"The Last Recruit"

JANUARY 31, 2011

FOCUS: EVERYONE
EPISODE: 6.13
AIRED: APRIL 20, 2010

Thank you, “previously” recap, for replaying the hilariously “sexy” version of Sawyer’s trademark “Son of a bitch...” from “Recon”, since I forgot to mention how awesome it was in my writeup for that episode. One thing I like about cop Sawyer, which we see more of in “The Last Recruit”, is that he has the same back-story as Sawyer, but lives very much like “Lafleur” – he’s in a authority role, he’s charming, he’s partnered with Miles, and he has a penchant for sunflowers. Maybe it would have been exhausting for the writers, but I wish they could have done this with ALL of the characters – most, like Kate, are pretty much exactly the same.

Anyway, despite the lack of a character focus, which is usually a red flag for Lost, this is a pretty good episode. Sawyer finally gets in a good nickname for Lapidus (“Chesty”), Jack and “Locke” finally meet and have a chat, there are more casual murders, and Sawyer seemingly trusts Jack again, or at least, doesn’t want to kill him. But it also brings folks together – the bulk of the cast share a scene together for the first time in ages (since the camps split early in S4, I think). The big reunion between Sun, Jack, Locke, Hurley, Kate, Sawyer, Sayid, and Claire (save Jin, the only main cast 815ers that are still alive, basically) isn’t exactly emotional – Locke making a joke about it doesn’t help – but it’s still good that they all met up, now that there’s only 4-5 hours left.

But the big reunion is Jin and Sun, FINALLY seeing each other at the very end of the episode (and then held at gunpoint seconds later). Again, the flash sideways sort of deflated the emotion of this scene – I’d argue that their reunion in S2 after only 8-9 episodes was more touching and tear-worthy. Course, the cynic in me causes part of that problem; Sun says “I never stopped looking for you”, but Jin doesn’t have any real response because he sure as shit stopped looking for her – taking up English and working for Dharma for 3 years without doing a goddamn thing about it (not to mention it was the swinging 70s and he didn't have his wedding ring... just saying, maybe Jin took advantage of his "unfortunate" situation).

The sideways stuff in this episode isn’t as successful (that’s where the lack of a character focus hurts). I like certain scenes (Kate dressing down Sawyer, Jack’s son hinting that he doesn’t want to go back to his mother’s right away, etc), but it just feels like a lot of loose end filling and getting folks closer to meeting up without actually doing so, which was fine the first time around but now I know that it’s literally just a lot of time-killing. The timeline is also a bit wonky (Jin and Sun got attacked only a day or two after landing, but we’ve seen enough of Locke to make at LEAST a week’s worth of events – yet they arrive at the hospital at the same time), but I guess that’s fine since this is a sort of dream world and thus susceptible to such things. They didn’t all die at the same time in the real world, so the timing already doesn’t make any logical sense. Just go with it.

Also, Jack is a hell of a swimmer. They’re pretty far out when he jumps off, but he makes it to shore fairly quickly based on the available light, and he did so with a loaded backpack. Good for him. I bet he could have saved that Joanna woman in S1 after all! Fucking Boone.

OK, tomorrow’s the key reason I wanted to watch these again! Anyone want to guess why?

Where are we?