That is what he thought, but he didn't really know, nor any of The Others except Richard, what the smoke monster really was.

I believe that it’s more complex than that. Sure, he’s used that New Age experience to sell Coke, but, as Weiner says in this interview, he’s probably also learned something of it and has improved as a person. Making the ad of Coke doesn’t take that he has had personal growth.

Exactly, that’s what I interpret from their conversation in ‘Across the sea’.

Yeah, Jacob is a sucker. But his actions are coherent with what we saw in 'Across the sea': his mother never let him have a choice, so he starts this game of ‘free-will’ with MIB; that, as you say, isn’t really free-will. What I liked most of Across the sea is that it gave us an understanding of Jacob’s actions, that…

Well, seasons 4 and 5 didn’t require as much characterization thanks to all the layers and complexity the characters had earned through the first seasons. And we still got some excellent character-centric episodes in those seasons, especially of characters that weren’t in the show since the beginning, as Ben or…

Translation of Weiner's interview:

Haha, the WTF expression in Locke's face would have been priceless.

I don’t think that Ben had ever gone to confront the Smoke Monster on the temple before ‘Dead is dead’. He knew that the Smoke Monster was somewhere below the temple, but that episode implies that is the first time he goes there.

Richard orders to torture people he knows? I don’t think so. And Ben is the Others boss and they do horrible things with the castaways because Jacob has the idea that people have to distinguish by themself between good and evil without him having to say so. That’s why he gives them free-will and doesn’t intervene.

Yeah, Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt are good looking, but they're also VERY good actors. I really liked Fox and Holloway in Lost, but I’m not that sure if they could maintain a blockbuster all by themselves.

Yeah, absolutely. 'The Talking Dead' has SO much to learn from Lost in
terms of characterization of his main characters

In 'What they died for', Jacob explains the candidates EXACTLY why they are in the Island and what is their purpose.

The Island is the place that withholds the energy that gives life
to every person and serve as the junction between life and death, so the true
purpose of the people that go to the Island is to protect it.

The last shared glances between Jack-Kate and Sawyer-Juliet before throwing the bomb.

Men in Black has always manipulated Ben, as he reveals in ‘Follow the Leader’’. When Ben thought that he was using the Smoke Monster as an asset, it was really the Smoke Monster who has manipulating Ben.

It’s answered in Ab Aeterno: Jacob tells Richard that he needs
him to create a community of people on the island to show to the Men in Black that people are pure and good, and not corruptible and bad as MIB says.

The white box was a metaphor of the power of the island aka the glowing cave

It's so much fun having this weekly opportunity to talk again about Lost. Hope they continue these excellent reviews in seasons 4-6.

Storyline and plot-wise, seasons 4 and 5 are the best. But in Season 1 and this final stretch of season 3 is when I was more emotionally invest. I think that in later seasons the show lost part of its charm.

Matthew Fox and Evengeline Lilly aren't that good. Their interpretations of Jack and Kate are iconic, but even in Lost there're infinitely better actors: Terry O'Quinn, Henry Ian Cusick or Michael Emerson, for instance.