Interesting and quite exciting.

To reinforce this idea that the next episode is the one that will explain the mythology of the show and show us the Island's history, what they showed at the end of the episode wasn't a sneak peek as usual but a montage of various snippets with titles about good and evil and Jacob and his nameless foe (hopefully not nameless anymore by next week!), starting with the scene from the pilot I mentionned a while ago as early foreshadowing, with Locke speaking of the game being the oldest known and being fought between a light side and a dark side, and ending with "do you want to know a secret?" (that was actually Locke speaking of backgammon and telling Walt about his "miracle". It went on with scenes between Jacob and his foe (all from previous episodes), including one where MiB tells him "do you know how much I'd like to kill you?". The montage formally identified MiB as the evil one and Jacob as the good one - I guess the time had come after this episode. For some reason, I also got the impression it identified Jack as the chosen one too, but I can't remember why and maybe I confused this with the heavy foreshadowing in this episode, not the least that Jack had to accept not to fix Locke, which will be heavy foreshadowing if it ends with Jack and Locke as the new cosmic couple, with Jack having to accept that Locke can't and doesn't want to be fixed, that in a way he must pay the price for his "faults".

I was happy to see it came down to the fact I mentionned last week: Jack having to accept he can't fix everything/accepting other sacrifices, both in the flash sideways (giving up on trying to fix Locke who didn't want to be fixed) and on the island (accepting to let Jin and Sun die while he survived). Jack should be about ready to take on Jacob's job now... though Sawyer has gained a massive deal of selflessness and leadership lately. Still, after last night it seems a done deal it will be Jack and more a question whether Sawyer, Hurley and Kate will all survive or not... and whether their deaths on the Island really means they are dead elsewhere.

Amazing episode, though I was a bit disappointed the minor players I liked, like Rose and Bernard, made their exit off-screen.

My feeling is that by the end of the next episode, we'll know (pretty much) what we wanted to know about the origins/purpose of the island and Jacob and MiB. Not only that, but with that information we'll probably be able to guess where Widmore really stands. We might also understand a lot more what went on during the early seasons. I noticed in my re watch that the Others kidnapped people according to (at least they thought so) a list made by Jacob, and nobody among the main cast were on that list. I wonder if we'll learn what that list was - people Jacob had ruled out but that he wanted to protect from MiB? That would explain why the Others saved all the innocent children and brought them under the protection of the compound and its fence...

I suspect that's how it works: MiB isn't allowed to kill anyone who is on Jacob's list, but he can kill anyone Jacob rules out from his list of candidates, or at least that something rules out from the list (that's likely stuff we will understand after next week, who can die and who can't and why). He killed her team but not Danielle herself. He killed a lot of people, but not Ben. He couldn't kill Desmond. Or Richard, or most of the Others who roamed the Island out of the compound quite safely.

But he did kill Kimmey, and Eko, and the pilot and others... and he could kill any of Widmore's team who obviously can't be on Jacob's list as Jacob is dead.

I also wonder when we'll learn what the parallel stuff is all about too. In the finale, I guess. I wonder more and more if the "sideways" are real, or if only Desmond is experiencing them/seing them. Again in my re watch, I noticed Desmond went through an alternate reality experience extremely similar to the flash sideways back in season 3. He met Eloise as a jeweller and so on. I had forgotten about that. Desmond then said he had lived this before, but it was different.

The fact the woman in the sneek peek is pregnant is quite interesting. It looks like we will get new clues if not the final answer to the whole "women can't conceive on the island and carry the child to birth, but they can give birth to children conceived off the island" mystery. Why was Richard Alpert really seeking Juliet's help? Was this only the Others, or was Jacob trying to solve this puzzle too? The way Juliet's ex-husband died to open the path for her to agree to Alpert's offer speaks of Jacob's intervention.

Is there one more episode or two more episodes before the double-episode finale?