TV Verdict

This week on Lost: Father and Son, Reunited, and Come Sail Away. Spoilers follow.

Although we may see more character-centric episodes before Lost finishes its sixth and final season, tonight’s episode, “The Last Recruit,” is a good indication that everyone who ever wished the show would hurry the heck up and get to the action is going to be happy from here on out. Last week, we got both the touching story of Sideways Hugo connecting with Libby, as well as a shocking conclusion that saw Desmond run over wheelchair-bound Locke in a high school parking lot. We also saw island Hurley take the reins and lead Jack, Sun, and Frank into the heart of the Smoke Monster’s camp. This week, we see the aftermath of those things, plus of a lot of other events set in motion earlier this season.

We begin in Camp Locke. The Man in Black is happy to see Hurley’s crew, especially Jack. Locke takes Jack into the woods for a little chat. He tells the skeptical doc that he has only ever tried to help him. Jack asks about the Smoke Monster’s ability to take other people’s forms. Can he only take the form of someone who has died? Yes. When Jack saw his dad back in season one, was that him too? Yep. One more thing to check off the list. Jack leaves their pow-wow confused and uncertain about what he should do next. Claire, who followed the pair out into the jungle tries to make it easier for her big bro. Whether he wanted to be or not, she tells Jack, he’s on Locke’s side now. Like so many people this season, he made the mistake of letting the Smoke Monster talk to him. Who knew talking could be so dangerous? Someone should really put up a sign.

Back in camp proper, the group is paired off Survivor-style, with people making deals and alliances lest they be voted off the island—permanently. Sawyer is trying to bring Hurley and the gang up to speed on his plan to ditch Locke and steal Widmore’s sub. Hurley asks about taking Claire and Sayid with them. Sawyer tells him that ain’t gonna happen, which Hurley responds to by dropping a soul-saving reference from Star Wars. Even if someone has gone over to the dark side, he tells Sawyer, they can still be saved. Could those words foreshadow a light at the end of Sayid’s zombified tunnel? It all depends on whether or not you think he killed… But I’m getting ahead of myself.

In Sideways-world, James Ford P.I. is back at the station, grilling cute fugitive Kate Austin, whom he arrested after she plowed into the back of his car (Of all the guys in all the cars in all the major metropolitan areas, she had to run into mine…). They go back and forth about things like murder charges and whether or not James was supposed to be in Australia, then Miles pops in to tell his partner that they have a new case. A bunch of thugs got popped in a restaurant and they have security footage of the Iraqi guy that did it.

Across town, Claire goes to meet with an adoption agency. While signing in at the security desk, she is approached by Desmond, who sees where she’s going and says he wants her to meet with his attorney first, who just happens to be in the same building. Because, you never know what kind of tricks an adoption agency is going to pull. They’re like the handsome Scottish strangers of the do-goodosphere. She agrees and accompanies him to the law offices of one Ilana Lidansky—very much not blown up in this world, and very interested to see Claire. Turns out she’s been looking for her. Why? Because she’s about to meet with a Jack Shepard to read his—I mean, their—father’s will. Jack arrives with his son, David, who is acting much warmer toward dear ol’ dad then when last we saw him. When they get to the attorney’s office, Ilana drops the Claire bomb on him. Before Jack can properly react to finding out he has a pregnant sister, he gets a call from the hospital. There’s been an accident and they need him to operate on a paraplegic who was just hit by a car. Of course they do.

There’s been a whole lot of accidents lately, of course, and John Locke isn’t the only one arriving at the hospital by ambulance. Sun—who was shot in the same restaurant where Sayid killed Keamey and crew—winds up at the emergency entrance at the same time as Locke. When she sees him, she has a flash. “No… no!” she cries out in Korean. Did she recognize him as the Smoke Monster? Is she still upset about that whole can’t-speak-English-anymore thing, or does she remember him doing something we haven’t seen him do yet? On the other hand, it’s possioble she just never liked John Locke in the first place.

