Jan 18, 2009 12:00 PM
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Wed Feb 10
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ABC's Lost may be all about raising questions but, with the start of the penultimate season on Wednesday, we're hoping that answers are just around the corner. Preferably, answers to these ten questions if possible.
What Happened To The Island At The End Of Last Season?
Well, we saw it disappear, but did it move in time or space? Or both? We know from season 4 that Ben went from the Island in 2004 to late 2005, after all, so perhaps the Island never actually physically moved at all... it just jumped somewhere else in time.
Has FutureSun Gone Bad?
In the "future" of the fourth season's final episode, "There's No Place Like Home," Sun told Charles Widmore that they have common interests and reminded him that the Oceanic Six "are not the only ones who left the island." Has she gone bad, is this a double bluff, or is Charles Widmore actually the good guy in this after all? Okay, maybe that last one is a bit of a stretch.
Is Ben Working Against The Island?
Here's some more evidence to support the "Maybe things aren't as we seem" theory: Ben said, at the end of last season, that the Island wants all of the Oceanic 6 to return, but when Claire appeared in Kate's dream, she said that Aaron shouldn't go back. Assuming that that Claire was the "real" Claire, does that mean that the Island doesn't want Aaron to return? If that's the case, then why did Ben say the opposite? Unless, for some reason, he's working against the Island... or the visions that have been appearing to the Oceanic 6 aren't the work of the Island at all.
What Happened To Locke?
This one, admittedly, is many questions in one: How did Locke get off the Island? Why did he get off the Island (We have a partial answer to this: To get the Oceanic 6 to return. But, again, why?)? Why was he calling himself Jeremy Bentham back in the outside world? How did he die? And much, much less importantly, why am I convinced that he'll come back to life when he gets back to the Island?
Why Does The Island Want Everyone Back? And What Does Back Mean, Anyway?
Remember, this is now a show about time travel. Does the Island want everyone to return to the Island now, or does the Island want everyone to return to some particular point in time - and if it's the latter, when, and why? Are they supposed to prevent something from happening? Tied in with this, of course, is the basic question "What is the Island, anyway?" I think it's safe to assume at this point that it's not actually an Island - or, at least, not only an Island.
What Are "The Rules"?
If Charles Widmore "broke the rules" in telling mercenaries to kill Ben's daughter (as Ben claimed in "The Shape Of Things To Come" last season), what rules are we talking about? And the rules of what, exactly? Apparently the competition between the two men had some kind of gentlemen's agreement quality to it previously, so what was going on between the two of them before Alex died? Remember: Widmore not only knows about the Island, he calls it "his" Island. But why?
Is Desmond The Only Character Unstuck In Time?
Ben, as I said above, has already been shown to have jumped ahead in time, and at the end of "The Constant," we saw in Daniel Farraday's notebook that Daniel's constant was Desmond... does that mean that he is also lost in time? And if so, when did that happen? Or did it happen when Daniel's raft also disappeared in the white light that the Island disappeared in (And, again, if so, does that mean that everyone caught in that blast is lost in time? Told you the show was good at raising questions)?
What's Charlotte's Secret?
Snarky Miles told fellow newcomer Charlotte last season that he knew that she'd been trying to "return" to the Island for some time, right before Charlotte herself told Daniel that she was looking for where she was born... Was she born on the Island? And what importance would that fact have, on an Island where mothers have traditionally died in the third trimester under mysterious circumstances?
Is Miles A Clue About Hurley?
Talking of Miles, it's worth pointing out that he can hear dead people. Is the introduction of Miles meant to clue us in to some latent psychic ability in Hurley that allows him to see Charlie and Mr. Eko off the Island that has less to do with the mystical powers of the Island and more to do with Hurley himself? He was the one who found the numbers, after all. Is Hurley the series' third psychic (After Miles and Walt)?
What Is The DHARMA Initiative?
Yeah, yeah; this is the one that we most likely won't get an answer to for some time to come, but it's still one of the most important questions from the show to me. Yes, we know a lot of facts about the DHARMA Initiative, but I'm not buying that whole "70s commune of hippies out to save the world" thing... The experiments we know that they were engaged in - Teleportation? Time travel? - seem a little too ambitious for a collection of freethinkers engaged in social experiments, and I'm sure shadowy secrets remain to be uncovered. Did DHARMA create the Island altogether? Or did the Island create the DHARMA Initiative?
Send an email to Graeme McMillan, the author of this post, at graeme@io9.com.
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