Lost Finale

[wired]

I figured I would use the Lost finale question to have an open thread on it.

What did everyone think?

My opinion, which is going to be admittedly haphazard: I have heard quite a few people who were upset with the ending, most citing the questions they had about the island. I think if you watched the show purely to find out why the island was so weird, I think you would be upset with it. Those looking at the characters, story, and the "literature" aspect of the series, it was a fantastic finale. I loved how many parallels there were in the end. I also like the whole story of redemption that takes place and how you see, in the end, each of them (except maybe Linus) is actually redeemed.

I loved the parallel between the button in Season 2, the Island in Season 6, and the decision that viewers have to make about the island. Season 2 focuses on, "Do we keep pushing this button even if we don't know if anything will happen?" Season 6 ends with, "Do we keep protecting this island even if we don't know if anything will happen?" And viewers have to decide if they really believe that the island would destroy things. In that sense, I think not explaining every single part of the island acts as a way to test viewers "faith" to "push the button." In the end, you just have to accept that this island exists and you will not have answers about every part of it. (Theology side note: I think it's interesting that they explain Jacob and MIB's presence is explained by a woman giving birth to them and another woman already living on the island. Even if someone were to definitely "discover" God, the question would still remain: Where did God come from?)

Anyone else love/hate it?

[Foreman]

I enjoyed it. I will say I expected a few more answers, but that is because I am an answer-needing guy. However, that may have made it all the better in the end; just like life, perhaps you don't need as many answers as you want, and you kind of have to deal with the cards you're given. I also think they gave (or at least implied) a lot more answers than people gave them credit for. Gotta figure things out for yourself sometimes.

Plus, LOST was always really a show about the characters, and those threads that really mattered (perhaps with the exception of Walt (note: not his "special"ness, but just what happened to him personally)) were tied up very well. The mysteries were fun, but they were never the point of the show. A show based on finding answers will upset more people than it satisfies, and so I think history will vindicate this season as a very wise move. LOST always cared a whole lot more about questions than answers (see my previous points).

A very interesting direction for discussion: what are the rules of the afterlife? Why would Sayid have Nadia marry his brother? Locke wanted his father alive and to have a good relationship with him, but punished himself for harming him? It seems the point of the afterlife was to help people 1)remember what was important, 2)let go of what wasn't, and 3)move on, but did these people have what would truly make them happy, or just what they felt like they deserved? If the latter, is it thus heaven and hell all in one? What, truly, is justice?

Anyway, I wanted to punch everyone who thought it meant "omg they were dead the whole time!" They were not. Did you even pay attention? Sigh. You people are why nobody else makes challenging shows.

@wired: I think Linus was pretty well redeemed - he accepted himself as something other than the absolute ruler of everything, worked (apparently happily) as Hugo's #2 for many years, and found that, in death, all he really wanted was to have a family and be Alex's father as literally as he could be. Despite all his flaws, he truly loved his daughter, and finally got to make up for what he'd done. If you ask me, he wasn't going into the church because he would be going with the most important people from the most important in his life: Alex and Rousseau. I think Ben's story (while implied rather than explicit, because he wasn't really a main character) was one of the most touching.

A note to Claudio: "Sentimental Gent" would be, if not a great band name, an excellent album title.

[krebscout]

Sayid and blond girl? That was the part that rubbed me the wrong way.

[Damasta]

I thought it was an awesome episode. I just think they could've used another hour to wrap a few more things up. It didn't bother me that Sayid ended up with Shannon. And I understand why Mr. Eko wasn't in that room at the end (read here), but I sure wish they'd put Michael and/or Walt in. I had actually resigned myself to the idea that they weren't going to deal with Walt, anymore. But then I watched the Times Talk Live interview with Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (start with part 1 here, on YouTube), and they responded to a fan question about Walt by saying, "You will actually see Malcolm [the actor who played Walt] before all's said and done." (here, go to 5:48 and watch to 6:52). But the only time he shows up in "The End" was when Locke "woke up" and saw scenes with him from the first season. Man, that was disheartening! I would've been totally satisfied if he'd just been in the church at the end, but they didn't even do that!

