I think it's more like they are fighting together and you can't judge it in our terms of good and bad. Seems that Jacob is the powerful one (the god) and has imprisoned Black/Flocke on the island. Don't know what Black is but I still think he's bad and Jacob is his guardian. Hence the bottle analogy; Black is the 'bad' wine that wants to get out and Jacob is controlling the island to be the cork.
Not sure about the little conversation he had with Ricardo saying he wants people to realise their potential for good or whatever it was, and he recruited him to 'help' people make the choice (over Black). Maybe Black was one of the first 'people' he brought to the island who is naturally bad, he argued that humanity is always bad and Jacob disagreed, and then Jacob 'took away his humanity' and turned him into smoke man?
Also, I think it was Black who appeared as his wife, in order to trick him into thinking that killing Jacob would bring her back, I think Jacob is just Jacob and Black is the tricky shapeshifting nasty one (the devil).
Richard's mental though, hence them saying he doesn't actually know anything. He's been on the island for ages but the whole ep was showing that he's a naive and hugely religious Spanish bloke who wanted to live forever as the lesser of two evils (well 3; not being able to see his wife, not being absolved of his sins to God, and dying). He thought from the start it was hell they were going to (the island is protected by the Devil as the other slave said), but Jacob actually told him he wasn't dead didn't he? I think we can discount Richard as anything meaningful. he's just a messed up guy who's been around for a while.