Last Lost: "The Last Recruit"

by Ryland Walker Knight

I.

X never marks the spot

II.

Go on, tell her

III.

Hipster hair, sneer

IV.

Smokey ringing loud

Last Lost: "Recon"

by Ryland Walker Knight

—Don't be fooled; not a dungeon
Sawyer episodes are usually a lot of fun because he usually gets into a lot of mischief. This one proved no different. And, for once, I was totally into the sideways story where Sawyer's Jim, an LAPD detective working with Miles, for the simple fact that it played like a parody of the buddy cop genre. Sure, it was kind of cool to see Charlotte show up undamaged, and the final chase to throw Kate against a fence was lively, but mostly it was hilarious to see these two dudes play these roles. Only problem with it is that is that Ken Leung is a better actor than Josh Holloway and seems in on the joke a bit more. Not to say Holloway's no good, but he mostly scowls through the episode.

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about acting on this show and we agreed that it's probably one of the easiest jobs around because the writers set you up with a certain trait or tic or single motivation and then all you have to do is make that believable; or, as was said, "do that shit to death." Holloway's been doing the charming thing for so long that his darker moments never seem quite that dark. (However, when he bust out of the temple and cried on the pier with Kate, he was pretty good.) Even in that mischief, he's seductive. He plays all angles to win over whomever happens to be his interlocutor, such as Dark Locke or Charles Widmore (or even Charlotte in 2004'). After all, Dark Locke said, Sawyer's the best liar he ever met.

Part of what makes him a good liar in this episode, on the island at least, is that he's largely telling the truth. Somehow, the truth about actions masks his motivations. Like a lot of the "Losties" of old, Sawyer's reverted to looking out for number one only. In a way, his aims echo Michael's in that they're of a single purpose (to leave) except Sawyer plays the game better. Which is to say that Sawyer is a better actor than Michael (though not necessarily Holloway over Harold Perrineau) because he (Sawyer) doesn't make the interactions about him or his motivations; these encounters are all about placating, or seducing, the mark Sawyer's made. So Sawyer tells Widmore he'll help him kill Dark Locke, and he tells Dark Locke what he told Widmore to help Dark Locke think he's helping Dark Locke kill Widmore. Then Sawyer tells Kate what he's done as a way to set up a clusterfuck he hopes to duck out of, and onto the sub. Makes sense to me.

Apart from the Sawyer stuff, there was a bit more on the Kate versus Claire front, including the risible rag doll moment when Dark Locke tore Claire off Kate and threw her aside. Dark Locke, then, seems to smooth things over by copping to the truth about where Aaron is and why Kate did what she did. Or, he got them both calm enough to tell Kate to kill Claire—because Claire's now a crazy mother, just like the one that gave this evil incarnate his "growing pains" as he says. Kate seems like she could do it, too, but I think we're lead to believe she won't after Claire apologizes with all kinds of tears, and a hug, later.

So if Sawyer's our bird on a wire, what does that make Kate? She's the one, after all, always aching to get free. Or maybe this means they'll really wind up together. In any case, there wasn't any Leonard Cohen on the soundtrack of the episode, or in the promos for next week. But the promo does have me excited to see more of Richard's story, and more of the things he's seen on the island. I'm sure there's other places on the internet full of theories about what he meant in the promo by "all of this isn't what you think it is" but I'm guessing that misdirection, a snippet in regards to something other than the broad topic of the island. I just hope they'll quit this back and forth thing soon where one episode we spend with Dark Locke and the next with the Ilana-led troupe of misfits. Seems like stalling. Also, I hope Sayid makes a few more bad choices. His little bit of screen time this week was the most mysterious, and compelling, and not just because it was opposite Kate. Because it seems like he's really on a slippery slope back towards dead.

[Please excuse the quick gloss of this recap; I'm sick and tired. Doin my best to follow Michael Landon's advice and live but one day at a time.]

