The Last Recruit (S6, ep. 13)

“But now I know that in the brief moment of the present, all time exists, including everything that is in time — all that is eagerly anticipated, achieved, or realized. My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me not to define a place by saying ‘here’ or ‘there’. Before my Soul taught me, I thought that when I was in any place on the earth I was remote from every other spot. But now I have learned that the place where I subsist is all places, and the space I occupy is all intervals.” – Khalil Gibran, The Vision: Reflections on the Way of the Soul

JACK: This doesn’t feel right.
SAWYER: What doesn’t feel right?
JACK: Leaving the island.

It doesn’t feel right to me either, Jack. I don’t want to leave. I want to hang out with you guys for at least another season.

It’s all about the reunions in The Last Recruit – the long-anticipated reuniting of the castaways and the burgeoning “reunion” of worlds that’s further hinted at. It’s also all about moving the pieces around, as characters are shifted from location to location, set up for final confrontations and revelations. It’s to the episode’s credit that despite this aspect the show was engaging, dramatic, and emotional for me as a viewer, and hurtled along with a velocity that’s admirable. What’s the difference between an episode like this one and one like Recon? It’s a question of momentum. Recon felt like an engine idling. The Last Recruit feels like an engine shifting, finally, into high gear. There’s no new episode next week, which will give me a much-needed break in this column’s schedule. But keep an eye out next week – a Very Special Edition of Back to the Island is coming your way.

Thoughts:

Jack: “Why John Locke?”
Locke: “Because he was stupid enough to believe that he’d been brought here for a reason. Because he pursued that belief until it got him killed. And because you were kind enough to bring his body back here in a nice wooden box.”
Jack: “He had to be dead before you could look like him.”
Locke: “That’s right.”

• Fascinating. A number of us dedicated fans (read: crazed people) had already put this stuff together, but it’s wonderful to have it confirmed and to have it confirmed with a few lines of well-picked dialogue. So, now it’s official: the MiB can only impersonate the dead, and those dead people need to be present on the Island for him to take their form.

This tells us something interesting: The “ghost” of Walt that we saw back in Season 3? Not the MiB. This actually makes sense to me, based off of my nutty theorizing on the reason for Walt’s “special” status and off of Mrs. Klugh’s question to Michael: Has Walt ever been seen in places he shouldn’t be? If you’re curious, you can read more about this stuff by clicking here (scroll to “Room 23”).

Jack: “The third day we were here I saw… I chased my father through the jungle… my, my dead father. Was that you?”
Locke (pauses): “Yes, that was me.”
Jack: “Why?”
Locke: “You needed to find water. This may be hard for you to believe, Jack, but all I’ve ever been interested in is helping you.”

• We get what appears to be solid confirmation that the Man in Black has been impersonating Jack’s father since the beginning of the show. That’s something that I’ve believed since I started the Rewatch column last year, Back in Season 1’s “White Rabbit” I mulled over “Christian’s” appearances:

“And speaking of Christian, Jack spends much of the episode running around pursuing his ‘ghost.’ The same ghost that will later tell Locke that he’s Jacob’s emissary. I like that Jack is chasing his father in multiple senses throughout the episode. (1) while in the jungle, looking for his apparition, (2) all the way to Sydney, in order to bring him back after what Jack ‘did,’ and (3) professionally and personally, as if to prove and disprove his father’s opening judgments all at once.

White Rabbit lends serious credence to the notion that Risen Christian is the MiB. As a result of following him through the jungle, Jack comes close to plummeting from a cliff and dying similarly to the way in which ‘Dave’ comes close to tempting Hurley off a cliff in Season Two. Then again, Risen Christian also ends up leading Jack to the caves – a locale I haven’t thought about in years.”

If the Man in Black is telling the truth here (and it makes perfect sense if he is – “Christian’s” appearances on the show have been uniformly creepy and Lynchian), then that slots a huge piece of the puzzle into final place for us. “Christian” in the cabin with Claire? The MiB. Christian” in Dharmaville? The MiB. “Christian” at the Frozen Donkey Wheel? The MiB.

And given that he’s been impersonating Jack’s dad, his appearances there make even more sense. At first, he seems to be taunting Jack into madness, then positioning Jack to throw himself off of a cliff (and if the MiB was aware of Jack’s “Candidate” status at this point, then that act of attempted murder becomes totally f***ing cool in terms of its long-term intent). But then “Christian” leads Jack to the caves – an act that seems to help the castaways. But does it? Remember that the decision to stay on the beach or head for the caves was the first major schism to surface in the castaway community. It divided people effectively and quietly. Clearly, if the MiB has been assuming Christian’s form, he wasn’t doing so just to help Jack find water. That’s just the reason he gives Jack in order to further convince him that they should be Island buddies.

