Thursday LOST Roundtable: The Last Recruit

Spoilers below!

This week on LOST, most of our Losties try to leave the island, while Jack just wants to stay. In the sideways world, our characters are finding themselves either drawn or forced together.

Check out our reactions below and leave your own in the comments, while remembering no spoilers for unaired episodes.

What did everyone think of the episode?

LAUREN: So many lost (ha) opportunities for our favorite characters to get offed! I expected Jack, Kate, Sun, Jin, Desmond, Sayid and/or Claire all to go up in pink mist at least once during this episode, but no! Which is fine, because this episode was great, but I don’t feel like the story is any closer to resolution than it was six weeks ago. Where is the bloodbath you promised me, Lost?

CARA: Meh, I seem to be going against the grain all over the place. I was pretty much the only one who liked last week’s episode, and now I think this one was pretty mediocre. Maybe I’m just bitter about the lack of resolution regarding Des. Oh, and that this is how they’re choosing to leave us right before they take the only break of the season, and we don’t get another new episode for two weeks.

JILL: Oh I loved last week’s episode — but this one was kind of pointless.

LAUREN: The more I yell at the TV the more I like the episode, and there was snark flying like bullets in my living room last night.

SALLY: I didn’t like this week’s episode much either, Cara. I liked that the sideways storyline moved so quickly rather than focusing on just one thing – made me feel like finally SOMETHING is going to happen. Other than that, I wasn’t particularly excited.

SADY: I have a theory! Here is my theory: The more exciting the promos are, the more boringer the episode is. Last week’s promos were so super-creepy! With like flashes and the eeeeevil Willy Wonka song and VIOLENCE and… oh, okay, we’re just shuffling people around into different teams? Again? For the 15th time this season? Super. NEXT WEEK: The Smoke Monster Does His Laundry, While Jack Makes Scrambled Eggs.

CARA: I’m slightly curious about the title. Is Jack the last recruit because he’s not a part of Sawyer’s group anymore? Is he the last recruit to Flocke’s team? Or is the last recruit someone else? Maybe it has something to do with the sideways world, and Hurley is the last recruit, because he’s the one character whose life hasn’t started to converge with our A team. That last one is admittedly unlikely, but still!

SALLY: I hadn’t even thought of the episode title… Maybe it’s because he’s the last one to become all faith-y? Cuz he was the man of science before. Or something?

As many of us had suspected, Smokey reveals that he was wandering around the island as Christian. Reactions?

LAUREN: Yawn. I’m super grumpy about the Lost phenomena wherein the writers feel it’s necessary to Drive! The! Point! Home! when most of the audience has like 95% confirmation on whatever question it is they’re contemplating. One of the intrinsic joys of a show like this, especially the kind of show that couldn’t exist as-is without the internet, is the endless, ongoing discussion and speculation about its secrets, thus MYSTERY is really important to the story’s legacy. There has to be something to debate for the show to be and remain great. So, I’m being grumpy? Because I resent having answers spoon-fed to me? Someone argue with me so I can be further entertained by Lost mysteries.

CARA: Will do! I liked having official confirmation of this. First of all, because while I thought that Smokey was Christian, lots of folks still thought he was Jacob. Secondly, because in the context of the show and the characters, it was logical! And finally, someone asked an obvious question that made sense! And showed an awareness and active memory of things that happened more than two episodes ago! I can’t believe I’m saying this, but thank you, Jack. Also, I was pretty annoyed at how they just dropped the entire Christian storyline this season. I’m starting to wonder if the actor just refused to come back, since we haven’t seen him at all? But it also kind of makes sense, because once Smokey could become Flocke, he didn’t need Christian anymore.

LAUREN: Right, but wasn’t most of this implied? See my complaints about FRANK M.F. LAPIDUS below.

SALLY: I liked that they mentioned it, although they really didn’t need to have Claire say it as well. Which also confused me because, when the heck did Claire find out she’s related to Jack? Wouldn’t that have been a more important point? (Assuming we don’t already know this and I simply forgot…)

SADY: Right. “So, this thing that we all thought was happening. Did it happen? Was it happening?” “Yes, that thing that you thought was happening did happen, and I caused it to happen, when it was happening!” “Okay. So it happened.” That was how the Locke/Christian mystery was solved. Meanwhile, Claire mysteriously knows about a WHOLE OTHER MYSTERY and it’s not even explained how she came up with that. Did Skull Baby tell her? DOES SKULL BABY HAVE PSYCHIC POWERS??? We don’t know!

SALLY: Tune in next time on LOST, where we answer questions you weren’t asking! Again!

