Lost: Jack and Kate Plus Eight

Thoughts on this week’s episode of Lost, “The Last Recruit”, after the break:

1. Previously on Lost: Just read the archives. But based on the scenes they show here it looks like this episode will be about… everybody.
2. Open on the all-hands torch-lit meeting we left toward the end of last episode. MIB and Jack walk away to chat, after Hurley gives Jack the okay to negotiate. I guess that’s it for Hurley being in charge. You had a good run, dude. MIB and Jack talk about what MIB is. He says he stole Locke’s image because Locke was dead — apparently he can only look like dead people. Jack figures out that MIB was probably faking him out as Christian Shepherd back in the day, which we presumed but now we actually know for sure. Answers are neat! Anyway, MIB says he’s trying to help everyone leave the Island, and now that Jacob’s dead they can just leave whenever they want. They keep talking more but c’mon. Enough recapping of Lost expository dialogue. Flash to…
3. Locke in the ambulance. He’s not in great shape. He asks them to contact Helen “Peggy Bundy” Norwood. As they remove him from the ambulance we see Sun come out of another ambulance. She spies Locke and starts panicking in Korean. “No, it’s him! It’s him!” Because she had a near-death experience, you see, so she can remember the Island.
4. Speaking of the Island, Claire sneaks over to say hi to Jack, because they are brother and sister. Did they not ever know this when they were together before? I can’t recall. Anyway, Claire seems a little less crazy at the moment. I wonder if it’ll last (hint: no). They share some family time which is sort of sweet, and then they make out. Not really. Talk about twists, though! In actuality they just chat about how Jack is already on MIB’s side even if he won’t admit it. See, my idea for ending the scene is way more interesting.
5. Commercials for stuff. Let’s take this opportunity to note that the new iPhone looks pretty good but not good enough to get a dude fired for it.
6. Hurley’s like, submarine? There’s a submarine? Because Sawyer’s inviting him and Sun to the escape-while-MIB-and-Widmore-are-busy plan. Which I’m sure will go really well and not at all horribly.
7. Back to LA X, where Sawyer is still a cop. He’s in the cop office, with Kate, whom he interrogates regarding her criminal past. Wanted for arson, assault on a federal officer, and first degree murder. That all sounds familiar. Although she’s claiming innocence. He asks if she remembers him from Oceanic 815, and says it’s kind of weird that they keep running into each other. Ever heard of deus ex machina, dude? Nice of the writers to take another shot at creating romantic tension here. Anyway, they talk about why he let Kate go when he saw her at the airport. She thinks it’s because he didn’t want anyone to know he went to Australia. Not sure I follow but okay. Anyway, Miles comes over and tells him about the Sun/Jin shooting thing. They see surveillance footage of Sayid leaving the scene. And then we cut to the Island where Sayid is sitting without his soul.
8. Jack and Kate talk about some crap or other. MIB said if they leave they all have to go together. That sounds distinctly familiar, but not in an homage way. More of a lazy way. Zooey shows up and tells MIB she wants Desmond back. Then she radios in an aerial assault. Some Agent Orange hits the jungle behind MIB, but he doesn’t flinch. It’s like this. She tells him there’s more where that came from if he doesn’t return what he took from them. He doesn’t seem inclined to cooperate.
9. Commercial for Arby’s. They should probably just come up with a marketing campaign based around the long-term health benefits of food poisoning. Commercial for The Losers, which looks like a really stupid movie, I’m sorry to say. I wonder how ABC decides whether to pointlessly promote FlashForward or V. Coin flip?
10. Claire’s in LA X, and still deeply pregnant. She has a meeting with some reproduction agency. Oh hey, Desmond showed up! How… suspicious. I wonder how he’ll freak her out so she remembers being crazy on the Island. He says he’s on his way to see a lawyer and suggests that Claire show her the adoption contract. And Claire is like, I’m only crazy in the other timeline, dude. But actually no, she agrees to let the stranger’s lawyer check out her adoption contract. I wonder who the lawyer will turn out to be! Won’t be long now, friends, won’t be long now. It’s… ILANA! Whose name I spell differently every week, I think. Anyway, Ilana recognizes Claire’s name, which is “quite a coincidence” because “we’ve been looking for [her]“. Yes, quite a coincidence…
11. MIB’s getting a posse together to flee to the plane. He asks Sawyer to get a boat from somewhere and sail it somewhere else to meet up with the group. Why? Because he said so, that’s why! Sawyer tells Jack that some folks are breaking off from the group to get on the sub and swim to freedom. Honestly I can’t keep track of all these side-conversations setting up secret plans. I’ll just sit back and enjoy the carnage.
12. MIB and Sayid talk. MIB tells Sayid to go kill Desmond. Sayid doesn’t argue because he’s DEAD INSIDE. Unlike the awesome Nissan in this commercial. Dudes, I gotta get a Nissan!
13. Sayid approches the well where Desmond lies, not dead. Instead of just shooting him in the melon, he lets Desmond chat him up first. Desmond asks what Sayid gets for killing him. Sayid says he gets Nadia back. I get tired of recapping this. Let’s skip to the resolution:
14. Just kidding, there IS no resolution. We just cut to Sayid in LA X, where he’s packing a bag and fleeing because, oh yeah, he killed Keamy. There’s somebody at the door. It’s Miles. He’s investigating the thing where Sayid killed all those folks. He walks in and notices the bag. As Sayid tries to leave he trips over Sawyer’s clever hose-across-the-backyard gag, and gets cuffed and arrested.
