Confidence Man (S01E08)
Airdate: November 10th 2004
Written by: Damond Lindelof
Directed by: Tucker Gates
Running Time: 42 minutes
In its first season, Lost established a now-familiar template for serialised television: the character-centric episode. This formula, while effective in building a sprawling ensemble, often came at the expense of narrative momentum. The main plot—the mystery of the island and survival—would frequently stall to make room for revelatory flashbacks, turning each hour into a psychological dossier on a specific survivor. The eighth episode, Confidence Man, is a prime example of this checkmark-filling approach, dedicating its runtime to unpacking the roguish, antagonistic Sawyer. While it delivers a crucial and emotionally potent backstory, the episode is hamstrung by a present-day plot that feels mechanically engineered, reliant on a chain of conveniences and melodrama to facilitate its character exposition.
The episode’s main throughline, ironically, belongs to Sayid. Having survived a sneak attack that destroyed his painstakingly improvised transceiver, Sayid awakens with a clear, rational deduction: the saboteur must be someone who does not wish to leave the island. His suspicions naturally fall upon the enigmatic John Locke, engrossed in his own mystical adventures, and the decidedly shady Sawyer. Rather than instigating a witch hunt, Sayid makes perhaps the most sensible decision any character makes in the early season: he opts to leave the group and single-handedly trek across the island to map their environment and assess their true situation. This decision, however, is not born purely of strategic logic; it is the culmination of the episode’s central, contrived conflict which forces him to confront his own demons.
This conflict is triggered by a suddenly life-threatening case of convenience: Shannon's asthma. With her inhaler depleted and more supposedly lost in the cargo hold, her stepbrother Boone identifies Watership Down—a book Sawyer is seen reading—as belonging to a piece of luggage he rummaged through. Convinced Sawyer is hoarding medical supplies, Boone attempts to steal from Sawyer’s stash and is viciously beaten for his efforts. When confronted by Jack, Sawyer refuses to hand over any inhaler altruistically. Instead, in a move designed to maximise his loathsomeness, he demands a kiss from Kate. To compound his portrayal as a monster, he has Kate read aloud a harrowing letter in which a young boy accuses “Sawyer” of seducing his mother, swindling the family, and driving his parents to an apparent murder-suicide. As Shannon’s condition deteriorates, a desperate Sayid proposes using force, drawing on his experience as an Iraqi Republican Guard interrogator to torture Sawyer for the information—a plan to which Jack grimly acquiesces. Sawyer endures the torture, leading Kate to reluctantly fulfil his demand. His revelation is a brutal anti-climax: he never had the inhalers and has no idea where they are. The ensuing altercation sees Sayid stab Sawyer in the arm, severing an artery, with Jack barely saving his life. The medical crisis is ultimately resolved by Sun, whose previously unmentioned herbalist knowledge provides a convenient deus ex machina in the form of indigenous anti-asthmatic plants. Sayid’s decision to exile himself is thus framed as an act of disgust, both at the group’s descent into barbarism and at his own reversion to the torturer he had sworn never to become again.
This entire, tense sequence, however, feels manufactured. The script by Damon Lindelof hinges on a series of unlikely events: Shannon’s asthma becoming critical at this precise moment; Boone’s specific recognition of a book tying the luggage to Sawyer; and Sawyer’s inexplicable, pig-headed refusal to simply state he doesn’t have the inhalers, a stance that serves no rational self-interest and exists purely to escalate the drama to the point of torture. The resolution via Sun’s sudden botanical expertise, while a nice nod to her hidden depths, further underscores the plot’s engineered nature. These contrivances exist primarily to create a pressure cooker that forces Sawyer’s past into the open.
That past, revealed through flashbacks, is where the episode finds its strength. We see the present-day Sawyer as his former self: a smooth, seductive confidence man named James Ford. He orchestrates a torrid affair with Jessica (Kristin Richardson), after “accidentally” spilling a suitcase full of cash in front of her. His target is her husband, David (David DeLuise), whom he aims to defraud with a fake oil business deal. The con proceeds flawlessly until a pivotal moment: seeing Jessica and David’s young son, a mirror of his own childhood self, he abandons the entire scheme and the money, fleeing. This crucial detail is unlocked in the present by Kate, who deduces that the vengeful letter Sawyer carries was mailed when he was eight years old. Sawyer confesses that he is, in fact, that boy. The original “Sawyer” destroyed his family. He spent years hunting the man, only to find himself at nineteen, destitute and desperate, conning a vulnerable woman. In that moment, he became the very thing he hated, adopting the name as a perpetual badge of his self-loathing. This revelation recontextualises all his actions on the island. His abrasiveness, his hoarding, his insistence on transactional relationships—they are not merely the traits of a selfish rogue, but the armour of a man trapped in a cycle of trauma, punishing himself and pushing others away before they can see the wounded boy inside.
The exploration of torture and its ethical quagmire gives the episode a grim, timely weight, resonating with contemporary debates surrounding the methods of US intelligence agencies during the Global War on Terror, which was at its peak during the show’s production. The moral compromise of Jack, the principled healer, and the traumatic regression of Sayid, offer a stark, uncomfortable commentary on how quickly civilised norms can erode under duress, even if the duress itself feels somewhat artificially induced.
Despite its narrative contrivances, Confidence Man remains a solid episode, primarily due to a career-defining performance from Josh Holloway. He masterfully handles Sawyer’s transformation from the despicable villain everyone loves to hate into a profoundly tragic figure hollowed out by lifelong grief. The scene where he recounts his origins to Kate is delivered with a raw, weary pain that completely recalibrates the character. Holloway also ensures the episode’s opening moment—emerging god-like from the ocean before Kate—remains a piece of iconic, if slightly gratuitous, fan service. It is ultimately Holloway’s embodiment of Sawyer’s bitter defence mechanisms and shattered core that elevates the material, papering over the cracks in an otherwise mechanically plotted character study and providing one of the series’ finer moments of emotional revelation.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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