SPOILER ALERT – Lost Season 6 “The Last Recruit”

This week’s episode of Lost, “The Last Recruit,” was rather fantastic, almost overwhelmingly fantastic in fact. I think I need a break from Lost, so it’s probably a good thing that there’s a repeat next week, and according to Wikipedia, new episodes will return May 4. As I'm sure everyone knows by now, the finale is Sunday, May 23.


Best Reunion Ever!

Obviously, I’m referring to the Sun and Jin reunion that finally happened in this episode. I was beginning to worry that they might never reunite, and that would’ve been sad (understatements are fun). It was cute how Sun’s English, or her voice as Lapidus said, came back when she was reunited with her soul mate.

Jin and Sun essentially reunited in the new reality/flash-sideways as well. As Jin tells Sun, it’s over and everything’s okay; they can finally be together as they were meant to be.

Jacob v. Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster/Man in Black

One of the many differences between Jacob and Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster/Man in Black was made evident (though possibly not for the first time) in this episode. Fake John Locke does not take responsibility for his actions; when Sun wrote that he caused her aphasia, he blatantly and unapologetically stated that it was not his fault. However, Jacob does take responsibility, and does have remorse for bad things he causes; when Real John Locke became paralyzed, Jacob told Locke he was sorry it had to happen to him. Um, maybe he didn’t take responsibility then, but he did have remorse and/or sympathy.

Sayid’s New Choice

Apparently, when Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster threw Desmond down the well, he did not kill him, as I was concerned he might have. However, now that Widmore sent Zoe to get him back, Fake John Locke sent Sayid to kill Desmond, against Sayid’s desires. However, Sayid became willing when Fake John Locke reminded him of what he promised him – that he would bring Nadia back to Sayid.

At this point in the episode, something suddenly occurred to me that might have been obvious to most people. Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster/Man in Black makes a lot of promises to get people to do his bidding, but I don’t think we’ve seen any of those promises fulfilled; it seems he simply uses the hope of a promise fulfilled to get people to do as he says, but he will probably never follow through. Furthermore, Fake John Locke promised to bring Nadia back from the dead, but, in “Ab Aeterno,” Jacob told Ricardo/Richard he was not able to bring the latter’s dead wife back to life. If Jacob cannot bring people back to life, what makes us think Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster/Man in Black can? He is totally lying! Stop making fun of me for not realizing before – I already admitted that this was probably obvious to most people already.

Sayid does believe that Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster will bring Nadia back from the dead, because, as he explains to Desmond, he was able to bring Sayid back from the dead. However, Sayid was freshly dead; I would imagine if people can be resurrected, it would have to be a reasonably fresh corpse. After all, Jesus was only dead for two days or something like that before he was resurrected, if you believe in that (I’m Jewish, if you didn’t realize). I am not suggesting that Sayid is Jesus or that he is a Christ figure; I am only attempting to deduce rules of resurrections.

The choice Sayid made in this episode was whether he would or would not kill Desmond, and therefore, whether he would or would not continue to sell his soul and sacrifice everything and everyone for the hope of having his Nadia back. Desmond tried to talk some sense into Infected Sayid. Remember, Sayid has been “infected” since his resurrection, according to Dogen, which makes a lot of sense since Sayid credits his resurrection to Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster. Anyway, Desmond asks Sayid how he would explain to Resurrected Nadia the evil means by which he would cause her resurrection. We don’t know what Sayid chose; we can only hope there was some good left in his soul, and that he made the right choice to not kill Desmond.

Of course, this choice is paralleled in the new reality/flash-sideways. After Sayid shoots some gangsters, he explains to Nadia (he sister-in-law) that she will be okay and he will leave. In other words, he believes he doesn’t deserve her, and he is sacrificing himself and any hope of a relationship with her for her happiness and safety.

Fate in the New Reality/Flash-Sideways

It was fun to see Ben in the new reality/flash-sideways trying to help save Real New Reality John Locke’s life, for as I’m sure you recall, in the reality we are familiar with, Ben murders Real John Locke. Ben was meant to be a good guy, and the new reality allowed that to happen.

