We absolutely adored Lost here at hecklerspray. Every episode piled on the intrigue with careless restraint; phallic stone plugs, grown men wearing too much eye-liner and a guy who could turn into smoke at his illogical whim – Lost had it all.
After six series, fans waited patiently for a final episode they thought held promise to unravelling the Island secrets in a satisfying way. Most people only found that there was no surprise inside this Island’s Kinder Egg, just left with chocolate on their fingers and a deep sense of urgent bowel movement.
What it did leave us was enough holes in the plot to sink a badly-rendered submarine. Some people say it leaves the series with a sense of ambiguity. We say the writers cocked-up. Here is our Top 10 Lost Plot Holes…
10. Who was the Economist?
Remember back in Season 4 before Sayid got the tubb-tum, and was going all Jason Bourne around the flashforwards? Well, there was a mysterious ‘Economist’ he was tracking down to kill for Ben. Was it Widmore? Probably. Will we ever know? Unlikely. This is destined to remain as frustratingly inconclusive as Sayid’s English accent in the final season.
9. How does it make sense that Desmond could go into the afterlife and back?
Granted, a lot of these plot holes arose after the final series, mainly because the final episodes dealt with a colossal clusterfuck of ideas when it started spouting religious hokum. When Widmore bought his giant donut to the Island to help harness Desmond’s resistance to electromagnetism, it propelled our Des into this purgatory. It was kinda like the plot to Flatliners, except without Jack Bauer crying every five minutes.
8. What are The Numbers?
The numbers were a prevailing mystery throughout Lost’s run. The first were the cursed equation that linked somehow to the Island, in turn making Hurley’s life hell when he used to Numbers and won the lottery. They were then engraved and used in The Hatch to stop the world ending (and by not typing them bringing our team to the Island). Later they were revealed to be assigned to the last candidates. Did it ever explain why they were so important/cursed? No. Because how could you tangibly explain why numbers are so important? You’re an idiot if you thought it could ever make sense.
7. How can you travel through time using ‘Water and Light?’
This is a plot hole in the form of a rare occurrence on lost: an answer. Seemingly medieval Man in Black decides to harness the Island’s ‘Source’ to get out of that damned place. It’s simple really: he attaches a wheel to a wall and uses water and light to travel. You read that right, he uses water and light; a startling scientific breakthrough that would have Stephen Hawking kicking himself (if he could).
6. Why did some time travel and not others?
Jack struggles to work out when the show stopped making sense.
Back in Season five when the show decided to embrace its sweating nerdling underbelly, it skipped our characters through time all with the help of a frozen donkey wheel – yes, that actually happened. When Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid, Ben and Sun came back to the Island, Jack, Hurley, Kate and Sayid were swamped by white light and transported back to the 70s to get their hippy on with Sawyer. Meanwhile, Sun, Ben – and to a lesser extent, Frank – remained in the present day. The only slight assumption we can make is that Sun, Ben and Frank were not Candidates, and Jacob transported the others back in time with his magical droopy eyes.
5. How comes Kate didn’t grown any armpit hair?
She doesn’t exactly jump into the banana grove every other day to have a quick trim, does she? Maybe she supplied it all for all the awful wigs Jack wears.
4. What was the Smoke Monster?
Last time we went down the log flume at Thorpe Park, there wasn’t a giant pillar of smoke on the other side. Was MIB killed and the Smoke Monster took his form like Locke, or can MIB just take the form of smoke now? If he was dead then why did Smokey also want to leave the Island? Where did MIB go when he fell down the hole (there was just ground down there when we visited it)? It would’ve made more sense if Jacob had created him by just bending over and letting one rip.
3. Who ordered ‘The Purge’?
Back in Season three, everyone kept banging on about the Dharma Initiative purge. We later found out that Ben gassed the whole village, then dumping all the bodies in a hole. That’s not very Namaste! It also seems totally unlike the laidback Jacob to order a Holocaust on the unsuspecting scientists. Maybe he just got sick of their stupid haircuts.