On the island, Sun has good reason not to like Locke. So does Widmore, who sends Zoe over to his camp to demand that he return Desmond, who was kidnapped by Sayid two episodes ago and thrown in a well by the Man in Black just last week. When Locke plays dumb, Zoe calls in an air strike to prove her boss is serious. She gives him an ultimatum: return Desmond by nightfall, or else. Then she gives him a walkie-talkie to call her when he’s ready to play ball. As soon as she leaves, though, Locke smashes it with the stick he was whittling last week (apparently that’s what it was for). “Here we go,” he says. Heck yeah we do!

The waiting around portion of his plan is done, Locke tells the assembled group. The time has come for them to take the fight to Widmore and find the plane that will get them off the island. While everyone is getting ready to go, he grabs Sayid and tells him to kill Desmond. Even though he participated in full-scale Temple slaughter a few weeks back, Sayid wonders whether offing Des is really necessary. Locke says it is, reminding Sayid of their Nadia-resurrection deal. Cowed, Sayid goes to Desmond’s well, gun in hand. When he gets there, though, Sayid makes the same mistake Jack did earlier in the episode. He lets Desmond talk to him. The damp Scot asks what Locke promised him. Sayid tells him about Nadia, prompting Desmond to ask a follow up question: What will he tell her when she asks him what he had to do to bring her back? A bold gamble to save his skin, but did it pay off? Only time will tell, though I’ll be awfully disappointed if it turns out Desmond died offscreen like a punk. And I don’t think I’ll be alone.

Not that Sideways Sayid has it much better than his island counterpart. Fresh from killing Keamey, he visits Nadia long enough to tell her she doesn’t need to worry about anything. Oh, and and that he’s leaving forever. She demands to know what he’s done, but before he can tell her, there’s a knock at the door. It’s Detective Straume. While Miles asks Nadia a few questions out front, Sayid tries to slip out the back. His escape is undone by James Ford’s classic “garden hose tripline technique,” meaning that Sawyer (I mean “James”) has arrested his second 815-er in the same day. Like he half-jokingly said to Kate back at the station, it must be fate. Sayid will likely have a chance to ask her for himself when they inevitably end up in the same police station. Maybe even the same cell? As the monster who used to be John Locke so aptly put it: “So nice to have everyone back together again.”

Back on the island, Locke sends Sawyer and Kate on a special mission. They are to pick up a boat that will take them to Hydra island and meet the rest of the camp at a designated location. Sawyer, of course, has no intention of meeting them there. He pulls Jack aside and tells him to grab Hurley, Sun, and Frank and meet them at a different cove so they can go to Hydra without Locke and rendezvous with Sawyer’s backroom deal buddy Widmore. During the group trek, Jack gets the perfect opportunity to bolt when Locke leaves the group to check on Sayid. As Sawyer instructed, Jack takes the chosen three and they run into the woods. Unfortunately, they are spotted by Claire, who just finished telling Jack that the reason she’s still with Locke is because he was there when everyone else abandoned her. And how does Jack repay his sister’s honesty? By abandoning her. Yikes!

With a fresh reason to hate her former friends, Claire follows Jack’s group to the dock where Sawyer and Kate are waiting. As they board the boat, Claire emerges from the jungle and points a rifle at them. Kate, who wasn’t happy about the idea of leaving Claire behind in the first place, decides this is her chance to do what she came back for in the first place. She asks Claire to come with them. She tells her that she made a mistake by raising Aaron, and promises to bring her back to him. Although wary, Claire agrees to join Sawyer’s group.

Out on the open sea, Sawyer sees Jack sitting by himself and goes over to… what? Patch things up? Gloat? Always awkward when it comes to expressing real emotion, Sawyer makes a crack about the doc finally taking orders for a change. Jack surprises him by telling him that he thinks they are making a mistake by leaving the island. Why? Sawyer asks. Because Jack remembers what it was like to leave the first time. And besides, he reasons, if Locke wants them to leave that badly, maybe he’s afraid of what will happen if they stay. But Sawyer has had enough destiny talk. He wants off this rock and tells Jack that if he’s not with them, he can swim back to the island. Jack obliges. Kate tries to go after him, but Sawyer stops her. “We’re done going back,” he says.

