“If you’re gonna shoot me in cold blood, brother… I think I have a right to know what you’re getting in exchange for it.” – Desmond to Sayid
To open, Jack (Mathew Fox) and Not Locke/Smoke Monster (Terry O’Quinn) have an extraordinary conversation by a campfire. For fans of Lost, seeing Jack and Locke together brings back memories of earlier seasons, a “simpler” time when, apart from the vast mysteries concerning the island, you could pretty much pose Jack as the leader of the skeptics, and John Locke very much the Believer-in-Chief.
Now things are different, scrambled, altered, but at the same time we’re learning more about the nature of the island and its most powerful forces than we ever have before. “John Locke wasn’t a believer, Jack. He was a sucker,” Not Locke/Smoke Monster says. Of course, it’s hard to tell what to believe from Smokey, but this opinion seems to be real. Not Locke also reveals that he took the form of Jack’s dead father early on. That tidbit alone helps to “cover” a wide swath of ground in terms of explaining people who “shouldn’t” be there (but is there any connection with Hugo’s dead people sightings?).
Most importantly, Not Locke gets back to the theme of needing the original Lost group to all be together in order for them to leave the island as one. This explains too, we’re told, why Not Locke had to encompass the body of the deceased John Locke himself. Not Locke explains that now that Jacob is dead, his “hold” on the Losties is broken, and they are free to leave… as long as they are all together. Why that is yet another question, of course!
Connections and revelations are a theme in this episode, and we’ve been trending that way over the course of this final season. Some have criticized Lost for being “too little / too late” in terms of wrapping up plot lines and filling vast holes. I completely disagree. While there were certainly better seasons than others and times when the show felt a little meandering, it nearly always worked as pure fun and sci fi/adventure even at its worst. And now, I think those that have stuck along for the ride are being rewarded with the best season of all, perhaps save the first when everything was still new and shocking and totally exotic.
But back to connections: the “convergence” of our heroes in the alternate reality is accelerating, as are memories of sorts from another world, or an alternate reality compared to their own timeline, if you want to get technical about it. Sun (Yunjin Kim) enters the hospital after being shot at the same moment as The Real John Locke (is that Twitter handle taken, by the way?) arrives after being run over by Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick). And meanwhile, alt-reality cops Sawyer and Miles (Ken Leung) are both tending to captured fugitive Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and scoping out Sayid leaving the scene of the kidnapping/shootings on a security camera. “Check out this jabroni,” Miles said. Miles in a scene goes, well… you know, a long way. Later on we see a reunited Jack and Claire, and Jack, whom we’ve long known is a spinal surgeon, is brought into work on The Real John Locke. Jack’s immediate if fuzzy recognition perhaps shows us that the connections between the two works are getting stronger, or that we’re closer to a “breakthrough” of some sort between the two realities.
Back in main storyline reality, Claire (Emilie de Ravin) and Jack have a reunion as brother and sister, but it’s far weirder than what we might expect. Claire states that now that Jack has spoken to Not Locke, there’s no more choice (free will?), that they are all going to leave the island together. This hearkens back to Sayid’s mission when sent out from the Temple. Don’t talk to him, they warned him. Just kill him.
Sawyer seems to be the one who’s most wise to the fact that a) Not Locke may be pretty much on the Not Nice/Very Evil side b) Sayid has gone to the dark side for real and c) Claire is really Crazy Claire after all. After some classic Lost whispering and maneuvering, Sawyer arranges for the gang (minus Sayid and Claire) to steal a boat to head over to Hydra Island. But, just as on Gilligan’s Island, something gets in the way of best laid plans. While Kate convinces Claire to come with them once the latter got the drop on them with a rifle, Jack literally jumped ship midway through, claiming that something just “didn’t feel right” about leaving the island. Fascinating that Jack is evolving into a True Believer in his own kind of way.
If we’re to believe the promos for next week’s show, Claire, crazy or not, is right: Not Locke is looking most Not Happy indeed.
More thoughts on “The Last Recruit”:
- “John Locke wasn’t a believer, Jack. He was a sucker.” – Not Locke/Smoke Monster
- Hugo (Hugo Reyes) dropping an Anakin reference when Sawyer (Josh Holloway) mentions Sayid (Naveen Andrews) “going over to the dark side” is amazing.
- “If you’re gonna shoot me in cold blood, brother… I think I have a right to know what you’re getting in exchange for it.” – Desmond to Sayid
- Sawyer (Josh Holloway) refers to Lapidus (Jeff Fahey) as “that pilot who looks like he walked off the set of a Burt Reynolds movie.” That, my friends, is genius.
- “I just shot an unarmed man. I needed a moment.” – Sayid in response to Not Locke’s “What took you so long?”
From Around the Web: Lost, “The Last Recruit”
- TV with Alan Sepinwall: We got payoffs to a number of arcs and/or mysteries – Smokey admits he was posing as Christian Shepard all these years, Jin and Sun are finally reunited, Kate makes peace with Claire – and some high-caliber acting from just about everyone in the ensemble. (And if I’ve done my math correctly, the only cast member to not appear was Nestor Carbonell, since Richard is off with Ben and Miles in the real world and has yet to appear in the sideways universe.)
- TV Squad: Beta-Sayid and beta-Kate are now in the custody of the authorities, so things aren’t coming up roses for everyone. Locke, on the other hand, may be about to experience that miracle so many of you speculated about, now that Jack is performing surgery on him after the car accident. Unclear still is Desmond’s motivation for hitting him — unless it was to get him to that hospital to meet Jack.
- Gather: After watching tonight’s episode of LOST, I’m not exactly sure who is “The Last Recruit.” The obvious choice would be Jack, who chose to return to the Island, but since this episode centered on a bunch of different characters, I don’t know if it’s that simple.
Some stats and info about Lost, “The Last Recruit”
TV SHOW – Lost
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 6, Episode 13
AIRED ON – April 20th, 2010
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – ABC/Hulu
GENRE – Drama, Adventure Shows, Science Fiction
CREATED BY – J.J. Abrams, Jeffrey Lieber, Damon Lindelof
CAST – Jorge Garcia, Josh Holloway, Junjin Kim, Evangeline Lilly, Terry O’Quinn, Naveen Andrews, Matthew Fox, Daniel Dae Kim, Emilie de Ravin, Michael Emerson, Henry Ian Cusick, Dominic Monaghan, Harold Perineau, Ken Leung, Elizabth Mitchell, Nestor Carbonell, Jeff Fahey
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.