Another thing that didn't sit well with me was their treatment of "the source". "Mother" tells Jacob and the Boy in Black that they should never go down there because it would be worse than dying. Later, Jacob, in a fit of anger, tosses the Man in Black in. He emerges as the Smoke Monster and Jacob eventually finds his body. Later, Desmond, who is unaffected by electromagnetism, goes down there and "unplugs" the source. But what the heck were those skeletons doing down there? And when Jack re-plugged the source, why didn't he turn into the Smoke Monster? And for that matter, who set up the "Frozen Donkey Wheel" since Mother stopped the Man in Black before he could do it?

Even so, it was an awesome episode and I loved every second of it. I just wish I could've had a little more. Rating Pending agreed with the tweet, "The Lost finale was like getting a beautiful puppy. After being promised a hoverboard for six years." For me it was more like being promised a whole 12-slice pizza but when I get it, there's a slice missing. The whole thing tastes great, but it wasn't all there. They gave me 11/12ths of a pizza, and I'm 11/12ths satisfied. I sure hope there's some good stuff in the 20ish minutes of extended scenes that they're putting into "The End" for the DVD release of Season 6 (source).

[Claudio]

I have been thinking about this pretty much ever since it aired. It's sad, but LOST has always affected me that way. It sticks to your brain. And the finale left me with a lot to think about. I loved it a lot, and I couldn't come up with a better ending.

I think I'll start by talking about "answers." I came into season six as a rabid answer-seeker. I had a laundry list of everything I needed answers to by the time the series ended. But somehow, almost magically, my need for answers started thinning out as the season went on. That wasn't because they were getting answered; in fact, I found some of the answers they threw at us to be a little bit clunky (Damned souls stuck on the Island are the whispers, huh? Neat? (By the way, that's why Michael isn't in the church. His soul didn't move on; it was stuck on the Island. Whether or not that's permanent we remain unsure.)). I'm still not quite sure about my diminished need for answers, but I think a lot of it was the fact that I started realizing that a lot of the answers I thought I needed simply didn't matter. Does Alvar Hanso's involvement in the Dharma Initiative change a single thing about the Island or the outcome of the series? Nope. Not at all. Does the blast door map change the way the Island works? Not at all. Is the Hurleybird some magical deity of bad luck that has stalked Hurley his entire life? QUITE POSSIBLE, but utterly irrelevant.

I thought that the ending credits of the show actually helped put it all to bed for me. I know that the scenes of the wreckage that showed during the final credits were actually added into the show by the network, but as I saw them, I realized that everyone who is on that plane dies. But they left behind evidence of their presence. The survivors of Oceanic 815 were just like Claudia, Rousseau, the Dharma Initiative, the ancient Egyptians (?), the Black Rock, and everyone else who has ever come to the Island. They show up, they leave a mark, and whatever they leave behind stands as an unsolvable mystery to whoever shows up next on the Island. The entire show we've seen is just one of those stories, one of hundreds. And now it's over, and its history may be just as difficult for the next visitors to figure out as the Dharma Initiative was for our castaways.

In short, the Island isn't answers. It's questions. It's history that can't be sussed out just because we want answers. It simply is what it is, and we were allowed to see it in all of its oddness--both that which it contains naturally and that which was inflicted upon it.

Of course, I am also way excited for the "twenty minutes o' answers" on the DVD, so, take that as you will.

Now, Foreman, as to the Sideways/Afterlife/Purgatory world. This may be oversimplified, but I think that the major idea was that you were given exactly what you needed to help you overcome your issues. It gave each of them the chance to cast off their crutches. Every character had some issue that they leaned on to prevent them from having to deal with the fulness of their decisions and their consequences. Look at some of the changes:

Jack has a son because Jack needs to realize A) what good parenting is, B) how hard parenting can be, and C) that he is not his father. He needed to learn for himself that he "has what it takes," and that he could overcome the psychological scars that his father left him with. I think that's why his reunion with his father at the very end is sweet instead of bitter. Jack has learned that his father made mistakes, but has forgiven them because he made so many of the same ones. At the same time, Jack learned that fathers and sons do not have to be distant from each other and that, seemingly, it's never too late for reconciliation.