2. What’s the deal with Christian Sheppard?
Christian Sheppard is one of Lost’s greatest enigmas. It’s a fair assumption that his body was taken by MIB, considering Cocke admitted as much to Jack, proclaiming to have been the visions of Christian Sheppard all along. It all gets confusing, though, as Hurley saw Christian in Jacob’s cabin along with another person – who was that (it certainly didn’t look like Jacob). Also the Man in Black couldn’t leave the Island, yet Christian appeared on the boat located outside of the Islands magnetic radiance and, more bafflingly, appeared to Jack twice at his hospital in LA. Those evil manifestations of smoke, eh? What a bunch of lying bastards.
1. What is Walt?
This picture was taken on Walt’s 8th birthday.
The big question that was on everyone’s lips: What was the deal with Walt? Yes, everyone know that the kid’s balls were dragging in the sand by the end of Season two, assuring he was given a quick exit. Yet, he appeared in frequent freaky visions (covered in water whispering backwards to Shannon; telling Locke he had work to do) and was the much coveted prize of The Others. Did we ever get an answer as to why he was so special and seemingly possessing superpowers? No. It has left fans frustratingly screaming ‘WAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLTTTTTTT!!!!’ in despair.
Agree with our list? Think you know better and have the answers? Did we miss out the biggest plot hole of all? Let us know in the comments below…
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{ 45 comments… read them below or add one }
Who built the statue and the temple?
Where did the supply drop in season 2 come from?
What happened to Alvar Hanso?
Why couldn’t women give birth on the island?
What was Sayid “infected” with?
Where did Jacob’s “mother” come from?
Those are all I could think of right now…
Who built the statue and the temple?
Not really important. It’s obvious that Jacob and MIB’s (fake) mother was the protector of the island and that the job was handed down to her by someone else. It’s not really a plot thing, it’s just evidence that the island has been there for a very, very long time. As for who, most likely Egyptians.
Where did the supply drop in season 2 come from?
Remember when Faraday saw a difference between his two timeclocks? Probably has something to do with that. It’s possible it was sent decades earlier and just reached the island right then.
As for the rest, no idea.
The numbers were explained outside the show with The Lost Experience.
http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Valenzetti_Equation
Spot on, all these seasons gone and some still didn’t know ’bout the numbers.
I would disagree with this. That explanation still doesn’t really explain why they cursed Hurley in the first place. Plus, I find it completely irrelevant if an integral answer to the series was explained outside of the main show. I was aware of The Lost Experience, and followed it from beginning to end. But not only is the final revelation a load of dung but the fact that it wasn’t addressed in the show is a slap round the chops to a large chunk of the audience.
Regarding Desmond i looked at his ability to know the future and to have see the alternate timeline as being explained by the alternate universes theory. There are an infinite amount of alternate universes and ‘time travel’ would really be skipping back and forth between them sideways instead of moving back and forward in a linear fashion. The writers used a lot of Eastern mythology and even DHARMA used namaste as their slogan or expression. Also in Eastern religions are the ‘wheel of life’ beliefs where if you are a good person you move to the higher level, bad person lower and just ok you stay put for another go around. The alternate timeline I interpreted as just being the next level up not necessarily ‘Heaven’ or ‘Purgatory’ which explains why Ben chose to not move on. He felt that he didn’t do well enough in his past chances to be able to move on so he stayed for another go around on the wheel of life hoping to do better next time.
The Purge I assumed was during Widemore’s time as leader but after the gas clear Richard looks to Ben and asks what his orders for them are so i don’t know the answer there. Only thing I can guess is like when Jacob and MIB’s foster mom wiped out the camp and people in their time Ben did the same to DHARMA to prevent them from ‘unlocking the powers of the island’. I’d say it’s prob easy to compare that to most religions. They found on the principles of a God giving them the rules to live by but then later you have people like Pope’s or priests etc giving the day to day rules and punishments etc. It’s up to the people to try to do what God (Jacob) wants by making their own choices even if their actions are considered evil.