But there’s a big problem with the idea of the MiB-as-Christian. We’ve seen Christian’s “ghost” off of the Island. He appeared to Michael just before the explosives detonated aboard the Kahana, and he appeared to Jack in the lobby of the hospital. Given what we know about the Man in Black and his inability to leave the Island, this raises serious questions about the truth of Anti-Locke’s words.

So, there are a few “logical” (ha!) options here: (1) The Man in Black is lying to Jack, and has never assumed Christian’s form; (2) The Man in Black is not lying, and did assume the form of Christian in White Rabbit, but did not appear as Christian off of the Island, meaning that the Christian who appeared to Michael and Jack was either a true “ghost” ala Michael from this season or was a projection of an unknown force (like, say, the creepy kid currently haunting Anti-Locke); or (3) The Man in Black’s abilities included the ability to assume the form of “ghosts” off of the Island prior to Jacob’s death, but his “true” form/essence/meatsuit remained nonetheless trapped.

This third option actually makes the most sense to me, especially if we’re actually going to get some explanation for Walt and Walt’s abilities. As I mention in the piece I linked to above, it’s my theory that Walt’s “special” abilities involve the manipulation of electromagnetism. This ability would theoretically draw birds and polar bears to him, since both are supposed to use the Earth’s electromagnetic lines for navigation purposes. This ability might also allow a person to “project” an image of their consciousness on an Island that’s already been shown to have “unique” electromagnetic properties.

Jack: “John Locke was the only one of us that ever believed in this place. He did everything he could to keep us from leaving this island.”
Anti-Locke: “John Locke was not a believer, Jack. He was a sucker.”

• Jack and Anti-Locke’s chat does not disappoint. Over the course of the conversation, the Man in Black continues to sell his vision of meaninglessness by picking at Jack’s burgeoning “faith” in the real, deceased, John Locke, and in the Island itself. This makes perfect sense. As Jack will later observe, it’s very possible that the Man in Black is afraid of what happens if the castaways choose to stay. In order to get them to come with him, the MiB needs to completely disabuse them of any sense of “destiny,” and he needs to hammer home the notion of the real Locke as a chump, a mark, a patsy; the ultimate victim in the Ultimate long con.

And the Man in Black isn’t wrong about that. To a large extent, John Locke’s five season journey struck me as the story of a man pulled apart by forces he doesn’t truly understand, manipulated and used and ultimately discarded. It’s a sad, sad story.

But the Man in Black’s patter still doesn’t ring entirely true to me. Granted, this may be because I vehemently disagree with the Man in Black’s overall philosophical position; If I’m to accept the notion of an Existential, God-less, meaningless existence, then I choose to subscribe to the Existential Humanism of people like Jean Paul Sartre, who emphatically underlined the idea that each individual is capable of creating meaning from life, and thus refuting meaninglessness. I choose the Religious Existentialism of writers like Flannery O’Conner, whose work reflects the reality of human suffering and pain as a means of transcendence. I choose faith in meaning over despair of meaninglessness.

I imagine that most of you out there would choose similarly. We want our lives to mean something, even if they don’t actually “mean” something in terms of some Grand, Ineffable Cosmic Plan. Anti-Locke’s patter, for all of its seductive reasonableness, is anti-meaning. And that’s a train I can’t board.

Besides, I don’t think that the Man in Black’s decision to use Locke’s body was based entirely off of Locke’s gullibility and general suckerhood. I think it’s more complicated than that. Like to hear about it? Let’s make like Olivia Newton John and get Biblical, Biblical for a minute:

“But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John……And he shall go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” – John 1:13 & 1:17

The above description refers to John the Baptist, prophet-in-the-wilderness, locust-eater, O.B. (Original Baptisa) and foretold-forerunner of Jesus Christ in Christianity. The figure of John the Baptist also features in the stories of Islam, Judaism, and the Bahá’í faith, among others. In Islam, he is known as “a Prophet of the Righteous,” and that’s also more-or-less his role in the Jewish faith as I understand it (as always, I invite the knowledgeable among you to let me know if I’m mistaken, and if you have further observations that you think are interesting).

Like John Locke, John the Baptist was murdered as a result of his faith. Like Locke, the Baptist’s death was mocked by those who’d engineered it. Caravaggio made John the Baptist the subject of eight paintings, and we’ve seen Caravaggio pop up on the show before through his painting “The Incredulity of Saint Thomas.”

