Clearly the “rules” do not extend to leaving the island to pick up some TP. You go, Man In Black!
…just remember to wipe afterwards.
Thanks for these photos, Shane. You’re the creepiest Trader Joe’s stalker ever.
Ahem. A year ago Nate challenged me to think of 24 unanswered questions that still require attention from the show before the series finale. This was while we were halfway through season five and the end of LOST was just beginning to creep into our collective consciousness. As it stands right now, there are five hours remaining in this saga. Some of the questions I raised last year have been answered, others have not. Let’s take a look at the list to determine both how far we’ve come and how far we have to go until some of the show’s most burning questions are answered.
– What exactly is the smoke monster? – Well, we know at this point the question should no longer be “What,” but “Who?” There is an entity who exists on the island, who has existed there for a very, very long time. This entity has the ability to change between human form and smoke monster. We don’t know why this is, but I’m pretty sure this will be answered within the next couple episodes.
– What is the Island? – So help me God, if even one of you tells me that “It’s a cork” is a substantial-enough answer to this question, I’m going to hunt you down via your IP address and beat you to death. We still don’t know what exactly the island is. Yes, I know Jacob said its purpose was to keep evil from leaking out into the rest of the world. But that whole speech he gave was intended as a metaphor, not an explanation. We don’t know why there are powerful electromagnetic properties there or what their true purpose is (we’ve seen them manipulated to enable time travel, we’ve seen them manipulated to disappear the island, etc.). We don’t know why there’s a pool of water in the temple that could (until Jacob died, at least) bring the sick — or dead — back to life. Simply put, what makes the island more special than…I don’t know, Dubuque, Iowa? Why there? Clearly we are still missing a real answer to this question. I for one won’t be satisfied if the last we hear about the island is that “it’s a cork.”
– What is the DHARMA Initiative? – Half-answered. If Seasons 1-5 showed us anything, it’s that the DHARMA Initiative were either a really important, or they were embarrassingly inept. Were they simply playing pretend when they spoke of conducting experiments that could save the world? Or were they being serious? Generally speaking, the goal of DHARMA was to manipulate scientific laws to stave off the end of humanity. It just so happened that they were doing their research on an island where there existed a force (Smokey, The Man In Black) who could actually bring about the end of humanity. And apparently they didn’t even know it. I find that ironic and kind of funny.
– Why doesn’t Richard Alpert Age – Answered. Season 6, Episode 9. “Ab Aeterno.” Richard is given his power by Jacob to help him prove to the man in black that not everyone can be corrupted. Richard is given the job of stepping in and intervening when Jacob cannot.
– What did Locke mean when he said Jack needed to stay on the Island? – Answered (maybe?). I’m not sure why this question was included, but I’ll do my best to address it. From what we’ve learned of Locke in season 6 (via the Man In Black), he was a scared man whose only respectable attribute was his belief that his life had a greater purpose. My guess is that when Locke told Jack he needed to stay on the island he was being compelled by some greater island force (Jacob, maybe) to help Jack realize his destiny. Since this question was posed in 2009 we’ve learned a lot about “recruits” and “candidates.” Last week we saw Jack acknowledge that upon leaving the island, he felt as if a piece of him had died. If Jack inevitably is to become Jacob’s replacement, Locke’s message to Jack will prove to have been very prophetic, and very accurate.
– Why did Widmore leave the island? – Answered. Season 5, Episode 12. “Dead Is Dead.” We know that Widmore was on the island long after 1977, and probably had something to do with “the purge” in 1992. Some time after that he was exiled from the island and supplanted as leader by Ben.
– What makes Walt “different” or “special?” – Unanswered. God dammit!
– Will Miles’ abilities ever be fully explained? – Answered. We got a Straume-centric episode with “Some Like It Hoth,” (Season 5, Episode 13) that helped explain Miles’ gift very clearly. Sure it’s totally unrealistic in a Sixth Sense kind of way, but whatever, this is LOST we’re talking about!
– Who is Jacob? What is Jacob? – Half-answered. Well, we definitely know that he was a figure of authority on the island, who (according to Ben) was “in charge” of everything on the island. We know that he is ageless and has some supernatural abilities. We know that he brought the castaways to the island because he believed one of them could be a candidate to replace him. He might have also thought one of them could prove the Man In Black wrong and end their “bet” once and for all. There are plenty of holes in his biography, and I’m pretty sure these too are going to be filled-in within the next couple episodes.