Sayid has lost Nadia because he needs to realize that he couldn't have been with her anyway. Yes, everyone, get mad, but I don't think that Sayid was meant to have Nadia. She was a reminder to him of everything he had been, and tied him firmly to the past through guilt. Shannon loved Sayid for who he is now, not in spite of who he was, like Nadia. Sayid needed Nadia to be off limits to him--hence her marriage to his brother.

Sawyer is a cop because he needed to come to an understanding that justice is real, but that it's not something that can be found through vengeance. Not to mention that he needed, perhaps more than anything, someone he trusted enough (Miles) to share his problems and work through his issues with.

Hurley is lucky because he needed to realize that he is not what is inflicted on him. His worth is intrinsic. He is not who he is because he is lucky OR unlucky. Both made him unhappy because the entire time he refused to man up and ACT rather than being acted upon. We saw him coming to that point on the Island (his willingness to step up and lead the group, however briefly, but even his "choice" to be the Island's guardian was a bit forced upon him), but he needed more push to get there.

Locke needed to realize that he could be special in a completely normal way. Locke had the intense need to be something unique and chosen-by-destiny. In reality, Locke was a normal guy. His afterlife helped him come to grips with the fact that his humanity--and that's all it is--was enough. He could love, he could teach, he could contribute to society. He was finally useful and special in that people loved him and were benefitted by knowing him. But he, like Hurley, needed to realize that he had some control over his life. Locke was always one to chalk things up to fate and destiny. Though he was largely right in the case of the Island, he used this as a crutch to keep him from having to bear responsibility for his decisions. By finally making the decision to let Jack fix him, Locke realized that he ruled his own life and that his destiny wasn't a passive one.

I'm going to stop that section for now. In any case, I think that in addition to helping them overcome their major "hang-ups" in life, the circumstances also existed simply to ensure that they would all find each other. That's what Christian said: That they had all created this world (an interesting theological question there) in order to find each other after death. They needed circumstances that would get them all to that church, and I think that's why some of the things happened the way they did.

My thoughts about the finale just keep going on and on. If you want to discuss them, I'm in! Sorry if you disagree. Please feel free to poke holes in the theories if you need to.

Also, do you LOST fans want to throw around questions and theories? Because I'm good for it. One of my favorites is my Theory of Jughead. One of this season's major questions was, of course, what effect Jughead had. Obviously now we know that the Sideways timeline was not a result of it. So, my thought? I think the atomic explosion did exactly what Faraday suggested--that it negated the energy released by the overzealous Dharma diggers. The entire reason Jin, Sawyer, Juliet, Miles, and Faraday settled in 1974 was because it was when the Island needed them. It's the same reason Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Sayid were sucked back to meet them in 1977. These were the circumstances that were required for the detonation of Jughead, which kept the electromagnetic force at the Swan site at bay.

This explains:

1. Why there had to be so much concrete poured around the hatch - residual radiation like at Chernobyl.

2. Why the Island is sunk in the sideways world - "the Incident," which was the detonation of Jughead, never occurred because the castaways were never on the island. If they never came to the Island, they never travelled back in time and they never detonated Jughead. That means that the energy was not countered, but released in a catastrophic event that sunk the Island (after all, we know the Island was still there in the early 1970s. Dharmaville was there, and Ben and Roger Linus both remembered living on it. Dharma may have released enough energy to cause a slow sinking of the Island, much like what we saw when Desmond removed the "cork." After all, we were shown in "Across the Sea" that the Island's energy could be accessed if you dig deep enough in the right places.

3. Why the detonating team was brought back to the present time - they had fulfilled the purpose they had been sent back for. Whatever happened, happened, and all was right with the world. The course was as it always needed to be.

This theory is based on the idea, though, that detonating an atomic bomb in the vicinity of the Swan station's power somehow neutralizes them both rather than utterly destroying the Island. But as Faraday suggested that the two might have a neutralizing effect on each other, I'm OK with that idea. Just a little residual radiation and little enough electromagnetic force to be controlled easily with the push of a button (though still destructive when not controlled).

The Sideways world was not in any way related to the detonation of the bomb. It would have been there with or without the massive release of energy. But I do think Jughead served a purpose; specifically, negating the destruction that would have inevitably occurred with the release of extreme electromagnetic energy.

