The beginning is the end by dspuk

In line with previous seasons where the flash backs, forwards etc when shuffled about make more sense than the order they are shown in my thoughts are that we are already watching the end.

As such the recent podcast is right - you cant think of these things as 'alt' and unconnected - because they are not.

I'm sure on island the great battle between black and white (notice I don't say good or evil - I don't think its that simple....) will play out and many mysteries will be solved/answered but in doing so a reset (cosmic, spiritual or scientific) will happen and the end of the season 'real' time line will then play straight into the 'alt' time-line.

So if we were to watch all the alts after the reals, it would all be one piece of string again - one time-line for the losties...and therefore what we are already watching - life after the island, after the reset with parts of history erased to remove the 'tweaking' done by Jacob....hence the slight differences....

In this theory we have been double bluffed - the explosion just caused then to shoot forwards in time - not the alt timeline - this is just a storytelling technique akin to that used in previous seasons....

Many many more thoughts 'on island' but saving those till we get more info from the episodes :-)

dspuk