The pieces are finally coming into place as LOST enters into it’s last stretch of episodes. After a slew of hit-and-miss episodes earlier in the season, the series has finally started to gain momentum with first the Desmond-centric “Happily Ever After”, then the Hurley-centric “Everybody Loves Hugo”, and now the multi-centric “The Last Recruit”. All three episodes have been remarkably strong, managing to juggle both some heavy plot developments with some softer character moments. Make no bones about it, “The Last Recruit” is a transitional episode designed to start moving the plot along at a faster pace but what’s nice is that even amidst all of the rapid plot developments, the characters (or at least, most of them) aren’t lost in the scuffle.
The Good:
Despite this episode technically being a multi-centric, there is a heavy focus on one character in particular in both the current timeline and the flash-sideways: Claire Littleton. And all I have to say about this is that it’s about time. Claire is definitely shaping up to be one of the series' more tragic and interesting characters - something that would seem almost ridiculous a season or two ago. At this point, I'm really much more invested in her journey than many of the other characters on the island.
Claire’s character arc this season has been phenomenal and this is primarily because of Emilie de Ravin constantly rising to the challenge of delivering some much heavier material than she’s been used to.
The look on Claire’s face when she sees what were once her friends, congregating and then leaving without her – for the second time – is heartbreaking. De Ravin’s facial expression conveys so much pain in this single shot that we can actually understand how and why Claire’s become what she’s become. So many of the characters we’ve been following have done some horrible things because they have been abandoned or betrayed by one person they’ve cared about, but Claire’s been betrayed by all of the people she’s cared about. Watching how well de Ravin works with such emotionally heavy scenes, it’s a shame that the writers couldn’t have brought out more of this in Season 4 after Charlie’s death.
The fact that Jack, Sawyer, Hurley, and Sun were so readily willing to abandon Claire for a second time really paints them all in a negative light - especially when you recall the relationships that Claire's had with all of them in the early seasons: Claire and Hurley were good friends and Hurley was there for Claire during some of her more emotionally stressing moments, Sawyer acted like an older brother figure/guardian figure to Claire for most of Season 4 being overly-protective and risking his life on multiple occasions to save hers, Sun was like Aaron's second mother during the first three seasons of the show and Sun is really rather hesitant to leave the island in Season 4 without Claire (it's a shame she doesn't feel this way the second time round), and Jack is (quite literally) the closest thing to family Claire has on the island. So the mutual decision made by all of them to abandon her is really disheartening and really lowers my opinions of all the characters involved. It just seems like sloppy writing - it's irrational that these characters would be so willing to abandon one of their own and lead her into a death trap (they are after all leading her to Widmore's army with Flocke where no doubt, blood will be shed).
But I guess the silver lining in all of this is that Kate is given another chance this season to redeem herself in the eyes of many viewers. I've really loved Kate this season - she's rational, independent, and doesn't care about anything but getting Aaron back his mother. Kate's refusal to leave without Claire is a nice moment for both characters and helps Kate gain some much needed likeability points as we head towards the show's final hours.
Another nice addition to the episode was the appearance of Ilana in the flash-sideways. This was one character I never would’ve thought to have seen in this alternate universe so it was a nice surprise. Her appearance gives me hope that maybe her character wasn’t the waste of space that I had assumed following her sudden and insignificant death last week. Ilana always seemed like an interesting character – the writers just didn’t have enough time to devote to her proper development – so it’s nice to think that maybe in this different environment off the island, we might be able to get a better understanding of her character and her mysterious back-story.
The Bad:
Aside with the aforementioned storyline of Hurley, Jack, Sawyer, and Sun abandoning Claire, I really only had one other problem with this episode and it’s once again involving the way the writers have dealt with Sayid this season.
With how intriguing Claire’s storylines have been this season, it’s hard not to contrast it to that of Sayid’s – who’s own developments have been somewhat been linked to Claire’s. And unfortunately for the character of Sayid, his transformation just hasn’t been handled anywhere near as well as Claire’s has. Despite multiple characters tying Claire and Sayid’s character transformations together, there seems to be a big difference between the two. While Claire’s developments manage to be emotionally honest, Sayid’s strikes no emotional chords whatsoever. Whereas de Ravin is portraying Claire as a woman who has been abandoned by everyone in her life (Christian, Charlie, Jack, Kate, Aaron, and possibly even herself as her mental state has deteriorated) and has been steered down a dark path by the one person who never left her, Andrews (who isn't given much to work with) has been forced to play Sayid as a mindless zombie this entire season.
Even more disappointing is that in this episode the writers addressed this in an incredibly unsatisfying way. When Desmond questioned Sayid's dramatic character change and his allegiance to Flocke - Sayid claims that he is acting the way he is acting because Flocke has promised to give him back the one person he's truly loved who has died. So Sayid's been acting like a brainless zombie because he wants Flocke to resurrect the love of his life? That might be a good enough justification as to why Sayid’s been following Flocke’s orders but this hardly explains why he’s been acting the way he has. I can only hope that if there is some mystical or supernatural element behind this, it’s explained soon because at the moment – Sayid has become one of the series’ most inconsistent and tedious characters. And the Sayid of seasons past, deserved better than this.
Verdict:
With its latest offering, “The Last Recruit”, LOST seems to have finally gotten rid of the pacing issues that had been plaguing the series’ final season earlier in its run. Satisfying yet tantalizing at the same time, this episode proves that there’s a lot to look forward to when LOST returns in two weeks with its final 5 hours.