Also, a pet theory that I desperately wish had happened: all I wanted to see when the castaways were in the past was Hurley teaching a Dharma pet bird to say his name. It would have been amazing in its simplicity, especially if someone then shooed him away, explaining that the bird was part of a life-extension experiment (which we know the Dharma initiative was engaged in!).

It's probably time to end this. I'm nerding out too much.

[Damasta]

Claudio, great analysis of the "sideways" world.

Like I say, I'd come to grips with the idea that they weren't going to have any more to say about Walt. What turned it into a disappointment was that statement on Times Talk Live. So I'm really hoping that's something restored in those 20ish minutes. I'm also hoping they'll explain the whole "women die during pregnancy on the Island" bit; it was too crucial to the plot of season 1–3 to let it go unanswered. I'd also like to know how the Man in Black became imprisoned in the circle of ash around Horace Goodspeed's cabin and how he got out. And why were we still able to see the Black Smoke Monster rushing about and slaying people?

I think there's more to it than "they created the flash-sideways world so they could find each other", as Christian suggests. Perhaps the show's creators meant to suggest that such a "spirit world/spirit prison" can be created by any group of people with a common bond, but I don't think so. I think the power of the Island made it possible for them to do so. Did that power come from simply being there and forging a common bond? Or did it become available to them during the detonation of Jughead? I don't know. But I think you're right that Jughead is the reason the Dharma Initiative had to encase everything in concrete and put in the system with the button inside the Swan Station. One thing that is uncertain is: at what point did the "afterlife" timeline really being? At the detonation of Jughead? Ben and Roger remember living on the Island. But is that because in the "afterlife" timeline they did or because those memories were created as part of the timeline? I'm tempted to say that the "afterlife" timeline began when Jack woke up on Oceanic Flight 815. But I think it's more satisfying to think that it began sometime before that (to give them time to work out their issues) and Flight 815 was the trigger to bring them all together at the end.

One final note: The show's creators revealed that many manifestions on the Island were the Black Smoke Monster (source). So even though they haven't explicitly stated such, I've assumed that the Hurley Bird was just another Black Smoke Monster apparition. Besides, I don't think anybody would keep a bird with a 16-foot wingspan as a pet. Just sayin'.

Edited to add another question about the Man in Black/Black Smoke Monster.

[habiba]

You might find this interesting. It's written by one of the writers: http://thecarlosramos.tumblr.com/post/6 ... he-writers

[Claudio]

@Everyone: Yeah, we'll probably just keep bumping this up. Tired of it? Go watch LOST and realize what you're missing out on. Then come join us.

@Damasta: STOP RAINING ON MY HURLEYBIRD PARADE!

OK, so I've thought a lot about the pregnancy illness thing as well. It is a deeply frustrating problem that they didn't give the solution to that one, simply because, as you said, it was a pretty major deal. It's the entire reason Juliet (who I think we can all agree became very important to the show) was there in the first place.

So, what do we know about it? We know that women can become pregnant on the Island, but that they cannot carry the baby past the second trimester. Says Juliet, "The problem occurs somewhere during the second trimester, when the mother's immune system is triggered. The white blood cell count plummets. It's like the … immune system turns on the fetus." It is also suggested that the reproductive systems of women on the Island are damaged somehow. Juliet looks at a scan of a woman in her 20s and says her system looks like that of a 70-year-old. We also know that Ethan was born in 1977 after what we assume was conception and full-term on the Island.

This information allows us to rule out a few things:

1. Jughead issues. It's my understanding that radiation poisoning would A) tend to attack fertility first, B) not affect only pregnant women, and C) not cause a uniform problem in all victims. Fertility is obviously not an issue; it's the results of fertility that get you.

2. The Statue. Some people have theorized that the destruction of the statue of Tawaret (Ancient Egyptian goddess of childbirth and fertility) was the major factor responsible for this blight. That, however, happened at the arrival of the Black Rock which occurred in 1867. Ethan's birth rules this out.

3. Anything done by the Dharma Initiative. This is a bit shakier of a point, but I think it has merit. Dharma never complained about any problems with children or childbirth. Fact is, the Others didn't even seek to figure it out until 2001, when they recruited Juliet.