Sayid is sent off to kill Desmond and tells Flocke that he did exactly that, despite it not being shown on camera. Desmond’s okay, right?

CARA: Okay! Here’s what happened: Desmond is really persuasive. We’ve seen this a bunch of times, and saw that he was starting to get to Sayid, even though he is not supposed to have any feelings! Sayid realized that he could not get Nadia back, only to have her know the things that he did to make it happen. So, he helped Desmond out of the well. Then, he went back to Flocke and told him that he killed Desmond, but really he’s going to double cross him in some kind of really awesome way that redeems his character. Quite possibly it will involve sacrificing his life. I don’t know! But Des is fine, and Sayid is no longer evil.

At least, this is what I’m telling myself, because 1) They could not have killed Desmond, my second favorite character, off camera, 2) They could not have Sayid, my favorite character, kill him, and 3) Sayid really needs to stop being evil and be redeemed somehow before this show is over.

LAUREN: I’m totally with you here. Sayid has always been cast as the killer with the heart of gold, and Desmond was banking on Sayid’s soft side to save himself, and interestingly, saves Sayid in the process.

I wonder, too, whether Claire is leaning toward a similar redemption, although in my dreams she chooses life with Skullbaby.

SALLY: The thing I found interesting about this was that Sayid’s “I don’t care, I have no heart” demeanor is, in some ways, very similar to Des’ new “I don’t care b/c I am the key to it all” demeanor. So I thought it was interesting that even though they both have this new uncharacteristic approach, it’s going in opposite directions, which I think is supposed to give us hope that Sayid can be brought back from the dark side. Which is to say that I agree with Cara’s theory on this, even if it doesn’t totally play out that way.

For Claire, I’m suddenly very confused about where they’re going with her character. She seems to have softened some in this episode, though I can’t tell if that’s because she’s going to have some sort of redemption, or because she’s calmer now that Flocke’s given her the okay to kill Kate. But then, she’s with Kate and doesn’t kill her, so maybe she doesn’t want to anymore? Claire, you confuse me!!

SADY: I was mostly just confused and frustrated by this one. Because Sawyer SAYS, right off the bat, that Sayid is a zombie. And we KNOW he has no feelings, because he TOLD US THAT. And then the whole key to getting to Sayid is… Sayid’s feelings? About Nadia specifically? Which he has, again, now, for whatever reason? FEELINGS OR NO FEELINGS, LOST! IN OR OUT! ZOMBIES OR NO MOTHERFUCKIN ZOMBIES. Is how I feel, about this.

Jack abandons Sawyer’s plan to leave the island, literally jumps ship, and is captured by Flocke. Flocke seems pleased to have him back. What’s his plan?

CARA: I just have to say that for the first time ever, I actually wanted Kate to go after Jack. All I can figure is that while both are insufferably boring, “I’m going to do the exact opposite of what you tell me to do” Kate is actually more interesting than “I’m going to do exactly what you tell me to do” Kate. And Sawyer is being a bossy jerk, no matter how good he looks in that purple shirt.

LAUREN: Can I point out that we haven’t seen Jack walk since the explosion? And also that the post-bombing sequence was very Forrest Gump?

SADY: You read my mind, Lauren. You read my mind like Skull Baby! Although, can I tell you, the two seconds in which I thought Jack had died, followed by the second in which I figured out that they weren’t ACTUALLY going to kill Jack because THEY NEVER WILL, were an operatic cycle of elation and despair. How great would it be if Jack just died out of nowhere, Arzt-style (now known as Ilana-style)? Just have him walking along the beach and abruptly blowing the fuck up, and I will have an animated GIF that I can watch for the rest of my days.

Off island, the storylines of all of our characters (minus Hurley) seem to be converging. Sawyer, Miles, Sayid, and Kate are all at or headed to the police station. Jack, Locke, Sun, Jin, and maybe Ben are all at the hospital. Claire and Desmond may or may not be still at the lawyer’s office. This has to be significant, right?

CARA: Desmond needs to stop being a nosy, off-island creeper. That’s all I have to say. He’s starting to act just a little bit too much like Jack, getting all up in everybody’s business. Quit it, Des. Also, I’d forgotten just how douchey Jack’s kid looked. He kind of looks even douchier than his dad. Brilliant casting, LOST. (And yes, I am the asshole who calls kids douches.)

LAUREN: Yeah, if I were pregnant alterna-Claire and this guy was following me all over LA, I would have run away screaming bloody murder. Between caving in to creepy Desmond and creepy Kate this season, someone needs to get Claire “The Gift of Fear.”

