The Televangelist: ‘Lost’ Season 6, Episode 13

Let us hope that “The Last Recruit” is “The Last Blue Balls” episode of the series.  With only four hours of storytelling remaining, how much more can they procrastinate?  Last night’s offerings (and let’s mention that title - who is that in reference to?) started strong.  Flocke immediately took Jack aside and admitted to taking the form of Christian, and that yes, people had to be dead for him to take their likeness.  He also tossed in some light trash talk regarding Jacob and Locke, yet from all that potential began nothing more than an uneven and mishmashed episode of multiple alt timelines and a reshuffling of the character deck.

When “Lost” looks to lose some time, the focus tuns to exploring the flashbacks or flashsideways.  A secondary, less obvious filler is splitting up the groups and bringing certain people back together.  Just as Jack, Hurley, Sun and the others meet up with Flocke (where’s Ben? where’s Miles?), Sawyer has them splitting off again to foil Flocke, himself getting double crossed by an earnest Jack.  If you think about it, there was a lot of lateral movement in this episode, and a lot of time spent going over things we’ve already experienced (Jack and Claire finding out they are siblings, Locke being labeled as pathetic, Sayid loves Nadia, etc) - the episode should have been called “Sideways Deja Vu.”