My thought is that something started happening after the Purge. And my best theory is that it's Jacob's punishment. After all, why was the purge ordered? Though we don't know for certain, it's implied that the Dharma Initiative was not true to the treaty they signed with the Others. But here are Jacob's people, leaving the Island life for the life of Dharmaville. Perhaps it was offensive to Jacob that they would seek the dwellings and comforts of the infidels over the Island home Jacob meant for them to have. He punishes them for leaving his care by causing the pregnancy issues.

Is this theory completely full of holes? Oh yeah. But really, I can't conceive of (ha!) a better reason. I mean, maybe the idea of the Island as a place of healing (Locke's spine, Rose's cancer, etc.) causes an autoimmune reaction in the women, like Juliet describes? But that has even more holes. After all, the Island doesn't heal everyone. Jack needed his appendix removed. Ben had spinal tumors.

I don't think supernatural repercussions are totally impossible, but it's not a theory I'm completely satisfied with until confirmed.

As to the afterlife:

I don't think there were any metaphysical changes to the people in the church there because of the Island. Heck, Penny was there, and she's never even spent any time on the Island. I think the principle Christian taught was really the best summary. The most important time of your life--the time you overcome the baggage that would prevent you from moving on--causes unbreakable bonds. The people present for those crucial times are bonded to you forever. Truly, you live together, so you do not die alone. I think, in the theology of LOST, that there are billions of these little microcosms, each of them shaped to help a group of inexorably connected people remember who they are and what they need to do to move on. Life's entire purpose, then, is living together in every sense. We live together to find peace with others, to help them understand what they need, and to receive what we need. In that way, we all lift each other up together, redeeming ourselves as we redeem others.

Or you know, something like that.

Christian said there is no "now" in this universe. I'm inclined to say, then, that it doesn't particularly matter when it popped into existence. Whether or not it has been parallel to the castaways' lives forever or if it just happened when everyone's soul became available, their minds believed they had lives and so they did. I don't care if Jack's son was created in an instant or if he was the product of an entire parallel life. Either way, Jack knew he existed, and so he did.

And now I'm getting into deeper waters than I can swim in. Suffice it to say that I think the Island is not responsible for the afterlife; it was only the crucible where this particular afterlife was forged.

[Damasta]

After all, why was the purge ordered? Though we don't know for certain, it's implied that the Dharma Initiative was not true to the treaty they signed with the Others.

According to Lostpedia, the DVD Box Set for Season 5 contained a copy of the truce between the Hostiles/Others (represented by Richard) and the DHARMA Initiative (represented by Horace Goodspeed). Among the provisions of the truce were that the DHARMA Initiative would stay no longer than 15 years (which they violated) and that they would dig no deeper than ten meters (which they also violated). But in both cases, the violations came long before the Purge. The drilling for both the Swan and the Orchid was already significantly deeper than 10 meters by the time of the Incident (1977). And the truce was made in 1973, so the Dharma Initiative should've been off the Island by 1988. But when Horace Goodspeed appears to John Locke, he says he's been dead for 12 years, putting the Purge in 1992, four years after the 1988 deadline. So you could be right about the motive for the Purge, but why the wait?

[Damasta]

Why the Island is sunk in the sideways world - "the Incident," which was the detonation of Jughead, never occurred because the castaways were never on the island. If they never came to the Island, they never travelled back in time and they never detonated Jughead. That means that the energy was not countered, but released in a catastrophic event that sunk the Island (after all, we know the Island was still there in the early 1970s. Dharmaville was there, and Ben and Roger Linus both remembered living on it. Dharma may have released enough energy to cause a slow sinking of the Island, much like what we saw when Desmond removed the "cork." After all, we were shown in "Across the Sea" that the Island's energy could be accessed if you dig deep enough in the right places.

I see a problem with this. In "Flashes Before Your Eyes" Eloise Hawking tells Desmond that if he doesn't go to the Island, press the button for three years, and turn the failsafe key, then "every single one of us is dead." It is unclear whether she means pressing the button, turning the failsafe key, or both. Furthermore, in "Across the Sea" Mother says that if anyone tried to take the Source, "they could put it out. And if the light goes out here...it goes out everywhere." This makes sense since she described the Source as, "Life, death, rebirth." In other words, if you destroy the source of life, you destroy life (which is what the Man in Black was trying to do*). So any "catastrophic event" which would sink the island (like drilling for the Swan releasing the Source), even a slow-release one, would also destroy life and thus none of the flash sideways stories could've taken place.

