"Lost" finale fever: 'It's just progress'

Finally had the chance to watch the "Lost" finale again. What a treat for the eyes, ears and brain. I wish I was more of a Biblical scholar to decipher some of the allegory at work with Jacob et al. It's like a stew of Biblical references, C.S. Lewis, Ionesco and a little Stephen King thrown in for chilling effect.

The opening sequence, which was so confounding on the first viewing, makes a lot more sense once you've seen the two hours. But its significance is so weighty -- it seems to be a road map to the dynamic of next season -- that I couldn't help but want to transcribe it for further study. And a shout-out is due to Mark Pellegrino (Jacob) and Titus Welliver (man in black).

We open on Jacob in a white flowing shirt and sandals, working at a loom in his under-the-statue digs. He's working on the hieroglyphics tapestry that we will see later in the seg.

Cut to outside on the shore, where Jacob wades into the water to grab a fish out of a handmade basket. He guts it and cooks it on rocks heated by a campfire. He puts his cooked hunk of fish on a big leaf, sits down on the sand and gazes out at a clipper ship on the horizon.

Up walks a bearded man in a black flowing shirt.

"Morning," the man in black says.

"Morning."

"Mind if I join you?"

"Please...Want some fish?

"Thank you, I just ate." (Man in black sits down on rock.)

"I take it you're here because of the ship?"

"I am...How did they find the island?"

"You'll have to ask them when they get here."

"I don't have to ask. You brought them here. Still trying to prove me wrong, aren't you?"

"You are wrong."

"Am I? ... They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same."

"It only ends once. Anything that happens before that...it's just progress."

"Do you have any idea how badly I want to kill you?"

"Yes."

"One of these days, sooner or later, I'm going to find a loophole, my friend."

"Well, when you do I'll be right here."

"Always nice talking to you Jacob."

"Nice talking to you too."

Man in black gets up and walks away. Camera pulls back to show the huge Egyptian figure statue holding the ankh.

So what does this roughly five minute scene tell us? The fact that Jacob and his nemesis were wearing white and black shirts suggests a Good vs. Evil scenario, but I think it's closer to "Lost's" central theme of Man of Faith vs. Man of Science. Fate vs. Destiny.

That's what it sounds like to me in the comment from the Man in Black: "They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt. Always ends the same." As if it's mankind's fate to be in conflict, be in some kind of turf war. We can't help ourselves, it's our nature, our fate. Jacob, on the other hand, throws some Hegelian Dialectic at him about how all of history is conflict followed by progress. Destiny?

Hmmmm

And what does Jacob mean by "it only ends once." Is this the "war" that Widmore and Ilana and her boys keep referring to?