15. Sawyer and Kate are on the Island. There’s a sailboat that they’re going to get on. But first, more talking about promises and leaving the Island and trusting people and so on and so forth. Kate’s upset that Sawyer wants to leave Claire there. But not so upset that she won’t wade into the water and swim out to the boat!
16. MIB leads his crew of extras through the jungle. Jack and Claire trail behind and, yep, have a boring conversation. He asks why she trusts MIB. She says he’s the only one who didn’t abandon her. But didn’t she run off into the jungle and, like, abandon her baby? What a hypocrite.
17. MIB leaves the group to “make sure nobody got left behind”. Oddly, he doesn’t turn into a smoke monster to speed the process. I guess the CGI budget isn’t big enough for that. Jack leads Hurley, Lapidus, and Sun off after Sawyer. Claire totally sees and is like, what a bunch of jerks.
18. MIB comes upon Sayid, who tells him he shot Desmond. YEAH RIGHT.
19. Jack and the gang run off looking for a dock. They find Sawyer and Kate. They’re off to the sub! Oh wait. Claire comes up on them, gun drawn. Her hair is totally bedraggled. Kate asks Claire to come with them. MORE talking. Can someone please blow up? Anyway, Claire drops her gun tearfully because she wants to go get Aaron. She gives Kate her gun and notes that MIB is probably going to be somewhat annoyed when he notices they fled. Uh, yeah.
20. In LA, Jack and his son walk into the building with the adoption agency and Ilana, Esq. They’re wearing matching suits, because Jack’s son is a total dweeb. I wonder if he can grow as good a beard as his dad. Anyway, they’re there to hear Christian’s will being read. Which is presumably why Ilana was looking for Claire! Which actually does make a little sense. Kinda weird to spring the surprise on everyone without a heads-up, though. Oh, apparently Jack already knows she’s in the will. But he doesn’t know that they’re siblings. Well he does now that she told him, in front of his kid. That’s messed up, like Gizmodo identifying the guy who lost that iPhone. Anyway, he’s getting called in for surgery on either Sun or Locke. I mean, we don’t know that yet, but we know.
21. The sailing crew sails. The boat looks pretty nice. Maybe a 47-footer? Anyway, Sawyer says they’re off to Hydra, where they’ll make nice with Widmore until it’s time to pull a gun on someone to get them to drive them home. Everyone but Sawyer and Jack go downstairs (well, Kate’s steering). Jack says it doesn’t feel right to leave the Island, because a part of him is missing. He thinks they’re supposed to do something, so if MIB wants them to leave it’s probably because he wants them not to do it. Jack raves some more about the Island not being done with them, and Sawyer explains that he can either buy into the plan or get off the boat. In a shoutout to Sawyer jumping off the helicopter, Jack dives into the water! Oh, but first he says “I’m sorry I got Juliet killed”. Which is kind of like how Sawyer whispered into Kate’s ear to take care of Clementine before he abandoned an escape vehicle.
22. Hospital. Sun wakes up. Jin’s holding her hand, and also he’s asleep. She calls him over and asks what happened. He tells her she’s going to be okay, and so is the baby. SWEET. He says “it’s over and we’re all going to be okay”, so he obviously is unfamiliar with how foreboding irony works. Jack and his son David walk by and talk about how Jack didn’t know about Claire. They seem to like each other. David’s going to just hang out in the hospital while Jack saves Locke’s life. I wonder if Jack will notice that he’s already met Locke. Anyway, the distal sac (or something) is “obliterated”. I think that’s the thing that Jack accidentally pierced in his first surgery, when Jacob gave him a candy bar. Remember? Speaking of remembering, Jack recognizes Locke.
23. Back on the Island, he comes ashore and MIB is just standing there, smiling at him. Meanwhile, the Sawyer crew comes ashore on Hydra Island. A bunch of nobodies, and Zooey, draw their weapons. She welcomes them in open arms. OH SHIT AND THEN JIN COMES OVER AND RECOGNIZES SUN! They run to each other! How long has it been? Like 3 seasons? Oh, she can miraculously speak english again. The power of love. Anyway, this is pretty nice. Presumably it’ll go wrong soon. Also, Sawyer was kinda weepy. Oh, and then Zooey pulls her gun on them again and it looks like everybody’s about to get executed. Zooey calls in an airstrike on MIB and the beach gets hella bombed. In a nice callback to the pilot, Jack gets knocked into next week and wakes up on the beach, disoriented. Then Locke carries him into the jungle and says, “it’s okay. you’re with me now”. Which is kinda Roethlisburgery. And that’s it.
24. LOST

Final thoughts: Not bad, you guys, not bad at all. Although somehow it seemed like another episode where the Island people mostly just move around from one place to another. Oh, and they also talk to each other a lot about the same shit we’ve been listening to for 6 years now. But things are really picking up in LA and I’m getting more confident that it’s all going to come together in a fairly satisfying way. Only 4 more episodes (though the finale is two hours), let’s try to enjoy them.

Oh wait, one more thing: this episode was called “The Last Recruit”. So who was the last recruit? I guess it was Jack, because in the end MIB asserts that he’s on MIB’s team. But I mean, Jack made pretty clear (to Sawyer) that he was actually quite fervently opposed to MIB and intended to do his best to thwart whatever MIB’s plan turns out to be. Okay that’s it.