Lost Recap: Son Of A Bitch

A major theme throughout all six seasons has been the Losties’ daddy issues. However, last night’s episode suggested a new theme—men with crazy moms. It’s fitting a Sawyer-centric installment was based on his catchphrase: “Son of a bitch.”

These were the first words he uttered in the original timeline, and the last he uttered in the sideways timeline. And while, emotionally, the episode was all about James Ford, the meat of the story—the answers! (and more questions)—revolved around Mocke.

First we saw him herding his new followers through the jungle, and giving them a pep talk of sorts. What he told them—a series of half-truths—seemed to be a hint about his intentions with this crew.

For example, he told them that “the black smoke” killed the people back at the temple. It’s not really a lie, but it’s not exactly the truth. He killed the people back at the temple. He assured the kids that they’re with him now, and he promises that he’ll take care of them. Another half-truth?

And speaking of truth and lies, we got a glimpse into Sawyer’s sideways world. In this version of his life, he’s still trying to track down the guy who instigated his parents’ murder/suicide, he’s still an avid reader, he still loves Little House, but instead of being a conman, he’s a cop. And in this reality, he still lies, but unlike in the original timeline, he’s lousy at it. Everyone to whom he lied in the sideways world—the chick from the sting operation, Miles, Charlotte—they all knew he wasn’t being honest with them.

For the most part, his lies all serve a common purpose: To conceal his life’s mission.

But he did tell one half-truth to Charlotte (who, BTW is working at “the museum” with Dr. Chang, Miles’ father).

When she asked him why became a cop, he first tried to make up some bogus excuse, but she pressed him further and he responded, “I guess I got to the point in my life where I was either gonna become a criminal or a cop, so I chose cop.”

His answer made me think about free will, which Jacob seems to be big on. James Ford had a choice, and he made the right one, all on his own. He had the same choice in the original timeline. In both realities, his parents were conned by a man calling himself Sawyer, which subsequently led to James’ father killing his wife and then himself.

So what was different in the decision making process in these two timelines? Jacob. In the original timeline, James is sitting outside of the church just after his parents’ funeral, working on a letter to “Sawyer” when he runs out of ink. Jacob showed up and “touched” James, by providing him with a fresh pen. James held onto that letter wherever he went—including the Island—as a literal interpretation of his emotional baggage. But in the sideways world, there doesn’t seem to be a letter. It points to the idea that perhaps Jacob’s influence isn’t all that helpful.

Miles, who is James’ partner in fighting crime—kind of like when they worked security together as part of the Dharma Initiative—figures out James’ big secret about going to Australia, though James refuses to tell Miles why. This frustrates Miles, who abandons him — until James admits that he didn’t tell Miles about the trip because he wanted to kill Sawyer, and he knew Miles would talk him out of it. And it seems like he might have. As James reflects on the man in the mirror, perhaps he’s asking him to change his ways.

And no message could’ve been any clearer than the wise words of Pa Ingalls.

“That’s what life’s all about. Laughing and loving each other. And knowing that people aren’t really gone when they die. They all live in memories that sustain us until we see them again.”

Yeah, the speech it probably made James change the way he was thinking about his dead parents in this sideways world, but could it also be some foreshadowing that James will see Juliet again?

Back on the Island, things aren’t right at Mocke’s camp, and despite his earlier pep talk, everyone kind of knows it. Claire vacillates between holding Kate’s hand and then wanting to kill her, while Sayid is in some kind of a dreamy, psycho, pathetic state.

Even though Claire annoys all of his with her shrieking about her baby all the time, it was disturbing, particularly to Kate, when Mocke bitch slapped her. But maybe he was just taking out his aggression toward his own mother on Claire. And here’s where things that interesting.

Mocke had a heart-to-heart with Kate, and revealed a little bit about his past and possibly present. He started off by insisting that he is not a dead man. Then he said that he knows what Kate is going through. This isn’t the first time he told someone that he knew what they were experiencing, as though he could read their minds. So…can he read minds? He certainly seems to be able to get into people’s heads.

Most importantly though, he disclosed some info about his mother. According to Mocke, she was “crazy,” and “a very disturbed woman.” He blames his mother for his “growing pains” and for the “problems that could have been avoided, had things been different.” That leads me to wonder if he’s going to actually try to make those things different, throw caution to “whatever happened, happened” wind, and try to change the past. Kate wanted to know why he was telling her all of this. Good question! Maybe he’s trying to plant a seed in Kate’s mind that Claire needs to die, in the best interest of Aaron.

Initially, when Mocke was going through his story, I thought that perhaps he was just co-opting Locke’s memories of his mother. But I think he was telling her the truth, or at least, a half-truth, about his own background.

So now that has me thinking about other sons of bitches on Lost. Along with Mocke, Locke, and Aaron, the only other solid example I could come up with was Daniel Faraday. Eloise actually killed her son, and I don’t know how much bitchier of a mother one could get than that. The last time we saw her, she was slapping Charles Widmore across the face in the hospital parking lot after Ben had shot Desmond. I’m curious as what circumstances would cause us to see her again. Perhaps she’s what’s behind that locked door on Widmore’s sub.

It does make a little bit of sense. She seemed to be the person who was most knowledgeable about getting back to the Island, but curiously, she didn’t offer to go when she was gathering the Flight 316 crowd together. Maybe she needed to be forced back, and kept locked up from escaping.

And that brings me to another point. Mocke tells Sawyer that the other people on the Island want to kill him, to protect the Island from him. But he just wants to leave. However, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that they aren’t protecting the Island from Mocke, but from the rest of the world. Remember Napoleon and Elba? The Island is Mocke’s Elba.

It’s interesting though, from the looks of the Dharma-esque sonic force field that his people are installing, that Widmore is firmly anti-Mocke.

Maybe the war that Widmore was gearing up for wasn’t about Ben at all. Maybe Ben was just some idiot kid that got in the way of something much larger that he didn’t really understand.

Maybe Sawyer’s books are a hint at what could be going on.

Watership Down, A Wrinkle in Time, and Lancelot are all books that Sawyer read in the original timeline, which now Charlotte has found on his dresser in his home in the sideways world. The first two have really obvious ties to Lost (time travel, rabbits, scary monsters, fertility issues), but the third might be more applicable than we’d originally thought.

The novel Lancelot is about a guy who murders his wife (because she cheated on him and tried to pass the resulting baby off as his) and enters a mental institution. He “becomes obsessed with and corrupted by the immorality he seeks to condemn.” Parallels can be drawn between this and James’ sideways story (a cop who wants to commit murder), but more interestingly, the story of Lancelot mirrors that of the quest for the Holy Grail. (Mirrors again!) This particular portion of Arthurian legend is rife with daddy issues, crazy moms, sons of bitches, and a child “raised by another.” Check out the Wikipedia page on the Fisher King. Perhaps it’s a clue to the nature of MIB and Jacob?