The Last Recruit

Looks like we got another set up episode this week. Not quite as crazy as the last couple of weeks but still some interesting things happening.

Alternaverse – Fly Together, Die Alone?

Everyone was getting together in the Alternaverse this episode. Locke and Ben head to the hospital only to meet up with Jin and Sun while Desmond delicately pushes Claire into meeting her half brother Jack (as well as previously blown up Illenya) just before Jack is called to the very same hospital Locke, Ben, Sun, and Jin are at. Meanwhile Sawyer and Miles chill with Kate and then go apprehend Sayid. The only one missing from a fully fledged Oceanic get together was Hurley. Most likely because he was too busy getting’ it on with Libby.

On Island – What’s With All The Explosions?

Jack and Evil Locke have a little side conversation (lots of these side chats happening here…) and we find out that Evil Locke was in fact the Christian Sheppard people were seeing around the Island. And just like that another LOST mystery is solved. Why did he lead Jack to the caves and water? Cause he wanted to help. How nice!

Magically it is day again and Not-Tina Fey shows up and tells Locke to give her back Desmond. Then she has her people drop a mortar on his camp. Badass Evil Locke doesn’t even flinch when the shell goes boom. He has till the end of the day which given that we just went from night to day in like a second could mean he could have hours or seconds. Crazy Island.

The impending shelling makes Evil Locke move up his plans and he sends Sawyer and Kate to fetch his sweet sailboat, “Monkey Business”, while he takes the rest of the folks by land. “Large groups move slow” he says but his eyes say “plot device”. Sawyer, putting all his chips on this submarine hijacking scheme (and really who in their life hasn’t done the same?), side chats with Jack and tells him to double back and bring all his Oceanic buddies (minus Crazy Claire and Zombie Sayid) to a special beach where he’ll pick them up in the boat and then they’ll steal the sub and sail away to freedom. Evil Locke then has yet another side chat with Sayid telling him to go kill Desmond. The groups split.

Locke, worried about Sayid, goes back to look for him giving Jack & crew the perfect chance to escape. Unfortunately he abandons Claire. His half sister and girl he just had a 10 minute talk with about how everyone abandoned her on the Island…
Sayid is all totally read to kill a very serene Desmond until Desmond asks him what he’ll tell Nadia he did to bring her back. Apparently killing Dogen and John Lennon and a couple of Widmore dudes is cool but maybe Nadia might draw the line at killing a dude stuck in a well. Does he kill him? Does he not kill him? We don’t know but he tells Locke that he did.

True to his word Sawyer picks everyone up but ut-oh what is this? Abandoned Claire. Perhaps angry about being abandoned? Kate talks her down and their merry band grows by one but not before Claire ominously warns that Evil Locke will not be happy they left. You should have just shot Kate Claire.

As the Monkey Business sails across the water Jack looks pensively out at the ocean. He’s been doing a lot of that this season. Maybe since Evil Locke wants them to leave so bad maybe they should in fact NOT leave he reasons. Sawyer misunderstands him and thinks he said something anti-submarine and kicks him off the boat. A couple mile swim later Jack is back on the Island and at the feet of Locke. Just in time for the shelling of a life time courtesy of one Charles Elizabeth Widmore who, after a touching Jin/Sun reunion, altered the deal. Sawyer, pray that he doesn’t alter it any further or you could end up in carbonite buddy!
We end the episode with Locke telling Jack he’ll be alright, he’s with him now. And thus Jack becomes the titular character of this episode – The Last Recruit. Not to be confused with Bruce Willis, who was of course The Last Boy Scout.

Theoryland

- So my theory about Christian Sheppard being brought to life by the Man in Black and being a zombie henchman like Sayid proved to be false. He apparently was Christian the entire time. At least on the Island. Who was Christian off Island then!? Smokie can’t get off the Island! Evil Locke is lying, he wasn’t him! He resurrected him I tells ya! I refuse to let my theory die! If he was Christian than why is he stuck in Locke’s body and not Christians?

- Maybe Sayid isn’t irredeemable after all. Looks like Desmond got him thinking about something other than murderin’ people. And that saved his life. The question is…did he also get Sayid thinking about pulling poor Aussies out of wells?

- We’re right on track for Jack to fix Locke’s paralysis in the alternaverse. Bank on it.

