Backgammon, destiny and epilogue by Patrick

I believe that what we are seeing in the flash sideways / alternate universe in season 6 is in fact an epilogue to the series finale. Juliet causing the bomb to go off didn't make this happen. The only thing that happened by Juliet making the bomb go off is that it put them in present time. I don't think we will find out any definite reasons for this and it will remain one of the mysteries of the show. I believe that showing this alternate timeline in sequence with the bomb going off was done to confuse us a little, but also because there is probably a whole season-worth of storyline that will happen to our beloved characters in this destiny-free resolution. I will get into that more later on.

When the camera pans out the window on the airplane and we see that the island is underwater. The island existed because they crashed on it. During season 5 when they were jumping through time, they tampered with a lot of stuff in the past, and I feel that if it were not for this tampering, the island would be underwater just as we see in season 6. For instance, if they had not been there to interfere with the construction of the swan station or interact with the Dharma initiative, who knows what could have happened? I believe that in the alternate timeline we are seeing what the island would be like without their interference. This shows that they were truly always meant to be on the island and that their fates and the fate of the island are in fact intertwined. The shots of the island being underwater shows us that their fates are now sealed and that there is no way they are going to be going to the island. The game has ended.

In the alternate timeline we are seeing what happens to our characters when they aren't tied to destiny and fate like they were at the beginning of season 1. I believe we will see each one of them come to a bitter and tragic end, and we will see that their lives only truly had meaning when they were tied to the game of the island.

Now, onto the game. I've seen this theory posted before, and I think that there have been clues throughout the series that give a hint of this. I believe that all of this is a gigantic backgammon game between the light player (Jacob) and the dark player (Man in Black). The characters are the pieces and the island is the game board. I think that once the game is over, everything will end up righting itself, which is what we are seeing in this alternate universe (epilogue).