They've clearly established that Smokey cannot penetrate the ash. They've shown that many times. So I just don't see how it was tied to Dogen. There was never anything to support that, and yet Lennon made it clear that, apart from revenge, it was the reason Sayid was supposed to kill him. If his survival was always so imperative for everyone else's safety, why on Earth did they keep allowing Dogen to be alone with Jack, Sayid, and Hurley, etc.? Shouldn't they have had him in the most secure location possible ever since Jacob died? In this episode, the Others act like even bigger idiots than they ever had. What's up with how quickly half of them changed to UnLocke's side and just left the temple?
To get back to the thread questions, we had Dogen tell us his opinion of Flocke (evil incarnate), but we still have evidence steering us both towards and away from that conclusion. Sayid's sideways story tonight seems to have been intended to show us that you can take the torturer out of Iraq, but you can't take the torture out of the Iraqi. In the end, Sayid turned to murderous revenge, as he always knew he would, which is why he kept Nadia at bay. Makes us think that Sayid is evil on the inside and therefore perfect for Flocke's cause.
However, the sideways stories are what would have happened without Jacob's influence, so perhaps that Sayid is not the Sayid we have on the island. Maybe he really is a good man, as he purported to be. Maybe there were conversations with Flocke we didn't see (like, "What do you mean you can bring Nadia back, and do I have to not see her anymore, as was forced by Jacob unto the samurai fellow?") where Sayid became convinced that the Others were not good.
To me, it gets back to previous seasons when Smokey has "scanned" individuals and then either let them live or not. Was he all that time looking for his own candidate? He offed Echo, but didn't he give him a chance at first? He didn't off John, but then later tried to drag him down into his hidey-hole and Jack saved him. Jacob seems to kind of be a heartless bastard. We're all over the place with good and evil.
For an episode that promised answers, we got... none!
