Staring Lineups by Locke4God

Alright, lets just do a quick rundown of the lineups we have so far

Team Jacob:

"Ghost" Jacob
Jack
Hurley
Richard
Ilana
Ben
Sun
Frank
Miles


Team Edward,,, scribble scribble, I mean Team Whatshisname:

Flocke
Sawyer
Sayid
Claire
Kate
Jin
Cindy
And a bunch of Redshirts


Free Agents:

Widmore
Desmond
And we'll leave the kids out of it for now



Now to start off, I ranked each member of the team in general of what I think their importance is right now, not what it's going to be. Kate for instance might end up being huge.

So let's compare the lineups, and then we'll talk about free agency in the ongoing draft.

In team Jacob, I am almost fully convinced that Jack, Hurley, Richard, and Ilana will in no way join MIB's team. They're commited to the Jacob philosophy in one way or the other. Jack is the obvious wild card of the bunch, but as the lead character of the show, he'll come around. Jacob just has to take his time convincing him.

Of the other four, who knows. Frank & Miles could both die, and it doesn't look like either will play a HUGE roll in what happens, or they could be flipped to MIB, but I'm just sure there's any reason for that to happen as again, I don't think they're going to matter much either way. The one who looks most likely to flip is Sin, who Jin would have a hand in recruiting, although she may just as well recruit him instead. I don't think they're killing each other off, but Rousseau shot her husband, so who knows. Ben however is very interesting. He killed Jacob, so does he stay? Yeah I think he does. I think he realizes he messed up, and he'll be confronted by Jacob whereby Ben will feel the need to pay penance for his sins and he'll come to understand Jacob's reasons for doing what he did.

Now MIB's team. A lot of questions here. Claire and Sayid seem committed, but what of Kate? Certainly she's just confused right now, but she's probably more confused about what Locke is doing. Remember, the last she knew he was dead, and this is the first she's heard of anything contrary to that. She could well be a wild card against MIB, or used by him as a play against Jack specifically. I really don't know. Sawyer though is the interesting one. I'm completely buying into the theories that he'll wind up pulling a con job on MIB. He'll work him for a bit, gain his complete trust, position himself as a right hand mand, most likely as MIB's tool to eliminate Jack, and then Blammo, he'll cobber MIB over the back of the head (figuratively). Maybe not though. Kate could play that roll, but Sawyer is the bigger hero of the two, and it fits his story much better IMO.

So in short though, all of those storylines aside, we have a series of individual matchups arranged between members of opposing team. Most of these are matchups MIB is opening to use to get one of his members to either convert or kill one of Jacob's members.

Jack vs. Sawyer (how far will Sawyer take this? Remember that promise to kill Jack in LA X, but I've got to believe that was more askin to false drama in preparation for this showdown)

Sun vs. Jin (Something will give here, they love eachother, but will Sun give in, or Jin?)

Richard vs. Flocke (something happened between these two. I know MIB's battle is with Jacob, but Richard seems to still be closer to Jacob than anybody and besides, Jacob is dead. Richard, the right hand man is going to have to be the one to go on a crusade against the MIB himself)

Most of the rest can take place randomly, as I'm not sure how much influence Claire is going to have in regards to anything. Maybe a gun toating Ilana showdown with Claire? I don't know, but there are 2 Candidates left.

Hurley vs. Sayid (Yeah I know that's a weird matchup without much history, but come on, fun loving, unathletic fat guy, vs. bad ass, stone faced, iraqi torturer. How mismatched is that? But still compelling as it puts together 2 fan favorite B-stars of the series. B-stars of course when compared against Jack, Locke, Sawyer, MIB, & Jacob. And whatever it is that Hurley needs to do, his skill set is going to trump Sayid's.)

And then we do have a couple of Free agents still left to pick from. Widmore anybody? And oh, let's see, who does Widmore have a long standing rivalry with?

Ben vs. Widmore (Yeah this has to happen. Widmore was the enemy of the Statue people, which makes him opposed to Jacob. He knew what Ben was, which was a boy taken to the temple by Richard to be converted to a Jacob follower. Ben was ultimately allowed by Jacob to kill Jacob, but regardless Ben = Jacob, while Widmore = MIB. I'd be willing to bet it's Widmore coming to the island. He knew there was a war. He's not going to sit it out.)

Then what of Desmond? What does he have to do with anything? Let's see. He's been guided by Hawking, who is on the outs with Widmore. Any chance they don't speak any longer because Hawking is a Jacob fan and Widmore isn't? Hummmmmm. If that's true then Hawking is going to help Desmond back in order to help Jacob, but Desmond has no real rivals out of any of the Losties. So like he's always been, he's going to a wild card. He'll arrive in time to manipulate something to the disadvantage of the MIB. Perhaps he prevents him from leaving in someway, in order for that showndown with Richard to take place, or for Sawyer's betrayal of MIB. Not sure which. Or maybe it's something completely different. It's just so hard to see where Desmond might be able to fit in at this point, but I've no doubt that he will.


There is one last little twist, lurking in all of this. Father issues have played such a big roll in this, that there has to be a father issue storyline payoff. Somebody has to reconcile those, and who is our champion of father issues?

Jack.

Since a potential Jack vs. Sawyer fued will ultimately be a fraud, then where does that leave Jack?

And what of Christian Shepard? After all of his appearances, are we just really not going to see him again? Is Jack going to be left with no ability to confront his father, esspecially after finding his empty casket again? Was it necessary to remind us that the casket was empty? Come on,,,,,,

Something is going on here. I don't know what. If he was MIB all along, fine, but MIB is going to have to find a way to unstick himself from Locke form in time to give Jack as face to face with his father, because this MUST BE resolved. It's a crux of the storyline I'm absolutely sure, and something has to give here.

That will leave us with the island heavyweight title match,,,,