Now that may be true at first sight. But I do not think the smoke monster even existed before MIB floated into the cave.
I think it was created the moment a human came in contact with that power.


At least that's finally solved!


That was not very smart of him, yeah. Human, though. He wanted to punish his brother and remembered his mother saying one would find something worse than death in the cave. Sounded like a good idea to him, but of course it wasn't.


I think Claudia answered in Spanish once, no clue what Mother was speaking (with strong American accent, hehe)


And it would have worked for him, while he was alive. It does not work for Smokey, of course.



I think because MIB was the first smokey, the one who created it, as I assumed above.


Yeah, I fear we'll never know. It's probably one of those things everyone can decide for themselves. Like the suitcase in Pulp Fiction.


I think it's like...the corruption of man, if you will, as cheesy as that sounds. I don't think it was waiting in there for its chance to get out. It came into existence as violence entered the cave. That's what I think, at least.


Exactly. No clue.


I think I'll have to rewatch the moment he recruited Richard to see what exactly was said there. I already wondered about that last week, when Jack's refusal to touch the bomb and his belief it could not kill them reminded me of Richard in the Black Rock knowing he can't be killed by his own hand. Are the Candidates already ageless like Richard?


True, there was no hint at smokey being the Evil impersonated. MIB was a normal human being, so was Jacob, they had positive traits and made mistakes but somehow the episode made me feel a lot worse for MIB than for Jacob. Of course, that was pre-Smokey-MIB. What we'd need is another episode where Jacob meets his Undead brother again and they start playing games again, showing them over the years and how they started manipulating people from the outside world.


They are 4 years apart, I think it's mostly Welliver's grey-ish hair that makes him look older. I thought they worked great together, though.



True. Him getting creeped out by the kid suggested he did something to him when they were young, which did not happen. If anything, Jacob should get haunted by young MIB.

Of course that doesn't exactly make me root for Smokey in the island reality, not with how easily he uses and kills off humans. Jacob, on the other hand isn't much better. I don't think it's a black stone / white stone thing, they are both rather grey.

Also unanswered:
Who took Claudia's form when she talked to her son? Was Smokey already around after all? All she did was show him the humans, though.
Who built the statue? If it was random humans arriving from time to time, why would Jacob live in its foot?
How and when did Jacob start to leave the island to influence people?
Did the brothers playing the game on the beach make that sea turtle strand?