Well, this was unusual. I’m a Sawyer fan. And I’ve made it abundantly clear in these posts that when you strip away all the mystery, mythology and smoke monsters, what truly compels us to follow Lost is the intricate character dynamics. We love some of these people, and loathe others. And we’re dying to see how their lives turn out and how the various threads pull together – especially over the last few weeks.

So it’s a complete shocker to me that I found a Sawyer episode completely boring. Now, each season, I always look forward (with tongue firmly in cheek) to the requisite Kate episode – knowing we’ll chase our sour with the sweet. But Sawyer eps usually deliver – mainly because I love the character and it’s always fun to see his latest con. And while this episode helped to lay the framework of his newest (and most dire con), I can’t help but feel that the sideways stuff did nothing to develop the off-island storyline. It felt like filler and a time killer and with only 10 episodes left, that feels like the wrong play. That being said – next week we dive into the Richard Alpert mythos so I’m chalking this up as a slight speed bump.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get Lost.

I’m going to quickly dispense with the off-island shenanigans of Starsky & LaFleur as it should be a quick run through. The big twist here was that when confronted with those proverbial “two roads diverged”, Sawyer took the road less traveled (at least by him) and instead of chasing a life of crime, decided to slap on a badge.

Aside from the clever callback to one of Sawyer’s past cons (the suitcase of money set as bait for an unsuspecting mark), the off-island stuff did underscore the fact that this sideways universe represents “alternate career paths” – at least for some of our beloved castaways. And I think that’s a cool conceit but not one that necessarily needs 30-minutes of exposition to hammer home.

It was cool to see Sawyer and Miles playing buddy cop. The two bonded in their 70′s flashback, and I think they have good chemistry. If Locke and Ben are pitching a show together in real life – how about green-lighting Sawyer and Miles in an butt-kicking cop yarn? I’d watch that.

Once again, we see similarities bleed through from one timeline into the other. In this version, Sawyer is still hunting the con man that caused the murder-suicide of his parents, and it’s still Anthony Cooper. As we learned in Locke’s sideways trip, he’s apparently on good terms with his Dad so it leaves you to wonder if his Dad is still the same Cooper and if so, has that deception not been revealed?

Also, we know that this Sawyer also went to Oz but the jury is out on whether he was once again duped into murdering the wrong guy.

I think my biggest problem with these sideways trips is that they don’t seem to be closing the loops, and with fewer episodes remaining, it’s going to take a masterwork to tie these new binds with all the on-island stuff. I’m holding out faith that there is a master plan behind all of this, but it also seems very late in the game to call an audible. We’ll see.