As we close in on the LOST series finale, I’ve been giving more thoughts to how it will all end and what it all means. It’s been six seasons of some of the most complicated-yet-frustrating television I’ve ever seen, and it seems like there’s only ever a glimmer of what the final conclusion will be. So with only three and a half hours left, I try to unscramble the facts, add in some guesswork and figure out what it all means. We’ll be entering heavy spoiler territory from this point on. Consider yourself warned.

Looking Sideways

The flash-sideways have been a puzzler from the start of the season, I know. At first I was having none of it, but somewhere along the line, I started to get the idea that the flash-sideways might not actually be an alternate timeline, but a sort of retroactive future where the Losties ultimately end up when all is said and done. Locke will be a substitute teacher, Jack will have a son, Sawyer will be a cop, and so on. I figured that, thanks to some event that would take place in the final moments of season, we’d see everyone essentially “reset” to the Oceanic 815 that didn’t crash and we’d know their fates beyond that point. I thought of it as watching Season 6 and a non-existent Season 7 unfold at the same time.

But then Desmond came back into the picture and what seems to be a “lateral” connection between the two timelines was introduced. I suppose it’s still possible that it’s all one timeline and that Desmond is simply hopping back and forth, but it also opened up possibilities for a new theory. If Desmond can transcend time, space and reality, allowing him to experience and manipulate both timelines at will,then that changes things significantly, even though his interactions with the survivors so far have been only in the alternate timeline. Whether we are dealing with two distinct, concurrent timelines or two segments of the same timeline is still my Mystery #1. Depending on the answer to this, we either end up with Theory A or Theory B.

In Theory A, it’s only a matter of time counting down until the big event that will reset everything. Once that happens, it’s just a matter of seeing how all the flash-sideways fit together.

For Theory B, if it’s not some Jughead-like moment that sends everyone back to 2004 in one fell swoop, that could mean the flash-sideways won’t be everyone’s happy ending. If that’s the case, then it’s more likely that there will be a final moral dilemma for the Losties, and it will require a conscious decision by each of them to determine whether they stay in the original timeline or end up in the alternate timeline.

So, if it’s a choice, why wouldn’t everyone just choose the flash-sideways? Well, first, they’d have to believe it’s even possible, and so far no one other than Desmond knows the alternate timeline even exists. Second, they’d have to believe that it’d be a significant improvement over where they are now. And third (and this is the big one), you can’t choose the better alternative outright because you just can’t. I know, I know…stick with me here.

Let’s Make A Deal

Some important moments in LOST hinge on characters making deals and contracts of trust. Michael made a deal with Ben to get Walt back. Jack made a deal with Ben to spare Kate and Sawyer. Locke made a deal with the Man in Black to bring back the Oceanic Six. You get the idea. And most of the time, the terms of these “deals” are never explicitly set; they are carefully forged through influence and manipulation. Similarly, in this final season we’ve seen that Jacob and the Man in Black are also open to making deals with—or entering into play in their high-stakes contest—the people who are brought to the island.

Sayid’s death was easily the most puzzling of any this season, but here’s an idea. We’re never actually shown, but let’s say Sayid made that deal with the Man in Black. (Yes, he was one of Jacob’s candidates, but when he was submerged in the tainted waters at the Temple, the Man in Black was then able to “claim” him as his own.) Either he chose a life where he’d only know Nadia as his sister-in-law but he’d be in prison for killing Keamy, or a life where he could actually be married to Nadia and after losing her, would feel no more pain (or any emotion, for that matter) but he would essentially become the Man in Black’s pawn. All he had to do was help get all of the remaining candidates together in one place, and once there, Sayid had done his part, freeing him of any further obligation to the Man in Black. (Notice how he snapped back to old Sayid when trying to figure out the bomb?) Realizing that the Man in Black never intended to let him live, it was in sacrificing himself that he could only find true redemption and solace. In that case, I’d say Sayid’s “happy” ending, no matter how brutal, was on the island. If it turns out that Sayid doesn’t end up in prison in the flash-sideways, maybe his sacrifice was rewarded with him ending up in that alternate life.

On the other hand, there was John Locke. In Season 1, Locke made the mistake of believing in the island, or more specifically, in what he thought it the island was. Originally brought there as one of Jacob’s candidates, when the Man in Black scoped out Locke way back in Season 1, he’d found the perfect mark for his plan. The Man in Black did what he could—including posing as Jacob in the cabin—to elevate Locke to a position of influence over the Others (thereby ousting Ben and Jacob’s envoy Richard), but he also needed to keep Locke and the other survivors to from ever leaving. When the Man in Black told him to move the island, he knew Locke would leave the island, and he knew there was only one way to get him back. After accepting help from Widmore (more on this later) and failing to bring the Oceanic Six back, Locke decided to kill himself in a moment of desperation. Locke thought he had to die because the Man in Black told him so but he didn’t know why and certainly not how. So when Ben showed up at the last second telling him that he had convinced Jack to go back, Locke had hope again, but little did he know that Ben wasn’t working for Jacob anymore—hence his final thoughts of “I don’t understand.”

