So Who's It Going To Be?

Season 6 can now basically be boiled down to three questions:

1) Which candidate will become the new Jacob?

2) How will the two universes come together (or will one be destroyed)?

3) What will happen to all the remaining Losties when all this is over?

I'm guessing that Tuesday's episode, "The Candidate," is going to definitively address #1. And since we know that the remaining six (kinda) candidates are Jack, Hurley, Sawyer, Sayid and Jin or Sun, we can kinda speculate on who it's going to be.

Jack is the obvious candidate - he's the hero, the one who's now been set up to spend some quality alone time with Smokey and the common sense pick for the new Jacob. But perhaps Jack has another role to play - maybe he needs to make a sacrifice (playing the hero) so that one of the other candidates can become Jacob. If that's the case, who will it be?

You have to think Sayid is automatically disqualified, given he killed the protector of the Temple and his hippie translator. Likewise, I think whichever of Jin or Sun is the actual candidate will turn down the role, given their son daughter is still alive out there in the outside world.

As I speculated before, I see Hurley in more in a supportive role (i.e. the new Richard) than becoming the new head honcho. That leaves Sawyer, and I have to say of all the remaining candidates outside of Jack, I could definitely see him as the new Jacob. Why? Mostly because he really doesn't have anything to go back to. Yeah, there's Cassidy and Clementine, but even if he did leave the Island, I really can't see him playing much of a part in either of their lives.

Plus, can't you see Sawyer becoming an omniscient Island God and convincing Kate to stay behind with him? Of course, if this came to pass, they probably wouldn't become Adam and Eve, but that's what Rose and Bernard are there for anyway.

Am I right? Probably not - it probably will be Jack, setting up the inevitable Jack vs. Locke endgame showdown, which is probably how it should end anyway. But I've only got three hours worth of speculation left before we get the rest of the answers - I've got to make the best of the time that I've given! :)

Predictions:

1) We will find out in this episode who the new Jacob will be.

2) Widmore will reveal how he plans to defeat Smokey using the Island's electromagnetism.

3) Smokey will blaze a trail of murderous destruction through Hydra Island, only to be stopped by Hurley's bag of Jacob's ashes (right before he's about to slaughter Tina Fey).

4) Claire will revert to evil form, reveal she just went along for the ride for an opportunity to sink her teeth into Kate's sweet, sweet brain.

5) We'll finally get to see Ben, Richard and Miles again and discover they've spent the last 24 hours getting wasted off of stale DHARMA beer while playing pool in the rec room.

I'm 100% certain these things shall come to pass. Enjoy the show! Review up Wednesday morning! :)