile three-way standoff that promises greater conflict, even as it risks collapsing into narrative clutter.
The episode also offers some welcome, if sporadic, characterisation outside of Sawyer. The Man in Black, in a rare moment of apparent candour, tells Sawyer his mother was “crazy”. This inadvertently sparks a running theme of maternal instability. We are reminded that John Locke’s mother was institutionalised, and we witness Claire Littleton, now feral and violent, viciously attack Kate—an attack only halted by the Man in Black. Most chillingly, Sayid Jarrah, standing mere feet away, observes the brutal struggle with blank, emotionless detachment. His failure to intervene is a silent, powerful testament to how far the once-noble character has descended into the darkness inflicted upon him.
Yet, for all these interesting elements, Recon cannot escape the season’s overarching weaknesses. It feels deeply formulaic. The flash-sideways segment, while presenting a fascinating hypothetical in “Detective Sawyer”, is ultimately treated as uninspired filler. The concept of a law-abiding Ford, his criminal energy channelled into police work, is rich with potential for psychological exploration, but the episode does little more than gesture at it. The decision to make Miles his police partner feels like a contrivance designed solely to include the character, lacking any logical foundation from the established timeline. Similarly, while it is a pleasure to see Rebecca Mader reappear as Charlotte, her role is reduced to a mere fan-service cameo, a narrative cul-de-sac that serves only to trigger Sawyer’s melancholy and facilitate his encounter with Kate.
In the end, Recon is a solid, yet overwhelmingly serviceable, episode. It functions as a necessary piece of narrative plumbing, moving key players into position for the endgame, but one cannot help but feel that, like Sawyer’s own conflicted loyalties, the episode’s creative ambitions are ultimately compromised by the mechanical demands of a series racing, perhaps too wearily, towards its finish line.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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