Remember that, earlier, Ben—who had always blindly worked for Jacob—was now facing his own death and summoned the Man in Black’s protection during the raid by Keamy and his mercenaries. But much like Locke, Ben didn’t quite understand what he was dealing with when he did this. Instead, Ben left the island and took up a personal vendetta against Widmore, and when Locke followed him off the island and re-appeared now working for Widmore…well, that’s all Ben needed to carry out his task. In fact, after Alex’s death, Ben’s guilt got the best of him, bringing him back to the island, where he threw himself at the mercy of the Man in Black. Again, it seems that Ben thought he was doing the right thing, but it was all falling into place for the Man in Black, who then posed as Alex in order to strike a deal with Ben. When the Man in Black demanded that Ben do whatever Locke (the Man in Black, of course) asked him to do, he nearly sealed the Ben’s fate. It was only through his confession and plea for forgiveness that he was spared.

Now think of Mr. Eko and his confrontation with the Man in Black. He was the second to square-off with the black smoke after Locke, and while Eko was a man who’d lived as an impostor and murderer, what the Man in Black really needed was a true believer—which Eko had now become. He wasn’t brought to the island as one of Jacob’s candidates, so Eko was fair game for the Man in Black to strike a deal with. But what the Man in Black didn’t count on was Eko’s will to believe in himself. Eko gave up no ground for what he’d done in his past, believing he’d done the best with the life he was given, and he died because of it. Eko’s life and death on the island is important to understanding the difference between the candidates and non-candidates and why the latter can neither be suitable replacements for Jacob nor possible agents of the Man in Black. Not to mention, there’s a poignant correlation between the story of Eko and his brother and the choices he made and that of Jacob and the Man in Black. Looking back now, the final exchange between them takes on so much more meaning.

What about everyone else, you ask? I think it’s possible that everyone who has encountered and for lack of a better term “communed” with either Jacob or the Man in Black (in whatever form) have been entered into play and have some obligation to one or the other. Until the final episode airs, it’s still unclear how some of these will shake out, but to me, engaging with one side or another is crucial to where each character will end up, whether it’s on the island or in the flash-sideways.

It’s best to look at it all as a game—a series of moves and counter-moves with outcomes that only Jacob and the Man in Black may be able to foresee. That’s quite the advantage, but as with any contest, there are rules.

House Rules

Jacob and the Man in Black spoke of rules both in regards to how things happen on the island and even in how they played the game of senet. I think it’s safe to assume that similar rules apply directly to how the Man in Black can get off the island and how Jacob can keep him from leaving. But more than that, there’s also a subset of rules that apply only to the individuals in the game itself.

First, a quick re-cap of who’s who:

The Players: Jacob and The Man in Black

The Draughts:

• The Representatives – Richard, Dogen, Ilana, Widmore (only these four have had direct contact with and issue commands on behalf of Jacob; more on Widmore later)
• The Candidates – Ben, Jack, Sawyer, Locke, Hurley, Sayid, Sun and/or Jin, and the others listed in the cave and lighthouse.
• The Pawns – The other survivors, the DHARMA Initiative, the Others, the crew of the Kahana

Now, considering everything that’s happened over the series, some rules:

Rule #1: The players (Jacob and the Man in Black) cannot directly affect the candidates once they are in play; there must be an intermediate step.

Because of Jacob’s inherent faith in mankind, maybe he likes to recruit representatives like Richard or Dogen. For the Man in Black, perhaps because he’s not exactly a fan of man, he’s sticks to more symbolic methods, like conjuring apparitions of the dead.

Rule #2: The players can never pose as their opponent.

The only instance where this came close to being broken was when the Man in Black posed as Jacob in the cabin, but we only ever actually see the apparition of Christian in the cabin. Plus, according to Ilana, Jacob had not used the cabin for a long time.

Rule #3: Draughts cannot take their own life without completing their final test.

For Jack and Richard on the Black Rock, their time hadn’t come yet; for Michael and Sayid, they had fulfilled their agreements to Jacob and the Man in Black, and were able to make their final, selfless move without restraint. Michael is now trapped on the island, and I expect the same will go for Sayid. This is why it was important that Locke not hang himself, because if he did, the Man in Black’s ticket off the island would be trapped there as well.

