LOST 1x08 – Confidence Man
Feb. 27th, 2024 09:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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tori_reviewsWhile it won’t be an issue for posting for a while, you may want to know that I’m pretty well stalled out in the middle of s2 of this show. My interest in continuing to watch is minimal and my focus to do reviews is even less. And since my interest in doing reviews usually has a positive feedback into me remembering to post reviews…well it’s not not a problem for these posts.
LOST 1x08 – Confidence Man
With allowances for the first few episodes that I’m now pretty hazy on, I think this may be my favorite episode so far. No mysticism, just character, survival, and societal considerations. While there is a lot of overt material, I think there is a decent amount of subtextual implication to make it more than superficial; admittedly, some of it’s a little odd, but we’ll get to that.
Probably my one real complaint is early on, how Sayid just knows that it wasn’t Kate who set off the flare (presumably also doesn’t know that it was Shannon instead of…Boone? I’m still not sure it isn’t Booth, but we’ll use Boone). Sayid’s suspicion would actually have been more fitting if he had thought Kate was still on flare duty so Sawyer could have sneaked off and knocked him out. Although I’m still not sure it makes a lot of sense to suspect Sawyer of that crime; suspicion over the inhalers, sure, that’s something where he might have sought to exploit that need, but possibilities of getting off the island would still be in his best interests (which seem to be his motivation).
Which makes me really side-eye Locke. How can he be our designated wisdom dispenser, or even the guy who knows and sees people, when he makes a bizarre assumption like Sawyer knocking Sayid out? Especially saying Sawyer might want to stay on the island. Even if the accusation came more from Sawyer’s dislike of Sayid, I’d be more willing to let Locke get away with it, but his statements here make no sense. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Locke who attacked Sayid (I know there are plenty of other [or Other] options on this island) but the way he acts here makes it so I can’t be 100% sure of that. He’s the only one who does actually seem to prefer life on the island.
I’m happy they left Locke out of the main plot of the episode, and pleasantly surprised they left him out of the b-plot. While I do sort of question how Sun knows much about natural healing methods, and it rings a vaguely racist bell that the Asian woman would be the one with the old-fashioned treatments, I’m not calling it out for it coming up here, but it will need to be monitored to see if it is explained or gets more racist.
I think there something interesting to the fact that Jack doesn’t think to look for something like that. I don’t question the fact that he wouldn’t, he seems like a very ‘modern medicine’ man and in the writing it’s a good idea to give knowledge to a various people. But it would have been very easy for the writers to make it Jack’s knowledge that saved the day instead of showing again that he’s adapting in all the wrong ways to their situation.
On that note, I think it’s interesting that Jack doesn’t seem to be even the secondary character in focus for this plot. We don’t see him struggling with the decisions he’s making here at all; even if he doesn’t seem to like it. The fact the he’s crumbling just exists within the story, without it being done through the prism of Jack’s own story. (I’m not sure I’m saying this well, but I’m trying.) This could be a bad sign depending on where it goes in the story, especially when we do put our focus back through Jack’s development, but I’m choosing to be confident for the moment.
A related, small bit of subtext I found interesting was with Sayid when he brought up the prospect of torturing it out of Sawyer. Sayid has been one of the more independent operators among the survivors; he’s committed to the interests of the community, but mostly sets his own missions for that greater good, he even does it again at the end of the episode. He doesn’t really defer to Jack as some kind of leader. But he needs someone to tell him when he’s allowed to go to the dark side. To me, as someone with practically negative military understanding, I think it makes sense with his military background. This training he would have used in the military context and I assume only in that context. I can easily assume that intended not to use it outside that context, and so dipping into that part of himself/his past needed a structure that allowed it out of the box.
Knowing that the show’s main love triangle is Jack-Kate-Sawyer, I’ve sort of ignored what bits of Kate/Sayid implication we’ve had so far. But their scene at the end really makes me think it would have made a lot of sense, maybe more than either of the love interests that we see so much of. I’m not rushing to ship it, and I don’t necessarily know what would draw them to get together, but where they both are in life seems like it would have made a lot of sense. They’re both people with dark pasts, who are trying to choose to be the better versions of themselves, who may or may not find they can succeed at that in this environment.
Notice how much I really don’t care about Sawyer in all this? I’m really just going to comment that once again I think the flashbacks were kind of meh. In this case I think it’s more that they’re poorly paced to integrate with the island storyline. Everything is revealed in flashback a scene or two earlier than it should have been, especially the final reveal where we should not have gotten the reveal of Sawyer backing out of the deal for the kid until after we knew his own history.
…doing the review and analysis actually helps me realize there isn’t a plot trip I thought there was (see there’s a point to these things). I was thinking that I remembered them doing a count relative to the passenger list a few episodes and I didn’t remember if it had come up that Sawyer wasn’t Sawyer’s real name (he must have a first name somewhere, or a last name), but he was probably using a fake ID anyway, so I don’t think that’s an issue.
So…Boone and Shannon…their chemistry is decidedly non-siblingy in this episode. *I* know they’re step-siblings but I can’t remember if that’s been said in the show of if I know that from the review series that prompted this viewing. Because up until now I think it’s been more…ambiguous, their chemistry was sibling enough that it seemed that was mostly how they related to each other if leaving wiggle room for at least some Folgers commercial energy. So the abrupt shift to decidedly not sibling energy makes it seem dirtier than it might down the road when things even out a bit more.
