S6 E8 "Recon"

"Alright, alright you got me. Take me to your leader." -James

Connect The Dots
James seemed to be up to his old tricks in his sideways flash. He was in bed with a woman, acted late for a meeting, and allowed the case of money to fly open. This was the same con, "The Pigeon Drop" we saw him try to pull on a blond in Season 1's "Confidence Man."

James' magic word was "LeFleur" his alias when he was Dharma's Head of Security.

We saw Cindy, Zach, and Emma again. It's good to see those actors are still employed but I'm starting to wonder why. Do we really care that much about them? I do think it was cute the way Zach was the first person behind UnLocke during the hike. That is so like a little kid to want to be in the front of the line!

James visited the cages on Hydra Island. These are the cages where he and Kate were held captive during Season 3. The dress he found was the dress she had worn, given to her by the Others.

The guy checking on his brother at the police station was Liam Pace, Charlie's brother. An interesting thing about that is in their original storyline Charlie had flown to Australia to visit Liam. He was trying to convince him to rejoin the band. But in this episode Liam is in Los Angeles. Did he fly from Australia to get Charlie out of prison or does he live there?

Details and Easter Eggs
Several times in this episode it was mentioned that James' parents died when he was 9. And James asked the Anthony Cooper on the phone if he was in Alabama in 1976. In the original storyline, his parents did die in 1976 but he was 8. I pulled the transcript of "The Incident." Before James and Jack got in their big fist fight James told him "My folks died when I was 8 years old...Con man took my dad for everything he had...Right now it's July 1977, which means that happened last year." I can't decide if the writers would make that big of a mistake or they are telling us it happened slightly later than in the original storyline. After James' 9th birthday.

Miles mentioned his dad works at a museum. That means that Pierre Chang is alive and well. Plus it appears that he and Miles have a good relationship if Pierre is setting up Miles' partner with his co-worker.

The Losties' moto still lives on in the sideways world! Miles asked James if he wants to die alone. This is a reference to "Live together, die alone."

Sawyer's date was Charlotte Staples Lewis. The woman who came on the freighter and died during the time skipping. Similar to her original storyline she is an archaeologist. This is the second time this season someone has referenced Indiana Jones. Hurley referenced him in "The Lighthouse." After seeing her say to James "You know what." all I could think was "Why didn't she ever say that to Daniel Faraday?!"

Sideways James is still an avid reader. On his dresser were 3 books. They were Watership Down, A Wrinkle In Time, and Lancelot. We saw Sawyer read all of these books during several episodes of Season 1.

James had the mirror moment we've seen each of the sideways characters have. Then he turned into Jack in "The Lighthouse."

Sideways James tried to apologize to Charlotte with a big sunflower. In the island storyline, he gave Juliet the same flower in 1977. ("Le Fleur")

In this episode we saw James watching Little House on the Prairie. It seems odd for a bachelor to watch this while drinking beer alone. But in the original storyline he once told Kate that he used to watch Little House as a child while he was sick in bed with mononucleosis. ("Tricia Tanaka Is Dead")

There is a locked room on the sub with a guard posted at it. I will tell you right now that fans will be speculating Desmond and/or Penny are locked up in there. If that were so, then why didn't they knock on the door when they heard James' voice?

When James caught Kate-on-the-run and seemed to recognize her, it's probably because he rode on the elevator with her at the airport. In a way, he helped her evade security.

It's interesting that James, in his flash sideways, is still looking for "Anthony Cooper." But is that still Locke's dad? Sideways Locke seems to have a good relationship with his father, so we were assuming Anthony was not a con man in this storyline.

Namaste!