Rule #4: Draughts cannot kill or destroy those on the same side without completing their final test.

Along with mirroring the rules for Jacob and the Man in Black, this would also explain why, for example, Ben couldn’t kill Widmore and why none of the candidates died after Jughead.

There may be other rules that I haven’t picked up on yet, but there are also basic terms that draughts seem to adhere to once they are in play:

• You can die on the island with the life you’ve already experienced (as most of the nameless castaways have)
• You can choose to become a representative (ex. Richard, Widmore, Dogen)
• You can choose to enter into the game and maneuver through the gauntlet of the island and its moral challenges (ex. the candidates)
• You can choose to not enter/avoid the game and die with the life you’ve already experienced (ex. Eko, Rousseau, the DHARMA folks, Rose and Bernard?)
• Once you’ve fulfilled your role in the “contest”, you must die on the island—possibly in atonement with the reward of experiencing an alternate life
• If you manage to leave the island, you’ll only be pulled back to re-enter the game.

The Loophole: The Man in Black, posing as Locke, was able to find a willing representative in a guilt-stricken Ben Linus. This doesn’t break any of the rules, but does exploit an opening nevertheless. Ben submitted himself to the Man in Black willingly–something that presumably had never happened before and Jacob expected would be impossible.

Going by the conversation they had as children, I want to say these rules were arbitrarily established by Jacob, but whether that’s the case or not and if these are all the rules is my Mystery #2.

Running With The Devil

Remember “the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist” from The Usual Suspects? Consider that idea for a second.

Evil, or any manifestation of it, is a tricky thing. It’s ripe with deceit, misinformation, treachery and hypocrisy, and in most cultures, that manifestation is known as the Adversary. Lore throughout the ages paints the Adversary as a trickster, a snake, an impostor. With LOST, however, it’s presented to us in the form of the Man in Black and his various forms. Maybe he’s not the traditional “fallen angel” that religion has given us a la the Devil/Satan/Beelzebub, but there’s really no other way to cut it.

Dancing on the thin line between good and evil isn’t easy, but up until now there’s always been doubt as to whether the bad guys are really “bad.” In Season 1, the antagonists were numerous, mostly including the survivors themselves as they manipulated the others around them. In Seasons 2 and 3, Ben emerged as a mysterious but all-knowing manipulator that was always one step ahead of everyone. Then in Seasons 4 and 5, it seemed to be Widmore that was able to pull strings and pose the biggest threat from on high, but now the Man in Black has risen as the Adversary. He has no name, and to everyone except his own brother Jacob, he has no true face. He is the most unknown and has powers beyond any man, and therefore the most feared.

A man with ill intentions is cast into what Mother called it “the heart of the island,” taints it with his pride and greed, and comes out a monster. Again, this isn’t just Jacob’s brother anymore, this is something far bigger. No matter your beliefs, if society at large has taught us anything, it’s that the Adversary is the most formidable foe. Jacob’s metaphor with the wine bottle is meant to tell us something; something that becomes apparent with the fact that the Man in Black has no single name or shape. Unleashing it would be too overwhelming for the world to handle because the Adversary cannot have witnesses; he cannot leave proof that he exists. The boy that was Jacob’s brother simply wanted to go home, but as the Adversary, he/it now carries the power to turn mankind on itself, and so the whole world would be at risk should it leave the island. The true nature of the Man in Black as we now know him, whether he’s supposed to be the Devil as taught in religion or a broader representation of evil in the hearts of men, is my Mystery #3.

For example, because of a tiny seed that the Man in Black planted in Jack as they left the island, the Oceanic Six lied about everything that really happened to Oceanic 815. They all thought it was the right decision to leave, but it wasn’t the only decision. They could have stayed and died along with everyone else, but they chose to save themselves only to return three year later.

Either way, once you’ve seen dealt with the Adversary, you cannot avoid it and most likely won’t live to tell about it.

Think about that for a moment. No one that has left the island has ever lived. Except for two.

The Boy Who Lived and The Man Who Waited

I don’t know if we’ll ever get any more answers regarding Walt, but it sure seems like we should. This may be a wild tangent, but I just can’t let it go.