- Speaking of alternaverse Locke – in the ambulance when he said “Helen, she’s the woman I was going to marry”. Did he say that cause he thought he was going to die before he could marry her or did he say that because he had tapped into his Island self. A self who was going to marry Helen but ended up alienating her with his crazy daddy obsession. I’m thinking he’s tapped in.

- Also what about Sun seeing him in the stretcher next to her say “It’s him!”. She’s also tapped in thanks to the bullet she took.

- I think if you’re a Candidate you have a certain immunity to Evil Locke’s voice. Yes, Sayid and Claire fell for it but none of the rest of the Candidates seem to be irrevocably tied to him. I don’t think we have to worry about Jack now that he’s the only Candidate left on the Island. In fact I believe Jack is going to step into the Jacob role – going full circle from Man of Science to Man of Faith. Additionally him taking the Jacob role will imprison Evil Locke on the Island once again. A certain poetic ending: Jack and Locke forever trapped on the Island battling against each other much like Jack and the real Locke were for most of the series.

- At some point Frank is going to fly that plane off the Island. That’s the only reason he’s been kept around. What we should wonder about is who will be on that plane when it takes off. I just said Jack won’t be there. Who else?

- Who the flip is David’s mother? Most people are probably saying Juliet but you know who I say? Nikki! Wouldn’t that be a kick to the nuts 

- I think the massive Oceanic reunion is going to happen at the hospital but what is going to bring Sawyer, Miles, Kate, and Sayid there? How will Desmond do it? There’s only so many problems you can solve by running your car into them…

Prepare for Mindblowing of the Highest Degree

I give you ALL OF THE WHISPERS transcribed.

Everyone Loves Hugo

Things are starting to roll now! I think every episode post-Desmond is going to be just of a wild ride as tonight’s was!

Alternaverse - Chang Has 2 Arms!

So in the alternaverse Hurley came into his money due to, not the lottery, but his eternal love for fried chicken. Without the numbers he isn’t cursed, his grandfather Tito didn’t die and, judging from his absence at Hugo’s award ceremony, his dad is still touring the country with his buddy Chong. But the good news is that Mile’s dad, my favorite Dharma scientist, the best Asian French physicist out there, Dr. Pierre Chang is alive and well heading the museum that Hurley donated a chunk of change to. Best of all – he has both his arms. More on that later.
With all his fame and fortune there is one this Hurley doesn’t have – a woman. That is until Libby shows up. Crazy. She’s tapped into her Island memories and remembers their time together. Before she can explain she’s carted back to her mental institution and Hurley is left with an empty basket of tortilla chips. And questions. Lots of questions. As many questions as he does not have tortilla chips.

Desmond, being a man who also loves fried chicken, tracks down Hurley downing a family sized bucket where he gives him a little push in the right direction – “so what if she’s crazy brutha” Desmond says, “don’t you want to find out where she thinks she knows you from brutha?” Implying “yes she’s crazy but…boobies brutha boobies!”.

Hurley tracks down Libby at the nut house and since she checked herself into the place (you can do that!? Guess what I’m doing next weekend!) she can check herself out for a beach date. They get to the beach and Libby cannot resist the allure of a man who brings not 1, not 2, but 5 different cheeses to the beach and they kiss. Turns out “the power of love” that Huey Lewis sang about is the power to see your crazy Island vision. Desmond smiles to himself from the parking lot, checks off Hurley on his Oceanic list, and guns it out of there. His bumper is due on John Locke’s face in less than 5 minutes!

Ben, ever stick up the ass teacher, asks Desmond why he’s prowling around a high school parking lot. “Just checking it out for my son brutha.” That sounds reasonable thinks Ben and goes back to his Gogurt. Desmond hits the gas and blammo John Locke is road kill. Or is he? More on that later.

On Island – Boom Goes The Dynamite

On Island Richard is spearheading the Blow Up The Plane Initiative and Illyena has collected the dynamite for him. Hurley is having second thoughts at Libby’s grave. Whisper, whisper and look who shows up, Michael! “WAAAAAAAALT” he screams then suggests Hurley not blow up the plane. For some reason, even though he killed Libby and then blew up in the freighter, Hurley trusts him and goes totally anti-plane blowyupy. Illenya starts to tell him why they need to blow it up and then She gets Artz’d. How delightfully shocking!

With chunks of his protector on the ground Hurley changes his tune – lets blow up the plane he says! A little too late for Illenya and all two million pieces of her. They go back to the Blackrock to get more explosives only to see Hurley running in the opposite direction. No more Blackrock and no more plot point dynamite!