In fact, the whole bit about the Source is kind of hard to sort out since drilling for it at the Swan caused a massive discharge, didn't release any light, and didn't sink the island; Desmond turning the failsafe caused a massive discharge, with the sky turning purple, but didn't sink the island; the Man in Black digging down to where the Frozen Wheel ended up didn't cause much of anything (discharge or sinking) but we did see yellow light; when Ben turned the wheel there was a discharge, a white light was emitted, and the island moved; and when Desmond pulled the "cork" there was no discharge, the yellow light disappeared, and the Island started sinking. Such a lack of consistency makes it hard to pin down exactly what accessing the Source really does.

*I kind of wonder if the Valenzetti Equation was actually predicting when the Man in Black would escape the Island and that (without fully understanding it) was what the Dharma Initiative went to the Island to prevent. But then since the numbers (coefficients) never changed, global annihilation was always 27 years away, no matter what year you were living in, 1962 or 2007.

[Whistler]

ahhh I'm still on season two it's so hard not to read this yet

[Waldorf and Sauron]

Habiba:
I saw that floating around the internet and was sure it was fake. And hoped it was fake too, cause it was lame.

Turns out that this person used to intern at ABC and was released three years ago. So, yeah, not a writer. Disregard.
http://www.docarzt.com/lost/lost-news/a ... -employee/

[Damasta]

So Board Question #58080 linked to some "answers" from Movieline (here). Some of the answers were fine, but some need more discussion, I think. So I thought I'd brink them up here. (But not all at once.)

Why did the monster kill the pilot?
They gave a good answer for this one.

What did Locke see when he first saw the smoke?
The way he talks about it, it sounds like he could've been shown something by the Black Smoke Monster. But I'm satisfied with the answer that the mere existence of the Black Smoke Monster on the Island was beautiful to Locke.

What’s with the polar bear in Walt’s comic?
I think the real answer, here, is that Walt was thinking about polar bears, because of the comic, and summoned one. The fact that they were already on the Island was just a coincidence. Or, possibly, Jacob inspired Hurley to bring that particular comic so that Walt could see it. Either way, Walt didn't bring the polar bears to the Island, the DHARMA Initiative did.

Where’s Christian Shepherd’s body if it’s not in the casket?
Lame answer. But I'm more interested in later questions raised about Christian Shepherd, so I'll let this one alone.

Why did the psychic say that Claire had to fly on Oceanic 815, and why did he insist that her son had to be raised by Claire?
In a deleted scene of the episode "?", Richard Malkin admits to Mr. Eko that he is a fraud and that he was paid $16,000 by the couple in Los Angeles. Furthermore, in the Times Talks Live interview Damon Lindeloff and Carlton Cuse endorse this scene. However, I feel like this is really a story line that just got scuttled and poorly retconned. It just doesn't make sense to me that Richard Malkin would spend so long trying to convince Claire to raise the baby herself if his intent from the beginning was to convince her to put it up for adoption later. It seems like that tactic would backfire too easily. If that were really his intent, he would've told her from the beginning that there was a family in LA that the baby should go to.

Why did the Others want Walt so badly?
Their answer was satisfying. I would only add that Walt was of added interest to the Others because he was special. Jacob was looking for a successor, so an already-special boy might fit the bill a little better than the rest of the Losties. Alternatively, it doesn't make sense that Jacob would order Walt brainwashed in Room 23. So perhaps the kidnapping was by order of the Man in Black (under the influence of whom Ben admitted being).

Who sent Kate the letter telling her about her mother being treated for cancer in the hospital?
I don't need this one answered. Nor how they knew how to contact her when she was always on the lam.

How does Walt know about the hatch and why does he warn Locke not to open it?
Good answer.

Why does the smoke monster make mechanical sounds?
I would actually like to know the answer to this. It also seems to riffle through people's memories and view them as screen images, again suggesting that something about the Black Smoke Monster is electro-mechanical. And finally, it can be repelled by a sonar fence.

How is Walt able to apparate before Shannon?
I actually don't think it was Walt. I think it was the Black Smoke Monster, even though I don't have any evidence that he can appear as someone who is still living.

More to come later.

