The Top Ten Questions ‘Lost’ Never Answered
With ‘Lost’ now over, it’s time to admit that the show was always better at bringing up plot points than it ever was at resolving them. Whether the series finale rocked your socks off or just made you throw rocks at the screen (and possibly your socks), there are quite literally dozens of unresolved plot threads, mysteries and story arcs that the writers are apparently pretending never happened, or at least wish we’d all just forget about.
But for every mystery that genuinely doesn’t matter (some people actually think that sudden storms on a tropical island qualify as a ‘mystery’), there are plenty of unanswered questions that actually deserve to be resolved… and here they are: The Top Ten Questions Lost Never Answered. These are the mysteries that really mattered but the writers completely ignored because they either didn’t think it through or underestimated the audience’s interest.
1. NO SERIOUSLY, WHAT WAS UP WITH THE NUMBERS?
THE MYSTERY:
Hurley won the lottery by playing the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42 and from that moment on was cursed with Monkey’s Paw-ish luck. His grandfather had a heart attack, a meteorite destroyed his restaurant and to top it all off, he missed his Mom’s birthday because Oceanic Flight 815 (there’s those numbers again) crashed on ‘Lost’ island. It turns out the numbers are, in one form in the other, painted across reality, appearing in almost every episode as they follow the cast throughout their lives. Oh yes, and those numbers were originally broadcast from ‘Lost’ island on a constant loop, which caused all the trouble. Oh, and they’re the numbers on Desmond’s hatch that also need to be inputted into a computer every 108 minutes (108 being the sum of all six numbers) or the world will pretty much end. Kind of a big deal.
THE BEST ANSWER WE GOT:
In Season Six we learned that the numbers correspond the Jacob’s list of Candidates, specifically John Locke (4), Hugo Reyes (8), James “Sawyer” Ford (15), Sayid Jarrah (16), Jack Shepard (23), and either Sun or Jin Kwon (42). So that’s why they were important.
WHY WE DESERVE A REAL ANSWER:
So that’s why they were important? That. Doesn’t. Explain. SHIT. At best, it just qualifies as yet another appearance of the ubiquitous numbers. Why would the arbitrary numerical order of Jacob’s candidates appear throughout all of reality? Why would they be cursed? For that matter, why would they have any power at all if only one of those numbers (or, as it turns out, two: 8 and 23) would end up being Jacob’s chosen candidate? To put it another way, don’t put a plot point in every episode of your show if you have no intention of ever resolving it. You’re all jerks.
2. NO SERIOUSLY, WHAT WAS UP WITH WALT?
THE MYSTERY:
Michael and his son Walt were prominent cast members in the first two seasons of ‘Lost,’ particularly Walt, whose abduction by The Others was one of the biggest plot points in Season 2. His stepfather even refused custody of the boy because, “There’s something special about him. Sometimes, when he’s around, things happen. He’s different somehow.” For example, the first appearance of polar bears on the island just happened to coincide with Walt reading a comic book with a polar bear in it (and to top it all off, Michael gave his son a stuffed polar bear as a boy). When Walt was writing a paper on birds, one of the birds he was studying flew into the glass window of his Mother’s house. He had a premonition about the hatch and told Locke “Not to open that thing” before anyone actually found out about it. He found a way to get inside the hatch computer to communicate with his father despite being kidnapped by The Others. The Others then gave Walt away because he was doing something unspecified that clearly freaked them all out. Later in the series, an older version of Walt mysteriously appeared on the island and talked Locke out of killing himself in the Dharma mass grave, telling him he had “work to do.” Though Walt did show up later in the series, it was only briefly and as a normal kid.
THE BEST ANSWER WE GOT:
We got a big fat middle finger in our faces. They tried to pretend the whole thing never happened.
WHY WE DESERVE A REAL ANSWER:
Look at “The Problem” up above again. In the first two seasons, Walt was one of the biggest plot points on the series and throughout the show exhibited supernatural powers that manifested themselves in a variety of compelling ways. Sure, they wrote him off the show because puberty hit him like a ton of bricks and continuity would have gone out the window, but in the flash forwards he was age-appropriate and could have had his plot points resolved organically. Or hell, in Season Six when ‘Lost’ officially declared itself a fantasy series they could have easily incorporated the magic that is Walt and actually explained away his significance to the show. Like the numbers, Walt was introduced as an important plot point and remained one for years but it would appear that the writers just gave up on him, and by extension the audience, completely. Not cool.
3. NO SERIOUSLY, WHAT WAS UP WITH AARON?
THE MYSTERY:
In Claire’s first flashback episode we learned that she was headed to LAX because a psychic warned her that “danger surrounded” Aaron, and that she must not allow anyone else to raise him, because Claire’s “goodness” must be an influence on the child’s development. Later, that same psychic would confess to Mister Eko that he was a fraud, but that just made his passion for the child’s wellbeing more convincing in retrospect, like that time fake psychic Whoopi Goldberg found out she really could speak to ghosts in that movie with all the ghosts. Claire would have dreams about a creepy Locke with one black eye and one white eye (which seems pretty significant after Season Six) telling her, “He was your responsibility but you gave him away. Everyone pays the price now.” Later, Claire would abandon Aaron to Kate’s care just before the Oceanic Six made it off the island. Influenced by The Man in Black, Claire later went all Rousseau on The Others’ asses and became obsessed with getting her baby back. The series ended with Claire and Kate agreeing to raise Aaron together.