Last Lost: "The Substitute"

by Ryland Walker Knight

The stir 'em silly bit of copy at the end of this week's preview for next week's episode declared, "The time for questions is over." I guess that means we're supposed to buy into Dark Locke's spiel to Sawyer about Jacob purportedly manipulating all our principals into trajectories aimed at the island. And I don't know if I do. I don't doubt that Jacob played a part in getting these people to the island, but I do doubt whether his endgame had someone else take over ever. The speech was edited to support Dark Locke, of course, with the reminders of Jacob's appearances, but what about this newly instantiated dude would make you think he's telling the truth? Richard's admonition—that this pillar of smoke is a pillar of evil intent on eradicating everybody on the island—makes more sense, and colors my suspicion that I'm sure others share: that cave-list of "candidates" was never Jacob's, in fact that cave was his neither, but rather that shadowy space is a province of the dark figure.

Like "The Constant," this episode has a great, polyvalent title. Unlike "The Constant," it's mostly a table setting episode. But boy howdy was I pleased to have it focus on Locke and his variant personalities/manifestations/threads. What's more, we got a lot of Sawyer acting tough and sorta smart. Makes sense, too, as Locke and Sawyer were always looking for a substitute, a place to displace their displeasures with the world, be it faith or be it a woman or be it a walkabout or be it drink. So it's a cruel joke that one of Locke-prime's solutions to this problem is to become a literal substitute, albeit a stand-in who sits. —Would they really give a dude in a wheelchair the gym gig? And it's a crueler joke to have this substitute man of faith prey on Sawyer's fears and anger with a con designed to prod him where it hurts. That is, to tell him, the con man, that he got conned into this life.

But, of course, it also makes sense that Sawyer, drunk as a skunk and a mess in foul/ed skivvies, can recognize at first sight that this isn't actually John Locke since we've seen before that Sawyer knows how to read people. Goes with being a con man. Or so it seems. Seems he's gullible like anybody, as that cave sequence illuminates, when the carrot (or donut) dangled is just what he wants. Seems he's got his obvious foibles like anybody. But on Josh Holloway they always look good, even in a grimace, and plausible. Put otherwise, I think he's an underrated actor among this ensemble. Holloway may not be as subtle as Terry O'Quinn (did you notice his taken-aback gulp when Katy Segal tears up the card?), with his muscling through the difficulties, but, like a good con man, he doesn't come off forced. His character's an actor so it fits they found a slick s-o-b with charm and dimples to spare to fill those boots.

The series' other great con man, Ben Linus, is also a good actor played by a good actor. But Michael Emerson's all about restraint. His lies are built like forts, guarded calculations from on high. He's forever trying to hold onto an upper hand. Which is what makes his half-assed eulogy for the real John Locke stirring, if not moving: now, in the face of what this Dark Locke is capable of, including manipulating him into murder, Ben's willing to admit his shortcomings as a human. However, the lies won't ever stop with Ben, it appears, as he's quick to pawn off his part in Jacob's demise in order to appease Ilana's grief. However, his role on the island this week wasn't nearly as intriguing as his cameo back in 2004's sidelong world. I don't know how putting the island underwater in the 1970s puts a heeled-by-the-temple teenage Ben back into "the real world" to grow into this European History teacher, but I'll play along with it if it means more scenes in that thread between him and the wheelchair-bound Locke. I do hope they return to them in that teacher's lounge, playing chess and drinking tea and needling one another, to echo their games on the island. I do hope it spins out that they were being groomed to replace Jacob and his dark counterpart. But such wishful thinking will only lead to disappointment.

More important is what this cave represents for the show. Dark Locke may not be telling the whole truth about it, but it tells us another truth about the island: this figure, who claims he was once a man, has been hunting for some time. And there's something about this Locke shell that doesn't quite meet his needs. If he is recruiting, as Ilana says, he very well may be recruiting another substitute body to take over. Getting off the island "together" with Sawyer may just lead to Sawyer forking over his characteristic common sense and improvisational skills, if not also his body. Or, it could fulfill Richard's prediction and fear, and prove the temple's protective steps true, by forcing James to turn on his old friends one hundred percent. It's a great cliffhanger. For one, it's literally set on (or in) a cliff. For another, being set in a cave, you know there won't be any turning back. You know that list will whittle down one way or another. You know that "inside joke" of tossing the white stone into the waves signals a moral imbalance, a ledger on the tilt.

Here's hoping next week's "The Lighthouse" opens more than a yellow eye on the so-questioned legacy of this island, and on the so-announced limitations of what Locke (real, dead, or Dark) can or cannot do with the time and the body that's left to him.

[EVENING UPDATE: We're live at The House.]