Sounds similar to one of the theories I proposed in the season premiere thread, here: See Monstre Theory #1
While those are kind of fun to consider, I’ve pretty much been convinced Jacob will be the “good” guy (your milage on the word “good” may vary). Here are some reasons:
Right now, Smokey is making his team seem awfully attractive. I’ll give you the choice to leave the temple, before I come in and kill whoever’s left. I’ll let you live – just join me, and we’ll get off this island. I can help you… yadda yadda. He’s very good at tempting, and making it sound oh so reasonable. The evil dudes in stories always are.
In last season’s finale, the Jacob/Esau conversation – I still think very important. Esau/Smoky said “it always ends the same”. Jacob said “It only ends once. Everything else is progress.” To me, this implies that Jacob sees farther to the endgame, and understands some things that Esau/Smokey doesn’t. Including some bad things that will probably have to happen, on the ROAD to the ultimate end that Jacob is pushing for. And along these lines…
An interesting parallel…
(Next item spoiler-boxed just in case there’s actually anybody remaining who has NOT yet finished the Harry Potter books – no Lost spoilerage inside, just HP…)
[spoiler]- Jacob’s death reminds me kind of Dumbledore’s death. Dumbledore allows himself to be killed, knowing that it’s inevitable (given the situation he was in)… and to some extent kind of necessary for Harry to achieve final victory over Voldemort. I also figured, when I heard there would be another major death with book 6 was released, that it would be Dumbledore. Why? Plotwise, it was necessary to make the danger for Harry completely real. Up until then, no matter how strong Voldy got – there was always one dude more powerful – Dumbledore. He had to go, so that Harry would have to stand on his own, with nobody to protect him from the ultimate danger this time.
JACOB – same thing. Jacob probably knew he was going to die, while hoping that perhaps he wouldn’t have to? But quite possibly necessary for the endgame to go his way. And in terms of plot – NOW the danger is way more real. With Smoky kicking ass all over the island and tearing apart Jacob’s former followers[/spoiler]
Smocke is clearly winning right now. Kicking lots of Other ass. Destroying the temple. Converting new followers. Having assloads of power. All Jacob’s side has is a few bedraggled folks on the beach. They have a few guns, but bullets bounce off of Smocke. If Smocke is the good guy, he’s winning way too easily right now for the conflict / stakes / danger to feel real for the “good guys”, from a storytelling aspect.
The “six” that we saw listed a few episodes back (on the cave ceiling, shown to Sawyer by Smocke) – which corresponded to our numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42):
Ford (Sawyer)
Reyes (Hurley)
Kwon (Jin or Sun?)
Locke
Shepherd
Jarrah
Kate’s name wasn’t on one of those numbers. Although she’s definitely still alive, so I don’t know if she’s actually still a candidate or not. And obviously real Locke is dead now. But those were the 6 they made a point of showing us – corresponding to our favorite numbers.
I would think Ilana would know about Locke not being a candidate anymore from his dead body. So the six need to be people that are alive and she’s referring to:
what you posted
Ford
Reyes
Shepard
Jarrah
Kwon (counted as two or counted as one with Kate)
Kate ( i think she was on the lighthouse gear wheel, just not a number on the cave wall)
Right – she was probably on the cave wall, too. They just didn’t make a point of showing her specifically in that one – and she didn’t correspond to one of our six “numbers” (4 8 15 16 23 42).
I was just thinking about how glad I am that they are bringing Widmore back into the story. I was worried that his part of the storyline was being abandoned, and after they made such a big deal of building up the Ben / Widmore conflict in the last couple of seasons.
And then another thought occurred to me. I bet Widmore is the one Jacob was talking about – when in “The Lighthouse” episode he told Hurley, “There’s someone coming to the island” (and the mission he ostensibly sent them to the lighthouse for – to help this person find his way there). After all, Widmore was once a leader of Others, in Jacob’s camp.
Great episode. Used the parallel reality nicely to tell the story.
In both realities Locke is the one that tempts Ben with power. Only in the 2007 time line Smocke was a lot more calculating. Using what he knows is Ben’s weakness - hunger for power - to manipulate Ben to meet his ends. It looks like Ben resisted, but can we trust him?
Kate is the sixth candidate. She was on the wheel at number 51.
While this episode was entertaining, the twist with the principal didn’t make any sense. The principal had no leverage whatsoever. There was no reason for Ben to back off his demands at all.
I was thinking that Ben could have just pretended to back off, long enough to get the good recommendation letter for Alex. Once she was safely accepted to Yale, he could easily bring his demands back…
isn’t his backing off supposed to be some sort of penance or change of heart to the good side? Compared to Sayid going to the dark side from last week. Sayid chose to kill the Keamy team in the restaurant kitchen and then became part of the dark side on the island. Ben chose not to be a power hungry ass to take over principal duties and on the island went with Ilana.
I think that Kwon refers to Jin–of the living candidates considered “candidates”, Sun is the only one that didn’t flash back to 1977 Dharma and participate in the (hypothesized) creation of the alternate timeline.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but my biggest WTF? moment of the episode was during the opening credits. Directed by Mario van Pebbles? Really? I haven’t seen that name in years. He isn’t listed as the director on IMDB (some guy named Bobby Roth is) but that is what it says onscreen. I just rewatched to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.
Isn’t Frank Lapidus a candidate? I thought in one of last season’s episodes, where he was pretending to be asleep in the canoe while Ilana and Bram were talking about him, that one of them mentioned that he was a candidate.
I don’t recall seeing his name on the cave wall or in the lighthouse anywhere, though.