Parenting Tips from “Lost” S2 E13, “The Long Con”

Welcome to the Parenting Roundabout podcast. I'm Terry Morrow and I'm Catherine Jileco. As parents and parenting writers, we can't help but see everything through a parenting lens. But as our kids have become adults, we find ourselves more interested in getting caught up on movies and streaming than I'm going over the same parenting topics over and over.

So since we're pretty sure we can find parenting wisdom anywhere, we're going to talk about what we're watching, what we thought about it, and maybe what we can learn from it, if only what not to do. Watch and listen along, and let's all make like we're doing something important for our families.

Each Tuesday we bring you a watch or rewatch of an older entertainment property, And for this week of March seventeenth, we're continuing with Laws season two, episode thirteen, The Long Con, which of course is a Sawyer flashback episode, right, but I think also the somewhat rare episode in which the flashbacks not only reflected on the current action but told you what was happening, right Like, there's a long Con in the past, there's a long Con on the island

I mean yes and no, you know at a certain point, probably later then that it should happen. But yeah, I mean the way that I mean, he did do a good con man's job of predicting, like, Okay, this person will do that, then this person will do that, then then Kate will go running to Jack, and then Kate will come running back to me.

They say, is a little contrived, but no, these people are really entirely predictable, right the professional could like puppets, Yes.

But I don't remember, like did we hear all this business about like you took my shaving cream and my all you know, my drugs and whatever else, Like I feel like I.

Don't that was the first I heard of that. Yeah, not that it really matters, but.

I don't think he mentioned it before. I think he's I guess, been holding up.

He's been saving that up.

But I mean Jack was in his tent in this episode taking things out, right. So I mean, I suppose if somebody leaves on a raft and you know, they've got shaving cream and you need it might just borrow it. He's in a better piece going he's going home. He'll bring us back more shaving creams.

Exactly, I think kind of what you need this.

But if the guy comes back, you have to like sheepishly go and say hey, man here exactly. Yeah.

But then you know, at the very end, once all is revealed, you know, Kate's like, it wasn't about the shaving cream. It was about you wanting everyone to hate you.

Like we're back to the daddy issue.

Yes, yes we are. And from a parenting point of view, this reminded me of behavior analysis, which is, you know, you go in with the assumption that most kids want to please adults, and so if they are not, what is causing that to happen. It's not that they're a bad seed, it's what are they getting out of this,

He doing that?

What can we change in his environment that will therefore make him not need to do that anymore? So oh yeah, so Kate coming in with the behavior analysis. Although you know, he's very good at getting people to hate him. Yeah, he told Charlie that he's just bad. He's never done a good thing in his life, Poor poor deep wounded Sawyer. Yes, everybody else on this island has had a perfectly happy life, no complications whatsoever, well loved as children, set up for

Yeah, yeah, everybody's got something, my friend.

Yeah, but he is very good at getting people to hate him. He could not have done a better job, right, So it's like if you can't get them to love you, you know, at least people have a feeling. And poor Charlie is like, you know, in the the sub village of the damn to there with him, right, And so I guess you might as well throw in, yeah I hate me. He wants me to do some work for him.

So yeah that Sawyer recognizes like, I mean, yeah, like someone lower down on the food chain, I can I can use this to my advantage for sure. Rough.

Yeah, Charlie mostly motivated by wanting to make Lock look look bad and and Sawyer's got to be at least partially motivated by wanting to make Jack look bad.

So oh for sure.

And Jack and Locke more than happy to.

Play their roles that they've been assigned.

Yes, good time. And this was.

Another one that except for the very end, I grant you know, it's definitely a big deal that all the guns have been you know, relocated to a secret a secret stash. But other than that, there was nothing, you know, advancing any current time frame plot.

But hey, they're able to get Glenn Miller on the radio right things to looking up.

That's yeah, I'm just trying to tear you up. So it really says to said, like I found you a new toy, and there you go, said is not having don't need a new toy, leave me alone.

All this all this weapon thing went off without me having anything to do with it, right, And so I'm just going to stand out here and hit coconuts. I could have hidden the guns for them.

Yeah, got again, but Sawyer is not interested in working with said no, no.

And vice versa.

I would think king in the mountain for about five minutes.

Yeah, everyone loves Son.

