[Mugen910]

LOST season 6, ep #8 "Ab Aeterno"

1. Richard's pre-island story
The doctor tells Richard that his wife's cross is worthless, a not so subtle jab at the idea of religion being ultimately worthwhile for Richard, and another case of man of science vs man of faith.

Richard hails from the Canary Islands. Over the course of the Canary Islands' history, people claimed to have seen a vanishing and reappearing eighth island. So there you go, the number 8, and a mysterious island. And the Canary Islands were the location of a famous plane crash in 1977, the year of the Incident in the LOST universe.
Richard and Isabella lived on the largest Canary Islands, Tenerife. (Tenerife is known for its ancient pyramids believed by some to be a link between Egyptian and Mayan cultures).
The passage Richard was reading in jail from the Gospel of Luke concerns Jesus rejecting the Devil's temptations, which is obviously relevant to the episode.
Notice how the doctor and priest wore black, while Richard wore white.

2. The Black Rock
What we were previously told - The Black Rock set sail from Portsmouth, England on March 22, 1845 on a trading mission to the kingdom of Siam, when she was tragically lost at sea. The only known artifact of this journey is a journal, which was discovered among the artifacts of pirates on the Ile Sante-Marie off the coast of Madagascar seven years later (1852). This constitutes a discrepancy because in Richard's flashback we were shown the date of 1867.

Another note about the date error is that we know there was dynamite on the ship. Alfred didn't invent dynamite until 1864 and didn't patent it until 1867. Maybe this is simply a writers' error to try to fix a past dating error?

It's possible that the owner/captain of the Black Rock wanted it to appear that the ship had been lost at sea in 1845, so that it could carry on possible illegal/secret voyages. It would have been simple enough to leave a journal on some far-flung island where it wouldn't be found for years.
After officer Jonas Whitfield killed the other slaves, was killed by Smokey, and Smokey killed everyone else, Richard was the only one from the Black Rock left. So how did the journal get off the island and make it's way into Hanso's hands, and eventually Charles Widmore's?
Hanso was never actually seen on screen. He died when the ship crashed, and he was (presumably) buried near the wreckage by the remaining officers before Smokey killed them all, just like it says on the blast door map at the Swan Hatch (see attached map, bottom right corner).

Richard said he wanted to go to the New World. America wasn't exactly a New World in the 1860s. However, Australia is very much still a "new world" in the 1860s. Gold had been discovered in the 50s, and certain Australian colonies were experiencing gold rushes. It seems plausible that Hanso was headed to Australia to get rich working his slaves in the mines. This would of course also explain how the Black Rock crashed on an island we know to be in the middle of the Pacific (if you sailed from the Canary Islands to America, you wouldn't cross the Pacific, but you would if your destination was Australia).

According to the texts of LOST, Magnus Hanso was an ancestor of Alvar Hanso, the financier behind The Dharma Initiative.
Upon arriving at the island, Richard saw the statue Taweret: the Egyptian goddess of pregnancy and childbirth, a former bad girl goddess who redeemed herself and helped keep the god of evil Set in check.

3. Richard's on-island story
Smokey told Richard the island is Hell and Jacob is the Devil. It seems that he used language from that era which Richard understood, from a time when people were devoted to religion and believed in absolutes.

Richard essentially creates his own job by telling Jacob that if Jacob doesn't interfere, Smokey will. In that respect, Richard becomes "the cause of his own suffering." (just like we were told by the brainwashing in Room 23!)

4. Smokey
Smokey's past manifestations: those not buried on the island: Harper (Goodwin's wife), Dave (Hurley's friend), Isabella, Walt, Eko's drug dealers, Locke. Those buried on the island: Christian, Yemi, Alex.

During the season 3 episode "The Cost of Living", Smokey appeared as ghosts of the drug dealers Eko killed with his machete. Perhaps he acquired images of those ghosts from Eko's past after scanning him, much like he was able to take the form of Isabella after scanning Richard (and taking Isabella's cross). So, that being said... what's all this business about hiding bodies, and Richard asking young Ben whether his dead mother he saw died on the Island?
Why does it seem like Smokey is incapable of drinking or eating? Is it because Jacob "took his body?" Smokey didn't eat boar along with Richard. He didn't drink along with Jacob. He didn't eat the fish with Jacob in the season 5 finale, either. Why did Jacob even ask Smokey if he wanted to eat fish? Is Jacob some sorta smart-ass???

Smokey presents Richard with a knife and instructs him to go to the statue and kill Jacob without letting him speak. These were the exact same instructions that Dogen gave Sayid in "Sundown". It is also the same knife. (see attached photos)

From Smokey's perspective, the island is Hell. It's his eternal prison. And Jacob, his prison keeper, is the Devil, a devil that has robbed Smokey of his humanity and identity. This plays right into the Biblical story of brothers Esau and Jacob, as Esau stole Jacob's birth right and inheritance by tricking him with a bowl of soup. "He can be very persuasive," Smokey warned Richard. That's may be coming from someone who was once fooled by Jacob, and now regrets it.
"Do you ever want to see your wife again?'' Smokey asks Richard. His utilitarian logic is located in the broad, contentious body of thought known as ''Consequentialism.'' A weakness of ''Consequentialism'' is its shaky, nebulous definition of justice. A major philosopher in the field of consequentialism? Jeremy Bentham (also the name Charles Widmore gave John Locke before his death).

Richard gave Smokey a gift from Jacob: a white stone, which may be nothing more than an inside joke, an ironic declaration of victory (I won Richard's soul! Nah-nah-nah! Again, Jacob the smartass?) punning off of Black Rock. (Get it? Black Rock the ship and an actual black rock)

5. Hurley
Hurley seems to be the new Richard... messenger of Jacob

6. Jacob
Why won't Jacob touch Ilana (wears gloves during visit)? The gloves are an obvious precaution against him touching her, even by accident.
Jacob seems to have a lot of faith that both Jack and Richard will discover what it is they need to do on their own.

Jacob makes it seem like the island is Pandora's box: although it contained a whole host of evil, it also contained hope.

Jacob doesn't promise Richard his wife back, telling him simply "I can't do that". This seems out of place; according to Dogen, Jacob promised to restore Dogen's son's life in return for service on the island. Jacob seems inconsistent.

Jacob said he gives everyone a clean slate when they come to the island. Meanwhile, it has been made clear that Smokey judges people on their past.

In relation to the Man of Science vs Man of Faith theme, if Jacob is Man of Faith then this may shed light on why he said to Ben "What about you?" before Ben stabbed him. Ben hails from the Dharma Initiative (Man of Science).

After Jacob beat the crap out of Richard, he somewhat "baptized" Richard (in the ocean) into Team Jacob.

Richard asked a crucial question: Why doesn't Jacob take a more active role in shepherding his spiritual reclamation projects? ''Because I want them to help themselves. To be able to tell the difference between right and wrong without me having to tell them, it's all meaningless if I have to force them to do anything! Why should I have to step in?'' Richard's reply: ''If you don't, he will.''