Real New Reality John Locke’s disability proved to be life saving; Jack was told that the wheelchair saved Real Locke’s life by absorbing most of the impact from Desmond’s falsely vengeful car (hahaha, like the car can be vengeful or wrong). The life-saving nature of his disability goes well with my previous discussion regarding Locke’s life being improved in the new reality, in part due to his disability, in that by accepting it, he could move on and be happy. If he hadn’t accepted his disability, he wouldn’t have gotten his job as a substitute teacher at the school Ben teaches at, where Ben would help save him and identify the assailant (Desmond). If Locke weren’t disabled, when Desmond sought vengeance, as he surely would have regardless of where Locke was, Locke would have likely died without his wheelchair to save him. Once again, everything came together, as if by fate.

This episode had a lot of coming together of our special characters in the new reality. Sun and Real New Reality John Locke are in the same hospital where Jack works. Jack is Locke’s surgeon, and I imagine he might cure Locke’s disability now that its life-saving purpose was fulfilled. Ilana is Jack’s lawyer who Desmond coincidentally brings Claire to, which brings Jack and Claire together. Sawyer arrests Sayid while Miles questions Nadia. Kate figures Sawyer out and they flirt after Kate is arrested. And so on, I say because I can’t remember what else happened. We still don’t know who Jack’s baby-mama/ex-wife is, and I still bet it’s Juliet, particularly since in the reality we are familiar with, he is filled with guilt for causing her death.

Who’s Your Daddy?

I’ve wondered previously (though I didn’t write about it) who Dead Christian Shephard (Jack and Claire’s dead father) is on the island. I have, at various times, thought he might be Resurrected Christian Shephard, some form of Jacob, some minion of Jacob, or Man in Black/The Smoke Monster. He seemed to be helpful, so I assumed he must be good. After all, with a name like Christian Shephard, how could he not be good…but then again, Real John Locke and presumably Philosopher John Locke were good, so perhaps when characters die, the meaningfulness of their names dies with them. In this episode, Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster claims that he was indeed Christian Shephard, and Claire confirmed it. However, he lies, and she trusts him, so who knows if it’s true.

The Island of Dr. Shephard

Jack is hot. Now that we got that out of the way, we can discuss his new attitude. He explained in “Everybody Loves Hugo” that after Juliet died, he began to question his ability as a leader, and so he began to learn to be a follower. First, he learned to follow Hurley, which is good, since I’m quite sure Hurley will be the new Jacob, as I’ve discussed previously. He also learned to follow Sawyer’s lead, as he helped Sawyer get their friends onto the boat headed for the other island without Fake John Locke. However, when it mattered, he followed his own instincts to not leave the island, explaining to Sawyer that if Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster wants them to leave, he must be afraid of what will happen if they stay. He also explained that the first time he left the island, he felt like a part of him was missing. Jack and Sawyer’s roles were then reversed, as Jack (after being ordered by Sawyer who wants to leave the island) jumped off the boat and swam back to the island. As we might remember, when the Oceanic 6 was preparing to leave the island, Sawyer jumped out of the plane and swam back to the island when there was too much weight. Of course, when Sawyer got back to the island, he was met by Juliet, while Jack was met by Fake John Locke.

Jack’s decision to remain on the island to fulfill his purpose delineates another role reversal; previously, it was Real John Locke who had faith and believed they had a purpose on the island. Fake John Locke called Real John Locke a sucker for believing that. This either suggests that Fake John Locke truly doesn’t believe there is a purpose to the island, or that he wanted to convince Jack of that. The latter is more likely true, since, if Jacob wasn’t lying, Jacob, Jack and the other Jacob-candidates purpose is to protect the island, and the purpose of the island is to detain Evil/Man in Black/The Smoke Monster/Fake John Locke and keep it from spreading throughout the Earth and/or the Universe. So of course Fake John Locke would want to convince Jack that there is no purpose for being on the island. Assuming that Fake John Locke is evil, Jack was right to stay on the island.

Unfortunately, the title of this episode, “The Last Recruit,” refers to Jack. At the end of the episode, Fake John Locke tells Jack that he would be okay and, “you’re with me now.” However, just because Fake John Locke says it doesn’t make it so…Unless Jack temporarily died via Widmore’s attack on Fake John Locke and Fake John Locke resurrected Jack…

We might have another Sayid on our hands…