THE BEST ANSWER WE GOT:
It’s possible that the psychic’s confession was supposed to deflect the audience’s attachment to this plot point and then that would have been that, but as stated above it had the opposite effect. (Not to mention the fact that in that same episode, the psychic’s daughter experienced a legitimate miracle, and the fact that we know that magic and psychics really exist in the ‘Lostverse.’) Aaron’s significance was downplayed considerably ever since.
WHY WE DESERVE A REAL ANSWER:
Once again, the creators of ‘Lost’ introduced him as a really big deal. You don’t prophesize that a baby will be in danger and must under any circumstance be influenced by his mother’s goodness if you’re not planning on, I dunno, actually getting to that plot point by the end of the series. All of the writers’ efforts to make us forget about how important they made Aaron at the start of the series had little-to-no effect on the audience’s curiosity.
4. NO SERIOUSLY, WHAT WAS UP WITH THE CABIN?
THE MYSTERY:
It’s Season Three, and Locke insists on finally meeting this “Jacob” person everyone keeps talking about. Since Locke called him out in front of the rest of The Others, Ben is forced to comply. But instead of taking Locke to the statue, he takes him to Horace Goodspeed’s dilapidated old cabin and pretends to speak to “Jacob” in order to hide the fact that he’s never met the real protector of the island. Locke is understandably skeptical until the cabin goes all Evil Dead and a spectral figure begs Locke for help. Later, when they try to find the cabin again they realize that its location mysteriously changes all the time. The cabin is also where the Man in Black takes crazy-ass Claire. Oh yeah, and it’s surrounded by a ring of ash, which can supposedly repel the Man in Black.
THE BEST ANSWER WE GOT:
At some point we realize that the ring of ash has been broken, which would seem to imply that at some point the Man in Black was trapped inside the cabin and needed someone to break the seal so he would be free to wreak havoc upon the island.
WHY WE DESERVE A REAL ANSWER:
Because “The Best Answer We Got” is pretty stupid, as near as we can tell. The Man in Black couldn’t actually be trapped inside the cabin because he was outside the cabin all the damned time terrorizing the survivors as the Smoke Monster, and we know for a fact that the ring of ash can repel him since it does just that in the first episode of Season Six. So what the heck was in there? Was there a third entity? Why would poor Horace’s love nest for his wife gain superpowers and start moving around the island? Who pulled this plot point out of their ass, and at what point did they decide to just shove it right back up in there?
5. NO SERIOUSLY, WHY WAS JACOB SUCH A DICK?
THE MYSTERY:
In Season Six we learned that Jacob brought Oceanic Flight 815 to the island because all the candidates for his replacement were on board. It’s an elaborate plan that apparently involved manipulating Desmond’s actions in the hatch, but screw it, Jacob’s a God for all intents and purposes, so we’ll let that slide. But here’s the thing: The Others and the Man in Black had a pretty good time trying to kill off the survivors of the flight throughout the series, and Jacob did nothing to stop them.
THE BEST ANSWER WE GOT:
We’re supposing Jacob doesn’t have all that much authority over the Man in Black, and we’re guessing the whole “Other” thing was just a problem with communication. Ben never met Jacob, after all, and it was all Ben’s idea to screw with the survivors in the first place.
WHY WE DESERVE A REAL ANSWER:
Because it really doesn’t make sense, that’s why. Even if Jacob never communicated with Ben directly we at least know he was giving Richard Alpert direct orders the entire time. Frankly, the entire thing stinks of poor planning in the writers room. Remember in Season Three when The Others said that Jack wasn’t on “Jacob’s List?” That doesn’t really gel with the rest of the series either.
6. NO SERIOUSLY, HOW DID THE MAN IN BLACK’S “MASTER PLAN” WORK?
THE MYSTERY:
At the end of Season Five, we learn that the Man in Black has been impersonating John Locke since he got back to the island as part of an elaborate plot to kill Jacob. Since the Man in Black was incapable of killing Jacob himself he had to trick somebody else into doing it. It turns out the last few seasons were just a complex scheme he had devised to murder his own brother and get off of the island, but how did that plan actually work?
THE BEST ANSWER WE GOT:
The Man in Black tells Ben to move the island so that he can slip it off of its axis and send the island jumping around in time, jeopardizing the remaining survivors and forcing Locke to leave the island in order to save them, but not before tricking Richard Alpert into telling Locke that he’ll have to die in order to bring the rest of Jacob’s candidates back.
