Many spoilers ahead. If you have not watched all of LOST including last night’s episode, “The Last Recruit,†you should move along. There’s nothing to see here.
Oh, LOST, your saga is drawing to its conclusion and last night felt like the first time all season that I felt like I was actually watching the show I’ve grown to love and admire for six years. There was action, there was excitement, and — in my opinion — one of the most important and giddying moments of the entire series. If “The Last Recruit” was the opening of the show’s final chapter, it absolutely succeeded in re-energizing me and increasing my anticipation for the final five hours.
Let’s begin with the sideways flashes, because I want to get this out of the way before deconstructing the island timeline. We saw Locke rushed to the hospital following his chance encounter with Desmond’s Beamer Of Deathâ„¢. Did anyone else chuckle when the attending EMT mentioned Locke was showing no signs of movement in his lower body, and — after Ben chimed in about Locke being a paraplegic — asked “Do you know this man?” Um, how the hell else would he know Locke was paralyzed from the waist down? Oh, LOST writers! You amuse me so much sometimes.
At the hospital, Locke is wheeled inside just as gunshot Sun is arriving. She notices Locke and exclaims, “It’s him!” Who is “him” exactly? John Locke? Or the smoke monster? Did anyone notice that Locke smiled a little upon being recognized? I called it many weeks ago — sideways Locke is the monster.
Sawyer and Kate play the flirting game at the police station, but their conversation is largely unimportant. Hmm, maybe the link between these sideways characters and their island counterparts is that they’re proving to be useless! Oh, a few scenes later Miles and Sawyer catch Sayid as he’s attempting to sneak away from Nadia’s house.
Jack bumps into Claire at Ilana’s office (she’s an attorney now, and is apparently friends with Desmond). He’s also brought along his hair-helmet son, who I think has a successful acting career as long as he keeps getting cast as a brooding teenager. Jack and Claire have their off-island brother/sister revelation, but before they can hear the details of father Christian’s will, Jack is called away to the hospital. He arrives and studies the image of a man’s spinal column, remarks about the man’s dural sac being “obliterated” and learns that he will be operating on John Locke. I’ve decided that my new nickname for Jack is Dr. Sac, because, well, have we ever seen him in an OR without mention of a dural sac? Including that touch of bad luck during his residency, it seems every surgical procedure Jack has ever performed has included some mention of dural sacs. Jack recognizes unconscious Locke, but from where? I half-expected Locke’s eyes to open.
So what do we have in all these sideways flashes? We have our characters coming together. Pretty much everyone involved in LOST currently exists in one of two places. The police station or the hospital. Sawyer, Miles, Kate, and Sayid are involved in one plot line, while Jack, Locke, Sun, Jin and Ben (if he’s still at the hospital) are involved in another. I guess Claire and Desmond are with Ilana in a third location, but I consider them to be somewhat ancillary at this point. None of the devices used to bridge the geographical gaps between characters seemed rushed this week. Everything was very organic. I liked it. I want to see where this is going.
On the island. So much happened this week, yet once again nothing felt too rushed. For weeks we have (or at least I have) cringed at the thought of having to write all these characters into situations that set up LOST‘s end-game. Now that we have begun the show’s final act, we can see clearly how the island-time plots and character arcs are coming together. This made for some very entertaining television last night.
We begin with Locke (herein referred to as MIB or the Man In Black) thanking Jack for coming to see him, and inviting him on a walk so the pair could chat. We heard MIB tell Jack that he chose his current body for two reasons: first, its original inhabitant was dumb enough to think that he was on the island for a reason, and secondly because the dead body arrived at the island in a wooden box. This spurs Jack to ask MIB if he had also chosen and used the body of Jack’s father. MIB’s answer: Yes.
I immediately felt, upon hearing this, that MIB was lying to Jack. Much like every other interaction he’s had with the castaways, MIB could have been attempting to convince Jack that all along, he has had his best interests in mind. The reason he chose to use Christian’s body? Jack needed to find water for the crash survivors. Do you believe him? I want to say “No,” but I don’t know if there is enough time left in the show for the producers and writers to show us this is a lie. Let’s think about some of the instances in which we’ve seen Christian since the crash:
– Christian brings Jack to the caves to find fresh water – This has apparently been confirmed by MIB to be him using daddy Shepherd’s body.
– In “Jacob’s” cabin with Claire – Again confirmed to be MIB, this time by Claire during her island-time reunion with Jack.
– On the freighter with Michael just before its destruction – This could not have possibly been the smoke monster, because MIB has stated that he cannot move freely across water. This would be the first piece of evidence that hints a potential lie spun by MIB.
– Beneath the well, instructing Locke to turn the frozen donkey wheel – This has not been confirmed to be MIB, but it would make sense for him to Locke off the island. Jacob was still very much alive at the time, and if MIB wanted to ensure the deaths of all the candidates, he would need them back on the island in order to ensure they could never take Jacob’s place. Also, he needed Locke dead to complete his loophole.
