Note: This was originally a post on the page Talk:Across_the_Sea/Theories but I decided to turn it into a Blog Post, as it's more about the final direction of the show
With only around 3 hours left to go, after this episode I've resigned myself to the fact that we're not going to find detailed answers about the mythology of Lost... even less than I thought we would get. We have to accept that Lost is more "fantasy" than "sci-fi"
Theories have always fallen into two categories:
- Theories about the origins of things/people on/off the Island, and
- Theories about what is going to happen next.
I'm expecting there to be one more "explanation" episode which sets up some action-based conflict for the final two episodes to resolve. We just don't have time for elaborate, precise, or even rational explanations for things like the energy source we've just been shown.
In this episode, we effectively found out that:
- Jacob and MiB/Esau/Adam are brothers, and that neither are all good/all bad
- at the heart of the Island is an energy source - something desirable, but corruptible and must be protected by someone.
- the Smoke Monster is effectively the MiB's soul/essence mixed with the "light"
There may be another explanation for where the smoke monster came from, but I think this episode was designed to answer that question (albeit vaguely) so they're unlikely to spend more time given a more comprehensive answer.
The point is, we just don't have time left to answer all the mysteries about the origin of things now, and it would make more sense to focus more on what is likely to happen. In a sense, to go into detail would lessen things (you didn't need to know where "The Force" came from to like Star Wars). You're not likely to find out where Mother came from, anymore than the Bible will tell you where God came from.
So the major questions I can see that still need to be resolved are:
- what is the significance of the split-timeline, and how does this relate to Jacob's plan (if at all)?
- who is Jacob's replacement going to be (if anyone)?
- what is the MiB's plan, and how will he be thwarted?
- what is Charles Widmore's plan, and how does Desmond fit in with it?