We learned that, Yes, yes, And oh I mean, Charlie, gosh, you better hope nobody ever finds. Yeah, someone, I mean, they have to figure that Sawyer has an accomplice because he wasn't.

He wasn't there once you got hit, wasn't.

I mean, somebody had to have followed Lot to see where the weapons were. And I think he was talking to Kate when when Sun got he was and who else? Who possibly else could be Sawyer's accomplice.

But Charlie, it's like it's like witnessing teer pressure among among children.

You know, like as a.

As a parent, you certainly don't want your kid to be the follower and the victim. No, but you also don't want them to be the instigator of the long con your.

Cans in the bad kid and.

Or your kid does things right, and.

You also don't want them to be a bystander. So there's really no.

You don't want your kid to be on this island involved with these people. Yeah, these people are all messed up. Not a healthy one amongst them, No afraid not. Did my kid get in this class?

Take them out? Please?

Why is my kid in the glass with all the troubled kids? Because I don't know he kidnapped a baby and really it's a dream. Yeah, he was sleep ord Charlie, Charlie will go with you overweight, the wind blows. But I feel bad for him. And oh lost Pedia informs me that when Sawyer and his accomplice were in a diner and placing their order, that was Kate's mall.

Yeah, I did not recognize her. If it wasn't for life, I certainly wouldn't have known.

I recognized her, but probably only because I had already read that. Yeah, so just apropos of nothing, I don't. I mean, she could have stayed by the table and chatted and said, oh, I have a daughter about your age. Yeah, she's currently on the run from the law. If you see her out there, give her a rude.

If you ever meet her on some weird island.

Tell her, tell her mom's sorry. Tell her her mom says, you're a total screw up. Never come home.

Yeah, no matter what she's.

But yeah, and isn't that meant to be like in the middle of nowhere? You know, why is it that Sawyer was there? And if he was there, it hasn't come up in there like three months on the on the island that I was in this run.

Well he went there to see his accomplice. I guess perhaps, Yeah, but yeah, it does seem like they're.

Well, they don't seem to ever talk about like, hey, where are you from.

Yeah, they've got more important things to deal with, like reading magazines and yes, you know, plotting insurrection.

Oh we did learn that Sawyer lost his glasses on the raft.

Yeah, bummer man.

Yeah, they don't have another pair stash somewhere they can well.

Remember they had the guns.

They remember they had to fashion those glasses out of like two other pairs.

Yes, they get him another pair of glasses. They could maybe uh bargain for some guns.

Yeah, I don't think so. You'd rather have the guns? He would rather keep the gun sounds for sure.

Oh dear, horrifying and yet gratifying to see Sawyer pull that off, right, It's like he is not the dude you would want to have the guns. On the other hand, you know, he just played everybody.

Like a fiddle.

That was kind of delightful. People who are so full of themselves and so certain that they are, you know, the only hope of the castaways because of their decency and cleverness, and they're just you just have to just just a little tiny portion working against each other.

So hahuh, goodness.

I enjoyed Hurley's lime in the coconut joke went so far over saw You did know there was anything there?

Yep? But it did not land for him.

And Vincent made a brief appearance.

Yes.

Do you think Vincent was in on the long con?

Maybe so because distraction he was.

I feel like maybe they they captured Vincent and like through anausage over by over by son, so that Vincent would go.

After he or maybe Vincent's just thrown in with them, you know.

Yeah, he's like.

He's been abandoned. Lucia chick killed the girl who was taking care of me, my boy, who knows nobody's going to look for him. Well, the dad went to look for him, but they left me behind. I could attract him, but no, everybody's abandoned me. So sure I'll be a takeover.

Yeah, gotta have the dog on your side, you gotta. Yeah, he really did seem like he was part of the plan.

Yeah, he did, because he just comes and goes, just comes and goes and disappears and is anybody He's just a jungle denizen now I think so he's no longer a castaway. He's maybe he's another maybe the others recruited him.

Yeah, well that was the original you know, that was that dog food. That was the design of the of the Khan right to feel like the other were involved involved.

Yeah.

Somebody says the thing we're scared of most is missing an opportunity. I don't remember who said that, but I wrote it down because I thought, I think that's true parenting wise. You know, you want your kid to have the best of everything, and you want to make sure that you don't miss anything that they could do. And you know, some of us never want to miss an opportunity to volunteer and get ourselves into the school and find out what's going on. That is me for sure.

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