January 29 2009, 21:55

Lost Questions

Categories: English   Tags: lost

Season 5 of Lost has just begun airing. So much time passes between seasons that I forget much of what happened in previous seasons, especially on a show with such a complicated story line.

After two episodes of season 5 I realized that I’ve forgotten too much of the past to be able to grasp all the new subtle clues about what’s really going on. So many questions have come up during the course of the show, most of which still remain unanswered. But I need to remember the questions in order to find the answers in the new episodes.

So I decided to watch the entire show from the beginning again. Season 5 is just going to have to wait until I catch up. I am going to write down in this post all the weird, still unanswered questions I encounter, updating it as I go along. Mostly for my own sake, like a reference to keep handy as I finally get to the new episodes. If you happen to stumble upon this post and think you have an answer for any of the questions, or if you think I’ve missed a question, post a comment!

S01/E01: Why and how is there a polar bear on the island?

S01/E02: What creature takes the pilot, and chases Jack, Kate and Charlie through the jungle?

S01/E05: Why does Jack see his father in a suit on the island? Is he just hallucinating or is there some more significant meaning? He finds his father’s casket closed but empty. Was his father somehow reanimated on the island, or was he not in it to begin with?

S01/E10: What’s up with the psychic that gives Claire a reading? What does he see in her baby’s future? What does he mean by “you can’t let anyone else raise this baby, danger surrounds it, your goodness must be an influence in the development of this child”? Why does he take such a personal interest in the matter? And what catastrophic consequences might come from the fact that in later seasons, Kate is raising the baby…?

S01/E10: When Claire is about to sign the adoption papers, she tries several pens but none of them seem to work. Is this caused by the same phenomenon that later prevents Michael from killing himself upon returning from the island? The inability to change a given future?

S01/E14: Another freaking polar bear…

S01/E16: What are the whispers that people keep hearing now and then when they’re alone in the jungle? Where are they coming from? Real or imagined?

S01/E17: What is Walt’s special ability? His stepfather tells Michael that “things happen” around him. And he keeps winning at that board game he keeps playing (I forget what it’s called now).

S01/E18: Hugo won the lottery with the same series of numbers written down in Danielle Rousseau’s notes, also the numbers Desmond has been typing every 108 minutes for who knows how long. Hugo got those numbers from a mental patient named Leonard, who in turn got them from someone named Sam Toomey (or something similar sounding), who in turn heard them in an unexpected transmission while he was stationed at a listening post. Just like later with Hugo, bad things start happening when he uses the numbers to win a game. Now, why were those numbers broadcasting from the radio tower? Where did the numbers originally come from and how did they come to possess such power? How do the numbers relate to the island and everything that’s happened? Was Hugo and his curse the very reason why the plane crashed? And by the way… why are the numbers also engraved into the exterior of the hatch?

S01/E23: Ok, so the smoke monster lives in a hole in the ground… what’s up with that?

S02/E09: People start seeing Walt all over the place, although for all we know the others have him. And when he is seen, he is dripping of water and speaking backwards. Collective hallucinations or something weirder? And what is the significance?

S02/E13: What is the cause, meaning and significance of Charlie’s sudden sleepwalking and visions, which Echo somehow interprets as “Aaron must be baptized”?

S02/E18: The biggest unanswered question of the whole show IMHO. In this episode, the idea is introduced that the plane crash, the island, all the people on it and everything that’s happened are merely figments of Hugo’s imagination. It would certainly be the most plausible explanation for all the weirdness, and it makes a lot of sense – for one thing, the mysterious numbers that keep appearing everywhere were repeated to Hugo by Leonard almost daily in the mental institution, so it’s not hard to imagine that they are simply a manifestation of his subconscious. At the end of the episode, Hugo and Libby more or less conclude that everything is in fact real, but then in the very final scene we see Libby as a patient in that same mental institution!!! What the hell?!? To my recollection, this is never explained as the show progresses…

S02/E23: So there is apparently a piece – a foot to be specific - of a (presumably) giant statue on the edge of the island. Why, when and by whom was this statue built? What happened to the rest of it? And most importantly, why does it only have four toes??