The Devils Temptation of Desmond Hume by Lost Dogma

I was really excited about the answers the Desmond episode "Happily Ever After" gave us about the flash sideways and the direction the show is taking.

Here are some conclusions I am making from all the clues Lindelof and Cuse has thrown at us in the last two episodes.

1. The flash sideways is the reset on the world if MIB gets off the island and all the 815 passengers that have sided with MIB get their wishes fulfilled. That is why no one can remain on the island. Unless everyone goes the timeline cannot be reset.

The only wrinkle to the reset timeline is when someone whose fate was changed in this reality has a very intense emotional moment and gets "flashes" from the original timeline.

2. It was nice to see so many old faces and I always liked Fisher Stevens as Minkowksi. But now his name is George and he is a limo driver who is dressed in black? Some of his dialogue and questions to Desmond at the airport has lead me to believe that George is this timeline's manifestation of MIB to watch over his people.

3. We now know the significance of the bible clue in Ab Aeterno. In the cell Richard Albert is reading the English Bible turned to the Gospel of St. Luke, Chapter 4. In Chapter 4, Jesus is unsuccessfully tempted three times by the Devil. He later casts out "a spirit of an unclean demon" from a possessed man and heals a woman with a great fever.

If George is the Devil figure and Desmond is the Christ figure than we can expect in the coming weeks that George, (MIB) will be tempting Desmond in order to keep this timeline intact. When Eloise tries to tell Desmond that he has the perfect life and has attained the thing he wanted more than anything, the approval of Charles Widmore she says that trying to find Penny is in fact "a violation". When he presses her about the list she says that he can't see the list because "he is not ready yet".

Desmond is again the "constant" since the rules do not apply to him and he can mentally travel between the timelines and remember what transpired. He is the biggest threat to MIB's plan. If he can keep the remaining candidates from from succumbing to Flocke's temptations than Flocke will be unable to leave the island.