Lingering LOST Questions from Season 3, By Character

After watching all of Season 3 again, I have some questions about some of the Others, the Survivors and miscellaneous new and flashback characters:

THE OTHERS

ALEX
Where did Alex actually live? We only glimpsed her sneaking around in bushes, and never at Ben’s house.

Why didn’t she use the slingshot to break the camera covering the cage where her boyfriend Karl was being held? She did it to talk to Jack alone, and she went out of her way to help Kate and Sawyer, but it seems odd that she never attempted to rescue Karl.

BEN
When the plane broke apart above Otherville, why did Ben chose to send his best and only surgeon (Ethan) to infiltrate the survivors on the beach, especially given that he just found out about his spinal tumor?

In addition, if Ben knew that he had a life-threatening tumor, why did he subject himself to being captured and beat up by the survivors in the hatch? And, how the hell is he able to hike up that mountain to show Sawyer the other island? [personal aside: I just recovered from minor back surgery in the same location, which was nothing compared to a tumor on the spine; there is no way in hell that I would have been able to do any of these things.]

Ben found out about his tumor before the plane crashed and way before the hatch implosion caused the sonar and outside communications to shut down. So why didn’t he just jump on the sub and head to the real world for treatment? It seems kind of far fetched that Ben saw Jack’s name on the manifest and then conducted the elaborate plan to be get captured so he could ultimately bring Jack back to operate on him…

If Juliet’s fertility services were so integral, why did Ben allow Jack to flood the Hydra station, endangering her life?

Where and how did Ben amass the stockpile of weapons used in the purge, and without anyone noticing? Did he have a secret militant Dharma contact who was ordering him contraband? Richard and the Hostiles couldn’t have helped Ben to do that, as they lived outside of the Barracks and were enemies of Dharma.

Why did Ben choose to kill everyone instead of just his dad?

Ben knew about everything and everyone on the island. How did he not know about Desmond’s sailboat?

Ben asked Richard Alpert to bring the man from Tallahassee. If the sonar was down and communications were cut off, how did he bring Anthony Cooper (Locke’s dad) to the island? He must have already been there for a while.

Ben is very threatened by Locke’s healing ability, and yet doesn’t seem at all interested in Rose, who is cancer-free only after crashing on the island. Why?

Ben told Locke that “when people join us on the island, they need to make a gesture of free will, of commitment.” What other kinds of commitments and sacrifices did his people make to be where they are now?

If Ben really wanted to kill Locke, he would have shot him in the head or heart. He knew that Locked healed quickly on the island, so why only shoot him in the gut?

COLLEEN (PICKETT'S WIFE)
Why did Colleen seemingly hate and distrust Juliet so much?

How did Colleen and the Others sneak onto the sailboat without Sun hearing them? Sayid and Jin were on the beach, and the boat was docked in front of them. If the Others arrived via sub, how did no one hear that and why is it that the Others weren’t wet?

DANIELLE ROUSSEAU
So she’s lived on the island for 16 years, and has never come across the Flame communications station? How is that possible? Did she ever encounter Jacob’s cabin or Ben’s open grave full of post-purge Dharma people?

Did she make some kind of deal with Ben and/or Jacob 16 years ago to give up her child in order to save her life or someone else’s? Is that why, even when she had Ben snared in a net, she never killed him when she had the chance?

JACOB
Who exactly made his list, and why? Why isn’t Jack on it? Mikhail told Kate, Locke and Sayid that they’re not on it because they are “flawed, angry and frightened.” So who does that leave? Who of the remaining survivors doesn't fit that description?

Ben mentioned that Jacob himself would cure Rachel’s cancer (Juliet’s sister). Does that relate in any way to Isaac, the healer in Australia that Bernard brought Rose to for the same purpose?

Who used to take orders from Jacob and run things on the island before Ben’s rise to leadership after the purge? Was Dharma aware of him or working with him?

JULIET
Juliet was sleeping with Goodwin. Was she not able to get pregnant, or was she trying? If so, is Jack the new candidate?

How serious could Juliet have been about Goodwin if she had no reaction whatsoever when Ben dispatched him to infiltrate the Tail Section survivors? Did she find out that Ana Lucia was the one who killed him, and if so, was she the one who dictated that Michael shoot her as a condition of Walt’s return?

Who filmed Juliet’s video asking Jack to kill Ben? There had to be someone behind the camera, because it moves up and down from the cue cards back up to Juliet.