– Where Is Aaron? – Answered. Season 5, Episode 11. “Whatever Happened, Happened.” Aaron is with Claire’s mom. His grandma. That is, of course, unless she was freaked out by Kate’s message that Aaron was sleeping two doors down from Mrs. Littleton at her motel and was ready for her to assume the role of caregiver to the child. How hilarious would that be? What if Kate and Claire get off the island and Claire’s mom was like, “Oh, I left Aaron in that room and he died of malnourishment.” Oops!
– Was there a real purpose to pushing the button in the Swan station? – Unanswered. It is obvious that there was some purpose to it, but it’s not exactly clear. Was it as simple as releasing stored electromagnetic energy before it caused a catastrophe? Or was it related to time and/or position as related to the island and its location? I don’t think we’ll ever know the true answer to this question.
– What is the purpose of the numbers? – Answered. Season 6, Episode 4. “The Substitute.” For me this was the most accurate and final answer to the numbers. When the Man In Black takes Sawyer to the cave in the side of the cliff we learn that all of the candidates are assigned numbers by Jacob. Locke is 4, Hugo is 8, Sawyer is 15, Sayid is 16, Jack is 23 and Kwon is 42. To me, this is way more important than the Valenzetti equation, the hatch door, or any such instance of the numbers we’ve seen. I like to think of each instance of the numbers (either individually or together) as forces pulling the candidates to the island. I think that’s cool. It’s an answer with which I’m very happy.
– Who are Adam and Eve? – Unanswered, but if you believe the producers and writers, we’re going to get an answer before the show ends. They tempted us a few weeks ago when Hurley and Jack were at the caves together, but it was just a tease. The answer is coming. It’s probably Bernard and Rose.
– What happened to the Black Rock and its survivors? – Answered. Season 6. Episode 9. “Ab Aeterno.” We saw the boat knocked onto the island by some kind of tidal wave. One of the officers kills the captives one by one, and is stopped just before killing Richard by the smoke monster. Richard is the only one left alive.
– What is the sickness – Answered. Season 6, Episode 3. “What Kate Does.” When Sayid is shot he was taking to the healing pool in the temple. Dogen tortures Sayid upon his resurrection as part of a test to determine the balance of good and evil within Sayid. Later, he tells Jack that Sayid has been claimed, that there is a darkness growing inside him. He states that Claire has also fallen under the powers of this sickness. In “This Place Is Death” we learned that the sickness includes a severe change in mental health. Rousseau claims that it is the monster is responsible for infecting people with the sickness, but this has never been confirmed. Still, we know a whole lot more about the sickness now than we did when I asked this question.
– What exactly is the problem with women/babies? How did it happen? Unanswered. We know that women can’t give birth on the island. Ethan was the last known birth on the island, in 1977. At some point after that, something happened causing infertility problems. Richard shows Juliet evidence that women suffered from degeneration of their reproductive organs, but we just don’t know why. Who knows if they’ll answer this. I doubt it. I guess that’s just another reason why “it’s a cork” doesn’t exactly suffice as an answer to “What is the island?”
– Why is Ben so invested in the survivors of 815 – Answered. This isn’t a great question but I can understand why I determined it to be important last year. He believed that the survivors of the crash were brought to the island for a reason. Cindy, the children, Walt and others were kidnapped for a purpose. Jacob delivered to him lists detailing how he was supposed to proceed. His investment in the survivors hinges on self-preservation, of course, but also because he believes the word of Jacob. If Jacob intended to use the castaways or protect them, Ben was going to follow orders. Even if he was megalomaniac and a total bastard about it.
– Where are the children the Others took? – Answered. We’ve seen Cindy with Zack and Emma a few times during Season 6, so we know that they weren’t killed. There was one weird scene way back in the early days of LOST where Locke saved Eko from a polar bear in its cave and there was a child’s toy truck and a covered skeleton there. It’d be fascinating to see if the writers intended to do anything with that toy truck, but we’ll never know. Maybe the bear ate another child? See: Season 3, Episode 3. “Further Instructions.”
