I'm pretty sure the MiB's former avatar was Christian Shepherd. Both were dead bodies on planes. That probably has something to do with it.

I think that's the final answer. They won't answer everything and some things like this, they'll just suggest an answer. I'm cool with that.

The Alice book and the sheet of music called "The Fantasies" i think are clues that this timeline isn't real

I cannot take it anymore. What does "MiB" stand for? I just see "Men in Black" every time I see it.

I think you might be overthinking this one. I assume Claire recognizes her friend from being "infected" and sharing whatever bond that means, no matter what form he appears in.

Or maybe he came to her at some recent point and said "hi, I'm your friend, and this is how I look now."?

Maybe that's the point? Notice that all the Losties who were brought to the Temple have now left it, except for the infected one.

Man in Black, guy talking to Jacob on beach in last seasons finale

Ah.

So the speculation is that that was smokey/Locke? I must have missed that.

WOW!

This show has REALLY left some people behind

It's not speculation, it's confirmed.

I must be slipping.
Thanks!

One thing I think may be worth noting is that Claire made a distinction between her father and her friend. Since she seems to be able to recognize her "friend" despite the form he takes, I wonder if the Christian character we've seen is someone else besides the MiB.

The difference between Christian and Locke is that Locke was taken over and yet his body remained on the island. Christian's body disappeared, a point they reiterated in this episode. I don't think smokey was using Christian at any point.

You could be right. Jack looked through that mirror and saw his childhood home, which is (if I remember correctly) the house his mother still lives in the other timeline.

yeah, I had always [I]assumed[I] that MiB needed Locke's body on the island to take his form, but perhaps that's not true.
Maybe one reason Jacob would want Locke's body back on the island would just be to expose MiB's deception.

Unrelated to that, the only scene I really disliked in this episode was Jack and Hurley just happening to run into Kate. By necessity, I've pretty much come to believe that there are very few coincidences on the island, but this meeting seemed to be pushing it and served no significant purpose at all other than saying "Hi. We're going this way. See ya".

Alice references were also titles of previous jack-centric episodes - White Rabbit and Through the Looking Glass.

So, I don't think it necessarily means the NC timeline is not real.

Juliet removed his appendix in Season 4 right? So that happened on the island in the current timeline.

I can buy the Jack & Juliet connection. We all know that anything's possible in the NC timeline.

I'm assuming Juliet is the mother as well. Although they total blew the potential brother/sister hookup with Jack and Claire again. No balls!

#108=

Okay, another question. In season 1, Rosseau tortured Sayid the same way the temple others did, presumably to see if he was infected. If the temple others are saying that Claire and Sayid are infected, and we are led to believe that Rosseau was also infected, why would Rosseua (who we are presuming to be infected) be testing Sayid for said infection also?

...bitch was crazy!

By the way, Claire's "distressed" makeup was laughably bad.

He was lying when he said he was lying. He knew Kate raised Aaron.

I remember studying "The Annotated Alice" in school -- interesting insights into Carroll's world. Note that this is not just Carroll's original stories but an edition by Martin Gardner in which he includes many of his notes/comments on Lewis Carroll's writing (thus the "Annotated" in the title). I believe this is the edition they used in this ep:

http://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Alic.../dp/0393048470

I just thought I'd jot down my thoughts about the Alice allusions from last night's ep for you all to rend to shreds. Go ahead, I'm used to it.

There are two allusions, one to each of Carroll's two main works. The mirror in the lighthouse is an obvious allusion to "Through the Looking Glass", and the rabbit statue hiding the key to his wife's house is an obvious allusion to "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". I think that with these two allusions, Lost may have given us an inkling of a two-way link between our current plot threads. Just as the mirror in "Looking Glass" allows Alice to see and even step through to an alternate world, the mirror in the lighthouse allows islanders to see the outside (alternate?) world. Similarly, just as Alice follows the rabbit down the rabbit hole to enter an alternate world in "Wonderland", the key under the rabbit statue might imply that this house holds the key to communicate with, or maybe even enter, the island world.

FWIW.