# LOST 6.13 "The Last Recruit" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 20, 2010, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774 "2010-04-20T18:04:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774/41 "2010-04-21T15:28:08Z")
> [@UncleMoose](#): > > I thought I heard Zoe say something like “cut the power to the fence” just before they started towards each other… Yeah, she did, but you were still kind of waiting for the thing to come back on or malfunction. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774/42 "2010-04-21T15:46:10Z")
> [@Wheelz](#): > > Funny thing is, without having seen that episode recap, I was still getting a _very_ Survivor-like vibe when Sawyer pulled Jack aside to talk about the boat-stealing plan. > > \*Cut to Sawyer addressing the camera. Caption on screen reads **SAWYER - Con Man** > “Locke’s just too big a threat right now, he’s got to go. I don’t think Jack trusts me yet, but if I can pull off this boat thing I can probably count on his and Kate’s votes and we can blindside Locke at Tribal Council. Or, if he wins immunity we’ll go after his zombie Sayid.” > > **JACK - Spinal Surgeon** > “I’m not stupid. Sawyer’s still holding a grudge over that Juliet thing; I’ll be low man in his alliance. If I flip now I can see Locke and me going to the final two. And I think we all know who’ll win that vote!”\* LOL, I can totally see that as an SNL skit. ---
**Author:** ![GilaB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@GilaB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GilaB)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774/43 "2010-04-21T16:08:49Z")
I’m confused by FLocke’s ‘explanation’ of why he took Locke’s form, which included that Jack was kind enough to bring back his body in a nice wooden box. We’ve seen the ‘ghosts’ of those whose bodies never got near the Island, definitely including Ben’s mother and Kate’s horse, plus probably others that I can’t think of. ( **Jack da Vinci** - I do think that Hurley’s hallucination-friend Dave was just a hallucination, both off and on the Island. Remember the picture that the psychiatrist took of Hurley and ‘Dave’ in the mental hospital, which just showed Hurley with his arm around an empty space? Other people could also see the ‘ghosts’ created by FLocke.) And the reunion scene had not one, but two of the corniest lines ever on Lost, the one about Sun finding her voice again, and Jin promising that they’ll never be separated. ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774/44 "2010-04-21T16:31:51Z")
> [@GilaB](#): > > And the reunion scene had not one, but two of the corniest lines ever on Lost, the one about Sun finding her voice again, and Jin promising that they’ll never be separated. That line of Jin’s sure felt like foreshadowing to me. Corny and heavy-handed… but foreshadowing of some sort. Not a spoiler as I have no idea what’s going to happen, but I’m going to call it… Either Jin or Sun are going to bite it before the end of this show. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774/45 "2010-04-21T16:33:02Z")
And why the emphasis on “wooden” box? IIRC, Christian was in a metal box. ---
**Author:** ![Bearflag70](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Bearflag70](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bearflag70)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774/46 "2010-04-21T16:56:37Z")
I forgot… where’s Ben and Alpert now? ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774/47 "2010-04-21T17:00:29Z")
They went thataway-\> to destroy the plane. ---
**Author:** ![Monstre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Monstre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monstre)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774/48 "2010-04-21T17:23:36Z")
And Miles… he’s with them, too. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774/49 "2010-04-21T18:23:40Z")
Is Miles with Ben and Richard? ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774/50 "2010-04-21T18:25:37Z")
> [@Monstre](#): > > ## And we have another answer confirmed! Yes, the manifestation of Christian Shepherd was Smokey. Interesting prediction from 2006: [Christian as Smokey?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7925877&postcount=50) ---
**Author:** ![Long\_Time\_Lurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/2bfe46/32.png) [@Long\_Time\_Lurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Long_Time_Lurker)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774/51 "2010-04-21T18:37:15Z")
> [@UncleMoose](#): > > I thought I heard Zoe say something like “cut the power to the fence” just before they started towards each other… You can also hear the fence powering down before they cross. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@Johnny\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Q)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774/52 "2010-04-21T18:51:25Z")
I’m surprised that nobody’s explained to Sayid that if he gets what he wants, she’ll only be interested in him for his braaaaaiiiiinnnnnsss. Although it seems pretty obvious that Desmond talked him down anyway. ---
**Author:** ![wierdaaron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eada6e/32.png) [@wierdaaron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wierdaaron)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774/53 "2010-04-21T18:52:28Z")
I maintain that MiB/Flocke/Smokey/Whatever was lying about being behind the sightings of Christian Shepherd. Besides the appearances completely off-island, we’ve also seen him in several places Smokey can’t be or doing things he wouldn’t want to: -When the bomb on the freighter is about to blow, Christian appears on the boat to tell Michael that he can leave (die) now. Smokems has insinuated that he cannot cross bodies of water in his smoke-form (he needed a body to be able to boat to the Hydra island) so there’s no way that he could have teleported himself across several miles of open ocean for a fleeting appearance on the boat. -Before Claire’s weird disappearance, she sees Christian and they hang out in Jacob’s cabin. Later, Locke sees both of them there, and Christian tells him he has to move the island. The cabin is surrounded by the circle of ash, which Smokey can’t cross. -Christian helps John down beneath the Orchid where the Donkey Wheel of Space/Time Displacement is. There is nothing to indicate that Smokey would want Lock to complete his task (stopping the time skips) and all of Smokey’s confirmed appearances indicate that he has to travel place to place like a normal 3-dimensional entity, so for him to be down at the bottom of the well he’d have had to have manually floated down there in smoke form. This seems unlikely, especially considering the fact that time was jumping around like crazy while Lock was on his way down. -When Sun and Frank come from the Hydra island to the abandoned barracks after crash/landing in the Ajira plane, they see Christian in one of the buildings and he tells Sun that Jin and the other main characters are in the 70s. At that time, Flocke was still on the Hydra island watching Ben in the sick bay. I think Christian is something different. He’s a ghost or spirit or something deeply connected to the island and invested in its survival. Flocke only said he was behind the Christian ghosts because he didn’t want Jack to know the truth. Whatever Christian is, he’s on Jacob’s side, and therefore an enemy of MiB. ---
