SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen the episode airing April 21, don't read this.
(Before I go any further, take a look at this link that The Cake Mom sent--Lost cookies! Love it!)
I can't help but feel frustrated at the pacing in these final episodes. There are only four left, after all, and I feel like there is more than four episodes' worth of material to cover. But I have my rose-colored glasses firmly in place, trusting that these writers know where they're going. If they're saving up the loose ends until the last episode...well, it will be one heck of an episode.
Still, there were some notable points in "The Last Recruit":
Christian Shepherd = Smokey
According to Fake Locke (who is about as trustworthy as...well, the devil) the frequently appearing Christian Shepherd has, in fact been Smokey all along. This isn't a huge surprise, but it does raise an important question: If Smokey is unable to leave the Island, then how did Christian appear to Jack in Season Four, back in Los Angeles after the rescue?
"It has to be all of us."
The presence of all the candidates is critical to the coming and going on the Island. That's what it took to get the Ajira plane properly crashed on the Island, and it's what it's going to take to get this crew back off the Island (again, according to Fake Locke). But why? This plot element is one that confuses me the most.
Intersecting lives
In the sideways reality, the Losties' lives crash more and more into each other. Sun and John enter the hospital together (where Sun recognizes him). Jack performs surgery on John. Miles and Sawyer head out to arrest Sayid while Kate waits back at the station. Ilana and Claire meet with Desmond and Jack. This almost surely must be a build-up to some giant "hey-we've-met-before" moment in the next couple of episodes.
Desmond: Is he dead or not?
The question of the night, as far as I'm concerned, is whether Sayid went through with Desmond's murder. My vote is that he didn't--that he might have, in fact, helped Desmond escape. If we can possibly see a glimmer of redemption in Sayid, maybe there's hope for all the other people on the dark side as well. My son's fifth-grade English teacher (we Losties find each other, I'm tellin' you) swears up and down that even John Locke is going to be fully redeemed at the end. We'll see.
Jumping ship
Sawyer, Kate and Co. escape on Libby's old sailboat, but Jack follows his conscience and swims back to shore. Was this a good choice? I think a fair gut reaction in this show is to bet on Jack.
Adam and Eve
Did you catch the scene where Sawyer was eating the apple and offered it to Kate? That was a rather Adam-and-Eve-ish moment, no? Was it a hint of things to come?
Reunited and it feels so good.
I was thrilled that Jin and Sun were reunited, even if the cornball factor was pretty high on that scene ("Look who got her voice back," said Lapidus). In this show, true love will not only serve as your Constant and help you recognize alternate realities, it will also magically reinsert the English language into your brain. That's a stretch, even for Lost.
Just for grins, here are a few polls to see where your predictions stand:
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