This is one of those episodes of LOST that moves so quickly you barely have time to catch your breath, and when our normal LOST viewing party was canceled at the last minute we rushed already breathless to plunk down in front of our TV, just in time. I don’t think we ever really caught our breath until the credits rolled. Despite a pattern of only answering approximately zero to one question per episode, the pace of this week’s “The Last Recruit” was indeed staggering, and a lot went down even if we didn’t learn a whole lot about the over-arching plots.
In the Alternaverse…
In the alternaverse, as I’m calling it, our Survivors lives are beginning to converge in a serious way.
Sawyer sits with Kate in the Police Station, then arrests Sayid, with Miles, for the murder of Kimi and his henchmen. Ilana is Jack’s Dad’s lawyer, ready to read his will when Claire is united with her half-brother via Desmond. And, after Desmond hits Locke with his car, Jack is the doctor operating on him—despite his earlier offer being refused by Locke. Oh, and don’t forget that in that same hospital, Sun is with Jin recovering from her wounds. I like how the flash-sideways is no longer focused on a single character, it’s about everyone and you can really feel the pace picking up. While some sort-sighted reviewers have commented that the writers are really scrambling to finish up the series, I would prefer to believe that they’d always had it figured out (at least for a long while) and the quickening is an intentional thing. How incredible though is this plot that as the Nemesis seems to capture, or claim, Jack on the island, Jack is meanwhile operating on him in the flash-sideways. The power is shifted.
Back on the Island
Back on the island, things are tense in the Locke camp. Fake Locke divulges his plans to Jack and when Widmore’s people demand Desmond back—who only John and Sayid know about—Locke decides that they have to step into action, telling the rest of his camp that Widmore is forcing their hand. In reality, Locke and Sayid did steal Desmond from Widmore but no one else knows a thing about that.
Locke tells Sawyer and Kate to follow a map to a boat that’s been moored offshore, taking the boat, they’ll then meet Locke and the others to sail them over to Hydra Island and confront Widmore, et. al. Sawyer’s been waiting for this moment, evidently, and a plan is hatched. As soon as they can, Jack and the other candidates, are to sneak off and meet up with Sawyer and Kate where they will all go, without Locke (and Claire), to Widmore’s camp. Sawyer’s plan is to pretend to cash in on his previous deal with Widmore only to steal the submarine and get anyone who wants to go with him off the island. But things take several unexpected turns.
First, Claire follows Jack and his group as they sneak away. It’s a pretty intense scene with crazy-eyed Claire pointing a rifle straight at an unarmed Kate. The woman who took care of her baby when she abandoned it in the jungle, way back when. Does Claire forget about this? I guess so, but someone should remind her that she left her baby in the jungle to follow after the Smoke Monster, disguised as her father. What heck! Now she sees fit to blame everyone but herself for losing her baby, old Smokey has certain done a number over on her. But Claire seems to come around and when Kate informs Sawyer and that she won’t sail with them if Claire doesn’t come, they let her on board. Is she still crazy? Yes, indeed. Is she likely to snap at any moment? Probably.
The next snag in Sawyer’s plan is his serious need of an attitude adjustment. I mean, give me a break, is he still mad at Jack for getting Juliet killed? His ultimatum to Jack on the boat—you’re with us, 100%, or you’re off my boat—is ridiculous and his island character has become a far, far cry from the alternaverse Sawyer who I like quite a bit. Of course Jack chooses the island over Sawyer—it doesn’t feel right to him, he says, to try and leave again. Jack jumps off the boat, much to Kate’s surprise.
Of course Sawyer’s plan falls apart completely when they arrive at Widmore’s camp and are told to get on their knees. Widmore then sends some kind of artillery attack against Locke’s position which presumably kills the entire cast of supporting Lockeans but spares Jack and Sayid. Or should I call them Jacob, and the Smoke Monster.
Oh, and about Sayid. He is completely nuts. Also, I wonder what offer Desmond made him. As per Locke’s orders, Sayid set off into the jungle to find and kill Desmond, who Locke left in the bottom of a well. When Sayid gets there Desmond asked him what Locke had offered him, to which Sayid says that he was offered to be with the woman he loved, Nadia. Desmond asks, poignantly, what he will tell her when she asks what he did to be with her again. Is Sayid going to tell her that he had to kill a man? Several men? That he had to unleash pure evil on the world? Presumably Nadia does not support Sayid in these kinds of endeavors, so I imagine she won’t approve. Was that enough to change Sayid’s mind? Or did Desmond provide a counter-offer for Sayid? Or, is Desmond dead? I don’t think the latter is the case, but I do wonder about the former.
Those Crazy Candidates
I get the impression that they’re trying to keep us guessing at who could possibly replace Jacob and his Nemesis. I get the sense that they’re tied together in a way that they both have to be replaced at the same time. Jacob is gone, so we need to get rid of the Nemesis, somehow, in order to replace him. Or maybe I’m altogether wrong? We do know that they’re candidates, candidates to replace Jacob, but we don’t know about the Nemesis. Maybe he stays the same and is trapped there forever? What I do know, is that they’ve given us several illusions as to who it could be, out of the pool of candidates.
I thought originally, it might be Desmond but now it’s more likely Jack. He seems tied, committed to the island, in the same way that he’s committed to his son in the alternaverse. Next week’s episode is called “The Candidate” so perhaps that’s some kind of indication, but perhaps there’s another plot about to unfold.
