Previously on LOST is a weekly column recapping and analyzing each episode from the final season of Lost. (Warning: May contain spoilers!)

The latest episode of LOST was a bringing together of characters. It was also the first episode this season that did not have one character as its focus. To me this might have been its biggest misstep. The episode lacked identity and was uncommitted to the moments with the most potential.

“Underwhelming” is a word that popped into my mind a lot while watching “The Last Recruit”. The moments that should have had strong emotional resonance seemed to be more about characters reacting as a matter of circumstance rather than interacting. I thought that most of these scenes felt rushed and weren’t given time to develop. Here’s a quick rundown:

• Jack finding out that he and Claire are brother and sister
• Kate telling Claire that she came back to the island to get her back to Aaron
• Jack finding out he and Claire are brother and sister… again!
• Sun and Jin reuniting

None of these were scenes that I will remember as the highlights they could have been. The Sun and Jin reunion, in particular, seemed to go completely wrong, to the point of being laughable. The first problem was Sun regaining her ability to speak English. All I was thinking about was that if this was the payoff for the speech loss device, how completely distracting and unnecessary it was. I would have been happier if the sole purpose of the language loss was created so that the reunion could have played out in Korean. Finally, Lapidus capped it off with the line “Looks like someone got her voice back,” which just pushed it over the edge.

Aside from how I feel about the quality of the episode there were some noteworthy happenings. Flocke revealed to Jack that he was the vision of Jack’s father upon their arrival to the island, stating that he could only take the form of someone who is dead. The jury is out on whether he can be trusted on this, but I think he is telling the truth. However, he seemed to imply that the body needed to be on the island. I’m still not sure if this is the case, as the appearances of Walt and Richard’s wife tend to refute this (pending a different explanation).

Sayid was sent by Flocke to kill Desmond, but the audience was left to wonder if he carried out his mission. I think most viewers are skeptical that Des is dead, and would be upset if such a pivotal moment was omitted. However, the possibility exists that the writers will include a No Country for Old Men homage in a future episode.

In my opinion, the most crucial reveal of the episode came at the beginning. Sun seemed scared when she saw John Locke beside her on a hospital gurney, declaring with terror, “It’s him!” Most speculate that Sun’s near-death experience caused her to witness her “flash” of the island. And her fright probably insinuated that Flocke is about to do something terrible on the island that we have yet to see, as I couldn’t think of anything from the island timeline that would have warranted this response.

“The Last Recruit” felt like it was about nothing. The sole focus of this episode was getting people where they needed to be. With most episodes of LOST I can remember a moment or a theme to describe the episode. This rings true from the best episodes (“The flashbacks were actually flash forwards”) to the worst (“The one where Locke ends up on a dope farm”). I think I will remember this episode as “The one where Sun got her voice back,” and that isn’t a good thing.

Note: LOST is a repeat next week (Ab Aeterno).

Discussion Topics

• Is Locke telling the truth about being Jack’s father?
• Is Desmond dead?
• Who was “The Last Recruit”?

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