Lost may have given us more answers than Battlestar Galactica, but that doesn't mean the plane-crash-into-destiny show is off the hook. Here are 50 questions that Lost really does have to answer, or we'll attack the ABC studios with pitchforks.
If you think of Lost as being one big novel — which is what various people involved with the show have called it — then the stuff that happened in Chapter Five ought to be meaningful in the final chapter. There ought to be a sense that everything was leading towards this ending — or else it's not an ending, it's just a sudden stop. So there are things that were talked up in previous seasons of the show that we really believe should be incorporated, somehow, into the conclusion. Think of it as not just a question of "answers," but of resolution. Why did all this stuff have to happen?
Don't believe the show owes us some answers? Just ask the show's stars:
So here are our pressing questions:
So the island is the place with the glowy light that's inside all of us. Does this mean the Island's alive? People talk about what the island "wants." What do they mean? Is the island Eywa?
How come the island heals people? Why does it heal them selectively?
Who was the woman who raised Jacob and the Man In Black, and how did she get there?
If Jacob was a Roman, why is he so into Egyptian gods?
What was with those Egyptian symbols that appeared in the Hatch when the countdown went past 108 minutes? That didn't seem like the Dharma Initiative's style.
Jacob told Alpert some previous visitors to the island had built that Taweret statue. Did he tell them to build it? Why Taweret?
Is Jacob bringing people to the island, as the Man In Black suggests? If so, then who was bringing all those people to the island before Jacob did it? Why does Jacob want to bring so many people to the island? What was he trying to prove to the Man In Black?
Why did Widmore bring Desmond to the island? What's the sacrifice Desmond has to make?
Why was Charlie fated to die, exactly? What did Charlie's death accomplish, in the end?
Was that the Smoke Monster telling Ben and Locke to move the island, back in season four? If so, why did Smokey want the island moved? What did moving the island accomplish exactly?
Why was Libby in the same mental hospital as Hurley? What's her deal exactly? Why was she in Australia?
Why did the Smoke Monster kill Mr. Eko? Why did the Smoke Monster leave Rousseau alive after killing or "claiming" the rest of her expedition?
Who made the Rules? Like, what's preventing Smokey from killing the Candidates directly?
What was so special about Walt? No, really. They made a big deal out of it and everything.
Jacob was immortal, right? So what made him decide he needed to start doing such a huge head-hunting search for his replacement?
Why is Aaron so important? Why wasn't Kate supposed to raise him?
Why isn't Kate a candidate?
What was the Dharma Initiative really up to on the Island? What was their ultimate goal? Why did the Hanso Foundation regard the Dharma Initiative as a failure?
It seems like everyone who was a passenger on Oceanic 815 has numerous connections that they don't even know about. Like Jack and Claire being half-siblings, and Sawyer's ex-girlfriend helping Kate confront her mom. What caused this excessive degree of synchronicity?
What really happens if the Smoke Monster leaves the island?
In the "flash-sideways" universe, the island is under water. When exactly did this happen?
How/when did Roger Linus and Pierre Chang get off the island before it sank?
Why did Ben and Widmore hate each other quite so much? Why couldn't Ben just shoot Widmore in the face that one time when Ben came into Widmore's bedroom?
Why did Widmore order Keamy's gang to kill everyone on the island except for Ben? Especially since Widmore is so keen for Locke to lead the Oceanic Six back to the island a few years later. And why exactly is Widmore so keen for the Oceanic Six to come back to the island? Because they're Candidates? Or some other reason? If he is keen for there to be Candidates on the island, why did he order Keamy to kill them all?
After Richard Alpert met Jacob and Jacob explained the island to him, why didn't Richard repeat that explanation to everyone he met?
How did Richard and the Others decide whom to recruit from among the various people who came to the island after that? What was the deal with all those lists? The lists weren't lists of Candidates, since the Others didn't try to recruit Sawyer or Jack. So what were they?
Why did the Incident in 1977 leave the island's women unable to give birth? What's with the huge importance placed on fertility on the island, what with the Tawaret statue? Why are so many women separated from their babies?
So why was Widmore unable to return to the island? And then why was he able to return to the island after all? Also, why did turning the donkey wheel mean that Ben was unable to return to the island, except with the Oceanic Six?
What was the deal with that brand on Juliet's lower back? The cross/asterisk thing?
Where did that supply drop come from? You know, the huge pallet of food and stuff?
Who built that weird Dharma Initiative door that leads to a stone wall? Did the Others put it there as part of their fake village?
Was Rousseau "claimed" by the Smoke Monster the same way Claire and Sayid were?
What was the Sickness that the Dharma Initiative was vaccinating people against? Is it similar to the Smoke Monster "claiming" people, or something else?
When the Smoke Monster told Sayid that he could have Nadia back from the dead, was he referring to the "flash sideways" universe, or something else? Or just lying?
What was the deal with Pierre Chang having so many wacky pseudonyms?
What were the Others having Kate and Sawyer build? Was it really going to be a runway? For what?
So if the hydrogen bomb going off caused the "flash sideways" universe and prevented Oceanic 815 from crashing, how did it change Hurley's lottery numbers, or make Sawyer a cop instead of a con-man?
Is Ji Yeon the "Kwon" who's a candidate?
Who's the mother of Jack's son David in the "flash-sideways" universe? On a related note, where's alt-Juliet?
What happened to the body of Christian Shephard on the "flash-sideways" Flight 815?
Come to think of it, what happened to Christian's body on the island?
Sayid was "claimed" by the Smoke Monster, but he still had free will afterward. What did that being "claimed" thing mean anyway?
What does god need with a starship? I mean, why does Locke need an airplane to leave the island?
Why are the Numbers so important? I get that each of the Numbers corresponds to one of the remaining Candidates as of a while ago. But that's just another instance of the Numbers popping up in relation to something. Why these numbers? Why were they powerful long before Jack, Hurley, et al. came to the island?
And come to think of it, what was the point of having someone broadcasting the numbers over the radio over and over again for years?
If Jacob is dead, and his ghost is wandering around talking to Hurley, what's with the little kid version of Jacob? Why can only certain people, like Sawyer, see the little-kid Jacob?
Who was Juliet inviting to coffee? What sort of coffee? Can I come? Will there be biscotti, or madeleines?
Why can't the Smoke Monster cross a line of ash? What about the sonic fence?
So the Man In Black can't leave the island. But Jacob was wandering off the island all the time, buying Louis Vuitton luggage, touching the Oceanic Six and various other people, and stocking up on Flannery O'Connor books. At one point, Jacob opened a dance studio in Newark. What gives?
When Ben took Locke to Jacob's Cabin, there was a weird telekinetic storm and Locke heard a voice saying "Help me." Was that Jacob? Or the M.I.B.? What sort of help did the voice have in mind? More importantly, what's with the dog painting in Jacob's Cabin???