The Last Recruit

Well, the boards my not have liked this one so much, but it sure had me on the edge of my seat. “The Last Recruit” did not focus on one specific character, but rather tied together the loose ends of several of the Sideways stories and reunited the original 815ers for the first time since, well, I can’t even remember that far back. “The Beginning of the End” maybe? We’re way closer to the end of the end now, and the show isn’t wasting a moment. Let’s dive right in.

Confession: I wrote half of this in the couple days after the episode and the other half right before “The Candidate”. Instead of spending the two-week break rewatching the entire season up to this point like I should have, I worked, read a lot, and forgot most of my post-episode impressions that I wrongly assumed I would have no problem retaining. Simply put, I’ve fallen out of the Lost groove. I’m completely out of the rhythm that comes from watching and writing about the show every week. So, if some of this seems disjointed, that’s the reason why. Here’s to overestimating your memory of an hour of TV you’ve only watched once!

“It’s good to have everyone back together again.” That’s how the MIB (why am I getting a stronger and stronger urge to call him Locke by the day?) greeted his camp as a new day began on the Island. As I’ve been saying, the last few episodes have dripped with Jack’s old mantra “Live together, die alone”. But that saying is no longer just a catchy (if not a little cheesy) slogan; it has turned into the dominant theme of the show and the solution to the final conflict of the series.

But first things first: that conversation between Jack and (ah, screw it) Locke. Wow! Just, wow! It sure has been a long time coming. Jack snapped himself out of his state of mild shock, summoned whatever courage he had and sat down with the Monster for a tense freaking conversation that had me biting fingernails, forgoing blinking, and yelping expletives on multiple occasions. I believe “Holy fuck!” was the phrase I shouted when that one was all finished.

As always, the MIB poked and prodded his adversary in his most sensitive places (wait, that doesn’t sound right). “Does it bother you?” he asks Jack, referring to his appearance, attempting to put him back on his heals. Jack does a decent job of standing his ground. He throws it back at him, asking “Why John Locke?” He says it with a hint of admiration for his fallen former-rival. “Because he was stupid enough to believe that he'd been brought here for a reason. Because he pursued that belief until it got him killed,” answered. Maybe it was warning, maybe it was an insult to Jack and his newfound adherence to that same belief, but the words had their desired effect. Now much more rattled, Jack asks him the one question he really wants to ask – one the audience has been asking for years now – “The third day we were here I saw... I chased my father through the jungle... my, my dead father. Was that you?” The answer was yes.

So does the MIB’s admission that he was the Christian Jack saw in “White Rabbit” mean the Christian Shephard case is officially closed? I say no. I take the MIB at his word when he says that he was the one to lead Jack to the caves. But remember, Christian’s body was missing from the casket. Could the MIB have just moved the body in order to mess with Jack’s head? Sure. That’s probably the most likely explanation. But coupling the missing body with other facts that don’t quite jive with the MIB’s story – the differences in Christian’s clothes, his appearances off the Island and sightings of him at the same time the MIB was in Locke form – and I think there’s more to be told here.

Also, it was pretty freaking obvious that the MIB’s appearance did bother Jack. Of course it would! Talk about history; these two have it by the bucket load. First bitter enemies, Locke did everything he could to try to help Jack realize the very thing Jack refused to see, that he was special and the Island was special. Then Locke died and Jack has assumed his role to get everyone back on the Island. Now Jack has some creature that looks just like Locke saying the exact things to him that he used to say to Locke. Jack was reeling. But he didn’t break down. He stayed strong. And that gives me hope for him. I’m more confident in Jack than I have been at any point since “Through the Looking Glass”. This is a guy I’d follow. It’s nice to have him all the way back.

After Jack’s reunion chat with Locke, we get Jack’s reunion chat with Claire, their first since learning that they're actually half-siblings. I don’t think “awkward” is a strong enough word to describe this one. Jack began to apologize for leaving her behind, but Claire cut him off. She was much more happy to see him than he was her, and much more emotionally invested as well. The whole scene made me very uneasy. More on Claire later.

