Migraine-inducing, laws of physics-breaking, hieroglyphic-decoding mysteries have become synonymous with ‘Lost,” ABC’s wildly popular television program. For its fans, and the many more who have heard its name circulating throughout pop culture these past six years, the show centers around its ability to puzzle, shock and twist the viewers’ expectations with each episode. Will the writers deliver or leave their fanatically loyal viewers disappointed? Here are just a few of the burning questions that remain unanswered.
1. What is the significance of the numbers? 4 8 15 16 23 42: Hurley’s lotto numbers, engraved on the side of the hatch, appearing in countless combinations throughout the show’s five seasons. Really, it’s killing us: What do they mean?
2. What happened to Claire? The last time we saw Claire was in season four, with her (and Jack’s) father Christian, claiming to represent Jacob and telling Locke that he had to move the island. Off of the island, Kate saw Claire (or was it a vision?) in Aaron’s bedroom, and she warned Kate not to bring her son back to the island. Why did Claire join her father, leave her son in the nook of a tree trunk and remain hidden for an entire season?
3. What is Jack’s father’s connection with the island? Christian Shephard is the first ghost (or is he?) we saw wandering the island, and he has grown to become more than a mere figment of Jack’s imagination. He is seen with Claire after her disappearance, guides Locke to the frozen donkey wheel and is seen telling Vincent to wake up Jack when he first crashes on the island. Is Christian alive or dead or somewhere in between?
4. How does the island possess healing powers? Locke, paralyzed, can now walk. Rose, once a terminal cancer patient, is healed. And yet, people are injured and killed on the island just as they are off of the island. In another bizarre twist to this question, women also have pregnancy issues in their third trimester except for Claire, that is. Is this just another level to the island’s intrigue that the viewer has to accept?
5. How will the love triangles work out? How three such attractive people Jack, Kate, and Sawyer all crashed on the island is a mystery enough, but since the beginning these three have been involved in a heated lovers’ quarrel. Kate chooses Jack, and then Sawyer, and then neither, and then both. Of course, this is complicated when Juliet enters the picture, creating a love quadrangle of sorts.
6. Why is Richard Alpert immortal? ‘Lost” is well-known for its flashbacks and flash forwards, which is why we are able to see a younger Ben plot against the Dharma Initiative and Eloise kill her future son Daniel Faraday. But one thing we never see is Richard Alpert any younger or any older than he is at the present. The island may have healing powers, but is there a Fountain of Youth yet to be found as well? Thus far, the only characters with seeming immortality are Richard, Jacob and the Man in Black (MIB), which suggests that they have some deep connection with the island.
7. Who is the MIB? Despite only actually appearing in a single episode, the MIB has generated more fascination than characters who have been on the show for seasons. Some suggest that the MIB, seen as the imposter of Locke for half of the fifth season, is the Satan to Jacob’s God, the embodiment of evil to Jacob’s good. Who is he exactly? And what is this war between him and Jacob?
Burritt is a member of the class of 2012.
