All right, the Oscars are over, and we can get back to what’s really important – Lost. Still, congratulations to Evangeline Lilly. Kate did, as I mentioned a couple of weeks back, have a small role in Best Picture winner The Hurt Locker. I consider that a win for Team Lost.

Before we get to the big points, let me cite spunkybuddy Jackie, who thinks it’s significant that we haven’t seen Richard “Batmanuel” Alpert in a couple of weeks now. He was running for the Temple last time we saw him, and it seems like he should have gotten there by now. And yet, we didn’t see him at all. I have to think Richard has some kind of plan, or at least a really good hiding place. As I mentioned before, Lost is cyclical, but now the major players all know that the cycle is broken and it’s heading to some kind of ending. Jacob and Silas had centuries to play Spy vs. Spy, and now Jacob’s dead, and Silas is stuck in Locke’s form. The Lighthouse is broken, the Temple laid waste – for the first time, they have doubts about the outcome of their conflict. Maybe Richard has an “In Case of Apocalyptic Emergency Break Glass” task of his own. In the next few weeks, he’s getting a flashback episode of his own, which kind of sounds like the best thing ever.

Here’s what I’ve been thinking about this week…

Poor Kate: Yes, this is not something I often say. But you have to admit, Kate has had a rough few weeks. Sawyer, as our buddy Miles put it, sent her packing. Jacob and Hurley didn’t want her for the Lighthouse mission. Sayid blew her off. Claire did not appreciate her efforts one little bit. And then, check out the Lockelganger at the end of the episode. Watch that subtle change of expression when he sees Kate – he looks irritated. It’s like he was having such a good day, with all the slaughter and such, and then Kate shows up and totally harshes his buzz.

It turns out, Kate is a lot easier to like when she’s not bouncing around trying to find the person who will pay the most attention to her at any given time. I find her character the most entertaining when she’s trying to prove herself, or even better, when she’s taking matters into her own hands and not focusing on what other people think about her. It’s hard to be too interested in her when every guy on the Island is busy trying to impress her. It makes her an externally-defined character. That wouldn’t be such a bad thing, but there are so many great characters here. When even minor characters have interesting backstories and motivations, the Girl Everybody Likes is less than gripping. And now that she’s an unwilling part of Smokey’s gang, we could be in for Kate’s best Island storyline yet.

Where’s Sawyer?: We haven’t seen Sawyer in two episodes now. Considering that in the last three weeks we’ve had an episode entirely free of Jack and Kate, and another where Jack only makes a cameo without any lines, that isn’t entirely unprecedented. But he was with Look-a-Locke last time we saw him. And then Sawyer apparently got ditched, because he was not around when Smokey showed up at Claire’s fort, and he was nowhere to be seen when the Lockelganger wandered the jungle and assembled his forces. For that matter, Jin is missing in action too. Now, I assume they’re taking care of Pelt Baby. But beyond that, where are they?

It’s worth noting that Sawyer doesn’t know that Look-a-Locke and Smokey are one and the same. He knows that this guy is something out of the ordinary, but there isn’t any reason for him to even believe that Smokey can take human form. Other than Benry, everybody who’s ever seen him pull that trick is dead. Since Sawyer and Jin aren’t Infected, it’s safe to assume they’d have some problems with throwing in with the Monster. Both of them have seen Smokey viciously attack people, and they are terrified of that thing. He seemingly can’t hurt a Candidate, and he wouldn’t want them to know his true nature, so he must have sequestered them.

From what we’ve seen, he’s keeping the whole “Smoke Monster” thing close to the vest. Claire and Sayid don’t even seem to know his true nature, and they’re both kill-crazy. I think it’s important to remember this, since it’s easy to lose track of who knows what. Right now, Sawyer’s just looking to get off the Island, and Jin just wants to find Sun. Neither of them really cares about the conflict, and may only have the vaguest inkling that such a conflict exists. Reasonably, Smokey would want to keep these Candidates segregated from the converts for a little while. I think when we see these two again, it’s going to be a significant revelation as to where they’ve been.

It’s a Small World: So, this is what I’ve been focusing on. As I mentioned in the recap, Look-a-Locke indicated to Sayid that he could give him his heart’s desire. Even though all he wants in Nadia, and she’s dead in our Timeline. (By the way, I’ve realized that I have a habit of referring to the standard Lost Timeline as “our” Timeline. I think this makes me sound crazy.) The idea that Smokey created Timeline X appeals to me for a variety of reasons. First, it gives us a very important reason why we’re seeing this other Timeline at all. It ties in Timeline X to the proper Timeline, instead of making it an extended “What If?” scenario. Second, it explains a lot of the inconsistencies that we’ve seen in Timeline X.

