“The Last Recruit.”

Look, I don’t want to come here just one more week with just another “The Dog Ate My Lost Recap” story, but if we take as a given that my new computer’s name is The Dog, then frankly, that couldn’t be more true.

But never mind that: there is no episode at all this week anyway (which is a bit of a mistake on someone’s part, they could have thought through that one a little better, but we’ll let that slide for now) which also gives a little room for a quick look back at the state of affairs as we stand, what we know, and the likelihood of the coming together of characters as they are now/then/here/now/other.

ON LOSTINSON ISLAND

So Hurley, Jack, Sun and Captain Stoner, Helipflopper Pilot of There-Must-Be-Some-Reason-He’s-Not-Dead-Yet have arrived at Smoky McNotLocke’s camp, and Jack is immediately whisked off to talk to Smoky about the possibility of hooking up. Or just perhaps having a little light dinner sometime and seeing how it goes.

Having spent just one hot night with McNotLocke, Jack is convinced that the way forward is to go with him, to leave the island, and to trust in what the crazy made-of-smoke, able-to-inhabit-dead-body guy says. Way to suddenly start believing in the irrational, Jack. Meanwhile, Sawyer hatches a different plan. They will go and get the boat that Smoky McNotLocke wishes to use to get across to Other Island (so he can kill Widmore, steal the plane, all leave together on it and thus unleash ultimate evil upon the world by defying smoking bans EVERYWHERE) and instead take off with it on their own, Smokyless, go over to Other Island, steal the submarine instead, and make their escape.

Claire, who followed Jack into the jungle and had conversation with him about their dad (when did he find that out in this timeline? At the motel with Kate and Claire’s mother? If not then, when?) is not invited on the boat trip, but follows them there anyway, and wheedles her way onto the boat through Kate, who is a damned fool.

However, no sooner than Hurley, Sun, Kate, Claire, Sawyer, Captain Helistoner and Once-Hot Jack, Doctor of Moronitude have made good their escape, Jack decides that maybe escaping from the island without him is what Smoky McNotLocke secretly INTENDS for them to do, and the best thing is to stay on the island with Smoky and see what happens then. It’s not just me who just wants to punch him hard, and constantly, in the face, right? So Jack apologises for getting Juliet killed and jumps off the boat, fully clothed, to swim back to shore, and smoky. He’s going to regret that. Jeans take ages to dry (particularly in the presence of evil).

The rest of them, however, make it to Other Island, where they are met, on the other side of that scary sonar fence, by Widmore’s gang, guns cocked, and Jin, whose meeting with Sun is one of the loveliest moments this series has seen in a long time.

Luckily, Widmore’s Minion, (Budget Tina Fey) had already given the word to turn the brain-smooshing fence off, otherwise that could have been the least happy and most messy lovers reunion EVER. Although it would at least have been mindblowing.
A ha ha ha ha. Sorry.

Meanwhile, Smoky McNotLocke had earlier dispatched Sayid to kill Desmond-Down-The-Well, but Desmond managed to appeal to his better nature and convince him not to, and then to lie to Smoky about the fact that he had. Wait. So Sayid still HAS a better nature? Interesting.

IN THE UNITED STATES OF THE PASSENGERINSONS

Desmond is still on his mammoth mission to bring together, somehow, the consciousness of the Passengerinsons in 2004 and the Lostinsons on the Island in 2007, if that’s actually the real year it is now on the island, which I’m beginning to fear it might not be.

After hitting a supply-teaching, fiancee-retaining, wheelchair-using Locke with his posh car to prove… well, SOMETHING that we are not quite sure of as yet, Desmond’s next Constant client is Claire. He meets her in a building where she’s trying to arrange another adoption (first one fell through, remember?), and takes her to a lawyer who might be able to give her some advice on adoption law. But wait! The lawyer happens to be Ilana, who happens to be handling the last will and testament of Dr Christian Shepherd, and happens to be reading it today to his son Jack (and his son) who just HAPPENS to be coming in to Ilana-in-law’s office as we speak.

