I don’t think it is either so much… I believe what we we saw in the finale was a preview of the current state of what we are seeing on the island. different people have been drawn to the island for different successive purposes. The egyptianishes contributed what they were brought for… black rock peeps for their part… dharma for its part… lostaways for theirs… 316ers for theirs… like the man talked with jacob about… he has kept(continued) bringing people there… what the man in black lacks is jacob’s vision of why and for how much longer.

it’s like chess, stacking your pieces for plays to come…. er, or should I say backgammon.

The egytians were just pieces. It looks like the board is, or is just about set for whatever the final play is (which might also be to deadlock mr. black for stasis).

A quick glance at doc jensen’s supercomputer reveals some interesting details about backgammon… one of which is:

“The objective is to remove (bear off) all of one’s own checkers from the board before one’s opponent can do the same.”

and other good reading

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backgammon

I was almost convinced when he said Jack “We are the good guys”

It may also be that he is surprised at the stupidity of Ben and others. Ben may have been repeating what someone told him, or more likely an application of his own interpretation of Smokie and other aspects of the Island. UnLocke may also be surprised at Ben’s accurate guess – or at Ben’s error. It could explain some of those surprised looks. He may well be Smokie and surprised at Ben’s ignorance. We don’t know how Ben has any of his information.

I am of the belief that both Ben and Locke have been victims of unLocke’s manipulation during the entire events of Lost. Ilayna mentioned that someone else had been using Jacob’s cabin, for instance, and then burned it.

How Richard could not have been aware of unLocke’s presence or involvement, I’m not sure. We still don’t fully understand his role or just who he is in the Lost scheme just yet. More and more he seems to be a Watcher type figure: He designates the Others’ leader, and allows them to make decisions, but then also overrides some, or at least questions them in order to influence a change. But then, he knows where Jacob truly resides and obviously has met him.

Although, Richard didn’t go in with unLocke and Ben, did he.

The second is that the O-6 are consciousness time-traveling. It doesn’t seem that way because of the view of the events that we’re given. They don’t seem disoriented in these ‘77 episodes. But it is an interesting suggestion.

The Darlton have also said the DI will not be too important, at least to the extent they have been, in the final season. S-6 may well be a fast-forward of the 90 days (?) the Losties were actually on the Island and the three years of S-5 never happened.

But more likely to a 2009 crash. And frankly, that doesn’t work for me. Although I hope they some how make it work, convince me that somehow the past five years…happened!?!

Classic.

But you can only do that once.

As for Lost, I think the series finale will be reflective of the quality in the previous 5 seasons of Lost. In other words it will be satisfying. If their is one thing the TPTB are aware of it is what’s expected of them considering the sub-par(in some peoples opinions) conclusions of other t.v. series. With this at the forefront of their approach and with the appropriate sense of responsibility, they will do the best they can.

As for current events, I am going with a tangent universe a la Donnie Darko, which is created from and at the point of the jughead explosion. The first 3 eps of season 6 will be correcting this “problem”. After, we will get down to Island WAR with no flash anything.