What. An. Episode. Tricky Lost writers lulled us into a sense of contentment with solo-character storylines—Richard, Desmond, Hurley—and then, smack! We get “The Last Recruit,” a whirlwind episode that starts to connect the dots between the Oceanic 815 on the island and in Sideways reality. I don’t even know where to start. How about with how many things I’d forgotten?

In Sideways LA, Sun’s been shot, Sayid’s on the lam, Kate’s in Sawyer’s custody, and Locke’s the victim of a Desmond drive-by. In fact, Locke and Sun are being wheeled to the same hospital (where Jack works) at the same time, which sets up a really nice moment of Lost cross-pollination. Sun, strapped to a gurney, turns and sees Locke next to her—and she screams in Korean, “No, no, it’s him!” Ooh. Is Sun seeing sideways because of this brush with death? Did she have flashes of Locke, the murderous, smoky body-snatcher? Or is she seeing an island future that we have yet to see, where things get much, much worse? Shudder.

Back on the island, Hurley’s just led the remaining Oceanic 815—Jack, Sun, and Frank Lapidus (who was supposed to be on the original flight, so we give him the benefit of the doubt for comic-relief purposes)—to the Locke-Ness Monster. LNM only has eyes for Jack, and he leads him off into the jungle for a tete-a-tete. Which brings us to the first big reveal…

Mystery #1: Why is Smokey running around as John Locke? Okay, we kinda already know why he picked Locke: As Locke, he would have access to Jacob. But when Smokey chats with Jack, he does a proverbial dance on Locke’s grave, calling him stupid, a pawn, a sucker who believed he had a divine purpose on the island. Plus, he came back dead. In other words, Locke was easy pickin’s. Jack has a lightbulb-over-the-head moment and asks Smokey is he’s ever run around as Jack’s dead dad, Christian. The answer? “Yes.” [Insert fist of victory—I got one thing right!] I’m still sticking by my assertion that Smokey came to Hurley as Michael in last week’s episode, since Michael disappeared when someone else showed up. BUT now I wonder if Smokey’s also taken the form of Jacob. Did Hurley ever talk to Jacob when someone else was around? I can’t remember…argh, so many details! And what of the little blond boy that multiple people have seen? Is it a young Jacob, risen up like the Phoenix? Or a weird kid who wandered over from neighboring Lord of the Flies island? To be determined.

Mystery #2: Have Sayid and Claire officially crossed over to the dark side? Sawyer seems to think so. He doesn’t want to invite them to his escape party: only Kate, Jack, Hurley, Sun (what about Jin?), and Lapidus will be smuggled off the island in Widmore’s submarine. … Poor Sawyer. Since Juliet made him a whole man, he’s way too trusting of other people. Does he think Widmore will actually let them leave in his submarine? And that they’ll escape a flying smoke monster? And that Claire will let them go quietly? Answer: Not a chance in hell. A quick rundown on the latest island craziness:

Widmore wants Desmond back. He sends his lady lackey to threaten LNM to return Des, and shows he means it by firebombing the jungle. To quote LNM:* “Well, here we go.”* LNM leads a posse to Hydra Island, at which point Sawyer launches his great escape. One small problem: Claire is following them, because she just reconnected with brother Jack and doesn’t want to be left behind again. Now, I’ll admit that one of my wild theories was that Claire and Sayid were also dead, and Smokey was manipulating them too. I’m dropping that theory in favor of Claire and Sayid are both broken, but not beyond repair. Claire’s crazy, confused, and needs a shower, but that might be it. Kate shows she still has a purpose on this show by telling Sawyer to shut up and let Claire on the boat.

Meanwhile, LNM sends Sayid to kill Desmond (who somehow survives a fall to the bottom of a well). Sayid and Des get to talking—Des is quite the charmer—and asks Sayid why he’s doing LNM’s bidding. Sayid’s convinced that LNM brought him back to life, and if he can do that, he can do the same for his soulmate Nadia. See, Sayid’s just a family man. Interestingly enough, in Sideways reality, Sayid has just killed a couple people in order to defend Nadia and her family. In parallel, he’s fighting for love—does that mean his heart is black? Once you go cold-blooded killer, you never go back? Not likely. Even though he tells LNM he killed Desmond, I’m positive he didn’t. And am I making this up, or did someone in this episode say “Everybody deserves a second chance”?

Mystery #3: Is Jack the top candidate? LNM wants Jack on his side as “the last recruit”—probably because he deems him his greatest opponent. Keep your enemies close… Though Sideways Jack still doesn’t believe in fate, Island Jack seems to have completed his transition from man of science to man of faith; he has another lightbulb moment and realizes LNM might be as afraid of them as they are of him. “They island’s not done with us yet. Don’t you feel it?” Oh Jlocke. So he abandons Sawyer’s escape party and swims back to shore. (Note: I actually felt a little weepy when Kate cried after Jack as he swam away. Remember they were in love once, engaged once. And as much as I made fun of the love triangle, we care about this show because we care about its characters. I mean, how great was it when Jin and Sun finally reunited at the very end of the episode? And how Sun miraculously regained her ability to speak English? Okay, maybe that was contrived, but their hug was still up there with Penny and Desmond’s phone call in “The Connect.”)

Final thoughts
If Jack is the top candidate (which I think he is), he’ll likely be the one left behind on the island to keep LNM from escaping. Unless Desmond turns the axis at the bottom of a different well and sends them all to the current Sideways reality. (It’s possible—trust me, we did diagrams on Post-its to figure it out.)

In Sideways land, did Sawyer and Miles call Sayid a gibonni? Um, what? Is that the same thing as a goomba?