SALLY: Well, sideways Claire is also the one who was all “you held me hostage in a cab, but I’ll totes let you drive me to meet this couple and you can proceed to accompany me to the hospital as well, total stranger and criminal.”

SADY: Right. If a weird Scottish dude who just HAPPENED to be in the airport expressing interest in the contents of my uterus also just HAPPENED to run into me later to talk about my uterus-contents and just HAPPENED to walk all over the building with me and HAPPENED to be heading the same way I was and HAPPENED to not shut up after I’d conveyed through extensive body language that I did NOT WANT TO TALK about what I had in my uterus or what I was planning to do with it later, well: That building would later have to clean up a large Scottish mess on the floor, after I’d pushed him off the escalator to get his creepy ass out of my business. But also: The gang is getting back together! And only two of them have been shot/run over by Desmond’s car! Woo.

SALLY: I would like to see the rest of this play out without Desmond being creepy. Just saying.

When Sun saw Locke on the stretcher next to her, she started yelling “No …. No! It’s him! It’s him!” Uh, what? Did Sun remember something about the other reality, too?

CARA: To me, this was one of the most interesting moments of the episode. It was so random, and then wasn’t addressed again! I keep trying to think of some kind of interaction that Sun and Locke may have had on the plane or in the airport or something, and I’m coming up with nothing. My only guess is that the trauma of being shot somehow triggered her memory, and it was a memory of our current island happenings, where “Locke” is evil. Or, you know, one of those many other times that actual Locke was pretty scary and not exactly to be trusted.

SALLY: I was really annoyed that it wasn’t brought up again. I immediately thought “oh yay! Sun knows about the other timeline where Locke is Flocke! Stories coming together! Progress!” But then she just woke up, asked about the baby, and moved on.

LAUREN: The other Sun-related thing that was interesting was the realization that Locke didn’t have anything to do with her amnesia, or at least claims he didn’t. If this is true, why the hell did it take up Sun’s last three episodes, and if it’s not true, WTF? I feel like these two things are related, but I don’t know how or whether it matters.

SADY: I seriously think it was so that they didn’t have to give her any lines.

SALLY: I thought that scene was odd because it seemed like Flocke just didn’t get that she couldn’t speak English, because her reaction was basically an eye roll without rolling her eyes. But it wasn’t cleared up or anything, so it seemed really awkward. That was my take, anyway.

On island, Sun and Jin were FINALLY reunited! Awwwww!

LAUREN: Grumpy again! Did we wait two seasons for this?

CARA: I felt a little ripped off, too. I thought that Desmond and Penny got a much better reunion scene … even though we know Sun and Jin better, and even though they’d been apart just as long! It felt a little tacked on, and like the writers and director were kind of disinterested in it. Which is totally not cool. But at least maybe either of them can do something now that doesn’t involve looking for the other?

SADY: I knowwwwwwwwwww. Although, at this point, given my COLD HEARTLESS MONSTER feelings toward Des & Penny, I think I just hate love. Or maybe just how the show scripts love. Because all of the relationships on the show tend to, actually, be TERRIBLE, or at least unconvincing. (The reason I liked Sun and Jin was that, in their flashbacks, they actually did act like an actual happy couple sometimes — which mostly just had to do with the actors being so good at playing off each other, and nothing to do with the stuff they had to say, which was always either “I love you!” or “We are not getting along!” or, in far too many cases, “I am but the son of a fisherman!” This was also why I liked Sawyer and Juliet, because they just smiled at each other and talked about the laundry, like they were actually intimate adults and not overdramatic high school juniors.) And then, to show that characters love each other, they have them make these really literal declarations of it, like “I love you and will never leave you because we are so in love, and also, the emotions I feel for you are loving.” Like I, the Viewing Audience, have grown up on a planet without romantic relationships, and couldn’t recognize one if I saw it, so they have to be like, “kisses plus literal statementing equals positive human interaction.” And Sun and Jin got a case of the Literal-Declaration-Itis in that scene. But everyone else on the Internet seems to think it was really sweet? So, again, I think I just hate the sight of people loving each other. Especially if it is accompanied with swelling music and them running into each others’ arms like old movie characters. But I guess if I hadn’t seen a dude I loved for years, and had been looking for him all that time, “I love you” would be the first thing I’d say, too. And I’d kind of hurry it up, as I progressed across the beach/room/field of daisies/whatever to hug him. Just to get it out of the way, you know?

