"Lost" The Long Con (2006)

User Rating:

8.8/10   

Director:

Roxann Dawson

Writers:

Jeffrey Lieber (creator) and
J.J. Abrams (creator) ...

TV Series:

"Lost" (2004)

Original Air Date:

8 February 2006 (Season 2, Episode 13)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | Fantasy | Mystery | Romance | Thriller

Plot:

Survivors fear that "The Others" may have returned when Sun is injured during a failed kidnapping attempt. Meanwhile, Sawyer is an amused, but highly interested, bystander when tension escalates between Jack, Locke, Kate and Ana Lucia over control of the hatch computer, and the storage of the weapons.

Plot Keywords:

Plane Crash | Flashback | Survival | South Pacific | Doctor

Cast

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje	...	Mr. Eko
Naveen Andrews	...	Sayid Jarrah
Emilie de Ravin	...	Claire Littleton
Matthew Fox	...	Jack Shephard
Jorge Garcia	...	Hugo 'Hurley' Reyes
Josh Holloway	...	James 'Sawyer' Ford
Daniel Dae Kim	...	Jin Kwon
Yunjin Kim	...	Sun Kwon
Evangeline Lilly	...	Kate Austen
Dominic Monaghan	...	Charlie Pace
Terry O'Quinn	...	John Locke
Harold Perrineau	...	Michael Dawson (credit only)
Michelle Rodriguez	...	Ana-Lucia Cortez
Cynthia Watros	...	Libby
Kim Dickens	...	Cassidy Phillips

Runtime:

44 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Certification:

UK:15 | Portugal:M/12 | USA:TV-14 | Venezuela:PG-13 (DVD rating)

Filming Locations:

O'ahu, Hawaii, USA

Company:

Bad Robot

Trivia:

When Sayid approaches Hurley with the radio he has modified, Hurley is reading the manuscript Bad Twin by Gary Troup. Gary Troup is the man who was sucked into the airplane turbine engine shortly after the crash.

Quotes:

Sawyer: [after Jack asks him a question while he's typing in the numbers] One second. I'm like *this* close to the highest score on Donkey Kong.

Movie Connections:

References "Xena: Warrior Princess" (1995)

The Long Con

There's something about the flashbacks in "The Long Con" which is really aggravating. The general atmosphere and plot provides little insight into Sawyer's character (although, bizarrely, the on-island events are well-written and revelatory in this regard), the story with Cassidy and all the conning is at best reminiscent of an 80's primetime soap, and the acting from whoever plays Cassidy is abysmal. Had this been "Alias" I might have gone with it, but I expect more from an intelligent show like "Lost". Still, the flashback scenes are watchable, just disappointing.

All that said, "The Long Con" sees a lot of action on the island, and it doesn't come at the expense of characters either. There's some classic interaction between Jack and Locke over the gun issue, and the dialogue is generally very well-written by Steven Maeda and Leonard Dick. It's a solid on-island episode with a lot going on and some memorable scenes- Charlie and Sawyer's conversation at the end, Sawyer's 'new sheriff in town' speech, the tension over the guns etc.

The episode is well-directed by a non-regular director on the series, Roxann Dawson, and is a very good, entertaining episode. It's far from being a classic, and there's not all that much worth discussing here. The first Sawyer flashback of season two is decidedly less interesting than the two from season one.

8/10