WARNING: Spoilers ahead. If you have not seen the final episode of LOST, the second season, you may want to skip this post.

Now that we (and the scriptwriters) have all summer to think about the two seasons of LOST that have already aired, and we can, at our leisure, predict, criticize, praise, and analyze, I have a few random questions and ideas and observations on LOST, the only TV show worth watching* for the Semicolon family.

1. I re-watched the pilot last week with Engineer Husband, who has yet to understand the attraction although we continue to have hope that he will become as addicted as the rest of us, and I noticed that several threads have been dropped, so to speak. What explanation have we gotten for the polar bears? Another Dharma experiment gone awry? Also the possible hallucinations that various of the islanders have seen? Jack’s father? The beautiful horse that Kate saw? Were Charlie’s hallucinations drug induced? And what’s happened to Rousseau? And how did that slave ship get to the island, and why was it full of dynamite? What happened to the Dharma people who were on the island before the plane crash and before Desmond got there?

2. Were all the characters on LOST running away from something or else looking for something in Australia before their plane crash? Jack was looking for his father; Sawyer was gunning for his father’s betrayer. Hurley was looking for the origin and meaning of the numbers; Charlie’s trying for a Driveshaft comeback. Locke wanted to prove he was a man (??) or something, to go on an adventure. Kate and Anna Lucia were both running from the law. Jin and Sun were trying to escape, Jin from Sun’s father and Sun from Jin and her father. Rose and Bernard were looking for miraculous healing. Sayid was looking for his lost love. Boone went looking for Shannon, and Shannon was running from herself. Michael was, of course, looking for his boy. I’m not clear on why Eko was in Australia, and is Claire the only main character who actually lived in Australia in the first place?

3. The finale episode reminded me of the first few chapters of Genesis. Did Eko believe that God had commanded him to push that button, that it would be sin not to push the button? Locke says that the button is meaningless, and he has Desmond going along with him until the end. Adam and Eve were told not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and that if they did they would surely die. Eko says he is absolutely sure that if they don’t push the button they will all die. Locke/Satan says they will not surely die, but rather they will become like gods, knowing freedom.

4. However, are all the supernatural elements in the story –the healings, the dreams, the ties between all the characters– going to be explained in the end as scientific, natural phenomena? I certainly hope not. If LOST is just a story about a big evil multi-national corporation and a rich manipulative daddy who wants to protect his daughter from a poverty-stricken jailbird, then it’s not that interesting anymore. The spiritual themes are what give it depth. On the other hand, all the emphasis on Fate as the moving force behind the events on LOST is dissatisfying, too. I don’t believe in Fate, and I don’t see how such an impersonal force could produce such intensely personal stories.

5. Are the LOST people going to change, be redeemed in religious terms? Locke said, before he lost his own faith, that they all had a second chance on the island, a chance to make things right. Will Charlie really stay an ex-addict? Can Sawyer ever be anything but a con-man? Is Kate a heartless murderer? Has Jack forgiven his father? Will Eko build his church?

6. Should the people behind this show wrap everything up next season? Can the excellence be maintained through more than three seasons, or will it disintegrate into a series of soap opera episodes in which resolution is promised, but ever really delivered?

7. I love the literary references in LOST. The Dharma film was hidden behind The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. Henry the Other was reading The Brothers Karamazov (given to him by Locke), entirely appropriate for this show with its themes of sin and redemption and the father-son relationship. Sawyer, of all people, is the big reader in the bunch, reading whatever he can find from the plane’s wreckage. He’s been seen reading A Wrinkle in TIme by one of my favorite authors, Madeleine L’Engle, and Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret by one of my least favorite authors, Judy Blume. The question in the latter title seems appropriate for the LOST survivors. Sawyer also read Watership Down in one of the episodes, and if you know that story, it’s all about survival and leadership and defending a group against its enemies. in the finale, Desmond’s is devoted to Dickens, saying that he’s read everything the man wrote, except for the book he saving to read just before he dies, Our Mutual Friend. That’s a book I haven’t read, so can anyone tell me what significance it might have to Desmond or to the world of LOST?

It’s about time television offered something fun and significant and thought-provoking. I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed a TV show as much as this one. If you’ve not seen the show, I recommend you get the DVD’s and watch*. Thank you Mr. Abrams and Mr. Lindelof.

LOST quiz, emphasizing spiritual and Biblical themes in the first two seasons of LOST.

*Not for children. There’s a lot of violence, somewhat graphically displayed, and there’s enough sexual content to make me uncomfortable. I wish the writers had been confident enough to leave out the sexual content, at least on screen, but that would require a level of restraint that is not to be found these days in Hollywood.