Regarding Walt they definitely didn’t explain enough about who he was to satisfy everyone. My theory on why he was written off to some extent would tie back into Ben’s character. he was the type to do anything to keep control of the island, banished Widemore, shot Locke in the back and tried to get Locke to fail at killing his own father. Whatever he was Ben knew he was special and, as Richard said to Locke when they were skipping through time, they start recruiting leaders at a young age. Ben’s motivation kicked in to do whatever it took to get him off the island so he wouldn’t replace Ben.
I would really have liked an answer to how ‘the others’ got there in the beginning and their history with the Army personnel and later DHARMA when they got to the island.
The biggest mystery?
Why didn’t Hurley loose weight???!!
The bigger mystery is why people still don’t know when to use loose and when to use lose.
Aaahahahaha
at first even though we were experiencing a long period of time, on the show, only a few weeks passed,, then as time progressed he was guarding the dharma food pantry.
they did much to keep him being fat into the plot, but them running into the dharma buildings and getting access of the dharma supplies explained why hurley stayed fat,kate stayed trim, and jack had great hair until he left the island.
They even worked showers and haircuts into the plot to cover that.
Cause they were only on the Island a short time and found a stash of food in the Hatch. Also Hurley left the island for a while and came back. Sorry I’m a year late
If the season 6 flash-sideways turned out to be purgatory, how come people were killed there? (Keamy and his men) You can die in purgatory/afterlife? Does that make sense? No.
I would assume:
The purgatory was where they went to find the people most important to them in their lives. After they were found they “moved on”, maybe if you die in purgatory you go somewhere else. Maybe to another purgatory till you do your life right.
The MIB turned into the smoke-monster and immediately set his original body as his default form. He later went on to pose as Jacob to people like Ben (which is why Ben never saw Jacob) and ordered them to attack those brought to the island by Jacob (The Dharma Initiative, The Survivors.)
So, then, what I don’t get, how was Richard helping Ben, too? And why did it seem like Richard never saw Jacob either?
The MIB/Smoke monster could only take the form of a dead person, therefore as Jacob wasn’t dead, rather immortal, he wouldn’t have been able to pose as him
Ah…not so fast…
Ben got most of his marching orders through RICHARD. RICHARD knew exactly what both MIB and Jacob looked like…so the theory that MIB was controlling Ben posing as jacob is here and forever, squashed….
These are not all plot holes, really. They are unanswered questions. A pretty big difference.
You know, there are hundreds of questions, I just wish that, at some point, the producers just sit and answer them all – after 6 years of my life devoted to the show, I feel they owe me……
Yea, if these where plot holes we’d all be living in one. Where did we all come from, why are we here etc… Hang on, maybe we are!
Everything was answered during the credits of the finale, they were all dead and none of it happened physically. The island was purgatory and the flash sideways was the gates of heaven. The answer was that it’s not about everything that surrounds you it’s about the realization of things that matter at your endpoint.
wrong.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2010/05/lost-exclusive-abc-sets-the-record-straight-about-the-series-finales-plane-crash-images.html
The producers don’t have these answers, they just make it up as they go along ’cause it seems all mysterious like.
Let’s face it, they took us for a six-year ride!
You’d suspect that some kind of electromagnetic event did indeed addled the writers and producers’ brains.
Although the masterminds behind the show might have provided a valuable clue as to the messiness of the plot in an interview, ‘The show feels like it’s not something we made, but something that already existed and we got a chance to tap into it’.
So maybe it’s not entirely their fault — they just somehow sneaked into the parallel universe, documented the events and were kicked out before they managed to latch on to the meaning.
1. Child Jacob shows up to snatch the ashes and is visible to everyone for no reason at all, but only Hurley can see grown-up Jacob before he uses the ashes to materialise his body.
2. Inexplicably, Smokey was the only one who couldn’t leave the island, while Jacob, who wasn’t eager in the least to leave, cruised around the world, made friends, learned languages but never let his brother do the same on the grounds of him being dangerous for some obscure reason.
