(SPOILER ALERT: If you didn't watch the show last night, you are dead to us. Move along, move along!)
At the beginning of last night's Lost: THE FINAL SEASON premiere, Juliet's successful (ah, but was it?) detonation of the Jughead bomb cleaved our narrative in twain, setting the Lostaways loose in two separate timelines: the 2004 "flash-sideways" reality, in which Oceanic 815 lands safely in Los Angeles to allow everyone to carry on with their lives, and one that flung our characters forward to 2007, where they're coping with a world in which twitchy physicist Daniel Faraday's egg-headed plan to nuke the timestream back into alignment seems to have failed spectacularly. While it's probably fair to assume that these two timelines will dovetail at some juncture over the coming 17 episodes, for now Jack, Sawyer, Hurley and the gang are carrying on along parallel paths, oblivious to the fortunes of their other-planed selves. Ahead, we take an inventory of where each of our players stands in each timeline, and try to evaluate which reality proves a better roll of Fate's* Yahtzee dice. (*Old-fashioned Fate, not Man-in-Black-style fate. OR IS IT?)
John Locke
2004: Back on Oceanic 815, a re-paralyzed Locke chats amiably with Boone (hi, Boonie!), as he flies back from a successful walkabout in the Outback. (Of course, Locke could be lying; in the original-original timeline, he was refused his chance at adventure because of his paralysis. In the new-original timeline, he very well may have enjoyed his Australian vacation out in the wild. Right.) Upon landing, he consoles Jack, upset that the most inept baggage handlers in the history of aviation have misplaced his father's body, with some perspective: "They didn't lose your father, they just lost his body." Jack, after tactlessly asking Locke how he wound up in a wheelchair (Hey, man, where'd you get the sweet chair?), offers him a free spinal surgery consult. He is, after all, a gifted spinal surgeon! Locke tells him not to bother, it's irreversible. Jack shoots back, "Nothing is irreversible," as balloons suddenly fall from the airport ceiling, fireworks detonate all around them, and a man carrying an oversized blank check made payable to THE THEME honks a party favor in Dr. Shephard's face. Locke has also lost a suitcase full of knives.
2007: The bad news: His lifeless body lays face-down on the beach, where it's gawked at by Richard Alpert (who blinks so furiously with disbelief at the corpse that his eyeliner is totally ruined) and an agog mob of Others. The also-bad news: The Man In Black has seemingly possessed his body, tricked Ben Linus into stabbing Jacob in the heart a few times, and is now poised to launch a murderous rampage across the island. The piling-on-bad-news: The Man In Black seemingly possessing his body is not only the Smoke Monster, but says a bunch of really nasty, withering things about the sad old man who used to live in his shiny new host-shell, even revealing the heart-wrenching, pathetic last though he might have vocalized were Ben's hands not crushing his windpipe: "I don't understand." In a word: [soft sobbing].
Advantage: 2004. Even if 2004's God Complex Jack botches his spinal surgery and leaves him paralyzed from the neck down, that still seems better than having some evil smog wearing your body like a cheap suit.
Jacob
2004: Dead on the submerged, post-Jugheadalyptic island? Crisscrossing the globe to pursue his first love, touching strangers during meaningful junctures in their lives?
2007: Stabbed in the heart by Ben Linus, a fairly undignified way to go, especially considering the angry, downward strokes Ben used, and the orgasm he achieved by dispatching the God Who Ignored Him in such a personal, violently erotic way.
Advantage: 2004. (For now!)
Jack Shephard
2004: Makes it from Sydney to Los Angeles without any time-traveling, reality-splintering detours. Saves Charlie from dying during flight 815. Loses father's body in a hilarious luggage mix-up, and due to some wildly optimistic funeral scheduling that allowed a mere two hours between baggage claim and open-casket viewing, ruins his dad's memorial. Thinks he can probably fix Locke's spine, because he pulled the same trick a few seasons back and got a hot wife out of it. (Does he secretly want to marry the wise man in the wheelchair because he's still smarting about Julie Bowen leaving him? Hmm.)
2007: Tragically unaware that detonating Jughead "worked" for everybody in 2004, has become the fall-guy for the apparent failure of Faraday's so-crazy-this-just-might-work scheme. Discovering that every time he barrels forward in his default leadership role, bad things seem to happen, like friends dying. (Sorry, Juliet and Sayid!)
Advantage: 2004. He hasn't killed anyone there yet, except for his father, sort of.
Ben Linus
2004: Probably dead, having been incinerated when the bomb went off in 1977.
2007: A mixed bag: Sure, he got to stab Jacob in the heart a couple of times, and murdering people who've either emotionally damaged him or threatened his power has always been a turn-on. But finding out you're the pawn not only of the godlike mystery-man you've dedicated your entire life to, but of another godlike mystery-man with whom your original godlike mystery-man seems to have been locked in combat for centuries, is a real mind-f*ck.
Advantage: 2007. Ben will find a way to turn the situation to his advantage. Probably by beating Richard to death with his shoe.