– Why did Ben kill Locke instead of letting him kill himself – Answered. Season 5, Episode 7. “The Life and Death of Jeremy Benthem” and later episodes. We have since learned that — at least for our important characters — they cannot die until the island is done with them. Michael could not kill himself when he left the island. Jack almost tried to kill himself but something stopped him from leaping off a bridge. Locke almost tried to kill himself but Ben arrived at his motel room in time to stop him. Ben most likely did not know this, he decided to kill Locke because he wanted desperately to return to the island (Ben and self-preservation again!), but he was also inadvertently setting in motion the series of events that have brought us to where we are now. If Ben hadn’t killed Locke, the Man In Black would not have a vehicle for achieving his goal of killing Jacob and getting off the island.
– How does Sun’s father fit in with DHARMA/Widore/etc.? – Unanswered. All we know is that when Sun goes to see Widmore (Season 5, Episode 14. “There’s No Place Like Home, Parts 2 & 3”) we learn that Widmore knows of Mr. Paik, but we learn nothing more about the kind of relationship they have, or whether or not Mr. Paik is involved with DHARMA.
– Why do the Others/Hostiles so despise the DHARMA Initiative? – Unanswered. Other than the fact that they were on the island, we don’t have much of a reason for the animosity between the Others and DHARMA. Clearly something happened in the past which led to a truce, but we never found out what it was. And around the time the castaways wound up in 1977 working for DHARMA, relations between the sides became a little more strained. The origins of the conflict remain unknown, I think. Oh well.
– What is the purpose of the second island and its stations? – Unanswered. I like that we’ve seen more of Hydra Island this season, but we still don’t know anything about the experiments that were performed there. Pierre Chang joked that it would not be wise to cross him, or you could end up shoveling shit as part of the “silly” experiments on Hydra. We also learned late in Season 5 that Ben had an office there. Not much else is known about it. There’s a plane there now with a runway, which will probably prove to be very important in the coming episodes. Other than that, I doubt we’ll learn more about its history.
– Why does the island have healing power? – Unanswered. This is tied together with “what is the island?” I mean, I think corks are pretty cool and they do a good job of keeping things trapped inside a container, but corks can’t make a paraplegic man walk again, and it cannot cure terminal cancer. So, why does the island have these healing powers? Is it related to electromagnetism? Is it something more spiritual? Who knows…
– Is the death of Sayid’s wife at all important? Did Ben kill her? Answered. Season 6. Various episodes. We’ve learned now that in order to recruit Sayid, the Man In Black made a promise that he could make Sayid’s wish for Nadia to live again come true. Her importance (as depressing as this sounds) is that — in death — she became a bargaining chip. The Man In Black needed to gain leverage over Sayid, needed to get that particular candidate off the island so that he could (presumably) bring about the end of humanity. The promise of a new life with Nadia was how he convinced Sayid to join him. But oh, that sideways universe…his new relationship with Nadia is not quite what Sayid imagined.
– Why didn’t Rousseau remember Jin? Or did she? Do any of the people who met before the 815 crash remember meeting? – This is a complicated one. Especially when you drag the sideways flashes into the equation. We’re now seeing people meeting in the LA_X reality and remembering each other from the island, but we haven’t seen any hard evidence that people who met before the original 815 crash can remember meeting each other. As the sideways universe plot is resolved we could learn more about this. I don’t know why Rousseau didn’t remember Jin.
– What was the point of Jacob’s “list” of people? – Answered. Those names were the identities of the candidates, one of which would replace him as the main authority on the island and its most important caretaker.
– Has Christian been resurrected by the island, or is he a ghost? – Answered (maybe?). In “The Last Recruit,” the Man In Black claimed that he was indeed Christian Shephard. Of course, we also know that he could not have possibly been Christian when Jack was off the island, and maybe could not have been Christian when Michael was on the freighter. It would not surprise me if this is the last we hear of Christian, but I think the chance still exists for the writers to tie this question up with another (better) answer.
– Why was Libby at the mental institution? – Unanswered. Of course, we know why she’s there in the LA_X timeline: She checked herself in when she started having visions of her island life. The way that this lines up with her pre-Oceanic 815 life is kind of amazing, and if the sideways flashes are concluded the right way it could possibly answer this question. So, go ahead LOST writers. Amaze me.
– What happened to the polar bears? – Answered (maybe?). They’re all dead now, right? As much as I’d love to see a polar bear somehow devour the Man In Black to create the most mind-boggling, what-the-fuck ending to a television show ever, I doubt we’ll see another bear.
– Why did Rousseau’s husband try to kill her – Answered. He had the sickness. Nice one, Tom. I hope you’re happy now.
