This season has been enlightening because as each episode has unfolded it’s been made extremely clear how thin the line truly is between each character leading a righteous life or a wicked life. Sawyer has always been an interesting case study on the island because it feels like the con that he is always selling everyone is that he is a con man. Granted that has been his lifelong occupation off of the island but when on the island and given a fresh start he’s shown flashes that he’s a good guy pretending to be a con man. Speaking of flashes, when the reset button was hit during his time traveling days back to the Dharma Initiative and he landed in 1974, he became a model citizen. He fostered a 3 year relationship with Juliet and became the head of security. He kept a vigilant watch over the other castaways and it appeared he also cared for all of the other members of the Initiative. Prior to that (but technically after that if we go by years) he jumped from the chopper when it was low on fuel to try and make sure The Oceanic Six (and mainly Kate) would make it free and clear during their escape. Even in his flash side ways this week we see that Sawyer is cop which epitomizes how thin the line is between what he is in the current time line and what he could be.
So knowing who Sawyer is, the question has to be asked is the Man In Black a mirror reflection of Sawyer. He’s gone so far as to transform into multiple dead characters to manipulate the actions of many people and as I outlined previously to exploit the loophole and kill Jacob (http://bit.ly/bATdqh). However what’s interesting to reflect on now is that MIB appears to be honest with people at times. He tells Kate that he lied to Claire to about Aaron to give her something to hate. He tells Sawyer that he is the Black Smoke and he tells his new followers that the Black Smoke killed everyone in the Temple. He even goes so far as to tell Kate that he understands what she is feeling because he had a crazy mother too. He also tells her that he will take care of her which as we all know is an ongoing mission of Sawyers. We aren’t sure whether to believe him but it’s these moments of honesty mixed with his delivery and conviction that give the audience a reason to question weather MIB is truly evil or if the writers are manipulating us to believe that?
However the interesting thing is that the key to understanding the mixed signals that make up everyone’s varying viewpoints of the MIB’s intentions is for one to understand Sawyer…and that is the beauty of this episode. When Sawyer accepts MIB’s mission to go to Hydra Island he finds a woman trying to con him who he calls out and exposes because he doesn’t buy into her con. She eventually leads him back to Widmore who Sawyer tells the complete truth about his situation with MIB with a small lie of a wrinkle that he will bring back MIB without telling him what’s going on there for an ambush.
Sawyer then returns and is questioned by MIB who he tells everything too. He even divulges the part about how he was going to set him up. MIB tells Sawyer that he appreciates his loyalty. Sawyer replies that “a deal’s a deal.” The amazing thing about both situations outlined above is that Sawyer used 95% honesty to con both men to end up going head to head so that he can steal the sub and get off the island with Kate. The entire reason a con works is that you curry favor and loyalty from someone until the moment that you flip the script and take whatever it is you are conning them for from them. Based on what we know about how MIB manipulated Ben to kill Jacob and the litany of actions he took to make that happen we could define him as a master con man. We already know that Sawyer is also a master con man.
Therefore the line between Sawyer’s tactics and MIB’s tactics are paper thin. We view Sawyer as a good guy who happens to be a con man. At the end of the series will we view MIB the same way…or is he that much more talented than Sawyer…and conning us all to believe he may be good?