'''Season 2, Episode 13:'''
!The Long Con
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lostthelongcon.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"I'm not a good person, Charlie. Never did a good thing in my life."'']]

->Written by Leonard Dick and Steven Maeda.
->Directed by Roxann Dawson.

->''"You were so busy worrying about each other you never even saw me coming, did you?"''
-->-- '''James "Sawyer" Ford'''

In flashbacks, Sawyer pulls his old "drop open a briefcase full of money" trick on a woman named Cassidy, who isn't fooled at all and realizes he's trying to con her. She asks him to teach her how to con people. Eventually it's revealed that Sawyer is pulling a long con on her, but he has genuinely fallen for her in their time together. He tries to back out, but his partner Gordy threatens him and Cassidy to make him go through with it. Sawyer tells Cassidy about the con, and to run. However, it turns out that this was the scam, as Sawyer runs off with her money.

On the Island, Jack and Locke lock up the guns in the Swan. Jack argues with Sawyer over his hoarding medical supplies. Sun is attacked and nearly kidnapped while attending her garden. While most of the camp suspects the Others, Sawyer tells Kate that the attacker must have been one of the survivors, causing her to suspect Ana Lucia. As the survivors squabble over the guns, Sawyer convinces Locke to move them. Jack confronts Locke, but Sawyer arrives, having moved them from Locke's hiding place. He tells everyone that he has the guns, and declares himself the new leader of the survivors. It's revealed that Charlie was Sun's attacker, and that he told Sawyer where Locke hid the guns.
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!Tropes in this episode include:
* BatmanGambit: Sawyer drops hints to Kate that Ana Lucia was Sun's attacker, knowing that she will go to Jack and drive a wedge between them. He then tells Locke that Jack is coming to steal the guns, knowing that Locke will try to hide them, and has Charlie follow him to find out where so he can steal them himself.
* ChekhovsGun: Sawyer swaps Cassidy's bag of money with the fake money that he dropped in front of her at the start of the episode when he cons her at the end.
* DivideAndConquer: Sawyer effortlessly plays Jack, Locke, Kate and Ana Lucia against each other so that none of them notice his plan to steal the guns.
* EmergingFromTheShadows: Charlie does this to reveal that he was Sawyer's accomplice during the con.
* FailedASpotCheck: Sawyer is so busy mocking Charlie over taking his place as the most hated person in camp that he fails to notice Jack ransacking his tent a mere fifty feet away.
* FalseFlagOperation: Sawyer plants the idea in Jack and Kate that Ana Lucia attacked Sun in order to make people scared enough to join the army. But it turns out, Sawyer and Charlie staged it to make it look like someone staged it to look like the Others.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: When hearing music on the radio, Sayid mentions that the signal could be coming from any place, and Hurley, half-jokingly, suggests it could be from any time.
* AHouseDivided: The leadership differences between Jack and Locke start coming to a head in this episode. When Jack asks for the combination to the gun vault in the teaser, Locke senses that it's an issue of trust.
* KansasCityShuffle: Sawyer plays this straight as can be in his flashback, making Cassidy think she has caught him trying to con her while that is actually the setup for a much longer and more profitable con.
* LonelyBachelorPad: Sawyer compares Charlie setting up a new tent on the outskirts of the camp to a "cheap-ass apartment" that he got because Claire kicked him out.
* OneDegreeOfSeparation: Kate's mother is the waitress who serves Sawyer and Gordy.
* RunningGag: Somehow, Ana Lucia becomes the latest person to confuse [[TheDividual Scott and Steve]], despite the fact that Scott died before she even met the other survivors.
* SuspectIsHatless: Invoked. Sawyer wears a band-aid on his nose while pulling a con with Cassidy, telling her that this is so distinctive it will be the only thing his marks remember about his appearance if they try to go to the police.
* SuspiciouslyAproposMusic: The music that Hurley and Sayid pick up on the radio is Music/GlennMiller's "Moonlight Serenade." In 1944, Miller disappeared in a plane and was never found.
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