[Damasta]

How did Walt communicate with Michael using the Swan computer?
Silly answer. But the gist of it is correct—Walt used one of the Others' computers.

What is the deal with Kate and that horse?
It's not just a black horse. On the Island it's almost certainly an apparition by the Man in Black. The real kicker is: was the black horse that caused the marshal to wreck "just a black horse" or was it also the Man in Black? The latter is a more tantalizing answer, but I think the former is more likely. This leads to an open-ended question: why did the Man in Black appear to Kate on the Island as the black horse?

Why are supplies still being dropped on the island after the purge, and by who?
Ditto. Why not answer this one?
Edit: In thinking about this one, it must've been Mikhail. He was in the Flame station. I'll bet he was lying about not being able to defeat the chess game (he's a Russian, for crying out loud!). He knew (this is me guessing) the importance of pushing the button in the Swan station, so he periodically ordered a supply drop for the inhabitants.

What triggered the lockdown, and why on earth would anyone trigger it so that during the lockdown, black lights would go on?
Good answer.

What happened to the original Henry Gale?
I'd rather know why he was brought to the Island. The note on the $20 bill suggests he was alive when he landed on the Island. So why was he killed? Was it at the Man in Black's behest? Since they had nothing more to say about him, I wish the producers had said so instead of playing coy about whether or not there'd be more about him in Season 6.

What happened to the original timeline Libby in the mental hospital?
Actually I think this one is pretty well tied up. The producers have stated that she was in the hospital because of a mental breakdown due to her husband's death. It's interesting (and probably coincidental) that Libby's husband's name was David and Hurley's hallucination was named "Dave". But apparently Damon Lindeloff and Carlton Cuse implied at a Comic Con that she might be connected with DHARMA.

Who built the four-toed statue?
Why did they build it? And why could it be destroyed by a wooden slave ship (with the ship remaining relatively intact)?

Why does only one specific bearing get you off the island?
In the final scene with Hurley and Ben it's pretty much established that this was Jacob's doing.

What are the hieroglyphics on the Swan countdown timer about?
Let's not forget that the hieroglyphics were translated (by Carlton Cuse) as "Underworld". Some people took this to mean that the Island was Purgatory (which it kind of is for souls like Michael). But it could also imply that the system failure, if unresolved, would lead to the release of the Man in Black, which would result in the destruction of the world.

Why did Tom feel the need to wear a fake beard?
Good answer.

Feel free to further discuss or debate any of these.

[Imogen]

i think the beard on tom was to "mask" his sexual orientation. sort of. it was a gay joke, basically. when a gay man marries a woman, she's called a "beard." so tom had a literal beard, and was gay.

[Damasta]

Good point, Imogen.

[Damasta]

Who was Libby’s previous husband?
His name was David Smith. When he died she became depressed to the point of catatonia and ended up in the Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute with Hurley.

Who are the skeletons in the polar bear cave?
Good enough.

Where did the toy truck come from?
Good enough.

How did Locke and Eko escape the hatch explosion?
I guess they were just far enough away not to get completely obliterated.

Why couldn’t Locke talk after the hatch explosion?
Good enough.

Why did the monster kill Mr. Eko, and why didn’t he just do it the first time they met?
Actually, the parents of actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje both died in 2005 so he asked to be written out of the show.

What did Mr. Eko mean when he said, “You’re next?” as he died?
The Black Smoke Monster killed a lot of people. This was not an unreasonable warning.

How disgusting was it when Hurley was eating from that tub of ranch dressing?
Hurk!

Why did Yemi’s body disappear?
Good enough, I suppose.

Why does Danny say Jack wasn’t on Jacob’s list when in fact his name was clearly written in the cave?
Good answer.

[Damasta]

Why can’t women on the island have babies?
Wrong. But we've already been discussing this one.

What was that Russian letter in Mikhail’s typewriter?
Mikhail is Russian. Why wouldn't he write in Cyrillic? If you read the translation on Lostpedia, it appears to be fiction that Mikhail was writing; not anything important.

Why was the supply drop menu hidden behind a game of computer chess?
Because they didn't want dumb and/or hasty people to have access to it? Especially since it can be used to blow up the Flame station.

Remember when Ben gave Juliet that weird mark as punishment? What was that about?
Yeah, you could slide by with this answer. But it does seem that there was more to it than just a mark of shame.

