What year is it? by Professor Beatz

At the end of Season 5, we have two groups of people in two different timelines. Jack/Kate/Sawyer/Sayid/Hugo/Jin/Miles/Juliet are all stuck in the 1970s, while Sun/Locke/Richard/Others/Ajira folks are in the "current" timeline, which is I believe 3+ years after 815 crashed. Juliet detonates the bomb, and we're left with a big flash.

For the entire season, we've assume that Jack & crew moved forward to the current timeline, putting them in line with Locke & crew. Also, everyone's assumed that there's an alternative timeline which on most blogs/etc have been dubbed the "Flash Sideways" with three episodes left, we've all been wondering - how are these two timelines going to relate to each other?

So I started thinking...what if we're wrong? What if, when Juliet detonated the bomb, Locke & crew moved BACK in time, to the 1970s? What does that mean?

Well, it goes back to that theory that the flash sideways is what happens after the season is over. If we were in the current timeline, this would be hard to swallow but if you're in the 1970s, then what you're seeing is what happened and it's not flash sideways...more like a flash forward.

Here's what I think is going to happen...We all know what happens if MIB kills all the candidates. Since there are none left, MIB will be free to leave the island. Well, what if Jack becomes Jacob? Does he and MIB continue to battle? I don't think so. I think the game's over, MIB "dies" somehow, and since the island contains this evil and the evil doesn't exist anymore, there's no need for the island thus as shown in the season opener, it's underwater.

* The new Jacob, since it's still in the 1970s, will go back and revisit everyone - Locke, Jack, Claire, Kate, Sawyer, Hugo, etc and "touch" them and put them on the path of what we're seeing in the flashes. If you think about it, this world is almost perfect for everyone. Locke in love, good relationship with his father. Jack & son chilling. Ben & dad chilling. Sawyer good guy, Everybody loves Hugo. Only ppl it doesn't seem to make sense for is Kate/Sayid/Claire, but they haven't been on much in the flashes so maybe more will be revealed in the next few episodes.

There's more ... and the more I think about Lock & crew moving backwards, the more the sideways world makes sense to me.