Blogging Lost: Season 6, Ep. 13 – The Last Recruit.

Due to technical difficulties and limited time, this week’s recap won’t be lengthy and overly detailed. I didn’t do my usual scene-by-scene live-transcription, so I’m working off memory alone here—and sadly, my memory’s not all that linear.

Here are the big things, in no particular order:

  • Desmond’s getting exceedingly creepy in Alterna-LA. Hot on the heels on his Locke hit-and-run last week, he stalks Claire in the lobby of an office building that houses both an adoption agency and a law firm. First off, he reads her name aloud off the lobby sign-in sheet, rather than waiting for her to offer it. Then he follows her into the elevator, lies and claims they’re headed to the same floor (Floor 15) and begs her to visit the attorney he’s there to see, because he thinks it’s super-sad that she’s headed to the adoption agency with no one to accompany her for moral support. Like, way to overstep your bounds, Hume.
  • Ilana’s alive! Well, in the Sideways timeline, anyway. She’s actually the attorney Desmond was visiting. When he introduces Claire, Ilana says that “we” have been looking for you. Turns out the “we” refers to the estate of Christian Shephard. Jack is headed to the same lawyer’s office, his “son” I’m unwilling to accept as his in tow, to hear the reading of his dad’s will. Ilana asks if she can speak to Ilana alone. Desmond finally, mercifully backs off. But when Jack actually gets there and is introduced to Claire (neither of them knew of each other’s existence in this timeline), he gets a hospital page and has to postpone the reading.
  • Ben continues his run of Being a Better Person in the alternate timeline, by riding with Locke in ambulance and being all Citizen Deputy about providing a description of Desmond the Drive-By Attempted Murderer.
  • The hospital page has to do with Locke. He’s in really bad shape, but when Jack arrives on the scene, all it takes it one look at his x-rays for him to smugly claim, “I’ve got this,” despite finding out that his patient’s dural sac was destroyed and he was already paralyzed. When he walks into the OR, he recognizes Locke.
  • Sun also recognizes Locke, as they’re being wheeled through the hospital side-by-side on gurneys. She’s seriously spooked by him. Later, Jin informs Sun that her gunshot injuries have been repaired and their baby is fine.
  • This isn’t the only attention Jin and Sun receive this week; they’re reunited in the episode’s penultimate scene. It’s supposed to be a big deal, but because they dragged it out forever, and because we’d spent a few scenes watching them interact in Alterna-LA, it was a bit underwhelming for me.
  • Oh! There’s a return to the whole Sawyer-and-Miles buddy cop plot arc this week. First, we see Sawyer interrogating Kate, who he’s arrested. They flirt and, for once, I’m not annoyed by it. For some reason, they work a lot better in their LA incarnations than they’ve ever worked for me on the island. (Kate’s actually a little charming in their scene together, accurately calling Sawyer out for letting her go back at the airport, even though he knew she was a fugitive then, because he didn’t want anyone to know he’d gone to Sydney.)
  • While they make googly eyes, Miles interrupts to inform him of a multiple homicide. You’ll remember it as Sayid busting a cap in Keamy et al. Sawyer leaves Kate to help Miles pursue Sayid. They catch him at Nadia’s; he’s saying that he’s done a bad thing and he can never return to her again. As he tries to escape her house via the backyard, Sawyer pretty awesomely trips him with a garden hose. It’s very ’80s cop drama.
  • Speaking of Sayid: on-island, Fake Locke has dispatched him to kill Desmond, last scene hurtling toward the bottom of a well, after being shoved in by Fake Locke. Sayid and Desmond have a conversation: Desmond asks Fake Locke promised Sayid; Sayid says he was promised Dead Nadia. Desmond plays on what’s left of Sayid’s sense of morality by asking what he’ll tell Nadia about what he had to do to get back to her.
  • Later, Fake Locke asks if Sayid went through with killing Desmond like he asked. Sayid says he did—and even invites FL to check for himself. But Sayid’s a pretty good bluffer and I’m guessing Desmond’s still alive and well.
  • Also on-island: Sawyer hatches a plan of escape, enlisting Jack to separate Hurley, Sun, and Frank from the rest of Fake Locke’s crew (including Sayid and Claire) and meet up with he and Kate, where they’ll be waiting with Fake Locke’s boat. Jack goes through with this.
  • But in a twist of surprisingly compelling acting by Evangeline Lilly, Kate convinces their little collective to let Claire come along with them, after talking Claire’s rifle away from her. Claire’s acting continues to be unconvincing (as does her pregnancy stomach in the alternate timeline).
  • For some reason, after this little crew of Losties gets on their way, Sawyer does this weird power play thing with Jack, claiming that he didn’t think he’d come through, because he’s not good at following orders. Jack, who’s been pretty consistently (if annoyingly) Zen this season, confesses doubts about leaving the island, insisting they came back for a purpose that is as yet unfulfilled. He also apologizes for “getting Juliet killed,” which I’ve never really blamed him for. Sawyer’s still pissed and after a bit more back-and-forth, he growls that if Jack’s so sure they shouldn’t be headed to a submarine on their way off the island, he can just get the hell off the boat. And then Jack jumps.
  • Now for the explosives. Earlier in the ep, Zoe shows up demanding that Fake Locke return “what he took” and she leaves him a walkie-talkie to confirm he’s done this. She has her Widmore people detonate an explosive a few feet behind Fake Locke’s group (which, at the time, still included Sawyer, Kate, Jack, Hurley, et al). When she leaves, Fake Locke destroys the walkie (and unbeknown to the group, sends Sayid off to kill “what he took”).
  • When Jack swims back to shore in the episode’s final moments, Fake Locke welcomes him.
  • When Sawyer and crew reach shore and meet up with Zoe and the Widmore crew (where Jin and Sun are finally reunited), they aren’t so warmly welcomed. Zoe gets word from Widmore that things are not okay. So she and the rest of her crew train their rifles on a bewildered Sawyer and camp. Then, on orders from Widmore, she sends a detonation order for where Fake Locke, Jack, et all are standing. Fake Locke rescues Jack from a soon-to-explode secondary bomb, then declares, in a callback to the episode title: “You’re with me now.”

slb

slb (aka Stacia L. Brown) is a writer, mother, and college instructor in Baltimore, MD. Check her out here: http://stacialbrown.com and here: http://beyondbabymamas.com.