Jack and Claire make their way back to the group, and after an impressive display of precision airstrikes by Team Widmore, Locke tells the group that it’s time to get over to the Ajira plane so they can fly off the Island (to some still unknown location). He sends Sawyer on a separate mission to retrieve Des’ old sailboat and meet the rest of the group on the other side of the Island. Sawyer obliges and recruits Kate to tag along with him. But, always having a plan, he slips Jack a map of the Island, tells him to round up Hurley, Lapidus and Sun and meet him at a rendezvous point a safe distance away from Locke.

Before they can set off, Hurley gets wind that Sayid and Claire aren’t being invited on the 815 Reunion Tour and gets upset. Sawyer tells him Sayid’s not invited because he’s gone over to the dark side. “Yeah, but you can always bring people back from the dark side,” Hurley responds. Cut to Sayid, who’s on a mission from Locke to kill Desmond. Right before he’s about to pull the trigger, Des interrupts. He’s going to try to smooth talk his way out. And while we don’t know for sure if Sayid pulls the trigger, I (and almost everyone else) don’t think he does. Desmond asks Sayid what reward awaits him in exchange for the murder he’s about to commit. Sayid tells him it’s the woman he loved. Des replies, “This woman--when she asks you what you did to be with her again…what will you tell her?” This stops Sayid in his tracks and we don’t see Desmond for the rest of the episode. But I think Desmond’s words effected Sayid just enough to spare our brotha’s life.

Get ready, because as nerdy as this blog usually is, it’s about to get even nerdy-er. Hurley’s line about Anakin wasn’t just a typical Hurley joke. It hinted at a question we should be pondering as we move toward the end of the series – is it possible to be beyond the point of redemption? Let’s take a look at Star Wars for a second, since Hurley was kind enough to point us in that direction. Something that happened when George Lucas tacked the second trilogy onto the beginning of the Star Wars saga was that the series changed from the story of Luke to the story of Anakin. Instead of a classic hero’s journey, it became a tale of redemption. Luke told his dying father that he could feel there was still some good in him, and if even the smallest glimmer of good remains that means there’s hope. And if there’s hope, that means you can’t give up on the possibility of changing for the better.

Apply this to two of our characters who have gone to the dark side: Sayid and Claire. Both have embraced their anger – Sayid over losing Nadia, Claire over losing Aaron – and have answered the call of Lost’s version of Emperor Palpatine, the Man in Black. Does any good remain in either? With Claire, I’d say no. She’s been in too deep for too long. She’s been motivated entirely be revenge for three years now with nary a hint of any other emotion. I can’t trust her one bit after the way she attacked Kate. Darth Vader might have been evil, but he wasn’t insane. Claire has completely lost her mind. I think she’s gone for good.

On the other hand, I think Sayid has a chance. Even after a couple long years playing Boba Fett for Ben, he still had the desire to do good, to atone for his sins, so he joined Habitat for Humanity. He may have accepted that he’s a killer, but that doesn’t mean that he’s incapable of good. Over the past few weeks, it seemed like all hope was lost for Sayid, but I think Desmond’s words for him this week rang true somewhere deep in the recesses of his soul. I am absolutely convinced that he didn’t kill Desmond. He refused the orders of his evil master, just like a certain other darkly dressed murderer did on the Death Star. And you thought that black tank top was just for looks?

Back to the main group. They all meet at the boat according to plan. They set sail for Hydra Island with Capt’n James manning the wheel accompanied by First Mate Kate. Jack’s sitting alone at the bow of the boat, just gazing off into ocean. Sawyer hands the wheel to Kate and walks over to have a word with the Doc. Like Jack and Locke, it’s incredible to think about how much history these two characters have with each other. Both have done plenty at the expense of the other, but at the same time, there’s a bond there that can never be broken.