Claire and Charlie are laying some cute groundwork but so far not giving full-on shipping vibes. Which I like and expect that down the road I’ll be quite happy to ship them (and then sad again).
LOST 1x08 – Confidence Man
With allowances for the first few episodes that I’m now pretty hazy on, I think this may be my favorite episode so far. No mysticism, just character, survival, and societal considerations. While there is a lot of overt material, I think there is a decent amount of subtextual implication to make it more than superficial; admittedly, some of it’s a little odd, but we’ll get to that.
Probably my one real complaint is early on, how Sayid just knows that it wasn’t Kate who set off the flare (presumably also doesn’t know that it was Shannon instead of…Boone? I’m still not sure it isn’t Booth, but we’ll use Boone). Sayid’s suspicion would actually have been more fitting if he had thought Kate was still on flare duty so Sawyer could have sneaked off and knocked him out. Although I’m still not sure it makes a lot of sense to suspect Sawyer of that crime; suspicion over the inhalers, sure, that’s something where he might have sought to exploit that need, but possibilities of getting off the island would still be in his best interests (which seem to be his motivation).
Which makes me really side-eye Locke. How can he be our designated wisdom dispenser, or even the guy who knows and sees people, when he makes a bizarre assumption like Sawyer knocking Sayid out? Especially saying Sawyer might want to stay on the island. Even if the accusation came more from Sawyer’s dislike of Sayid, I’d be more willing to let Locke get away with it, but his statements here make no sense. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Locke who attacked Sayid (I know there are plenty of other [or Other] options on this island) but the way he acts here makes it so I can’t be 100% sure of that. He’s the only one who does actually seem to prefer life on the island.
I’m happy they left Locke out of the main plot of the episode, and pleasantly surprised they left him out of the b-plot. While I do sort of question how Sun knows much about natural healing methods, and it rings a vaguely racist bell that the Asian woman would be the one with the old-fashioned treatments, I’m not calling it out for it coming up here, but it will need to be monitored to see if it is explained or gets more racist.
I think there something interesting to the fact that Jack doesn’t think to look for something like that. I don’t question the fact that he wouldn’t, he seems like a very ‘modern medicine’ man and in the writing it’s a good idea to give knowledge to a various people. But it would have been very easy for the writers to make it Jack’s knowledge that saved the day instead of showing again that he’s adapting in all the wrong ways to their situation.
On that note, I think it’s interesting that Jack doesn’t seem to be even the secondary character in focus for this plot. We don’t see him struggling with the decisions he’s making here at all; even if he doesn’t seem to like it. The fact the he’s crumbling just exists within the story, without it being done through the prism of Jack’s own story. (I’m not sure I’m saying this well, but I’m trying.) This could be a bad sign depending on where it goes in the story, especially when we do put our focus back through Jack’s development, but I’m choosing to be confident for the moment.
A related, small bit of subtext I found interesting was with Sayid when he brought up the prospect of torturing it out of Sawyer. Sayid has been one of the more independent operators among the survivors; he’s committed to the interests of the community, but mostly sets his own missions for that greater good, he even does it again at the end of the episode. He doesn’t really defer to Jack as some kind of leader. But he needs someone to tell him when he’s allowed to go to the dark side. To me, as someone with practically negative military understanding, I think it makes sense with his military background. This training he would have used in the military context and I assume only in that context. I can easily assume that intended not to use it outside that context, and so dipping into that part of himself/his past needed a structure that allowed it out of the box.
Knowing that the show’s main love triangle is Jack-Kate-Sawyer, I’ve sort of ignored what bits of Kate/Sayid implication we’ve had so far. But their scene at the end really makes me think it would have made a lot of sense, maybe more than either of the love interests that we see so much of. I’m not rushing to ship it, and I don’t necessarily know what would draw them to get together, but where they both are in life seems like it would have made a lot of sense. They’re both people with dark pasts, who are trying to choose to be the better versions of themselves, who may or may not find they can succeed at that in this environment.
Notice how much I really don’t care about Sawyer in all this? I’m really just going to comment that once again I think the flashbacks were kind of meh. In this case I think it’s more that they’re poorly paced to integrate with the island storyline. Everything is revealed in flashback a scene or two earlier than it should have been, especially the final reveal where we should not have gotten the reveal of Sawyer backing out of the deal for the kid until after we knew his own history.
…doing the review and analysis actually helps me realize there isn’t a plot trip I thought there was (see there’s a point to these things). I was thinking that I remembered them doing a count relative to the passenger list a few episodes and I didn’t remember if it had come up that Sawyer wasn’t Sawyer’s real name (he must have a first name somewhere, or a last name), but he was probably using a fake ID anyway, so I don’t think that’s an issue.
So…Boone and Shannon…their chemistry is decidedly non-siblingy in this episode. *I* know they’re step-siblings but I can’t remember if that’s been said in the show of if I know that from the review series that prompted this viewing. Because up until now I think it’s been more…ambiguous, their chemistry was sibling enough that it seemed that was mostly how they related to each other if leaving wiggle room for at least some Folgers commercial energy. So the abrupt shift to decidedly not sibling energy makes it seem dirtier than it might down the road when things even out a bit more.
Claire and Charlie are laying some cute groundwork but so far not giving full-on shipping vibes. Which I like and expect that down the road I’ll be quite happy to ship them (and then sad again).