It seems to me that Widmore knows at least a little something about these candidates. After all, he seemed to wait until after they arrived at this camp before he sent the heavy guns after Locke. Mind you, Jack was still there, but maybe he didn’t know about that. Not sure. In any case, it looks like he was waiting for the candidates before he sent his attack against Locke. Is Widmore going to reveal to these Survivors what the island is all about, and what it means to be a candidate? What does he know? Obviously, we can only hope for such answers, but we’ll see.
The Smoke Monster as Christian Sheppard
The Smoke Monster—aka Fake Locke—finally admitted in this episode what I think we knew, but never knew for sure, and that was that he had previously appeared as Christian Sheppard, Jack and Claire’s Dad. It’s important that we remember this because it was Christian Sheppard who set in motion so many of the events on the island.
Christian was the one who first led Claire away from Aaron. If you remember, for whatever reason Claire followed Christian into the jungle, leaving Aaron behind and setting in motion the plot that led to her eventually being left on the island and subsequently going insane. We don’t exactly know what happened in the intervening time but we do know that Claire has been spending time with her father—so she thinks—and with Jacob’s Nemesis, the Smoke Monster, as well. What was the reason for leading Claire away from Aaron, we don’t know. What we can be sure of is that there was a reason why the Smoke Monster wanted Claire to be left behind, and wanted to corrupt her. She hasn’t really proven herself to be that valuable of an ally yet, I don’t think, so we can imagine that whatever the Nemesis’ reason for corrupting her was, it’s yet to really be revealed.
Christian was also responsible for having the island moved in the first place. When Locke demanded an audience with Jacob he was brought by Ben to Jacob’s Cabin in the jungle where, instead of meeting Jacob, we met Christian and Claire. Christian told Locke that he could “speak on Jacob’s behalf” and then told him about moving the island—a task which he said must be done to protect the island from the people on the freighter. The people on the freighter, of course, were Widmore’s people. Can we presume then that the Smoke Monster wanted to prevent Widmore from accessing the island? I wonder.
If you remember though, Locke doesn’t move the island the first time, Ben does. The result of Ben’s moving the island is the time flashes which occur throughout Season 5 and eventually kill Charlotte and cause havoc for all the Survivors left on the island. It is Locke who has to move the island a second time, by the same means as Ben, in order to get the flashes to stop. It’s Christian Sheppard who meets Locke down in the strange wheel chamber where the island is moved from and tells him to collect all the Survivors who left the island and bring the back. It’s also Christian who tells him about Eloise Hawking, and that they should go see her to find out how to return to the island. Interesting that I never made that connection before, but what is her relation/connection to the Smoke Monster? Is she Dharma, because she certainly uses their equipment? And if she’s somehow buddy buddy with the Smoke Monster, what is her role in the flash-sideways?
The Man-in-Black’s Master Plan
It seems that we can trace back, at least for some time, the Man-in-Black’s master plan. He’s wanted to get off the island. In the past, I’ve wondered out loud of that’s what the whole series has been about, but I don’t have any proof of that just yet. Still, a line can be traced pretty far back to indicate that that’s been his goal, at least. He’s wanted to keep the Survivors on the island, first of all, because as we now know that they have to all leave together in order for him to leave as well. I can think of at least two times he’s thwarted attempts to leave the island, but I’m sure if we trace it back there are even more. The first was when the Man-in-Black appeared as the deceased Mikhail, the eye-patched Other, and destroyed the underwater station that Charlie was using to communicate with Penny—killing Charlie, too. Although it hasn’t been confirmed that Jacob’s Nemesis was in fact taking the appearance of Mikhail, I’m saying it’s a sure bet. Remember, the man had been killed several times previously.
Then there was moving the island, which the Man-in-Black led us to believe was for the protection of the island, but which was really intended to prevent anyone from leaving on that freighter, I think, and prevent Widmore from finding the island. In other words, it was meant to keep people on the island and cut off any chance they had of leaving. Of course when it didn’t work, John Locke had to leave the island—under the advice of the Man-in-Black—to bring those that left back. Again, this too was part of his plan because he seemed to know that John would die, in fact he told him that he would have to be a sacrifice, and intended to use his body when they brought him back to the island. Thinking about the Eloise Hawking connection here is interesting. Since the Smoke Monster/Man-in-Black seems to know so much about her, I wonder what she knows about him. Did she know that sending Locke back in a coffin would give the Monster a body? Yikes, there’s a thought!
Conclusion
In the end, I think whatever is afoot with the flash-sideways universe and the island reality, with the blending together of the two, and all this plot convergence there is something very big about to be let loose. Watching LOST of Tuesday I felt decidedly feeble in my attempts to figure things out because I think there is an over-arching plot going on that none of us are even scratching the surface of. It’s funny, because we still try. I love that about this show, that we’ll be putting together these tiny little pieces right up until the end. And when it’s all over, well I hope we find something else to do with our time… I think we’ll get a dog.
But couldn’t smoke in Christian have also been speaking for Jacob – because they are in fact the same person. Just the two different sides of the individual from whom Jacob ‘stole his body.’ Which would mean there is only 1 candidate needed.
Is that something you came up with, or Caleb? Be honest, it’s pretty clever.