He’s not there for long, however, before he gets whisked off to hospital to operate on a paraplegic who’s just been in a car accident.
Well fuck me if it’s not John Locke.

In other new Sun wakes up to find Jin by her bedside and knows that everything, simply everything, is going to be ok.

WHO IS WHAT-WHO, AND WHEN?

So if there’s a possibility that the fates of the passengers who landed in 2004 might impact upon the passengers who are in 2007 and neither alive nor dead (apart from the ones who are actually dead, and we’ll come to those in a moment). So quite apart from the fact that 2007 may not, technically, turn out to be a real year after all – which I suppose would mean I haven’t technically turned 30 yet, which is interesting – then there’s got to be some inter-relatedness between the characters alternate timelines that will lead to either one of them ending up being the real one and the other not being, and thus the characters in one all living, and the characters in the other all disappearing in a puff of Smoky.

But then if, at the end of all of this, the only thing that happens is that we end up with The mostly happy 2004 lot being the REAL Lostinsons and the Lostinsons on the island disappearing having done their job, then doesn’t that render the whole six seasons null and void?
Just askin’.

But then, it couldn’t, could it? Because the characters in the PAssengerinson universe are already remembering and tied to the Lostinson one. But if that IS the case: just in case it is, who will be better off now than they might have been otherwise?

ILANA
Illana of the 2004 States of the Passengerinsons has done well for herself, and appears to be a successful lawyer in charge of the Dead Dr Shepherd estate. Illana of Lostinson Island, meanwhile, is in approximately 8000 tiny moist pieces on Lostinson Beach.

SIMILARLY, CHARLIE
Is still technically a suicidal crack addict in 2004 Passengerinsonia, but is still better off than in the longer-term time line:

In which he is not only dead, and also in FlashForward. Which is shit.

LOCKE, HOWEVER
In 2007, there are both two Lockes and none. There’s a dead one in a box, and one wandering around possessed by evil gas. Meanwhile, Locke in 2004 in the alternate universe is a happy substitute teacher with a fiance, job satisfaction, and no immortal dirty old gasbag inhabiting his corpse. Although he is in critical condition after being hit by a homicidal Scottish ex-winemaking-monk in a luxury vehicle. Neither timeline is great for John.

BEN WILL BE FINE, THOUGH
Which is nice. I mean, he’s a little better off in one timeline than other, but essentially he’s good. Even though he murdered his own father. And the rest of the Dharma Initiative. But, you know, people change.

HURLEY
Much better off in the Passengerinson universe, where he has enormous good fortune, happiness, the love of his life AND all the fried chicken he can eat. The talking-to-dead-people skill could work out well as a alternative future revenue stream in the Lostinson timeline though, so that’s worth looking into.

KATE
Is PRECISELY THE SAME and equally annoying in both universes.

It should be noted that she has no freckles in EITHER of them.

JACK
Jack in 2004 looks more haggard and old and tired and liney than the Jack of 2004-the-first-time-around did, but then, the Jack of Plane-Crashy-2004 was a bit hot and looked like he had a naked body designed by someone that draws Mills & Boon covers for a living. Now he looks a little bit like a rabbit who is a bit worried, because something has been shoved up his underbunnyside. In both universes. Sorry, Jack.

JIN AND SUN ARE LOVELY IN BOTH
Which is warming news for the romantically minded.

AND CLAIRE?
Should probably stick with the universe in which she’s not as mad as a bag of spoons.

Oh! SAWYER
Should end up in whichever world enables him to take his shirt off more often, as that will please my friend Amy the best.

THINGS WE LEARNT IN THIS EPISODE

– 2004 Passengerinson Locke says that as an emergency contact they should contact Helen. He says: “I was going to marry her”. Wait, WAS going to? What happened? Did I bloody miss something, again?

– Jack apologised to Sawyer for getting Juliet killed. Is that the first time that Jack’s ever apologised for something? Because if so that’s a) important and b) makes him even more of a douche than I previously believed.

– Love can make you speak English.