For the first two seasons of the series, Walt seemed to be able to psychically manipulate the world around him and was deemed so special (even more than the Others had bargained for when they took him), that I wonder if Walt may be another Desmond-like character. When he appeared to Shannon, soaking wet and speaking backwards, he told her not to push the button and that it would be “bad.” We now know that not pushing the button ended up with the Swan station imploding and the discharge—with Locke giving up his faith in the island in the process. Walt’s message to Locke in the DHARMA mass grave was that he still had work to do, presumably to stop the Widmore’s men. Not to mention that he didn’t seem the slightest bit surprised to run into Locke off the island but instead seemed concerned that people might try to hurt him.

Could it be that Walt is an agent of the Man in Black that was able to slip away from the island? What if after the Others’ testing, Ben decided that Walt had to leave the island to keep him out of the hands of the Man in Black? And if so, what would happen if Walt returned to the island now?

I’d almost convinced myself that those are all legitimate questions, but as mentioned above, Walt never directly witnessed the Man in Black as the smoke monster during his time on the island. If we’ve really, truly seen the last of Walt is my Mystery #4.

Then there’s the matter of Charles Widmore. Since his introduction in Season 2, he’s been a man of seemingly limitless financial resources and influence. And in all likelihood, he was also once an agent of the Jacob. I say “was” because it seems to me that he, just like Mother warned Jacob, decided that he needed to possess the special powers of the island for himself.

From what we know, Widmore was both a superior and rival to Ben amongst the Others until he was forced off the island for breaking the rules (at some point during his time off the island he fathered Penny). It was Ben that exiled him and ensured that he would never be able to find the island again, but there may be more to it than that. The way I see it, he’s not on anyone’s side but his own now. He tried to get Locke to lead him back to the island, but when that failed, he found Desmond. Whether Widmore survives his showdown with the Man in Black and what that means is my Mystery #5.

The End Is Nigh

As for how it all ends, anyone’s guess is a good as mine, but I have a couple of ideas.

Theory A – Only Desmond survives. Everyone else, including the Man in Black, dies in an event so powerful that everything in the original timeline that happened after Jughead is destroyed. What kind of event? It’s hard to say, but remember that there’s a volcano located on the island and those have a way of changing the landscape in a major way. “It worked,” she said, because the candidates all ended up in the alternate timeline. With the island no longer habitable, Desmond inherits the light and is tasked with ensuring that everyone go on with their lives as if nothing had ever happened—although he can show them a glimpse of the previous timeline if it allows them a chance to be happy.

Theory B – Everyone on the island dies except for one. Maybe it’s Jack or Desmond or someone else altogether. That person goes on to serve not as Jacob’s replacement, but as Mother’s replacement—a guardian that knows all of the secrets of the island but can never leave, and that person must wait for the cycle to start over again. Does the Man in Black make it off the island? Maybe; maybe not. The struggles between good and evil, fate and free will, life and death…they’re eternal. So it only makes sense that wherever this show ends for the survivors of Oceanic 815, it won’t be the end of the story as a whole. We’ve now seen that the island and the challenges it presents were around long before them, and I’d expect that they’ll continue once they’re all gone. Personally, my money is on Claire. If you think about where this whole thing started, who else would better serve to begin it all over again than a mother who was robbed of her child and driven to the brink of insanity and possibly now understands the true power of the island?

Those are just two theories that I’ve come up with, based on all everything outlined above. I think if either of those happened, I’d be OK with that. Then again, there’s probably something I’m missing altogether that would make for an even more intriguing conclusion.

Still, it’s important to keep things in perspective. Ever since its first season, LOSThas dealt with the issue of fate versus free will, right versus wrong, good versus evil, and I think that’s ultimately what the show will always be about. Does your circumstance or past define who you are or who you might become? How do you know this life is the life you’re supposed to be living? When is it time to hang on to beliefs and when it is time to let go? Expecting answers to questions less than those (what are the whispers? why does the statue have four toes?) is expected even if they’re not crucial to the themes of the story, but expecting these bigger questions to be spelled out in some drawn-out monologue is ridiculous because, truthfully, they’re purely subjective and just not easy to answer.Granted, this seems like a giant house of cards where one thing hinges on what came before it, but that’s how I’ve seen the show up to this point. In the end, while it would be nice, I don’t really expect any of my mysteries above to be solved; I just want things to make sense. Not every question needs to be answered—which the producers have already made it clear that they won’t be doing—but a story as complex and far-reaching as LOSThas to adhere to some kind of internal logic, and for any story to come to a conclusion, some threads need to be resolved in a satisfying way.

Of course, after all of this, the final hours of LOST might very well discount most or all of what’s been written here. Or I could be right on the money. What do you think? If you’ve got other ideas, please share them, and when the finale is over, we’ll see just how much we got right or wrong.

UPDATE: Looks like I got an answer for one of my big questions in last night’s episode “What They Died For.”