WHY WE DESERVE A REAL ANSWER:
Does that sound like a good plan to you? What if Ben didn’t break the wheel? How did he know that the candidates would bring Locke’s corpse with them in the first place? Wouldn’t it have been easier to just kill Locke in Season One and take his place then? And really, the big “loophole” that the Man in Black had been searching for all these centuries/millennia was just “get somebody else to do it?” How hard could that possibly be for a shapeshifting god of evil anyway?
7. NO SERIOUSLY, WHAT WAS UP WITH THE VACCINE?
THE MYSTERY:
When Sayid first met Rousseau in Season One, she revealed that the rest of the people in her party fell victim to a “sickness,” forcing her to kill them. In Season Two we learned that the Desmond’s hatch was covered in quarantine symbols and that Desmond had been shooting himself up with a vaccine for years to prevent himself from getting sick. Also, Claire herself received the vaccine – presumably to protect Aaron – when she was kidnapped by The Others.
THE BEST ANSWER WE GOT:
We learned in Season Five that when Rousseau spoke of a “sickness” that she was speaking metaphorically. The rest of the men in her party had been corrupted by the Man in Black and she killed them in self defense. Supposedly the actual vaccine was nothing more than a placebo.
WHY WE DESERVE A REAL ANSWER:
Because if the vaccine was a placebo – which might make sense in regards to Desmond and the hatch – then why did The Others, who knew more about the island than most anyone else in the series, make such a big deal about giving it to Claire? It would seem that at some point the writers thought there actually would be a dangerous illness on the island, but eventually decided not to bother with that particular plot point. If that’s the case, they did a particularly poor job of explaining it away.
8. NO SERIOUSLY, WHAT WAS UP WITH THE DHARMA SUPPLY DROPS?
THE MYSTERY:
After commandeering the hatch and swiftly using up all of its provisions, the survivors discovered that the Dharma Initiative is still airdropping supplies for the hatch on a regular basis. The problem is that these food drops occurred long after “The Purge,” in which Ben and The Others killed every member of the Dharma Initiative that didn’t join their cause. While Ben had connections outside the island, there’s no real proof that he now controlled the Dharma Initiative or had any interest in the hatch whatsoever.
THE BEST ANSWER WE GOT:
We got bupkis.
WHY WE DESERVE A REAL ANSWER:
Because the food drops raised pertinent questions about the Dharma Initiative that never got resolved in the series. It implies that the scientific group was still somehow monitoring the island or at least showing a vested interest in the events transpiring thereon. Yet this plot point was never touched upon again, and the Dharma Initiative never had any other present day influence on the island that we know of.
9. NO SERIOUSLY, WHAT WAS UP WITH THE WHEEL?
THE MYSTERY:
Oh boy. So there’s this magic donkey wheel underground that for some reason causes the area around it to experience sub-zero temperatures, and turning the wheel not only moves the island through space and time but teleports the person who actually turns the wheel to Tunisia. Oh, and only the survivors move throughout time, not The Others.
THE BEST ANSWER WE GOT:
In Season Six we learned that the Man in Black built the wheel centuries ago, and that he connected it to a mechanism that mixed the light at the center of the island with water.
WHY WE DESERVE A REAL ANSWER:
Oh, it’s a “mechanism?” Well that makes everything okay, doesn’t it? Wait… No, that’s just fucking awful. Their explanation for how the wheel works is “because someone built it and made it work.” We’d kind of inferred that one, guys. But how does an ancient mechanism that mixes water and light differentiate between the survivors and The Others? We wanted answers, not vague suggestions. Maybe it would have been best not to call attention to the fact that you don’t have an explanation for silliest plot point of the series only a couple episodes before the big finale, hmm?
10. NO SERIOUSLY, WHAT WAS UP WITH THE STATUE?
THE MYSTERY:
At the end of Season Two, Sayid and the Kwons were sailing around the island where they saw the ruins of what must of have been a gigantic statue. Sayid in particular seemed unsettled by the fact that the statue only had four toes. Later in the series during either flashbacks or time travel we would see the statue in all of its glory: an enormous stone representation of the Egyptian fertility god Taweret. But why was it there in the first place?
THE BEST ANSWER WE GOT:
Jacob indicated that at some point somebody built the statue. Gee, thanks.
WHY WE DESERVE A REAL ANSWER:
Although not directly related to the main plot, the statue nevertheless became an important motif through the series both visually and eventually thematically as Jacob’s followers kept asking people “What lies in the shadow of the statue.” Jacob himself even lived in the statue, for Pete’s sake. Building that statue must have been a massive undertaking requiring dozens if not hundreds of laborers, and making a giant statue of a fertility god on an island where women would eventually become incapable of giving birth seems pretty on the nose. And why an Egyptian god of all things (a plot point that surprisingly tied into the hatch, which revealed hieroglyphics whenever the timer ran out)? It’s a significant element of the series that deserved at least a cursory examination at some point.
Did we leave something out? Which of ‘Lost’s’ unanswered mysteries are you most upset about?
