Things are starting to come together and move forward for our Losties—both on the island and in the flash-sideways. This week, Jack is at the center of most of the action, but there’s a bigger picture starting to form.
Chris
Wow last night’s episode went by fast. Maybe too fast. Tons of little things happened. To me, the most interesting detail of this episode was one of the smallest. When Sun was being wheeled into the hospital alongside Locke, she looks over and starts freaking out. I don’t know if that moment means that’s when she got her Island memories back, but it definitely stood out to me as a significant moment. Timelines merging and whatnot! Have we decided that Desmond knows everything and is just helping things along by getting people where they “need” to be?
Now I’m going to jump around as wildly as last night’s episode and bring up a few further moments that were awesome/unexpected. When Claire found everyone leaving on Sawyer’s boat I thought for sure she was going to go postal on Kate. I was worried it’d be the end for her. But surprisingly, she didn’t (maybe as referenced by Hurley’s “you can always be brought back from the dark side dude” comment?). Or when you see her watch everyone leaving including her brother, I thought ‘hey, maybe she’s gonna shoot Jack too—after all he did help raise Aaron with Kate.’
And it looks like the con man got conned by Widmore, huh? “Deal’s off!” Oops. I did love the reunion of Jin and Sun though, with the exception of Frank’s painfully obvious “now she’s talking” line. Did we really need that? Even more than before I’m wondering why we needed the Temple episodes at all since Widmore just exploded the lot of Others that remained. And I’m left wondering who the hell that mysterious kid in the forest that we saw last episode is. When will we know? Great episode, went by too quickly. I’ll have to watch the last three over again in the near future just to let everything soak in.
Scott
Ah, the “chess pieces moving into place” LOST episode, how I will sorta miss thee. Set-up episodes like “The Last Recruit” have a hilarious amount of transportation: hiking, sailing, ambulances, elevators. And while we all love narrative pay-off, you’ve got to have slower episodes like these to ratchet up the tension so the stakes feel that much higher.
Set-up episodes don’t always do that tension-ratcheting part so effectively; just look at last month’s fairly yawn-worthy “Recon”. “The Last Recruit”, though, felt like it was in hyper-drive, crashing characters into each other left and right. There were a lot of potentially fascinating allusions to past seasons last night—Jack jumping off the boat echoing Sawyer’s jump off the helicopter in season 3, “We’re done going back”—but the ones that impressed me most involved the episode’s A-story relationship between Jack and Locke. The series as a whole, especially in the first three seasons, has played up the “Man of Science, Man of Faith” angle with these two so much that it was overtly laid out as a title in Season 2. But as both have slowly switched sides in that fight, with Jack now the weary soul who reason failed and Locke (though we’re not sure who’s pulling his strings) preaching atheist nihilism despite being an immortal who can turn into a murderous cloud, it seems possible that Locke will be cured by science in the flash-sideways while Jack is paralyzed on the island. Yes, that last part is a bit of a leap on my part, but I think his perspective switched to Locke’s from season 1 in that final scene for a reason, and he was being dragged around very conspicuously. Guess we’ll get an answer in two weeks (WHAT WILL I DO NEXT TUESDAY NIGHT?!).
One last note, it looks like the rest of what was left of the Others probably got blown to bits tonight, which will conveniently release the show’s writers from explaining one of the strangest and most haunting mysteries of season 2: how and why did the Others bring Cindy and other Flight 815ers into their ranks? Great dodge, guys.
Armando
I love LOST—real hard. Its pacing and episode “types” remind me of another favorite of mine, The Wire. There were times when I was watching The Wire (like the first two or three episodes of season 2 after an awesome season 1) that I wondered why they would have these set-up episodes.
I always compare it to reading a book. In books, every detail and every character can be fleshed out as much as the writer wants them to be. You know, like the shenanigans Stephen King likes to pull (which I enjoy), but his last two books were over 700 and 1000 pages respectively. That kind of fleshing out is pretty hard to do in a TV series.
But both The Wire and LOST are two of the best TV shows at doing the best they can without losing the “common man” fan and the hardcore geeks like us. “The Last Recruit” was just that. A bridge. Quite a few of the episodes this season are going to make watching the series on DVD quite enjoyable.
I was glad to see Sun and Jin reunited and then kind of punched in the stomach by the subsequent, Widmore-commanded prisoner taking. It reminded me they first found the Others and I was half expecting a “white flash” and a time jump to seal the deal. Jack has come full circle. He is now a Man of Faith. His character has been to fun to watch progress. And I am also intrigued with what happened to Desmond at the hands of Sayid.
Two weeks until the ride continues? This may be a good time to go back and watch some of the earlier episodes.
Robert
With each passing episode, my early theories about the flash-sideways and their meaning seem to fade further and further away. I’m not fully convinced yet—and I don’t think I will be until the finale—but watching both of the timelines bring characters together in new and strange ways is pretty fun to watch. There wasn’t much to say about the characters that we don’t already know, but everyone’s on the move and the endgame is near.
Still, seeing Kate and Sawyer banter back and forth again whether in the police station or on the island hatching their plan, or seeing Locke and Jack break away for a little confab over who “believes” and who doesn’t, or even just seeing Sayid driven by his heart again (despite all outward appearances)—it all made me think of episodes past when things were much different and the stakes weren’t so high. You know, back when LOST was just a show about survivors of a plane crash, i.e the good times.
There are only a handful of episodes left and I still can’t imagine how it’s all going to end, but these last few episodes have really driven it home that we’re coming to a conclusion. Last week I went off on a Willy Wonka tangent about how the show’s going to be getting faster and crazier (and how less-invested viewers might be wise to tune out), and that appears to be the case after watching “The Last Recruit.” If this episode was any indication by how fast as it flew by, I’m only a little worried that we won’t have time to really soak it all in as the series comes to an end. But I’ll still watch and love it.
Our reactions were fairly positive, but ratings put this episode at one of the least-watched episodes in the series. Was it a big strive forward or just “ho-hum” for you?