LOST Autopsy: 8 Questions We Want Answered
by Tom Burns

Disclaimer: If you don't want to know anything about the show, revisit backstory, read speculation, see new theories on what might happen, or see POTENTIAL SPOILERS OF ANY KIND, this article isn't for you and we urge you to turn back now. You've been warned. Proceed at your own risk.

Here at The Deadbolt’s Autopsy department, we pride ourselves on our ability to pick apart the evidence, gossip, and hearsay surrounding our favorite pop culture properties and assemble some reasonable scenarios and theories about how everything’s probably going to play out. We hate to admit it, but we’re the sad jerks at the back of the theatre who yell out "He’s a ghost" five minutes after the opening credits. BUT when it comes to ABC’s hit series Lost, we almost gladly throw our hands up and yell "Uncle."

The beauty of Lost, from its inception, has been that it’s consistently engaging, character-driven, and thrilling, while still being completely bat-**** insane at the same time. You’ll find yourself entirely consumed by the Jack-Kate-Sawyer triangle or John Locke’s sad, sad past and then... BOOM! You’ll get smacked with polar bears, black-light maps, smoke-monsters, time travel, electromagnetic explosions, magic boxes, disheveled character actors, flashbacks, flash-forwards, and creepy telepathic kids named Walt. And somehow, it doesn’t just seem like random nonsense - take notes, Chris Carter and David Lynch - and you’re sucked in, trapped on that island with the rest of them.

But thanks to the sheer insanity behind J.J. Abrams’ creation, we’re going to wuss out when it comes to guessing where Lost is headed. (There’s someone out there with a Lost grand unification theory that makes sense, and NASA should hire that man to work on the Mars Rover.) Instead, since we’re only getting an 8-episode Season 4 for now (stupid writer’s strike), the The Deadbolt's Autopsy crew has assembled our list of the 8 biggest questions we want answered, and answered fast.

[One note: We’re leaving out the super-huge, all-encompassing questions like "What/where/when is the island?" since, c’mon, they’ve got two seasons left. They’re not going to reveal EVERYTHING with 32 episodes left to go.]

THE 8 QUESTIONS WE WANT ANSWERED BY LOST SEASON 4:

1. Who rescued Jack and Kate?

In his last dying moments on last season’s Lost finale, troubled rocker/hobbit Charlie Pace told the world that the freighter coming to rescue the castaways was "Not Pennys Boat" [sic], which, for the uninitiated, means that there’s no way to know if the would-be rescuers will be wearing white hats or black. (We’re guessing black.) We know for certain that some of the Losties do get rescued - Jack and Kate, specifically - but at what price? And who brought them back to reality? The Hanso Foundation, the Whitmore Corporation, the Coast Guard - who?

While we might not know the true identity of the rescuers until later this season, from the spoilers that have already come out, we can piece together a scenario about how Jack, Kate, and some of the rest made it off the island, and it’s a doozy. Earlier this month, Matthew Fox told Entertainment Weekly that: "Jack and the other people, upon getting back to the world, are not being honest with the world. They are covering up [something]. That's an agreement that they've all reached. And it's a weird, gross little bond that they have with each other. They don't see each other much, but when they see each other, it's incredibly awkward. And this lie - you can cut it with a knife amongst them."

Our guess? As the season reopens, the Losties are going to be split into two camps: those that believe Charlie’s last words (led by Locke) and those that believe the rescuers are on the up and up (led by Jack). It’ll turn out that the rescuers have an ambiguously nefarious agenda, but they WILL bring the castaways back to reality... for a price. Certain Losties will make the devil’s bargain for their own reasons (Jack - misplaced heroism and belief that he can outsmart his rescuers; Kate - pathological need to be free, etc), and others (Locke, possibly Desmond) will stay on the island unwilling to compromise for their passage home.

2. Whose funeral did Jack attend in the finale’s flash-forward?

This mystery is probably top on the mind of anyone who watched last season’s finale. A conflicted Jack attended the funeral for a man connected to the island, someone with a tarnished enough past that no one else went to his funeral. The two most frequent fan guesses are Locke and Michael, but we’re not buying it. Locke isn’t going to leave the island, and Michael’s destiny lies with Walt, and that kid has a whole lot of explaining to do about his eerie powers. We’re leaning more towards the formerly Californian Ben, Sawyer, or... here’s a long shot... Hurley. (Think of how shocking it would be if Hugo was the guy who, wittingly or unwittingly, betrayed them all. Of course, that coffin was pretty small...)

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