Observations... (Crap! I'm turning into one of "THOSE" people!!!
)
-Surely, the stakes are now much higher now. It's about much more than just our favorite Losties getting off The Island. If the Smoke Monster is able to get off The Island, the rest of the world will go hell.......
-Notice that Jacob believes that man should figure out how to do the right thing without him having to tell them. So they have to figure it all out on their own and make their decisions based on their own judgments rather than Jacob's. It's sort of symbolic of what the writers have said about the many questions surrounding the show, eh? They don't feel the need to explain everything; they expect us figure it out ourselves...
-From what I gather, Smokey can actually kill the candidates, but it doesn't help him. He realizes that the successive "candidates" -- the corks -- will keep him from leaving. So he's trying to pull the "candidates" onto his side, as that's the only way he will be able to leave. He needs them all OFF The Island for him to go too?
-What was the point of Smokey admitting to Richard that he was actually the Smoke Monster if he was trying to convince him that JACOB was the devil? Doesn't make sense...
-Also, it's kind of weird that the Smokey --
the devil -- gave Richard a
Cross of all things to keep with him in memory of his wife, no?
-And how is "the devil" bottled up on The Island? If evil = devil, then what of all the evil taking place OFF the island?
-The portrayal of was pretty anti-Catholic. I wasn't offended though because I've grown so used to that shit.
-They haven't really fully hashed out exactly what all of these things really are, although they're giving us more and more. Obviously, evil exists off the island. Smokey being on the island, however, is clearly pretty important. Their concept of Satan and evil is so unclear. Are we to assume that Smokey is just one pawn -- one of many "devils" -- all over the world? Then what makes him so special? Is Smokey like... the leader -- the "Lucifer"? Like Sauron... kill Souron and all the evil (the orcs, the Nazgûl, etc.) dies with him. But how do you kill him?
-Besides the fact that he's not PURE EVIL, Jacob's whole agenda isn't any better, per se, than Smokey's. Everything he does is for self-serving purposes too. He wants to leave The Island just as much as Smokey does, and he's bringing in people to replace him.
-So the polar bear... the hatch... the time travel... DHARMA Initiative... none of it matters? It's all just part of a game of tag between Smokey and Jacob?
-Symbolism rocked in this episode. Richard dipped in the water (basically lke being baptized), and then "reborn" as a servant of Jacob, his new Lord... And then, Smokey breaks the bottle, symbolically allowing "the darkness" to spread, right? So... perhaps the cork is inconsequential if the island is.... broken? Underwater? Like we saw in the premier...........