Saturday, April 17, 2010

Lost Progress Report [Spoilers]

Before the season began, I considered the Lost questions/mysteries that might or might not be answered.  With five hours or so left, how are we doing?




1. Who is Jacob?
Still not clear.  He seems to be a a combination of a social scientist, running his experiment on free will vs. fate, and a jailer, trying to keep the Man In Black bottled up.  We do know that calling him good is problematic since he seems to treat people like ants (and not giant ants), killing them as he plays out his experiments.  He certainly would not get approval from any modern day research ethics board.

4. What's up with the Loophole Guy?
We know more than we did.  Loophole Guy a.k.a. Man in Black[MIB] a.k.a Fake Locke is Smokey.  And we have a greater idea of his ambitions and what drives his hate for Jacob--he hates the jailer for containing him. 
He wants to leave.  Which makes him have the same ambitions as the passengers on Oceanic 815 (except Bernie and Rose).  He is clearly evil--as he kills and plots the deaths of others, without any real tie to the greater good to justify his efforts.

9. Is Juliet dead?
Dead on the Island, remains to be seen in the alt-LA, but her re-appearance seems inevitable, V or no V.


11. Why would the other survivors follow Jack's crackpot plan anyway?
12. Seriously, who says yes to blowing up the island to restart time anyway?


Even Jack regrets it now.  His fixin' is fixin' to be fixed.

13. If so, did time reset and keep the Oceanic 815 from crashing?
We have a definitive answer: Yes and No!  Depends on what the LA timeline is.  We have certainly seen what happens if the Island blows up in 1977.  What it means is still not clear.

18. What's the deal with the four-toed statue?
 Statue blasted by Black Rock, but we still do not know why Egyptian stuff is in the South Pacific, except the Island's mobility might mean that somewhere in the past, the Island might have traveled near the Middle East.

23. Why does Dr. Pierre Chang use aliases?
No answer and we will probably get no answer, but now he works for a museum of natural history and loves the Hugo money.

lost_smoke_monster.jpg
24. What's the smoke monster?
Smokey is the Man in Black.  Answered.

25. Why does it have a taste for some people and not others?
Short answer: depends on MIB's ambitions/plans.  Didn't kill Locke before it was time.  BUT we still do not have the best idea of what MIB's plans are, other than to get off the Island.

30. Why did the Oceanic Six have to go back?
To push the plot forward--unchanged.

32. What's up with the blast door map?
Original answer was correct: Overcome By Events--OBE.  Not getting back to that.

33. What happened to Claire?
She didn't die, but remained on the Island and became crazy.  Why?  Not entirely clear, but live together, die alone takes on another meaning as she spent much time alone.  Or alone with MIB.

34. Why did psychic Richard Malkin insist Claire raise Aaron?
Still no answer, but this Claire should not raise any kids.  LA Claire would be fine, I think.  More to come, I think, as we are not done with Kate or Claire in LA.  I

36. Who is Richard Alpert really, and why doesn't he age?
Done and done as they say.  Great episode dedicated entirely to this question.   Still not sure how good of an agent he was, but he got his origin story and it rocked you like a Jacob-induced Hurricane.

37. How or why does the island heal people?
Could have gotten that answer from Richard this past week--what is the Island?!!  We know about the healing spring, but it was not explained nor how it relates to Locke's spine, Jin's tubes, etc.

39. What's the deal with Christian?
Christian is MIB, right?

41. Who are Adam and Eve, the skeletons found in the caves?
Only Hurley seems to care.

42. What did the black and white stones on their bodies mean?
We now know that the stones matter a lot to Jacob and MIB--as symbols of their on-going battle and their love of backgammon.

43. Why did DHARMA and the Others allow Rousseau's distress signal to continue to be transmitted?
lost_numbers.jpgSame answer as before:  Plot hole not to be answered..

44. Are Hurley's numbers really cursed?
Got this one right--lottery winning can be just dandy, well except for scoring the ladies until a crazy one shows up.

45. Why is Walt special?
Other than my snarky response [Yes, he taught writers not to put into plots kids just about to puber, especially if there is time travel involved or if something that takes months in fictional time takes years in real time to shoot..] unlikely to be answered

54. How much did it suck that Libby was killed before Hurley could get lucky?
It is ok now that we have the super-sweet scenes of last week's episode.  But it sets up an interesting question--can people choose in which timeline they want to reside?  If so, we know which way Hurley would go.

55. Where does the donkey wheel come from?
No answer yet.

59. How did Penelope know to look for a magnetic anomaly?
No answer yet, but probably just found out/stole the idea from Dad.

62. Why did Jacob diss Ben by not communicating with him while he was leader?
Only Richard can talk to Jacob, apparently.

66. Was the ship that Jacob and Loophole Guy see sailing the Black Rock?
Yes.

68. What happened to the crew?
Richard lived. The rest died due to the commander killing them or MIB getting them. 

69. Why is the ship's log important to Charles Widmore?
No change: Boring.  To find the island.  Duh.

70. What are Widmore's plans for the island?
We still don't know, but getting much closer.

76. What happened to the people the Others kidnapped?
Many made to the temple until Jacob's death and MIB's attack.  The flight attendant (Cindy) and kids, as visible symbols of the kidnapped, are hanging with MIB (although not scene clearly lately).

77. What's up with the whispers?
Resolved this week--the bad dead on the Island cannot go on. 

82. What is Ilana's connection to Jacob?
Who cares?  Like other supposedly important additions (Dogen, for example), she gets killed pretty quickly.

87. Why did the supply drops continued after the Purge?
Previous prediction holds true: Plot hole to be ignored.

88. How do they find the island to make those drops?
Ditto squared

91. Why isn't the island done with Desmond yet?
Scottish accents rock! There can be only one!  That, and he is unique in his electromagnetic resistance powers.  And the show rocks when he is around.

95. What are the Rules?
Cannot kill Jacob or the Candidates directly.  Original answer: You cannot fight on holy ground. No talking about Fight Club.

96. How did the death of Alex change the Rules?
Was obvious before.  The new question is: wow, Alex, wow!?

97. Will Sun and Jin ever get a chance to live happily ever after?
Not looking good in either reality.

98. Will any of the survivors get a chance to live happily ever after?
Nope, Sayid, at least, is super-screwed in any reality.

99. Will the smoke monster get a chance to live happily ever after?
No.  This series cannot end with MIB winning. They made the stakes too high.  If MIB wins and that means the end of the world (which still may or may not be true), then MIB must lose.

100. Will we be satisfied with the way Lost ends?
I am liking the journey big-time.  The destination, we shall see.

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