In Christianity, John the Baptist also served as a prophet. This is not at all dissimilar to the role that John Locke played on the Island. He was also a “prophet of the wilderness” – one who preached an Island gospel that frightened and inspired people in equal measure. In the Bible, John foretold the coming of God’s son – the promised Messiah who would change the world. On the Island, John spent a good deal of time attempting to convince Christian’s son – a Candidate for the God/Christ/Ra/Aslan position of New Jacob – that he had a destiny to be fulfilled. All signs point to Jack and his fellow castaways making a decision that may literally change the world.

John the Baptist also features heavily in the Gnostic belief system, a faith that I’ve previously written about (click here to read more) as being particularly potentially pertinent (alliteration!). Under the Gnostic belief system, interestingly, John died and was subsequently reincarnated – something we’ve seen on Lost in at least two senses of the word. The real John Locke died and was “reincarnated” as the Man in Black on the Island.

Additionally, the off-Island John Locke who visits the hospital in this week’s episode could be considered a “reincarnation” (or, another incarnation) of the Locke we knew and loved. After his beheading, the Baptist’s spirit was said to have become an inspiring force to Christ’s disciples – and Locke’s faith in the Island has seemed to become more and more important to Jack as time has gone on. His tone in the conversation with the MiB suggests that Jack has become inspired by John’s faith.

All of which is pretty interesting to me, and might be interesting to you. But most important for the purposes of Jack and Anti-Locke’s conversation might be this:

One reason given for King Herod’s decision to behead John the Baptist: Herod feared the Baptist’s growing power and influence, and wanted him removed. Is it possible that the Man in Black wanted Locke dead, not just to provide a means of killing Jacob through subterfuge, but also to remove the person who’d most clearly shown himself to be a prophet, a believer, and a potential source of trouble to the MiB’s plans? I think so. I think that the Man in Black recognized an opportunity in John Locke, both because Locke’s outsized faith, imbalanced without reason, made him an appealing, malleable target and because his faith also made him dangerous. Locke’s innate faith in the Island – a faith that the MiB has outright and completely rejected – is an unquestionable obstacle to the Man in Black’s escape. As long as Locke was around, and capable of potentially inspiring the people around him, the chances of the MiB being able to convince everyone to come with him in the wake of Jacob’s death would have been nil. And even in the aftermath of Locke’s death, his faith is continuing to inspire Jack, maintaining an obstacle to the MiB’s escape.


JACKFACE!

Ben: “[H]e’s a substitute teacher at my school. His name is Locke… Mr. Locke. I don’t know his first name, but he uses a wheelchair. Where is it?”
EMT: “Smashed to pieces. That thing probably saved his life.”

• This isn’t the first time that Lost has illustrated ways in which a past tragedy produces a lucky/good consequence. Recall that Ben shot Locke by the Dharma grave, and that the bullet passed through the area where his stolen kidney once resided. Had it still been a part of him, he’d have been killed.

Sun: “No! No! It’s him! It’s him!”

• More evidence of a “bleed” between realities, as Sun’s off-Island self seems to recognize Locke despite having never laid eyes on him before. This can really only mean that some portion of on-Island Sun’s memories/consciousness have momentarily leaked into the memories/consciousness of off-Island Sun.


Stoned JACKFACE!

Claire: “You know, I-I never really had much in the way of family, so it…really means a lot that you’re coming with us.”
Jack: “Actually, I haven’t – I haven’t decided if I’m coming with you.”
Claire: “Yeah, you have.”
Jack: “What do you mean?”
Claire: “You decided the moment you let him talk to you, just like the rest of us. So, yeah, whether you like it or not, you’re with him now.”

• That remains deeply creepy to me. And it sorta-kinda clears up the notion of “infection” a little further for me as a viewer. The sickness that’s “claimed” Claire and Sayid appears to be mental in nature, not physical, and it appears to be mostly self-induced – something that makes perfect sense in the context of Lost’s narrative, which has consistently beat its story-drum to the tune of “personal accountability.” “Physician, heal thyself” is arguably one of the central thematic conceits of this show, and that sentiment is further underlined by the possible idea that people are “claimed” by literal philosophies – by the seductive point of view of the Man in Black, and not by any free will-sapping virus or mystical curse.

Maybe there’s something preternaturally convincing about the MiB – maybe he “boosts” your receptiveness, your basest desires and fears. Maybe his ability to see into the minds of some folks just gives him a better position from which to pitch his sale. And maybe that’s what Claire’s referring to when she tells Jack that “he’s already decided.” Regardless, it’s now clear that this seemingly supernatural/superstitious aspect to the Man in Black’s conversations can be fought against. In this episode, Claire, Sayid, Sawyer and Jack all choose to disobey the MiB.

All of that said, I need a concrete answer to the questions of “sickness” and “infection.”

MORE AFTER THE PAGE BREAK!