And Into the Sideways We Go...

To say the episode The Last Recruit is busy would be an understatement. Phew, is it a loaded piece with lots of moving parts. The Sideways alone is exhausting in its numerous threads, gradually drawing all the Oceanic characters together, cleverly and profoundly; the labyrinthine dynamics of Cuse and Lindelof’s vision in this alternate timeline is as impressive as what has been covered for five previous years on the show, Lost.

*Locke is hit by Desmond, who plows through him with a moving car, as Ben rides in the ambulance with this substitute teacher. Locke will need surgery and who is the man to work on him? Jack, that’s who.

*Jack learns of a sister he never knew he had. Desmond insists that pregnant Claire meet an attorney he knows because adoption matters can be a bit difficult, so having legal assistance helps. The attorney is none other than Ilana.

*Sun is carried to the hospital alongside Locke, noticing him, terrified, while Jin accompanies her. Sun’s pregnant. Because Sayid killed those that were a threat to Jin, the threat of her father was extinguished.

*Sayid has been uncovered as the one responsible for the deaths of Keamy and his men, with Sawyer and Miles out to arrest him. Sawyer, sure enough, trips Sayid with a water hose and cuffs him. Sawyer also arrests Kate and has some words with her, amused by her realizing that his reasoning for letting her escape at the airport was because he didn’t want his trip to Australia to be discovered.

All these ongoing threads continue to connect the very characters caught in the ensuing politick splintering them into factions either determined to keep The Man in Black on the island or setting him free (or escaping the island themselves). Jack and Hurley (and perhaps Ben) are the obvious characters most likely to want to stay on the island, so the others are all pieces on this chess board…it seems The Man in Black and Widmore are the main players. Where is Jacob in all of this? He shows up as a kid from time to time to torment his adversary, but so much happens even as he is absent. But it does seem, even as he is absent, he nonetheless has a presence that remains undeniable. He is on the lips during conversations and still stirs up emotions. So he’s still a player, even despite his death, in this grand game, two islands within a part of the ocean mostly unknown to many others.

At the well, on the island, at The Man in Black’s urging, Sayid has intentions on killing Desmond. Desmond has nowhere to go and no options to rescue himself except ask Sayid why he is willing to shoot an unarmed man. And when Sayid tells him, all Desmond can do is question why he’d trust The Man in Black. And the question of what Sayid would tell the woman he loves and lost how she was returned to him, it left him contemplating it. Sayid returns to Locke’s form, assuring The Man in Black that Desmond is dead…that is enough to persuade him! Desmond, whether on the island or in the Sideways, is very much an active presence, a notable device that works to the betterment of the island and opposition of the darkness that must not leave the island or affect what lies off of it.