Kate Austen
2004: Still a fugitive, even in this reset timeline, having slipped away from a federal marshall too dumb to realize that maybe he shouldn't stand so close to a bathroom stall door while his captive is obviously trying to escape from her handcuffs.
2007: Stuck in a reality where her on-again, off-again boyfriend's "failed" plan killed not only her chief romantic rival, but a guy she was planning on sleeping with eventually. (Hey, there's a very limited dating pool on the island.)
Advantage: 2007. Being on the lam is overrated. And in '07, maybe she'll still get a shot with Reincarnated Sayid, which will drive Jack and Sawyer insane with envy.
Hurley
2004: "Nothing bad ever happens to me! I am the luckiest man in the world!"
2007: "Holy sh*t, someone's gonna bring up those cursed numbers again, and a meteor's going to fall out of the sky and scorch off my balls! And even if it doesn't, I'm stuck on this island where a smoke monster could fly up my ass at any time and turn me into a girthy marionette! I am the unluckiest man in the world!"
Advantage: 2004. He's got like a hundred million bucks to get back to, and Cheech.
Sawyer
2004: You know what? Riding around in airport elevators, hoping to maybe get a little naughty with a hot chick in handcuffs if she can shake the cops long enough for him to get his shirt off, doesn't sound so bad.
2007: The love of his life just died at the bottom of a filthy hole because her ex-boyfriend -- his longtime sexual foil-- thought blowing up the island would make everything right again. He's had better years.
Advantage: 2004. Though it's possible Freckles will throw him some sympathy tail to help along the grieving process.
Sayid Jarrah
2004: On 815, happy as a former-torturer-looking-at-a-photo-of-his-ladyfriend!
2007: Dying of a gunshot wound, the gang rushes him to the Temple, as per the newly slaughtered Jacob's instructions to Hurley. Upon arriving at the Temple, the Angry Temple Keeper cracks open the wooden ankh in Jacob's guitar case, reads a note that says, "Take the long-haired, bloody one to the dirty jacuzzi, drown his ass in the water you incompetent fools seem unable to properly chlorinate, and prepare his body for my resurrection. Your god-pal, J," Other John Lennon and Angry Temple Keeper follow these instructions to the letter, and in the final moments of the show, Sayid, possibly possessed by Jacob's spirit, is all, "Wha happun?" [muffled noise, rotating Lost logo, roll credits]
Advantage: 2004.
Jin and Sun
2004: Trapped in a loveless marriage. Hassled by customs for possible smuggling.
2007: Happily married, having reconnected though trauma. Still pregnant. (Right?*) Jin's even learned English!
Advantage: 2007, unless the Smoke Monster eats their baby, or Sun dies in childbirth because of the island curse. (*Assuming Sun is pregnant. We've totally lost track of her uterine status in the timestream. She is possibly not pregnant. OK!)
(UPDATE: As several commenters have pointed out, Sun had the baby off the island, and is therefore not pregnant. OK! )
Richard Alpert
2004: Presumably dead in the Jughead blast.
2007: Had ass kicked by the Man in Locke. Not so tough now, are you, Guyliner?
Advantage: Push
Desmond Hume
2004: Now you see him hanging around Oceanic 815, now you don't! Hey, where'd he go?
2007: Never leaving Penny's side again. Unless he somehow gets time-flashed back to button-pressing duty. (Leave Desmond alone, fickle hand of Fate!)
Advantage: 2004
Miles
2004: Probably consulting on an early season of The Ghost Whisperer, unless he died in the blast in 1977.
2007: Talking to dead Juliet, talking to semi-dead Sayid.
Advantage: 2007.
Charlie
2004: Wishes he had choked to death on a condom full of heroin in an airplane bathroom.
2007: Still dead, of drowning.
Advantage: 2007. He just seems so down in '04!
Rose and Bernard
2004: Rose is a much less anxious flier this time around, so that's nice. No word on the cancer, though.
2007: TBD.
Advantage: TBD.
Michael and Walt
2004: TBD
2007: Waaaaaaalt!
Advantage: 2004
Claire
2004: Shares a cab with Kate.
2007: Wandering the jungle? Living amongst the polar bears?
Advantage: 2004
Boone
2004: Returning to America after failing to extricate sister Shannon from a bad relationship. Locke's seat-buddy!
2007: So dead.
Advantage: 2004
Stewardess Cindy
2004: A nice stewardess!
2007: A wild-eyed Other
Advantage: 2004
Arzt
2004: Chatting it up with his fellow passengers on Oceanic 815.
2007: Still blowed-up real nice with dynamite. Messy!
Advantage: 2004
Frogurt
2004: Asleep near Locke and Boone on Flight 815, stops Kate from cutting the cab line at LAX.
2007: Still dead via flaming arrow to the chest. Less messy than death-by-dynamite, but far funnier.
Advantage: 2004
The Island
2004: Under water.
2007: Still lousy with castaways, Others, Smoke Monsters, suspiciously god-like beings locked in eternal battle with one another, and, presumably, the odd polar bear.
Advantage: 2007
The English Language
2004: Everyone seems pretty happy with it.
2007: Angry Temple Keeper "doesn't like the taste of it on his tongue."
Advantage: 2004!