Season 5 Finale Thoughts

So now it appears that the black & white, yin/yang symbolism is a reference to the struggle that’s been going on for a long time between Jacob (white) and the other guy (darker clothes in the beginning scene).

I’m assuming that most of the smoke monster appearances (in cloud form, and the accompanying instances of dead people impersonations) have been one of these two in some form. I suspect it was the dark guy (black cloud) in most cases, although I think Locke mentioned the cloud being white when he saw it, which perhaps was a manifestation of Jacob.

Either could have also been behind some (all, more likely) of the other appearances of people who have been dead, etc. I think that depending on the role they played (or will play) in the unfolding drama, I think that most of the “dead people” appearances have been one of the two of them.

One angle I think would be interesting if they explored it was whether Kelvin (the guy in the hatch with Desmond and earlier with Sayid in Iraq) was actually Jacob, making a few chess-match moves similar to those we saw in this episode.

Assuming that Jacob’s dark opponent was grooming Ben early on in preparation for the moment we see at the end of this episode, could Jacob have been attempting to counter that (and other things) by influencing things (appearing as Kelvin) in the following ways:

1. Influencing Sayid in some way to become who he eventually became and leading him towards the island, in an attempt to set him up to counter (and hopefully kill) Ben, before Ben could kill Jacob.
2. Putting the pieces in place for Desmond to miss pressing the button and causing the plane to crash. It was chasing Kelvin out (and eventually killing him, even though his body later “disappeared”) that led to Desmond pressing the button late and causing the crash, an event that certainly seems to have been anticipated / orchestrated by Jacob, based on what we’ve seen so far.