As soon as Sawyer’s boat arrives at Hydra island, they are ambushed by Zoe and her guards. When she sees it’s Sawyer, though, she tells her men to stand down. This is followed by two heartbreaking moments. First, Jin walks out onto the beach and he sees Sun. She sees him. They run to each other. Finally, after seasons of waiting and searching, they have been reunited. Sun is so happy to see Jin, in fact, that she remembers how to speak English. I’m not ashamed to admit I teared up a bit. But this is Lost, after all, so their reunion is cut short by Zoe, who is ordered by Widmore to take them all prisoner. Guns are re-drawn. Sawyer yells that they had a deal. “Deal’s off,” she says. Once she has them all kneeling on the beach, Zoe calls over her walkie for another airstrike on Locke. Only this time it won’t be a warning shot.

Locke, meanwhile, has found out about Sawyer’s betrayal and intercepts a soaked Jack, who winds up (where else?) back on the beach. They barely have time to exchange thinly veiled pleasantries before Widmore’s strike hits. Jack tries to get Locke’s men out of the way but is knocked aside by the blast. Dazed and ears ringing, Jack sees Locke walk over. He picks up the injured Candidate, carries him into the woods, and props him against a tree. With a smile, Locke asks the shell-shocked doc if he’s okay and offers this chilling proclamation: “You’re with me now.”

What an episode! It would appear that they’ve decided to split the series finale into six parts, because if “The Last Recruit” isn’t finale-worthy, I don’t know what is. The various pieces that have been set up over the course of the season, are all in play now, and characters are coming together fast and furious, especially in the Sideways world. It doesn’t quite look like everyone is going to converge at the hospital yet, but with Ben Linus in need of a cop to tell his hit-and-run story to, Sawyer could soon join the rest of the candidates (minus Hurley) in intensive care. What was most interesting about this episode is that for the past two weeks, we’ve been told Desmond has decided to bring the 815 passengers together, but it looks like fate is doing a pretty good job of it on her own. Maybe Des’s role is more about showing them the way between worlds once they meet, but he seemed strangely sidelined this week. I’m sure we’ll get more of him soon enough, though. Expect him to either turn himself in to the police for attempted murder, or for Sawyer to track him down and bring him to the station. If this week was all about bringing people together, though, the ending of the episode suggests that no pairing will be more important for the remainder of the season than Jack and Locke. Funny how we keep coming back to that. The Man of Science and the Man of Faith have now become the Man of Faith and the Monster of Mystery.

As the beginning of the episode suggested, and the end seemingly confirmed, Jack is “The Last Recruit.” Does that mean he isn’t the Jacob acolyte he seemed to be when he made that speech on Sawyer’s boat? That is yet to be seen, though the fact that the Smoke Monster is showing him that much attention suggests Dr. Shepard may become the next Jacob yet. Right now, though, we’re going to see an interesting role reversal in the island and Sideways worlds. On the island, Locke has saved Jack’s life by carrying him out of harm’s way; in the hospital, Jack is about to begin the surgery that will save Locke’s life (and possibly give him the ability to walk again). I can’t wait to see those two stories play out, possibly next episode. Speaking of Locke, it seems a safe bet that he knew exactly what Sawyer was planning when he sent him to pick up the boat. After all, the Man in Black is at least as good a con man as Sawyer. If that was his plan, what did he hope to gain from it?

A few more thoughts before I leave you for two weeks (programming note: Lost is off next week, but will return on May 4):

1) Does anyone really think Sayid killed Desmond? If not, what do you think he did with him?

2) What’s Widmore’s deal? Does his change of heart with Sawyer mean his intentions aren’t nearly as noble as he says they are? What are the odds he’s trying to get rid of the candidates, and the Man in Black, so he can have the island for himself?

3) We got another vague reference to Sideways Jack’s ex-wife; any updated guesses about her identity? and finally:

4) It looks like the photo that appears in this month’s Wired, at the beginning of a story about Lost, does contain spoilers after all. The photo shows Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse in their office, standing in front of a well-used whiteboard. Based on what happened at the end of this episode, I’d guess that at least some of the whiteboard scribblings outline what’s going to happen in the next episode. Maybe even further ahead. All that to say, if you want to track down the magazine, be my guest, but if you want to remain spoiler-free stay the heck away from page 88. You’ve been warned.