SPOILER ALERT

Last night on Lost, we finally got Richard’s backstory. And while a lot of things we suspected were confirmed, we did get a very interesting explanation of the nature of the Island.

• Confirmed – Richard came to the Island as a slave on the Black Rock.  I have already been scolded for asking about these nitpicky things, but: When we saw the Black Rock in the distance from the beach in the Season 5 finale, it was day, and the water was calm.  How did it become night and stormy so fast?  And how does a wooden boat smash into a statue, and the boat remains intact but the statue breaks?  Was that statue made of paper mâché?
• If we take the events of last night at face value, the debate is over: Jacob is good, and Smokey is evil.  And the Island is in effect Smokey’s prison, and Jacob is the jail’s warden.  Now, we also know that Smokey can’t kill Jacob directly; he needs someone else to do his dirty work for him.  And we were told that if Smokey escapes, “we” will all go to hell.  I interpreted that “we” as the whole world, although it could just be our characters.  But either way, all of those facts put together raise the question: Why is Jacob bothering with his game to prove that people are good, when so much is at stake?  Shouldn’t he just play it safe, and stay isolated on the Island alone with Smokey?  Yes, of course, that would make for a far less interesting show, but it just seems irresponsible of Jacob to bring in so many “variables,” to use an important word from the show.
• And while we’re talking about the rules, I want more clarification on the rules that Jacob and Smokey are playing by.   Can Smokey kill whoever he wants?  Can he not kill the candidates, i.e. people Jacob has touched?  He offered Eko a shot at redemption before he killed him, and the Others at the Temple a chance to leave before he attacked – why?  He gave no such choice to the 815 pilot, and the Black Rock’s Hanso.  Doe she just get so mad at the pilots/captains of the vessels that crash onto the Island that he just unleashes all of his anger at them?  We were told he is the Island’s security system – is that true?  Who is he protecting it from?  If he gets so sick of Jacob’s game, why doesn’t he just kill everyone that Jacob brings to the Island?  After he saw that Richard went to Jacob’s side, why didn’t he kill him?  And was it Smokey who appeared as Isabella to Richard on the Black Rock?  Because while Isabella was in the boat, we heard (and did we see?) Smokey outside of the ship.  Can he be in two places at once?  And can he lie?  He seems to be honest, even copping to being the smoke monster when it didn’t help his cause to Richard.  But he was lying about Jacob being the devil, and that they’re in hell.  Right?  RIGHT?
• I liked the religious implications in Richard asking Jacob why doesn’t he involve himself in people’s lives.  It clearly hearkens back to the age old question, ‘How can G-d let bad things happen to good people?’ But Jacob doesn’t want to get involved, so he’ll have Richard do it.  Do it… forever!  OK, so Richard will be an advisor for the people on the Island who want to be good, who want to help Jacob in his quest to keep Smokey on the Island.  But how exactly are the Others that we have seen accomplishing that task?  By wearing fake beards and stealing children and shooting at airplane crash survivors and having book clubs in the old Dharma barracks?
• Jacob said that no one can get into the statue without an invitation.  But FLocke and Ben just waltzed right in last season.  Did Smokey have a standing invitation?  And was Ben allowed in as his plus one?
• Man in Black’s directions to Richard on how to kill Jacob were either almost the same or exactly the same as Dogen’s instructions to Sayid on how to kill FLocke.  Is that because both men knew that their adversaries could be very convincing?  Or is there more to it than that?

Once again, a few answers, and plenty more questions.  But overall, a great episode, though I don’t think it needed the extra six minutes.  Really – they could have lost a few minutes of Ricardo on the Canary Islands and it all would have still worked.  And this was probably the longest flashback since that Desmond episode a few seasons ago.  But it was enjoyable, and interesting, and the bottle of wine analogy really helped frame the entire context of what the Island is, which has been a long time coming!