"The Substitute" (Lost thoughts)

*John refers original flavor John Locke in either timeline*

Sideways:

John goes home and it turns out he is marrying Helen and they have a lovingly normal relationship except for the part where he lied about going to a conference in Australia.  She finds Jack's card and urges John to call him.  The next day, John gets fired for using company time and money to go on his walkabout.  He runs into a disturbingly optimistic but still nice Hurley who owns John's company and gives him the number to a temp agency to get a new job.  (Hurley is acting very Jacob-like.  Is Jacob Hurley?)  At the temp agency, John meets Rose who tells him what he CAN'T  do and finds him a job he can do.  Rose is so very awesome.
Helen finds out about the walkabout and they have a tender moment and he doesn't want to call Jack.  He just wants to accept his life in the wheelchair.
So John becomes a substitute teacher and meets Benjamin Linus (!) in the teacher's lounge.  So I guess more than the plane not crashing has changed.  I guess Ben's dad didn't go to the Island.  I wonder if his mom is still alive.

Island:

Illana is crying and Ben finds her and lies that NotLocke killed Jacob and kicked him in the ash.  She gathers up the ash (for protection?) and says that NotLocke is recruiting.  Illana and Sun have an argument and she tells Sun that Jin is most certainly going to be at the Temple, but we know that he is probably with Crazy!Claire.  They bring John's body to the graveyard and bury him and Ben gives a very touching eulogy in which he says that John was a much better man than he will ever be and he is sorry that he killed him.  Oh, Ben, that was sort of nice.  Frank says that this is the worst damn funeral.  I can agree on that.


Smokey wanders around, see that someone is in the Other village, looks around the Island, stops, and NotLocke picks up a machete and cuts Richard down from a trap that he is in in a tree.  Richard wants to know why he looks like John and NotLocke says it is because John was a candidate.  Richard doesn't know what that means, but he is not going anywhere with NotLocke.  Then a little boy with bloody hands appears and it scares NotLocke who leaves Richard in the jungle.

NotLocke goes to see Sawyer who is drunk and who greets him with "I thought you were dead."  NotLocke answers "I am."  Sawyer calls him out on not being John because John was always scared.  NotLocke is not, however, scared, but he says he can answer the question of why Sawyer is on the Island.  Off to the jungle, they trek and there is the little blonde kid again.  NotLocke chases after him and the kid tells NotLocke that he knows the rules and he can't kill him.  NotLocke responses with the age old "Don't tell me what I can't do" sounding a lot like John.
So who is this blonde kid?  My first thought was it was Jacob and that he was telling NotLocke that he couldn't really kill Jacob, but I wonder if he meant Sawyer because Sawyer is important.  Hey, Sawyer is blonde too.  But the little kid isn't little Sawyer.  Someone else suggested that the kid was Aaron and that is an interesting thought.  I've said before that I think Aaron is important in this struggle between Jacob and his enemy.  And what are the rules?  Are they the same rules that meant that Ben and Widmore couldn't kill each other?  If so, is that just a imitation of the greater struggle going on between Jacob and the MIB?

Sawyer, in the meantime, runs into Richard who warns him off from NotLocke and says he wasn't everyone dead and runs away in fear.  Immortal Richard is afraid of NotLocke.  That must mean something because he has been around for a long time and knew both Jack and the MIB in the way back.  Sawyer chooses to stick with NotLocke for some reason.  After a harrowing climb down a cliff, they end up in a cave.  Don't drink the potion, Sawyer!  The locket's a fake.  Oh wait.

NotLocke approaches a rock table with a scale and a black stone and white stone in balance.  He picks up the white stone and throws it into the ocean and says it was an inside joke.  A joke of EVIL!  So I guess that makes it clear what side NotLocke is.  He reveals the LIST scratched on the walls and ceiling of the cave and says it was the list that Jacob made and the only names not scratched out are:
8 Hurley
23 Jack
16 Jarrah
42 Kwon (Sun or Jin)
4 Locke
15 Ford
and we get a flashback to all the times that Jacob touched each person.  NotLocke scratches out John's name.  It seems that Jacob was the protector of the Island and he was looking for someone to take over and all the names are candidates for the job.  He touched all of them and lead them to the Island.  NotLocke says the Island doesn't need protecting, but he says it with a little desperation.  It obviously needs protecting from him.  He says Sawyer can do three things: 1. do nothing,  2. accept the job and become the new Jacob, 3. get off the Island with NotLocke.  Sawyer says hell, yeah to number 3 and DUN CREDITS!

So who is NotLocke really?  I had said god, probably Egyptian, but now I wonder.  He indicates that he was human before and Jacob trapped him on the Island.  That seems off somehow.  I can't think why Jacob would do that except that NotLocke intended to do some real harm to the Island and that was how Jacob could stop him.

Also Kate was not on the list even though she was brought to the Island and touched by Jacob.  But most of the list are men so maybe Kwon refers to Jin and not Sun.  Like the only replacement for Jacob is a man.  And who is the little boy?  And who can't be killed?

If the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything is 42, then the answer to everything must lie with Jin or Sun or their little girl.   Interesting.  She was conceived on the Island so she must be special somehow.  And that goes along with Aaron who was born on the Island.  "Littleton" was on the cave wall but crossed out.  What if it referred not to Claire but to Aaron who I assume has his mother's last name.  But since Aaron is off Island, he cannot be a candidate.  So Claire was brought there not for herself, but for Aaron and Jin and Sun were brought there not for themselves, but for their baby.

Oh and apparently NotLocke is stuck looking like John.  Why?  Because Jacob isn't around anymore?  Does this mean no more Christian Shepherd and randomly appearing former dead people.  So is safe to assume that Hurley really did talk to Jacob? For a season of answers, I sure am using a lot of question marks.