3. Widmore, his gang, Ben and a batallion of people shuttled to and from the island as they pleased probably because they were either alive (but could see the dead on the island), or most of them were just an illusory setting for the “survivors” much the same as an inexhaustible food supply, experiments, a white bear, the dog, time travel and all the rest. In other words, a sort of tailored virtual reality the heroes were put into like video game characters.
4. What was Widmore seeking on the island — to use its Source as a weapon of mass destruction? Who on earth was the island to be protected from?
5. How would the MIB’s departure make any difference, or why was he so dangerous for the world?
6. What was the point of Jacob and the MIB’s background story? Why didn’t the Smoke monster kill everyone before Desmond pulled out the plug and turned him into a mere mortal? Why did false Locke insist so stubbornly on travelling by plane? What was the point of the statue of Taweret — the Guardian of the Underworld? Did the island finally sink?
7. How come a treacherous maniac fratricide is considered a goodie? Who was the first psycho dictator of the island?
8. What was Eloise? The founding mother? She wasn’t keen on Desmond disturbing her snug limbo she and her hubby comfortably nested in. Either that or she was just an illusion like everything else.
9. What became of Desmond? Was he dead all along? Why wasn’t Penny in the Limbo? Because she was alive?
The list could go on forever.
BTW, the denouement of ‘Lost’ is a shameless rip-off of 2008 movie ‘Passengers’ directed by Rodrigo García, written by Ronnie Christensen, produced by TriStar Pictures and Mandate Pictures, starring Anne Hathaway, and narrating the same freak story of ghosts that don’t know they’re dead, paddling desperately through Limbo and being spiritually washed in the process.
Isn’t it called plagiarism?
I’m with you on all of these points; it’s as if the show completely changed course halfway through season six by introducing an entirely new spiritual element to the plot, but failing to connect it in any meaningful way to the preceding five and a half seasons.
the LOST writers were incredibly lazy and walked away from the mysteries they created … so I did the work for them – a much much better ending than they gave us (the first part is up now)
Lost: The Better Ending
at GalacticaVariants
“He later went on to pose as Jacob to people like Ben (which is why Ben never saw Jacob)”
That’s dumb. It in NO way explains why Ben never saw Jacob. Ben totally saw Jacob in the end, when they went to where Jacob lived. What you mention is irrelevant.
Biggest questions are :
why did I carry on watching this when they introduced time travel ?
Why did I believe the producers in saying the ending was all planned from the begining ?
What happened at the end of Season 5 ? Did that bomb do anything ? Why did I watch season 6
What happened at the end of Season 6 ? What/where is the island ?
Why am I still reading about Lost on websites ?
Can we somehow get Mr T involved in a remake.
You guys are so dumb. Just wait for season 7, everything will be answered. Idiots.
If I were paid as much as the dimwitted writers of the show, I would’ve certainly come up with a better finale and managed to answer all the questions.
It’s on a par with modern art in general — some smarties belch out any meaningless trash and leave it to the dupes to read a deep meaning into it.
http://bsimeltingpot.blogspot.com/2010/05/lost-greatest-disappointment-ever.html
I don’t think the alt was purgatory, I think it was just the other time-line that was created when Jughead went off.
When they all realized they weren’t supposed to be living that life (thanks to time-line jumping Desmond), they decided to move on together (to heaven, purgatory, etc, who knows).
I think the church was just some kind of a doorway to the afterlife. I know it doesn’t make total sense because they would have had to die again in the alt time-line but that would have been way too confusing for the viewers if they did.
#5 as well as other attempts to be funny not appreciated, but otherwise… good list.
Lost was the biggest cop out, if the show was based around the whole purgatory concept then they should had at least made it clear in the first season. They build up a load of crap and hype up the show with mystery and suspense and in the end they tell you .. sorry the characters were all dead its just a fake/imaginary world which everything had just taken place on.
Its like reading a great story but in the end they screw you by saying “its all a dream, i hope everyone learned something from this(POS) dream”.
WHAT A COP OUTTT, a straight FUCK YOU to the producers of LOST.
