Let's make one thing clear.
Man In Black = Smoke Monster = Evil Locke = Fake Locke = Flocke
First off, I wanted to make an observation about the episode "What Kate Does". We still don't know what is possessing Sayid, but there were a lot of clues that would hint it is the same thing that Russo thought to be possessing her crew back in the day. As part of the test to see if Sayid was "infected" they electrocuted him. Not coincidentally when Sayid first met Rousseau back in season 1 she strapped him down and electrocuted him. In that meeting Rousseau was very skeptical of Sayid saying things like "I know what you are" and "you, and the others like you". At the time the meaning was unclear, but she seemed to be saying he was "infected". After shocking him a bit they start to talk about Nadia. Sayid states that she is dead because of him. Upon hearing this Rousseau completely changes her tone and touches his face, looking very close into his eyes. Like the temple dwellers, was Rousseau testing Sayid by shocking him? What was it that made him pass this test back then, that he now failed? Whatever has taken over Sayid is going to be very important to the rest of the season, and remains a pretty big mystery right now. I am confident that when we find the answer to that, we will also learn what was going on with the French crew, and possibly other inhabitants of the island. (Christian Shepherd, Claire)
In the most recent episode we see John Locke in his flash sideways. He is alive and well, but in his wheelchair. We are happy to find out he is still with Peg Bundy, and they are going to be married. In discussing the wedding she mentions they will invite Locke's father. Wait a second. He steals Locke's kidney and tosses him out of a window, yet he still gets an invite to the wedding? I don't think so. In this reality Locke's father doesn't seem to have done those heinous things. How did Locke lose his ability to walk in his flash sideways? This is something I am sure we will find out, but how important will it be? Something for a later episode I guess. One of the biggest mysteries presented in this episode is the little blonde kid running through the jungle. Who is that kid? It looks like it could be a young Jacob. My first reaction was that he was a ghost of Jacob's past. Maybe Jacob and Flocke first came to the island as children together. I thought he was a figment of Flocke's imagination, but then Sawyer freaking saw him plain as day. So the kid must be "real", whatever that means. I also thought it could be Aaron. The kid is slightly too old to be Aaron, so I am not sure how that all would work out. With all the timelines and time-jumping anything is possible on this show I guess. I don't really believe it is Aaron, but it is as good a guess as any. The third possibility for the kid is that he is an all new character that we haven't seen before. I don't like that just because it is a little late in the game to be introducing new characters. It could turn out to be pretty much any male character that we have seen on the show. It could even be a young Locke for all we know.
So this creepy kid with blood on his hands shows up in the jungle. If that isn't weird enough he starts saying cryptic stuff. "Remember, you can't kill him. That is against the rules." This isn't the first time we have heard about rules. Ben and Widmore talked about rules, and it was against the rules for Alex to be killed. I am really interested in getting my hands on this island rule book. I think it would explain a lot. Who is this kid even talking about? My first thought is that he is referring to Richard. Which would support my theory that the kid is some manifestation of Jacob. Once again, the person who cannot be killed could be anybody. Does not being able to kill him mean he is immortal (Richard), or does it just mean that if he is killed a rule would be broken, like in the case of Alex. Hopefully we find out who that little blond haired bastard was pretty soon. I don't want to be still wondering about that going into the final episode.
Okay, now the numbers. We find out Jacob has this secret cave where he keeps track of all of his replacement candidates on the walls in a very unorganized manner. Seriously, names were haphazardly written all over the place. I would have kept them in a list, but certainly Jacob has a method to his madness. He does assign a number to each of the names however. And guess what... the numbers next to all our favorite losties are "the numbers". Is this just another coincidence where the numbers show up, or is the THE origin of the numbers? I would be disappointed if this turned out to be the origin of the numbers. We don't really know when Jacob put those names on the wall, or how he decides which number to put next to them. Both would provide helpful information. To bring the candidates to the island Jacob touches them and sets them on a course to come there. Back at the end of season 2 we found out the Hurley's name wasn't on the list at that time. Jacob didn't visit Hurley until after he had already been to the island and gotten off. Did Jacob not decide that Hurley was a candidate until just recently? I think Hurley was number 8, so that doesn't seem to signify the order. I am confident that we aren't done with the numbers, and we will have to get some sort of origin story for those things.
The other big question is how is Flocke going to use Sawyer to get off the island. I really haven't thought about this at all. My only inclination is that because Sawyer is a candidate Flocke will convince him to accept the responsibility and become the new protector of the island. At that point Flocke will essentially control the entire island, and somehow they can leave. There was an interesting scene where we see Ilana collecting the ashes out of the pit where Jacob was burned. We have to assume this is the ash that will be used to ward off the smoke monster in the future. We know there was a significant amount of this ash in their possession before. They had enough to completely circle Jacob's cabin. The people at the temple seemed to have their own stores of this stuff. All this would suggest that other leaders of the island, possibly Jacob himself, has been burned before. Maybe when Jacob was set on fire it wasn't his ending at all. Rather it was a step in the process that Flocke has tried numerous times before, but he has never been able to follow it through to completion.
Another element from season 1 sprang to mind when Flocke and Sawyer entered the cave. On the balance scale we see the black and white stones. Back in season 1 when the survivors first went into the caves for shelter they found two skeletons, which they dubbed "Adam and Eve". One of the skeletons had a pouch in his pocket that held two stones, one black and one white. Are these the bodies of former protectors of the island? It is at least an indication that there was a plan for this show from the beginning, which gives me confidence that the rest of this season will be satisfying and fun to watch. The image here is from the pilot episode of LOST when Locke is explaining the rules of backgammon to Walt. Just one of the many references of dark vs. light.-deric