Richard begins screaming like a little girl about how stupid that was and how they’ll never blow up the plane now. A line is drawn and two teams are formed: Team Die Plane Die (Richard, Miles, and Ben) and Team Truffle Shuffle (Hurley, Sun, Frank, and Jack). Team Truffle Shuffle shuffles off to find Evil Locke for a chit chat. On the way Jack confesses that he’s finally stopped trying fix things and that’s why he’s following Hurley. Me thinks he’s got at least one more thing left to fix – Evil Locke’s face. Michael shows up again to point Hurley in the direction of Evil Locke’s camp. Also he explains the mystery of the whispers that have taunted us since day 1 – dead folks like him who can’t “move on”. Man, I’d watch every episode from episode 1 thru now just to note all the whispers.
Hurley and crew show up at Evil Locke’s camp and Jack gets a creepy “Hello Jack” from Locke. What does that mean?

On Island – Nice Looking Well Brutha!

Desmond continues to act high as a kite and is unphased by anything that happens around him. Sayid ties him to a tree, cool brutha. Evil Locke cuts him loose and takes him to a creepy well? Love it, brutha. Evil Locke tosses him down said well? Aaaaaaaiiiieeeeee brutha.

Theoryland

- Dr. Changtastic has both his arms. That sort of helps my theory that the alternaverse is what would have happened if Jacob hadn’t touched them. If they hadn’t been chosen by Jacob then they would have never crashed on the Island nor would they have ever time traveled to 1977 to cause the Incident. The Incident which, in case you don’t remember, took Changy’s arm.

- Did Desmond run down Locke as payback for tossing him down the well on the Island? No! He ran him down to give him the near death experience he needed to peek through the veil and see his Island self. Locke is going to live (thanks to Jack), walk again (thanks to Jack), and regain the faith he doesn’t currently have in the alternaverse (thanks to Desmond’s car hood). Will he be the counter balance to Evil Locke somehow?

- Michael cannot “move on” even though he’s dead. Do you remember who said he “could go now” right before he blew up in the freighter? Christian Sheppard, Evil Locke’s right hand man. I think the whispers who can’t move on are all there because of Evil Locke not Jacob. Remove Evil Locke and they’ll be free.

- The well Desmond is currently stuck in seems similar to the well the Frozen Donkey Wheel was located in. It isn’t the same well since it isn’t under the Orchid station but it has some electromagnetic properties which is why people dug down there in the first place. I don’t think Desmond is going to find some Island shifting wheel down there but being close to that electromagnetism is going to do something to him. Perhaps something he already knew was going to happen which is why he was so cool about everything going around him?

- Jack has given up his desire to fix everything. Hurley has learned to speak up and stop being a follower. Will all the Losties have to overcome their greatest flaw? What flaws match to each Lostie?

Happily Ever After

I remember way back when Desmond first arrived on the scene and I crazily hypothesized that he was a modern day Jesus. While he hasn’t quite achieved messiah status he certainly has turned out to be the most important character in LOST.

Alternaverse – Desmond Hume, Swinging Bachelor

Thanks to a massive EMP aimed directly at him Desmond finds himself staring at an Oceanic arrivals board in the alternaverse. He runs into Hurley and Claire before he’s picked up by everyone’s favorite Short Circuit star, Fisher Stevens. More LOST related Fisher Stevens was also George Minkowski, radio operator for the Freighter who succumbed to time jumping sickness cause he couldn’t find a constant. George is a limo operator now rather than a radio jockey and he can take Desmond anywhere he wants to go. First stop? Widmore Industries!

At Widmore Industries Desmond is treated to a warm welcome by former arch nemesis Charles Widmore. Alterna-Desmond is his right hand man and fixer. A man so trusted that Widmore shares some of his prized McCutchen scotch with him. A drink, you’ll remember, Widmore declined to share while he was busy telling Desmond he wasn’t worthy of his daughter. It seems Desmond has achieved that which he wanted in the original timeline – the approval of one Charles Widmore.

