This. I was actually holding my breath during Linus's episode, when it came time for him to decide whether or not to secure his 'promotion' at the expense of his student or not. In this timeline, he didn't fail her as a father figure - but you didn't know which was it was going to go until the last second.

Hurley seems to be pretty clean.

And when the writers openly stated "no, the Island isn't purgatory, it isn't hell, it isn't outer space, and this isn't a simple black/white parable".

Freaking lairs.

It has got to be Hurley. Hurley is the only one that Jacob is talking to. He is the one convincing the others what they "need" to do. He got Richard to come back to the beach.

What I don't get is why Jacob has been able to get off the island and have various interactions with the characters yet the Locke monster can't get off the island? There was a great line near the end between Locke and Sawyer.

i'm thinking the two timelines might cross afterall in some fashion. In the sideways flash, Jin shoots Mikail in the eye but on the island he already had the patchover his eye... hhmmmmmm...

also, at this point once locke kills all of the candidates he will be free to go...

i don't know if he needs to kill them, or just recruit them to his side. when smoke man told Jacob that he wanted to kill him (in the Richard episode) Jacob said, "someone else will just take my place." Smoke man replied, "then I'll kill them too." I think smoke man needs to recruit or kill all the "candidates" in order to make it so there is no one left to replace Jacob...thereby disrupting the balance, removing the island cork and letting hell spill out to the rest of the "real world."

IIRC I read that Sun was the original central character, but they create Kate's character instead. Sun doesn't seem to have a flaw...

...except that she was banging a dude other than her husband! remember she was prego on the island and didn't know who the father was???