RECAP: Lost - Recon

After the jump, I've got the recap of the latest episode of Lost. As I mentioned last week, Lost has a bad habit of going long periods of time without giving us any indication of a particular character's motivations, and now they seem to be going through the cast and trying to correct that. This week's episode, titled "Recon," followed Sawyer, and the side-flashes were some of the more confusing that we've seen thus far. Read on for the full recap (Spoilers Ahead).

This week's side-flashes began in a pretty familiar way: with Sawyer in bed with some random woman. As we've seen him do in the past, Sawyer gets out of bed, apparently late for a meeting, gives us a bunch of unnecessary, gratuitous Shirtless Sawyer shots, his bag opens accidentally, and a bunch of money spills out, and his con begins. At this point, however, the nameless hot woman he's with pulls a gun on him, claiming that she knows all about this con. But wait, apparently Sawyer isn't a con man, he's actually an undercover cop. His partner, Haley Joel Osment I mean Miles Straume, bursts in the door and tosses Sawyer his badge, for those viewers too stupid to not have figured out what was happening.

In this reality, Sawyer goes by his real name, James Ford, and he is a detective for the LAPD. He is still looking for Anthony Cooper, the conman (and Locke's dad) who caused the death of his parents, but he still hasn't told anyone about it. His trip to Australia remains a secret, as he told everyone that he had gone to Palm Springs.

Miles hooks Sawyer up with one of his friends, and because the Lost universe would apparently explode if everything wasn't interrelated, the friend is Charlotte. She's still an archeologist, and she makes a conveniently immediate connection with Sawyer, getting him to explain that he became a cop because he had reached a point in his life where he had to choose between becoming a criminal and becoming a cop. Apparently detonating a bomb in the past changed the way he felt about things, and he chose the life of a detective. Charlotte and Sawyer bump uglies and we get more gratuitous Shirtless Sawyer shoved in our faces, and then Charlotte digs through Sawyer's drawers, finding a thick file labelled "Sawyer" containing all of the information about his parents' deaths. In a scene reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast, Sawyer loses it when he finds Charlotte looking at the file, and he kicks her out of his apartment. The next day, Miles confronts Sawyer about going to Australia (in a perfectly normal thing for a friend to do, Miles obtained Sawyer's credit card report and discovered where he had been), and Sawyer tells Miles it's none of his business. Miles dissolves their partnership (can cops just do that?), and Sawyer punches a mirror, because that's what you do when you're angry, right?

Sawyer goes back to Charlotte with a sunflower and a six-pack (how romantic), and she angrily rejects him. He then gives Miles the Sawyer file and explains everything about his hunt for Cooper. As soon as this conversation ends, a car crashes next to them, and someone jumps out and runs away; they chase the person down and - DUN DUN DUN!!! - it's Kate.

In the Island-present, Sawyer is at Claire's place with Jin, and he promises that they won't leave without both Jin and Sun. Evil Locke and Company return to the camp, with Claire looking like she's up to something, and Sayid looking moody. Evil Locke reassures the children in the group that he will get them off the island, thus further impressing me with Terry O'Quinn's acting chops - the guy can use the same smile to convey either grandfatherly kindness or shit-eating smugness, and he's equally effective at both. Evil Locke reveals to Sawyer that he is the Smoke Monster, and sends Sawyer to Hydra Island to do some recon (AHA! The episode title!) on the passengers of the Ajira flight, because he wants to use the Ajira plane to get off of the island. Sawyer goes to the Hydra station (where he and Kate had sex in the cage) and takes a trip down memory lane as he squeezes Kate's shirt, which she apparently left behind (that shirt would be effing gross by now, but he doesn't seem bothered by it).

Back at the Evil Locke Camp, Claire attacks Kate, and Sayid watches impassively until Evil Locke shows up and gets Claire to stop by slapping her in the face with his pimp hand. He explains to Kate that he lied to Claire about the Others taking Aaron because Claire needed to "have something to hate." They have a conversation in which Evil Locke reveals that long ago he had a mother who was crazy, and that a lot of the problems he has are because of her. He tells this to Kate because, according to him, "now Aaron has a crazy mother too." Later, Claire comes and apologizes to Kate, and they hug. Aw, I guess all is forgiven. Personally I'd have shot the crazy bitch and solved what will probably be a lot of future problems.

On Hydra Island, Sawyer finds a pile of dead bodies; presumably the people from the Ajira plane. He meets a survivor named Zoe, but sees through her ruse and pulls his gun on her. Zoe whistles annoyingly, and a bunch of armed men come running out of the bushes. They take Sawyer to the submarine, and along the way he sees that they are setting up giant pylons (like the ones that previously kept the Smoke Monster out of the Dharma Village). Sawyer meets with Charles Widmore, and they strike a deal: Sawyer will betray Evil Locke as long as Widmore will protect Sawyer and his friends and get them all off the island. However, upon returning to Evil Locke, in a move that surprised exactly no one, Sawyer reveals his deal with Widmore. He later explains to Kate that he's going to let Evil Locke and Widmore fight it out, and while they're busy, he and Kate will escape on the submarine.

Overall, it was actually a fairly unremarkable episode. This season has been fairly good so far (although it has had stupid moments), but this episode really didn't further the plot in any way other than to establish a future conflict between Widmore and Evil Locke. Episodes like this are frustrating, as we know that there is a very limited amount of time left for the writers to wrap up the story. To see them waste time with tripe like this is disappointing, but then, it's Lost. Is anyone not disappointed by this show anymore?