**Author:** ![borschevsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/97f17d/32.png) [@borschevsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/borschevsky)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774/54 "2010-04-21T20:44:48Z")
> [@wierdaaron](#): > > I maintain that MiB/Flocke/Smokey/Whatever was lying about being behind the sightings of Christian Shepherd. > > Besides the appearances completely off-island, we’ve also seen him in several places Smokey can’t be or doing things he wouldn’t want to: Possibly you are correct; as you say, there are a few cases where Christian has appeared which seem to be outside the capabilities of the smoke monster. A couple possibilities: 1. The monster has appeared as Christian, but not all appearances of Christian have been the monster. It might be important that Jack asked Locke specifically about the first time he saw Christian on the island. Locke answered yes to this, so technically he didn’t claim anything about the other times Christian has appeared, such as when Jack had left the island. 2. He might just be lying. Jack phrased the question in a stupid way, so that he gave Locke the information about the situation in question. Instead of “I saw my dad, was that you?” he should have gone with something like “Did you appear to me shortly after the crash? If so, as who?”. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774/55 "2010-04-21T21:04:02Z")
weirdaaron: > [@](#): > > The cabin is surrounded by the circle of ash, which Smokey can’t cross. I agree with most of your points, but this one might not be correct - when Ilana and gang ran across the cabin in this season’s opening episode, they noticed that the circle had been broken and they say that “someone else has been using the cabin.” ---
**Author:** ![middleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@middleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/middleman)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774/56 "2010-04-21T21:10:19Z")
> [@borschevsky](#): > > 1. He might just be lying. Jack phrased the question in a stupid way, so that he gave Locke the information about the situation in question. Instead of “I saw my dad, was that you?” he should have gone with something like “Did you appear to me shortly after the crash? If so, as who?”. He has credibility as he added that Jack needed water. That WAS when Jack found the caves with the natural springs. ---
**Author:** ![wierdaaron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eada6e/32.png) [@wierdaaron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wierdaaron)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774/57 "2010-04-21T21:33:01Z")
Every time that Smokey has appeared as a dead person, it has been (usually immediately) after “scanning” the person he’s tricking. He appeared as Yemi after scanning Eko. He appeared as Richard’s wife after scanning him. He appeared as Alex after scanning Ben (when he went to the temple to be “judged”). This isn’t canon, by my understanding has been that smokster has to scan a person to read their mind and learn their history. Then, knowing all that information, he appears as whatever dead person in the target’s past will allow them to be manipulated. I can’t think of a situation where smokey has shape-shifted without having first scanned someone to learn about them and figure out what form to take. The only exception I can think of is Kate’s horse, but we don’t know for a fact that it was MiB and if so, one of the first appearances of the smoke monster was him chasing Kate into a tree, where he may have been close enough to scan her. When Jack saw his dad, I don’t think there had ever been an opportunity for Jack to be scanned so Smokey could learn about his dad in the first place. As for how Flocke knew enough to say that the Christian-ghost lead Jack to water, Jacob’s explanation of the island to Richard makes me think that MiB is very interested in the behavior of the people Jacob brings, so MiB/Smokey was probably watching what all the 815ers were doing shortly after they arrived. Since Flocke is trying to represent himself as a good guy, it’d make sense for him to try to take credit for Christian/Jacob’s benevolent action in helping Jack find the fresh water and caves. Could be wrong, though, naturally. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2010, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774/58 "2010-04-22T01:31:23Z")
> [@Trion](#): > > Happy now **TBG**? 😉 😃 > [@Fenris](#): > > And why the emphasis on “wooden” box? IIRC, Christian was in a metal box. No, it was a wooden casket. Jack smashed it to bits after finding it was empty. [cite](http://lost.wikia.com/wiki/White_Rabbit) ---
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2010, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774/59 "2010-04-22T02:36:03Z")
Watching the “Previously, on LOST …” bit made me think that the alternate timeline was a set of standard television programs. That is, you have the cop show (Sawyer, Miles), the medical show (Jack, every character ending up somehow in a hospital), the 24-ish action show (Sayid, Jin, Keamy), and even the teacher show (Locke, Ben). I thought, “All they need now is a lawyer show.” And then we got Illyana as a lawyer. Then it hit me - the magic box! The magic box that can give you anything you can imagine … is _television_! LOST is all a self-referential joke, with plots based on fan speculation of previous episodes, dialogue full of cliches, characters acting in ways no actual human being would act - a meta-television show with false leads and made-up-at-the-last-minute surprises. It’s a series of cons all the way down. The island doesn’t just come from the writer’s imagination - it _represents_ that imagination. The alternate timeline / universe is a what happens with no island - that is, what television is like with no “LOST”. It’s a television show as metaphor for itself. (I’m 90% joking. But only 90%.) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2010, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774/60 "2010-04-22T02:53:43Z")
> [@OpalCat](#): > > Every time I see someone spell Smokey’s name this way I picture a giant apron monster. Yes, it is funny no one on the Island has yet bothered to ask the not-Locke waht his name is.:dubious: The name must be a dead giveaway otherwise they’d have mentioned it by now. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-13-the-last-recruit/536774.md?page=4)