What’s the deal with Jack’s tattoos?
This is not a real answer. Perhaps they were meant to foreshadow Jack becoming the guardian of the Island, albeit briefly.

How did Desmond’s monk know Eloise?
Eloise was probably keeping tabs on Desmond, he being so important and all.

How did Ben see his dead mother?
I guess the same way the Boy in Black saw his dead mother. Perhaps they were both stuck on the island, the same way that Michael was.

Who decided to kill the Others in a purge?
Eh, I think this one's up in the air. It could've been Jacob (because they broke the treaty) or it could've been the Man in Black. And how is that Rousseau survived the gas attack?

What happened to Ben’s childhood friend, Annie?
The producers said in a podcast that she and her family left the island two years after the events in that episode ("The Man Behind the Curtain"). Her only relevance was that Ben's feelings for her translated into obsession for Juliet.

Why did Desmond have a false vision of Claire and Aaron leaving the island on a helicopter?
Did he? I think he lied to get Charlie to do what needed to be done.

[Damasta]

How does Mikhail keep coming back to life?
Good answer. I wonder if it was his missing eye that Libby found in the Arrow station.

Why does Walt tell Locke that he still has work to do?
Good answer. But was it really Walt? (See my previous answer about Walt appearing to Shannon.)

Whose eye appeared in the window of the cabin?
Wrong. Christian Shephard was sitting in the chair and the Man in Black admitted to taking Christian's form. So I think it was Jacob, who was visiting the Man in Black. And Hurley was able to see them because he was a candidate.

Where did Miles get that picture of Ben?
Good answer.

Who was the R.G. on Naomi’s bracelet?
Interesting theory. Is Naomi's R.G. related to the tattoo on Jack's back that also says "R.G."?

Why was there a time difference between Faraday’s timers?
Good answer.

Who is the Economist and why did Ben want him dead?
It was not Widmore. Ben told Sayid to kill three people: the economist, Peter Avellino, and Ivan Andropov. In "He's Our You" Ben tells Sayid that he'd completed his mission—he'd killed everyone on the list. But Widmore was still alive. So apparently 'the economist' was no one important.

Why was Ben so surprised that they couldn’t kill Alex? What are the “rules”?
It does seem that it was a gentleman's agreement to leave family members out of it.

How does Jack’s dad appear in a hospital in LA?
He was pretty drugged up and frazzled. But I think it could've been a vision sent by Jacob. Just like I think the visions Hurley saw (Charlie, Mr. Eko, &c.) were from Jacob. And it was Jacob preventing Michael from killing himself while he was off the island.

How did the monster get into Jacob’s cabin?
This, along with how he escaped, and how the Black Smoke Monster was still seen roaming around the Island, is one of the major unanswered mysteries of the show.

[Damasta]

Why did Ghost Horace direct Locke to the cabin?
Good answer.

Why did the Oceanic Six lie and name Charlie, Boone, and Libby as the other survivors? What’s the logic in that?
Eh, good enough.

Why does Miles decide to stay on the island?
Given the way his life was going in "Some Like it Hoth", staying on the Island wasn't such a bad choice. And perhaps he was a little afraid of what would happen should Widmore find out that Miles double-crossed him.

What’s the deal with the frozen wheel? It combines light and water?
Yeah, how does it work? And why does it only have to be half a wheel? And how did a polar bear turn it long enough ago to end up buried in a Tunisian desert in 2004?

Why does Ben insist that the Oceanic Six, as well as Locke, have to return to the island?
Good answer.

Why don’t the rules of time travel apply to Desmond?
Good answer.

Who are the men who tried to kidnap Sayid and Hurley, but got thrown into a dishwasher full of knives?
Good answer.

Ben asks his butcher friend who was watching Locke’s body if Gabriel and Jeffrey have checked in yet. Who are these people?
Good answer.

When the gang was unstuck in time, who was that shooting at them from the outrigger?
I would like an answer to this one. The producers have said they know exactly who was in the outrigger, but they just refuse to tell anyone. Grrr!

Who sent Sun a gun and pictures of Jack and Ben?
Good answer.

And here's a question of my own: How did Kelvin Inman end up in the Swan station?