I’ve been wondering about that too. Jacob said the island was the cork, so… the exotic matter has something to do with binding smokey to the island? How did Ben then control the smoke monster? or at least release it on Keamy and his men? How could he control it, or is that not the same smo k e y??? Okay my head hurts now.
Yeah, I’ve wondered that too. A couple of thoughts from my site (previous episode, actually)
First, who is “Isabella”. Obviously it really isn’t her; she’s dead. It could be Smokey taking her form but if so, what was making the sounds outside? Can Smokey be in two places at once? Was it all a show for Richard’s benefit?
If it was Smokey, how did it know how to take Isabella’s form? Did it take it from Richard’s mind? Up until this point it has seemed that everyone whose form Smokey has taken is someone who was dead and their body was somewhere on the Island. So far we have seen Christian Shepherd, John Locke, Eko’s brother and probably a few others that I’m forgetting about. The only possible exception to this is Walt, who is neither dead nor on the Island but was seen by several people, though his appearances may be unrelated to Smokey. So, either Smokey can take the form of someone it has never met and is not on the Island (and can be in two places at once) or Isabella’s appearance is unrelated to Smokey.
One other thing of note here is that Isabella says she “looked into the eye of the Devil and saw only evil”. Way back in the first season Locke encountered Smokey (before we even knew what it looked like) and said that he “looked into the eye of the Island, and it was beautiful”.
Is it possible that there are two smoke monsters? Does (or did) Jacob have the ability to become a smoke monster too? Does seeing evil or seeing beauty depend on which smoke monster one is looking at?
and
OK, what is keeping the Man in Black on the Island. Jacob told Richard that the Island was the “cork” keeping the “evil” in the “bottle” but here it is pretty much stated that it is Jacob keeping the Man in Black here.
Maybe Jacob’s analogy is wrong. Maybe the Island should more precisely be represented by the bottle and Jacob the cork so that Jacob keeps the Man in Black on the Island the way a cork keeps the wine in the bottle. This seems to match the situation better. It isn’t clear why Jacob didn’t explain things that way unless he didn’t want Richard to know the full situation.
And keep in mind that “evil” apparently has a slightly different definition to Jacob.
Something has occurred to me.
Why is the Ajira airliner available to fly someone off the Island?
Because it landed on the convenient runway on the Hydra island.
Where did that runway come from?
The Others built it. (They had Sawyer and Kate helping them back at the beginning of season 3)
Why did the Others build a runway?
Presumably because Jacob asked them to.
If Jacob wants to keep the Man in Black on the Island then why build something that will let him escape?
Umm…
So, whose idea was the runway? Who are (or were) the Others working for again?