– In the DHARMA barracks with Sun and Lapidus – This seemed to be MIB but it has not been confirmed. A lot of people commented that there appeared to be smoke swirling around the room as Christian spoke to Sun. The problem I have with this is that the body of John Locke was on the island at the time of this confrontation. It seems like — according to island time — at this juncture of the show Sun and Lapidus would be on the main island while Locke and Ben were already getting reacquainted on Hydra Island. Can anyone prove or disprove this? If it’s true that Locke was already “alive” on Hydra while Sun was chatting with Christian, it could offer proof that all this Christian-MIB talk is untrue.
– Off the island in Jack’s hospital – Again, there is no way this could have been the smoke monster. Either MIB is lying about using Christian’s body, or Jack was so doped up he really did hallucinate seeing his father.
Claire tells Jack that she’s happy he’s coming with them. Jack tells her he has not decided yet, but she states that the moment he allowed MIB to talk to him he was “with him.” The problem with this statement is that both Jack and Sawyer have spoken with the Man In Black yet neither seem to be on his side. I’m wondering if maybe a conversation with MIB is akin to being touched by Jacob. Are both of these men now having their strings pulled by the Man In Black? Is the scale being tipped towards the dark side without our characters even knowing it? I have a feeling Claire’s words are somewhat meaningless. I don’t believe Jack will follow MIB anywhere. This means that the only character who has not allowed the Man In Black to speak to him is Hurley. They had a brief introduction last week, but Hurley has not talked in the way that any of the other characters have with him. Combine that with the knowledge Hurley now possesses Jacob’s ashes (via Ilana’s little bag) and I think we can begin to theorize about who has the best shot at containing MIB on the island, and how it will be done.
The opening shots of the war were fired by Team Widmore. Tina “Zoe” Fey marched into MIB’s camp and showed off her leader’s massive firepower, but no one was intimidated.
Sayid was sent on a death march to kill Desmond. Desmond tried to talk some sense into Sayid, and I’m pretty damned sure it worked. There is no way Desmond is dead at the bottom of that well right now. If the writers of LOST decided to ingloriously exterminate one of the fans’ favorite characters without even showing it on camera, it would be one of the biggest dick moves in television history. He’s alive down there. Hell, maybe he even convinced Sayid to help him out of the well so he could finish his job. What is that job, by the way? Is there another failsafe key to turn? Is there a frozen donkey wheel to turn? What else can Des do on the island that will both expose him to insane amounts of electromagnetism and thwart the plans of the Man In Black?
Kate lets Claire on Libby’s boat with all the other castaways as they attempt to reach Widmore’s submarine before MIB can determine that they’ve usurped his authority. The scene where my two least favorite characters remaining talk was tough to watch. I kind of wanted one of them to shoot the other just to end this horrible plot device. I’m hoping that in a future episode both women are decimated by an ill-thrown grenade by Ben or Richard. Killing two birds with one stone jokes would never feel more apt.
So, let’s talk about that boat ride over to Hydra Island, because — for me — that was one of the greatest scenes LOST has produced. For all the flack season six has caught since its less-than-humble Temple-centric beginnings, we’ve also seen some amazing moments. Jack Shepherd sitting next to Richard and telling him they were not going to die as a stick of dynamite inched closer to detonating was ridiculously cool. Last night that scene was topped by Jack leaping off the boat to swim back to the island. For pretty much the entirety of the show, Jack has been a character whose forced me to vacillate back and forth on whether I despise him or love him. For years I was uncomfortable with Jack being considered the show’s main character in lieu of Locke, but in a span of 60 seconds last night I became more than alright with it. I loved that whole conversation between him and Sawyer. The notion of Jack feeling like a part of him was dead when he was away from the island solidified in my mind the theory that Jack is “The Candidate” who will take Jacob’s place. “He walks among us, but is not one of us.” He has fixed the damaged (Sarah), brought the dead back to life (Sayid?), and stared down a burning fuse without fear. John Locke longed to be the man who found his destiny on the island, but he was weak and scared. I see neither of these qualities in Jack anymore. Even if he is prone to bouts of annoying behavior (smashing the mirror in Jacob’s lighthouse), so too was Jacob! Jacob flew off he handle when he pummeled the shit out of Richard Alpert, but in the end he proved himself to be a force of good by choosing Richard to help him in his quest to find that one person that could not be corrupted by the Man In Black. Jacob too walked among men while not being one of them. I am confident now that Jack, our renewed man of faith, is going to be the person who proves the Man In Black wrong.
At the end of the episode we see another mortar attack on MIB’s red-shirt army. He stands impervious as Jack warns those none-the-wiser “soldiers” that a shell is incoming. Who knows how many died in the blast? I’m hoping it’s most everyone, including Cindy and the children, who have no purpose on the show anymore. I can’t wait to see the follow-up interactions between MIB and Jack now that the two of them could very well be alone on that island. I anticipate some amazing dialog between these two opposing forces in “The Candidate.”
We have two weeks until the next episode of LOST. The series finale is almost exactly one month away. Let’s enjoy the remainder of the ride. But first, a week off to catch our breath!
