Welcome back to the Lost Secret Clue, where we dig deeper to find the clues and secrets you might've missed to fuel your theories for the final season! This week's episode, "The Last Recruit" wasn't centred around one character as usual and everyone other than Richard appeared at some point. Alliances, abandonment anger and an aerial attack...

If you've not seen it yet, we've posted a new interview with Executive Producer Jean Higgins who gives a tour of the season six Lost stages.

Finding the right place to start this week was certainly tough, since as the episode felt like chess pieces being moved into place so let’s take a look at where they all ended up individually.

Sawyer: After weeks of watching him line up his con and wait for his moment, the chaotic effect of Widmore’s attack left Sawyer with the opening he needed to make a break for it. Acting every bit the leader his time with Dharma made him, Sawyer directed Jack on where to meet he and Kate in the waiting yacht. Had Sawyer known about the Elizabeth, Desmond/Libby’s boat, for the last few years and said nothing, knowing it was a fruitless exercise to attempt to leave unsheltered? Alternate Sawyer seemed far more self-assured, confident and the lothario we know him to truly be… Was proximity to Kate causing some of his memories to return?

Kate: Terrible dread filled us as we watched Claire raise her rifle at Kate, struggling with her abandonment issues, and we felt certain another Lostie was about to fall. Rather than running, Kate channelled everything she learnt both on-island and raising Aaron in order to dissipate the situation and, possibly, bring Claire’s fragile mind back from the brink in the process.

Claire: Poor Claire. We’ve seen her take a few shots at Kate, but knowing the abandonment issues she’s dealt with her whole life, is it so hard to see why she’d be so bitter and angry about it happening again? In both universes we saw her first meeting with her half-brother Jack, and in both timelines he bolted. Can she be trusted from here on out?

Sayid: Has the Man in Black’s go-to man seen the errors of his ways? He seemed resistant to enacting his execution order, then indignant when his diligence was called into question. Has he been experiencing resurgences in emotions? Could being in the proximity of Desmond cause a memory connection between the two timelines, with emotions of regret currently being experienced by the incarcerated killer of Keamy’s goons?

Desmond: The Scots’ newfound all-knowing demeanour seemed to serve him particularly well while lying injured in the well. He acted as if he knew that Sayid was coming, what it was Sayid had being instructed to do and the exact right phrases to crack through the assassin’s emotionless state. Was he successful in saving his skin? Without seeing a body, there’s no way to be certain. How is it that alternate timeline Desmond seems to have such impeccable timing when it comes to arranging coincidental meetings?

Cindy: Were she and the children among the Others hit with a missile on the beach? Plenty of them were blown clear and wide during the attack but the former airhostess and her wards were not seen among them.

Jack: The titular last recruit to the Man in Black’s cause went through an awful deal this week, from an awkward reunion with Claire and answers about his father’s spectre to a change of heart so convincing he needed to literally jump ship. Was that the moment Jack had been listening for, the moment where his destiny would call? Or has he become just like Locke, a supposed sucker to the Man in Black’s machinations? Will operating on Locke’s spine cause Jack’s memories to connect across the timelines, or could Desmond’s plan have been more cunning in mowing Locke down: if Locke dies, could his consciousness revert back to his island body, “stealing” it from the Man in Black as he claimed Jacob had so long ago?

Hurley: Having spent last week making life-changing decisions, Hurley was happy to step back and let others lead the way this week.

Frank: Lapidus didn’t do an awful lot other than chime in with some one-liners. He seems to have definitely fallen out of the limelight, and we can guess now Bram we definitely wrong about the possibility of him being a candidate.

Sun and Jin: We were more than spoiled with happy Kwon moments this episode, as we saw Sun and baby would survive their gunshot wound and we witnessed the long awaited on-island reunion between Sun and Jin! It even looked like Sun is on Jin’s Widmore Immunity List as she was not forced to her knees either. Now that they are reunited, will it become apparent who Jacob’s candidate was?

Zoe: Zoe just broke the cardinal rule of the island: don’t screw over Sawyer. If you do, you will end up dead. Wait and see.

Widmore: Why? We can’t work it out. Widmore was already holding all the cards, why did he need to create unnecessary enemies that now need to be kept within his own confines? Unless… Widmore couldn’t possibly want to fail, could he?

Ilana: After dying last week, few would’ve guessed we’d see Ilana so soon. Appearing in the alternate timeline as the Shephard family’s lawyer, it looked like she and Desmond had known each other for some time and we learned her surname, Verdansky.

Miles: Miles was with Richard and Ben on the island, presumably at the Dharma barracks getting grenades and explosives. Off-island we saw him busting Sayid alongside Sayid.

Ben: The kind, caring Ben of the alternate timeline travelled with “Mr Locke” to the hospital. Ironic how he’d originally murdered Locke, yet now fought to save him despite barely knowing him.

Locke: What did Locke mean by he “was going to marry Helen Norwood”? Was he being defeatist about his new injury ruining their wedding, or was he experiencing a memory connection and remembering the truth about he and Helen’s doomed relationship? And why was Sun so panicked by the sight of Locke, screaming “it’s him!” Why did Locke cause a memory connection between the two timelines for her and not Jin?