Twilight Zone "The Howling Man" Theory by Ryan Coulter

Seeing the Season 6 premiere made me think of a Twilight Zone episode from the original '60s series called "The Howling Man".

The episode was about a man, named David Eddington, who was on a walking tour of postWW1 Europe when he gets lost in a rainstorm and wanders away from his tour group. He stumbles upon a castle in the wilderness which is run by a group of monks (the Christian themes of the original story were edited out of the TZ episode because the network feared Christian reprisals).
The monks live in solitude and do not welcome outsiders and this man is almost no exception but he's soaking wet and cold and passes out before they can get rid of him. They take him in and as he recovers he hears strange howling. He traces it to a locked door (blocked by a shepherds hooked staff) and through a barred but open window he sees a bearded man who reaches out through the bars and pleads with him. The monks pull Eddington away, telling him to stay away but also saying there is no caged man in the castle when it's plainly obvious there is. Later, Eddington returns and the caged man tells him he is from the small town nearby and that the head monk was a jealous rival of a woman's affections and that the head monk assaulted him and brought him to the castle and imprisoned him.
Eddington goes to talk to the head monk and the head monk tells him that the man in the cage is not a man but The Devil himself, who the head monk captured (saying World War One only ended after he captured The Devil) and that the staff (originally a cross in the story) keeps him in his prison. Eddington says he believes the monk but afterwards Eddington sneaks out and frees the bearded man, thinking the head monk is a lunatic. Of course the head monk isn't a lunatic and it really is The Devil that Eddington releases. He vows to recapture him and he does, many years later, after The Devil has given the world WWII, the Korean War, and nuclear weapons.
Here's part 1 of the episode on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCad2TbeNy8&feature=related
How does this relate to Lost?
The wilderness in the episode is to the ocean in Lost.
The castle is the island.
Eddington is Locke, lost in the wilderness (One of the first lines of the TZ epi is "I'm lost" with 'lost' repeated many times).
The head monk is Jacob. Entrusted for centuries with keeping the smoke monster at bay entrapped on the island (instead of locked in a room in a castle).
The Devil is Smoke Monster/MIB/Fake Locke. Smoke Monster is The Devil!

The island, with its special powers, is Purgatory BUT not for The 815 or The Others but for Smoke Monster who is The Devil. He's rendered almost powerless on this island and trapped by circles of all sorts (water, fire/ashes, air/sound, etc). He can be the smoke monster, he can kill people, he can assume the forms of dead people who've been brought to the island dead (Locke, Christian, etc). Jacob is his jailer, possibly for thousands of years and Smokey is trying to find a way off the island (he might have been outsmarted by Jacob through some kind of contract - hence the loophole - and is trapped on the island by that contract). The Others are people selected to be replacements or assistants for Jacob, with immortality being the highest honour (like being "made" in the mafia). Except some of The Others are being fooled by MIB/Smokey into doing his bidding instead of Jacob's. Jacob, or maybe Smokey and Jacob, both brought 815 to the island for Locke, a once broken and sinfu! l man who has found redemption and purpose and healing on the island. And that through this "finding yourself" on the island can you only become one of The Others who are there to protect the world from Smokey by keeping him on this island. But now with Jacob dead and no replacement (his replacement being Locke, who's also dead) for him, Smokey's "locked door" has been unlocked and unbarred and now he can roam free.
Smokey = Devil. Jacob = Devil's jailkeeper. Locke = Jacob's replacement - or was supposed to be. Others = Jacob's followers and fellow jailkeepers of Smokey aka The Devil.