Widmore charges Desmond with a seemingly simple task – pick up the freshly bailed Charlie Pace so he and Drive Shaft can perform with his artistic musician son at some charity benefit. Not so fast Charlie says – I had a near death experience where I saw Claire and loved her and now I want you to have the same thing! Next thing you know they’re both sinking to the bottom of the ocean in Desmond’s car in a scene purposefully similar to when Charlie died on the Island. Desmond gets a flash of “Not Penny’s Boat” and then he’s in the hospital. The MRI machines electromagnetic play further havoc with Desmond’s brain banana and he gets flashes of his other life with Penny. This causes him to try and track down Charlie again. After a brief talk with Jack (what are the chances that 3 of us Oceanic folks would be in the same place at the same time Jack wonders…) and a chase Desmond catches up with Charlie who has some sage words for him, “I wouldn’t be looking for me, I’d be looking for Penny”.

Desmond heads off to confront Mrs. Widmore and her fabled temper and she surprisingly takes the news of no Drive Shaft really well. Up until Desmond hears “Penny Milton” (I wonder if her mother is somebody we know??) and asks her about it. At that point Mrs. Widmore goes into full Mrs. Hawking mode and tells him that he shouldn’t be looking for her. Why is it that Eloise, regardless of timeline, always seems to know more about what’s going on that anyone else? Is it because of Daniel’s notebook?

Speaking of Dan – he shows up and tells Desmond about his brief encounter with Charlotte and how it was love at first sight. Yes, it seems the original timeline is bleeding into the alternaverse for many people. Dan gives Desmond the location of his half sister – one Penelope Milton. Desmond meets up with her at the very same place he originally met up with Jack (Hawaii’s Pro Bowl Stadium). Is Penny there doing the same thing Desmond was – training for a race around the world? They talk and Desmond proves that I was on to something by fainting whenever I talked to a girl in high school – he secures a date!

On Island – Crouching Tiger, Hidden Sayid

Desmond wakes up and finds he’s been kidnapped by his best bud, Charles Widmore. Desmond shares his IV bag with Charles. Several times. Across the face. After that Charles tells Desmond that he hopes that everything he suspects about him is right and that he’s going to ask him to sacrifice something. He then unleases like a billion electromagnetons on him (I think the technical term is gausses?) in a little box that looks suspiciously like Jacob’s Cabin. This zapping causes Desmond to shift conscious to the alternaverse where he spends a good couple hours running after Charlie before he shakes Penny’s hand and is transported back. Only those hours in the alternaverse were only seconds in Island time.

Desmond wakes up with a serenity that comes from knowing what he has to do. He calmly tells Widmore he’s ready to do what needs to be done and Widmore sends him off with a bunch of cronies. In the jungle ninja Sayid shows up and kills everyone except Zoe, who he allows to run off, and Desmond who he tells to come with him. “Sure, brutha”.

Alternaverse – How Easy Is It To Get A Passenger Manifest?

Back in the Alternaverse Desmond tells George to get him his flight’s manifest (more Fisher Stevens? Yes, thank you!). He’s got to find everyone on the Island in the Alternaverse and make them see something just like Charlie made him see. End game has begun. LOST!

Theoryland

-We’ve been focusing so much on the good versus evil battle on the Island that we’ve been missing another of LOST’s central themes: love. So many couples – Penny/Desmond, Sun/Jin, Sawyer/Juliet, Charlie/Claire, Hurley/Libby, Sayid/Nadia, Jack/Kate (Boo Kate!). Will the re-pairing of these couples in the Alternaverse repair what’s going on On Island (re-pair/repair, hilarious Mike!).

-Still on the subject of the Alternaverse – does the alternaverse represent a place where you get your deepest desire? Desmond wanted Widmores’ approval, he got it. Daniel wanted to play the piano, done. Hurley wanted his bad luck reversed – blammo! Sawyer wanted a legal way to take out the real Sawyer – booya! Claire wanted to raise Aaron – schblammy! Kate wanted…well who the f#@k cares what Kate wanted! Is it sort of like the cursed monkey paw where you get your wish but it has horrible consequences? In the end will the Losties be given the choice to go on living their idyllic lives in the alternaverse but allowing Evil Locke to escape the Island in Island Time?

-Desmond’s mission is to bring all the Oceanic passengers together and make them see Island universe. Somehow this will lead to our end game. Will both universes survive? Will one be destroyed? Will they bend together in some sort of crazy bi-universe milkshake?

-Why is Desmond so damn calm and serene now? Is it because he knows exactly what he has to do? He’s almost as zombielike as Sayid is. Why did he go so willingly with him? Cause he knows that what he has to do doesn’t happen On Island but in the alternaverse?