Two of my favorite scenes of the series involve these two. The first was in “Exodus Part 1”, where Sawyer tells Jack the story about his time at the bar with Christian in Australia, how Christian said how proud he was of his son, how much he loved him, and how badly he wanted to call and tell him that. “Something tells me he never got around to making that call,” Sawyer said. It was something Jack needed to hear, and even though they were nothing but enemies at that point, Sawyer – soon to be departing on the raft – mustered whatever good there was inside him to let Jack know before it was too late. It was the first time we saw this side of Sawyer and it was touching to see a bridge begin to build between these two rivals. The other scene was in “Three Minutes”. After Ana Lucia was killed, Sawyer tells Jack – part guilty, part genuinely sad – that the he and Ana Lucia had sex in the woods, that he didn’t even know her last name. Jack asks him why he would tell him that. Sawyer responds, “Because you’re about the closest thing I’ve got to a friend, Doc. Because she’s gone.” Gets me every time.

So yeah, these two go way back. And that’s what makes some of these conversations this late in the game so compelling – they have a certain gravitas that a conversation from earlier in the series couldn’t possibly have. So, back on the boat, Jack tells Sawyer it doesn’t feel right to be leaving the Island. He tells him he remembers how he felt last time he left, like part of him was missing. He tells Sawyer that the Island isn’t done with them yet (we’ve heard that before!). Sawyer doesn’t want to hear any of this. He’s come too close to leaving the Island too many times and has lost more each time he’s failed to leave. He tells Jack to get the hell off his boat. And Jack does. He tells Sawyer, “I’m sorry that I got Juliet killed,” and he jumps.

I love the choice Jack made to jump from the boat. The way he talked about how horrible he felt when he left the Island and how he was compelled to stay, it was everything Locke felt back in Season 1. The Island made Locke whole again then and it’s doing the same to Jack now. Jack might as well have said to Sawyer what John told him so many years ago – “I’m on my own journey now”.

Over the past few weeks I’ve come to realize how badly I want to believe in all the things that hooked me on this show in the first place. I want Jack to be the hero. I want Jacob to be good. I want the Island to be special. I want all the characters to feel like Locke did and Jack does. We spent so much time hearing about destiny and purpose and what people were “meant to do”, I want it all to be true. I want John to be right. I’m setting myself up for disappointment, I know. But this show hasn’t let me down yet, and I don’t’ think it will start now. I have faith.

I’m only going to touch on the Sideways world briefly, not because I didn’t thoroughly enjoy it, because I did. Rather, it’s because there wasn’t really one cohesive story to analyze. It was basically more of the “Live together, die alone” we saw on the Island. All the characters are beginning to converge – Kate, Sawyer, Miles and Sayid in one place, Claire, Desmond and Ilana in another, Jin, Sun, Ben, Locke and now Jack in another. What’s actually happening here, I have no idea. My best guess is that they’re about to have one big collective flash over to the Island world.

Two things deserve specific mentions. First, Sun’s fearful cries when she saw Locke being wheeled into the hospital at the same time she was. A couple of the plausible possibilities here: either we’re getting some consciousness bleeding from the Island world to the Sideways world and she’s mistaken Locke for the Monster, or somehow she can see through his exterior appearance and sees that this badly battered sack of meat isn’t really John Locke, it’s actually the Monster. I’m betting heavily on the latter.

The other important Sideways scene leaves us with a mirror image of the Island’s closing scene. Locke face down on the operating table, Jack all scrubbed up, one holds the other’s life in his hands. It’s a scene we’ve been waiting for ever since Jack’s “Nothing is irreversible” line in “LA X”. Is this how Jack and Locke will have their “consciousness-altering” moment? What effect will this have on the Island timeline? Will the two worlds merge? Will the shred of good inside the MIB, the part of John Locke that’s been living inside him all this time, finally surface? Are we about to see his Darth Vader-turns-back-into-Anakin-Skywalker moment? Could these questions be any more transparently leading?

All that and I didn’t even get to Sun and Jin’s heartwarming, if short, reunion (it got a little dusty), what Richard, Ben and Miles might be up to (I have no clue, but would have liked to noodle on it a bit), or the MIB rescuing Jack (I don’t think Jack’s falling into that trap one bit). Too much action, but in a good way. Tonight’s episode, “The Candidate” (gah!) promises some heavy-duty awesomeness, so be ready for the usual monster recap next Tuesday. Consider yourself warned.