The Man in Black was disappointed in Alpert but not so much that he shut the door on any future "professional" relationship between the two. This of course turned out to be precisely the reason for Richard's lone trek through the jungle. Thankfully, Hurley austin butler had Isaballa's ghost guidance keeping Richard from embracing the darkness much to the chagrin of Fake Locke who we saw looking on in disdain. When talking to Richard, Hurley referred to the spirit inhabiting Locke as "The Man in Black," which is what we have been calling Jacob's nemesis since "The Incident" but I think this is the first time that he has been given any sort of "name" by someone on the show.

I was expecting the episode to end after we saw Fake Locke angrily watching Hurley and Richard, but we got the extra little tag of Jacob and the Man in Black discussing the Island. Unless we are getting more of a smokescreen(!), we can be fairly certain that Jacob's mission had always been to keep the Man in Black on the Island. But is there something more sinister to Jacob's motivation? If we find out definitively, I don't think it will happen until the series finale.