Juliet informed Jack that there wasn’t a crash cart among the Hydra Station’s many medical supplies. Why would they have a fully stocked hospital room but fail to order that equipment, especially since they know women died during childbirth?

Juliet told Jack that she’s not used to death. What about the 8 women who died during giving birth under her supervision? And if that were really true, it wouldn’t have been so easy for her to shoot and kill Pickett.

Juliet told Kate that she’d dislocated her shoulder three times before. What kind of fertility doctor is she?? Obviously there are more flashbacks for her in the near future.

Juliet seemed genuinely surprised to find out that Sun had an affair with another man and that her baby may not be Jin’s. Juliet had files on all survivors; how could she not have known that?

KARL
Kate was able to escape from the cage, so why didn’t Karl do the same? Ben said he captured and brainwashed Karl so he wouldn’t get Alex pregnant (knowing she’d die during childbirth). Um…who’s to say that they hadn’t already sealed the deal? She seemed to have a wide berth to explore Otherville, and his leash on her was loose.

Who’s kid is Karl? Did his parents die in the purge? And if not, how did he survive? How did he get to the island?

MIKHAIL
Ben was very threatened by Locke’s ability to heal quickly on the island. Why is he not similarly obsessed with Mikhail’s ability to come back from the dead time and again?

How did Mikhail escape Ben’s purge? Was he spared because of his responsibilities at the communications station?

Unlike the rest of the Others (besides Ben), who seem outraged by murder, Mikhail doesn’t appear to have any problems with violence and death.

Was Mikhail previously a Hostile? Is he also ageless, like Richard Alpert?

If he was in charge of the communications for Ben, how is it that he never noticed Danielle's distress call on a loop for 16 years? Wouldn't that have interfered with his ability to communicate with the outside world, which he was supposedly doing? And how was he truly unaware that the Looking Glass was still functional?

MS. KLUGH
What was she doing at the Flame station with Mikhail? Where did she live, and why was she still dressed like in costume, like a Hostile? Was she unaware that the survivors were on to their theatrics?

If the Others were so against killing, why would she choose to die rather than be captured by Sayid and co.?

RICHARD ALPERT
Richard went from Ageless Hostile to Preppy Other under Ben’s regime. Are the other Hostiles still out and about? Do they all work together? Are those the people who have the children, don’t leave footprints when they walk, and whisper in the trees?

As a former Hostile, does Richard have the ability to live forever? Is he impervious to death? If so, it would seem that Mikhail was one of them as well.

Where was Richard at the end of the season when Ben was captured by Jack and the Others tried to storm the beach and take the women?

Why is it that Richard was able to come and go via sub so easily and often, and yet both Ben and Mikhail never wanted to leave the island?

SHERIFF ISABEL
Where the heck did she come from? Does she live with flight attendant Cindy and the Tail Section kids in an unknown locale? They certainly didn’t seem to live openly in Other Village.

What kind of law enforcement officer was she? Where was she when they were beating up and torturing Sawyer and Karl?

Isabel speaks several foreign languages…just like Naomi, the parachutist.

The producers have mentioned that her character is dead, but that seems strange, as we only saw her in one episode and don’t know how she died.

TOM (MR. FRIENDLY/ZEKE)
What was the purpose of having Tom tell Kate that she’s not his type? To let us know he’s gay? To make us think that he only dates Others? It seems irrelevant, now that he’s been killed off.

How did Tom get to the island?

THE SURVIVORS

CLAIRE
Right before the car crash that put her Mom into a coma, Claire told her Mom that she wished she were dead. Just like Walt…if you wish it, it will happen.

Desmond revealed to Claire that he was having flashes about Charlie's impending death. So why didn't she emphatically implore Charlie not to swim down to the Looking Glass rather than express casual concern?

The Others have intel on all survivors. Are they aware that Jack is her half-brother?

DESMOND
Were Desmond’s flashes only limited to Charlie? Why didn’t he see Eko’s death?

Why was Desmond the only one from the hatch implosion to emerge completely naked?

Mrs. Hawking, the mysterious ring lady in his flash forward, tells Desmond that “pushing that button is the only great thing that you’ll ever do.” What about saving Charlie’s life several times over?

In Desmond's final flash, did he see that the Looking Glass signal could only become unjammed by using a song for a code, that Charlie would have to be the one to do it because he would have been the only one to figure out the buttons to 'Good Vibrations?'

EKO
Right before he died, Eko told Locke that “you’re next.” Was he referring specifically to Locke or to the whole group?