LAUREN: When they decided to have their reunion DIRECTLY BETWEEN THE BRAIN-MELTING PYLONS I was all yelling at the TV and screaming, out of fear that their reunion would be explosive, and because I didn’t know whether the producers would be so sick as to actually turn their brains into foam mid-embrace. Happily (sadly?) the pylons just happened to be deactivated.

CARA: I’m so relieved that I was not the only one who thought this! That would have gone down as the most fucked up moment in LOST history. Also, did you notice that Sun got her ability to speak English back? It was, like, the power of true love, or something! This was a totally valid reason to make Sun forget how to speak English in the first place! Also, it was totally sensible, because obviously seeing Jin would remind Sun of how to speak English, not, you know, their native language Korean, which they have always communicated in prior to now.

SALLY: ANNOYANCE! At that point, I really thought they were going to stick to her speaking Korean. I thought it’d make for a nice little switch of roles from all the other seasons in which Sun had to translate. But, alas, the writers let me down yet again. Nothing new, really.

SADY: FURTHER MYSTERIES! Because, I do believe, Sun has not seen Jin since WAY before he became fluent in English, and thus has no reason to know that he would not prefer her to speak their shared language which oh my God they have both been speaking their entire lives you’d think that would be what they communicated in most immediately and easily JESUS. But the first thing she says to him, which is pretty important, is in English. And then? When he starts speaking fluent English back to her? No surprise. I mean, even Richard’s dead wife noticed that he had learned English since they last met. Sun, not so much! So, again, a lady character suddenly knows something she has no reason to know. And, AGAIN, I blame Skull Baby.

LAUREN: I also noticed that Sun got her voice back during the reunion, because Frank Lapidus, King of Obvious, was all, “Looks like somebody get her voice back.” Thanks for rubbing my face in it, FRANK.

JILL: I’ll just throw it in here that Lapidus is my favorite character on this show. At this point he serves literally no purpose at all, he kind of just hangs around making totally obvious observations. And I happen to like weird old hippies.

SADY: Yeah, Frank is always just standing around saying things that everyone else knows. “Looks like we’re on a beach!” Thanks, Frank. But I like him, too, because it’s clear that he just couldn’t give a fuck if he tried. And also, at this point, can we address my FAVORITE part of the scene, which was: Jin’s expression as he was taken hostage for the eighth time this season, 0.5 seconds after reuniting with his wife? Because that cracked my shit up. Jin has seriously been held hostage by everyone on the show at this point, which is weird considering that he used to beat people up for a living — you’d think he’d be better at punching his way out of these situations, basically — and the way Daniel Dae Kim chose to express the character’s emotions, upon being held at gunpoint YET AGAIN, was amazing. Sun was cowering in terror, and meanwhile, Jin’s face was like blase with a side of irritated. It was like, “oh, for fucking real? I was going to get laid tonight, too!” THE BEST.

Widmore has backed out of his deal with Sawyer. Apparently Sawyer was the only one who didn’t see that coming. What’s Widmore have up his sleeve?

CARA: Okay, seriously, was I the only one who was a little dubious about Sawyer being like “WHAAAAAAAAAAAT? But I’m the only one who can make deals with people while having absolutely no intent on following through, and in fact having every intent to use the person to my own advantage! This can’t be happening!”

SADY: Hahaha. “But I, a known con man, made a deal with your shady and highly armed organization! In a dim room, with not so many folks around! WE HAD A VERBAL CONTRACT, CHARLES! I don’t understaaaaaaaand.”

LAUREN: All right, even though my prediction from “Happily Ever After” hasn’t been proven right/wrong yet, I’m going to put myself out there again and posit another ridiculous theory: Smokey needs all the candidates together to get off the island, and Widmore wants to prevent Smokey from getting off the island, thus Widmore is going to attempt to kill all the known candidates. Jack, then, is the ace in Smokey’s pocket.

SALLY: Even though I figured Widmore would back out, I can’t really understand why. Aside from Lauren’s present theory, what exactly does Widmore gain from kidnapping the LOSTies? Does he not need Jin anymore? Does he not need to verify that Jack is not there? If he wanted to kill them all, why didn’t he just throw those bombs over while he knew they were still on the big island? He also doesn’t seem very concerned about where Desmond is – like, why is that no longer important? So, while it was certainly being set up that way from the start, it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever…

LAUREN: You stump me, Sally.

CARA: Well Widmore was very concerned about Desmond at the beginning of the episode — that’s why he started blowing this up with his rockets. But what he wants with Sawyer’s group, I do not know. I’ve kind of given up wondering about the motivations of Smokey/Widmore/Jacob, at this point. We’ll know soon enough. Or we’ll know absolutely nothing, and Darlton will laugh in our faces. Either way.