I think the most telling aspect is that the last season then becomes an exercise in futility, to end up right where they started again.

And I'm sad that Jacob's copy of the script apparently stopped three pages before Ben's, because that's the only excuse I can come up with for being so frustratingly silent. (Yes, by this point we know it's Esau since Locke's in the Lockebox, and obviously Jacob knows this...but it smacks of contrivance that Jacob doesn't say one thing until Ben goes all one-man-show-of-Julius-Caesar again. Ben's got quite the body count goin' on.)

There were moments, but tiny moments amid a sea of quadrangle-nonsense and "yes, we get it" flashbacks. This is one of the few episodes I sat down and watched. That'll teach me.