There are a lot of differences that can’t be explained by Jughead. Hurley has good luck because the bomb went off? (Well, technically the lack of an Island means that the numbers aren’t cursed, but still…) What’s Benry doing alive? And how did the detonation of a hydrogen bomb in 1977 switch Lynn Karnoff from a psychic to a Human Resources functionary? How did it turn Keamy the Marine into Keamy the mobster? That’s just Smokey using as many jigsaw pieces as he can.

So let’s say that I haven’t gone off the reservation, and Timeline X comes from Smokey. He’s giving the candidates what they want most, but only what they want most. Locke doesn’t have a perfect life over there. He’s still at the box company, and he’s still in the wheelchair. But he never lost Helen, and he has a father who loves him.

Sayid wants Nadia to be alive. Deep down, he doesn’t believe he deserves happiness – after trying to separate himself from his actions in the war, he ended up as an assassin after Nadia died. He hates that he can’t escape violence, so he won’t allow himself to be with her.

Jack still can’t keep a marriage together and his father is still dead, but he has a son. You would think that Kate would play a role in Jack’s new life, since she was the reason he wanted to try and reboot time, but Jack wants to earn her love. (Also, his wish may not match up with Kate’s, which is where Smokey will run into trouble with trying to create his own little world – he can’t make everybody happy when their desires are in opposition.) And if I’m right that Juliet is David’s mother, that ties into an older theory of mine. It’s long seemed to me that Kate is infertile. Remember, on the Island, men are super-virile. Yet, she hooked up with Sawyer on a regular basis without getting pregnant. It’s probably creepy that I think about his, but bear with me. Let’s say that she is infertile, and Jack knows it. Heck, even if he suspects this. In his perfect world, Juliet can give him a son, and then he still has a chance with Kate. Which would mean that Jack probably has some weird issues with women, but that doesn’t really come as a surprise at this point.

By the way, a lot of this comes from spunkybuddy Jennifer, who suggests that in Sawyer’s ideal world, he’s with Juliet. So in Timeline X, she left him for Sawyer. Her suggestion helped solidify a lot of this for me, actually. I learned this week that the Kate/Sawyer ‘shippers hate me, which was an unpleasant discovery. This won’t help my standing in that community any, but I am willing to be unpopular. Often, I don’t have a choice! But I do think it’s reasonable that Sawyer, at this point in his life, would most definitely pick Juliet in his ideal world. Because, let’s face it, Sawyer carries a lot of guilt around with him. A world where Juliet is alive and well and he can make her happy, that’s one less thing to feel guilty about. And remember that Juliet is not a Candidate (though it appears she was at one point) – she doesn’t get a say in the matter when creating Timeline X. Sawyer doesn’t get a world with Kate because that would conflict with Kate’s choice. Of course, we don’t really know Sawyer X yet. The fact that Locke’s father is apparently a different guy than we know means that Sawyer’s childhood trauma is probably erased, but all we can do is speculate at this point.

And what about Kate? Last week, I suggested that her ideal world was one in which she was slightly less guilty. But spunkybuddy Dillon Font (which is a fantastic name) had a better idea. Kate’s desire is to make sure that Claire and Aaron are together. And that really impresses me, because that would mean that Kate is the one person who behaved purely altruistically. Kate’s desire is to keep a mother and child together. I may have to take back everything bad I ever said about her. Except about how she can’t keep a secret. That criticism stands.

We’ve seen that Hurley seems happy, but it’s hard to tell how Jin and Sun are faring in Timeline X. Things seem bad for Jin, but we don’t have much information. (I totally missed this, but Entertainment Weekly pointed out that the Oceanic employee refers to Sun X by her maiden name. Interesting…) But the thing is, you can give people what they want, and they will still screw up their lives. Just because they have a starting point of happiness doesn’t mean that they can maintain it.

And what about all the familiar faces populating Timeline X? Well, Smokey reads people. He scans their entire lives. So he’s seen Arzt and Lynn Karnoff and Keamy and Rose and Dogen. He uses these people to populate his world. And maybe it’s not a world at all, but he’s manipulating their minds. Because if Smokey is powerful enough to create a separate timeline, there’s not much that anybody can do to stop him.

Again, I recognize that I might be way out on a limb here. Which is, of course, the fun thing about Lost analysis. There’s always the chance that the opening moments of the next episode will make you look like an idiot. And in fact, since the upcoming episode seems to focus on Benry, it seems we’ll be seeing a good deal of Benry X. And he is not a candidate. We’ll have to see how that plays out. Possibly, you’ll all be making fun of me by this time tomorrow.

That’s it for tonight. For more analysis, remember to check out Larry Young’s Spectacularry. Good stuff this week, including an Eagle-Eyed sighting of Desmond X (seriously, he blew my mind with this one) and a pitch for an awesome spinoff. Though if I can add my two cents, I think his premise would be improved by the addition of Pelt Baby. As would most things, really.

See you back here in 24 hours for a look at “Dr. Linus”!