HURLEY
How is it that the one larger-than-life fun guy among the survivors goes missing, and no one notices it? Hurley went back to the beach to help Bernard, Jin and Sayid, and yet no one acknowledged that he was gone from the group on their way to the radio tower.

JACK
Jack gets branded with a tattoo in Thailand that translates as “he walks among us but he is not one of us,” by freaky Achara, who claims to have the gift of seeing exactly who people are. Juliet gets branded with a strange symbol as a form of punishment from the Others, who think they know everything about her. And Claire used to work in a tattoo shop. Mere coincidences? I think not.

In the flash forward, a doctor refers to Jack as a hero "twice over." When Jack and Kate got rescued, who informed the world of Jack's actions back on the island? Certainly not him or Kate...

JIN
Was he aware that the man he was instructed to kill (by Sun’s father, Mr. Paik) was Sun’s lover? Did he figure it out after he crash landed on the hood of his car clutching a string of pearls in his hand?

KATE
At the end of the season, Ben and Juliet are discussing whether or not Kate is pregnant, and they would know it was a possibility because they witnessed her with Sawyer in the cage.

Kate asked Mikhail why, given the chance to leave the island, he’d want to return via submarine. He tells her, “You’re not capable of understanding, because you are not on the list.” So she’s not on Jacob’s infamous list, and we saw in the flash forward that she had no interest in going back. But Jack wasn’t on the list either, and we saw that he wanted to go back after being rescued…

After she was rescued, was Kate's criminal past publicly expunged because of what she experienced? She seemed to be living freely.

LOCKE
During Locke’s sweat lodge dream/hallucination about the survivors in the airport, Boone’s statements about each of the survivors came true by the end of Season 3. About Claire, Aaron and Charlie, “They’ll be okay, for a while.” About Desmond, “He’s helping himself.” About Jack, Kate, Sawyer with Ben, “There’s nothing you can do for them yet.”

When he was faced with shooting the undercover DEA agent at the pot farm, the agent told Locke that he was “a good man” and he was chosen because he was “amenable for coercion.” Sounds exactly like Ben’s assessment of Locke. Thus, dad in a box.

How did Locke know where Jack and Ben went? How would he have known that they were at the radio tower?

SAYID
Why, if you're a former communications expert, would you not want to find out right away what was at the end of a cord leading into the ocean? Sayid discovered the Looking Glass cord in Season 1, and they only pursued last season when they verified that it led to an underwater station.

And why, if you're now the island's communications expert, would you not be the one to lead the survivors to the only radio tower in order to unscramble the signal?

SUN
Using family resources and wealth, Sun tracked down Jin’s father. Just like Penny’s attempt to find Desmond, “With enough money, you can find anyone.” Daddies Widmore and Paik play much larger roles in the overall Lost picture than we've previously acknowledged...

WALT
When he appeared to Locke, was it really him, or a Black Smoke Monster manifestation?

MISC. NEW & FLASHBACK CHARACTERS

MRS. HAWKING (DESMOND’S RING LADY)
Was she real or a figment of Desmond’s subconscious?

What is the significance of the photo with her on the monk’s desk at the Monastery where Desmond briefly worked and resided? Did either the monk or Mrs. Hawking work for Mr. Widmore or Dharma?

NAOMI (PARACHUTIST)
Why did her helicopter crash? Was it unable to penetrate an invisible shield covering the island? There wasn’t an electromagnetic anomaly to bring it down like Flight 815.

Penny didn't seem surprised when Charlie told her that he was a survivor from Flight 815, and yet Naomi said that there weren't any survivors because the wreckage and bodies were all discovered near Bali. This gives credence to Anthony Cooper's assertion (before he was killed by Sawyer) that the plane crashed into the Pacific...and he didn't say whether or not there were survivors. Similarly, the man on the freighter at the receiving end of Jack's satellite phone call did not express surprise when Jack informed him that he was a survivor of Flight 815. He and Naomi did not get their stories straight, which furthers the popular theory that Naomi is a liar-pants.

PENNY (PENELOPE WIDMORE, DESMOND’S GIRL)
Had Penny been in contact with the Looking Glass station before? Did she just happen to be sitting at her computer when Charlie unjammed the sonar and communications?

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So...what am I missing? Care to share your own questions from last season?

Tomorrow night I will be posting a list of Season 4 Theories/Predictions/Questions. Bookmark this site and stay tuned!