Lost: Season 6, Episode 13 Review: The Last Recruit

The Last Recruit

Original Airdate: April 20, 2010

Writer: Paul Zbyszewski and Graham Roland

Director: Stephen Semel

In the start of the final third of the final season, this episode is all about setting that massive stage for the conflict that will determine not only the fates of our heroes and their enemies, but possibly of the world and existence in general.  So everything is in a pressure cooker, and while the end game is in effect, the plot is in such a hurry that some things don’t get the time they need and would’ve gotten earlier, which lets down the usually strong elements of the show.

Things are colliding more than ever in the flash sideways.  Desmond’s working his magic on helping Claire, and acting like a creepy stalker in the process.  He brings her to Ilana, a lawyer and not blown up, who in turn hosts the meeting between Claire and Jack, revealing that they are brother and sister.  It’s still awkward in this timeline.  Also awkward, the sudden chumminess between Jack and his formerly estranged son (yeah, they’re never going to tell us who the mother is, she’s worse than Ted Mosby’s future wife).

Elsewhere, in the time it took LA X Sayid to drive home the LAPD were notified of the shooting, identified the victims, found surveillance video of Sayid leaving the crime, identified Sayid, found out who he was staying with and arrived at the house.  That efficiency of time makes Jack Bauer look like a slacker.  Usually on Lost they’ve done a great job keeping the timelines consistent, not easy considering the past couple seasons, but here the chronology is all over the place.  It’s not just Sawyer and Miles using 24’s wormholes: Sun, who was shot the day after 815 landed, made it to the hospital at the same time as Locke, who was hit by Desmond a week afterward.

Regardless of the egregious time discrepancy, LA X Sun can safely be deemed to have timeline bleed over as well, recoiling in horror as she is being wheeled into the hospital along Locke, who may be experiencing something similar as well.  Even if the rest haven’t, the Losties are starting to recognize each other: Jack & Claire finding each other, Kate pointing out she ran into Sawyer at LAX and of course Jack discovering the emergency patient he’s operating on is Locke.  The irony is that such coincidences were often never discussed or noticed in the 815 timeline, but obviously these connections are far more important in this timeline than Easter eggs to attentive fans.

While still not in one place, the LA X Losties are being gathered into 3 places: the hospital, Ilana’s law office and the police station.  We have Desmond, who didn’t get busted for the hit and run, trying to assemble them, presumably in one place.  It’s a lot like the island storyline the past three seasons, as various chunks of the survivors go back and forth in various factions.  It doesn’t explain why Hurley isn’t around any of those places, but perhaps that motive will explain itself soon.

Back to the island and the 815 timeline, Jack has his sit down with Johnny, and sees the man he now believes get torn apart.  Johnny’s summation of Locke’s life, for a Locke fan, really hurt because it’s further insult to injury for a character who has been taken down as far as a character can go.  However, that Johnny would be so hateful seems like telegraphing an eventual redemption for Locke.  It could be through Jack, who is a clear believer now, but it doesn’t satisfy Locke’s character as well.

Johnny also says that he, as Christian, lead Jack to the caves back in the first season.  Despite his shoddy record with telling the truth, a lot of people believe it.  This reveal adds a new layer of debate for the post-mortem appearances of Christian, especially when he shows up in the same scene as Johnny.  It also recalls the final mobisode, where Christian encounters Vincent running around after the crash and tells the dog to find Jack.  With Johnny confirming that he can use the forms of the dead, much like The First on Buffy, he may have taken Vincent’s form assuming he stayed in 1977 and died in the interim 27 years.  Vincent in this scene could’ve been Smokey and in other moments where it appeared that something wasn’t right with that dog.  Regardless, it’s unlikely we’re going to get a definitive answer of which Christian is a ghost, Smokey or “other”, and I’m OK with that being a topic of never ending debate.

The morning after the Losties reunion, Zoe arrives at camp demanding the return of what Johnny took, i.e. Desmond.  Johnny doesn’t budge, not even when the heavy artillery comes knocking (that must’ve been really hard not to flinch, but if anyone could do it, it would be Terry O’Quinn).  As the conflict between Johnny and Widmore has come to a head, Sawyer gets the rest of the 815ers (sorry, Sayid, Cindy, Zack, Emma and briefly Claire) with Frank to take the Elizabeth to Hydra and leave the island via Widmore’s sub.  There’s some turbulence as Claire figures out they’re leaving without her, but Kate proves to be useful asking for forgiveness is what happened and the hope of them getting back together.

A geek sidebar: how is that Sawyer, who has referenced Star Wars on several occasions, wouldn’t get the Anakin reference?  He missed Episode III, which was released eight months after the crash, but all the hype behind the first two prequel movies would’ve gotten to him.  It’s not like Anakin turning evil was supposed to be some big twist.

Much like Kate trying to get Claire back to her son motivates her reaching out to Claire after Sawyer said she wasn’t invited, Jack feels his purpose in returning has not yet been fulfilled and literally jumps ship to return to the main island, despite heading right back to Johnny’s side.  His status as a man of faith has been growing a lot, and now it’s completed.  Listening to his dialogue, it sounds an awful lot like what Locke in the first season would say in this situation.  That said, there’s been discussion about being “with” Johnny and if that makes him “The Last Recruit”.  This episode title is pretty ambiguous regarding who it refers to and for what, but Jack is a likely candidate (little c), but is it really that easy to go on Johnny’s side just by talking to him?

After almost two seasons apart, Jin & Sun finally reunite and unfortunately, the moment falls short.  Besides the fact that a lot of people, including me, thought the fence was still on and their reunion would be undercut by them getting zapped (they do say to turn off the fence followed by the power down sound, but no one was paying attention to that), this is another symptom of the show’s pacing, and that’s a shame.  The reunion of these two should’ve been a bigger, but the story has to keep moving so it’s cut shorter than this moment deserved, not to mention Frank’s cheese ball line.

Despite being one the best episodes of Lost and TV in general, “The Constant” has sparked a conversation that has annoyed me to no end, a grievance I’m well aware is stupid and overblown like many nerd hang ups.  The overuse of the term constant (Kate is Sawyer’s constant, Sawyer is Juliet’s constant, etc.) when there’s no need for it to come up.  The constant idea makes sense in “The Constant” because Desmond finding his ends his suffering and saves his life.  Nobody except for Charlotte and Minkowski has been a situation like that.  However, using the constant argument for Sun & Jin, explaining how Sun’s aphasia going away when they reunite, is one of the few times where the constant element makes sense in the conversation.

The set end date and episodes has been largely good for the quality of the show, but I have to wonder if this season would’ve been better off with a couple more episodes so these problems with continuity and emotional beats wouldn’t be an issue.  Things are heading to its climax much quicker than the show usually travels.  Despite the story rushing at points, this episode does a good job setting up the big conflict.  I just wish it wasn’t at such a rush to get there because this is it.

Overall Score: 8/10