“If you can’t convince them, confuse them” That’s exactly what the producers did to us. They didn’t even try to explain anything. It’s very dissapointing, after 6 years…
This is all a dream, full stop.
Ummm. Where you actually watching the entire series or did you miss some episodes? They explain all of what is neccesary. Is it really a plot whole that Walt has some sort of special ability? Desmond does too. The numbers were clearly explained as the candidates to take Jacob’s place. The numbers were a tool to lead Hurley to the Island. Every single “Plot Hole” has been explained if you pay attention. They just don’t dumb it down by spelling it out to you. I suggest you watch season 1 through 6 and get your facts strait.
what i really wanted to understand ever since the first season, but i havent got the answer, is what the hell are polar bears doing on that island? how did they get there? and why???
The polar bears were brought in by Dharma for experiments I thought. Is that not what the cages Sawyer and Kate were kept in were for? Although, it is a little crazy to think that they were just hanging out on the island for all those years. “Congratulations, you got yourself a fish biscuit.”
Wow… some people need EVERYTHING explained to them. I bet you are all the same people who hated “The Blair Witch Project” because a witch didn’t fly away on a broom at the end.
The one and only real problem with Lost is, that in the first season it takes 10 episodes to deal with the use of one gun by one character, while in the sixth season it takes one episode to witness 10 kills, deaths, mysteries, fuckups, clusterfucks involving 10 people each. What a fucking waste of time. Give it back!
http://screenrant.com/lost-finale-explanation-kofi-61464/
This explains it to the simple idiot. THEY WERE NOT DEAD THE WHOLE TIME
The real question is as follows: Why couldn’t Charlie swim to save the useless characters in an early episode but then can magically swim half a mile to the pearl station? He said he was a champion as a kid so no, he didn’t learn while on the island.
Also, why the Hell weren’t Micheal, Walt, and Mr. Eko in the Heaven thingy at the end? Did they want to exclude the black people?
1) Some of these are just things they didn’t explain, not plot holes.
2) Some of these fall under the category of “Dude, the island has magic properties.”
3) Some of these fall in both.
4) It’s not enough to just watch the show. If you want the full picture, you also have to:
a) Watch “The New Man in Charge” (The series epilogue, released on DVD with the sixth season.
b) Read about the Alternate Reality Games.
5) Lostpedia’s Mysteries section is an excellent place for answers. http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Portal:Mysteries_At_a_Glance
Seriously ALL these were answered.
1.Walt had gifts given by “the source” You know the source of all lfe, “Every man has some of this energy, some more than others”, Walt was taken by the others because they took all childreen as they couldnt reproduce their own, after they discovered he had abilities they experimented on him, but after he killed a flocke of birds they were afraid and let him leave with his father.
2.Christian Shephard off island was Jack’s hallucination brought on by alcholhol and the large amount of drugs he was taking at the time. In the Cabin Hurley saw the Mib as Christian, the other person was Jacob whi had not yet been cast, therefore the ambiguity. And when he appeared on the freighter it was INSIDE theislands magnetic field, Get your facts straight before bitching.
3.It was Charles Widmore who was the leader at the time, Ben NEVER said it was him that did it.
4.The smoke monster was a combination of “the darkness” (physical manifistation of evil) and the mib’s consciousness, the mib was not killed just his physical body. The entity is made of electromagnetic energy, this is why he cannot leave, nOT simply because Jacob wont let him.
5.Typical Lost haters, cant fill a list so they revert to silliness.
6.Only the candidates travelled back to 1977, ie Jack, Kate(Who replaced Locke), Hurley, Sayid, Sawyer was already there, and Locke was dead.
7.Keep up if you can, When water was entered into the chamber housing the electromagnetic field, the em field expanded opening up a wormhole sustained by( as chang mentioned “a limitless amount of negativley charged exotic matter”) This wormhole thrust the island through time and space.
8.The numbers are many things but most importantly they are a predestined sequence that is forever connected to the island and the people chosen to inhabit it, they were seen everywhere because they influenced decisions and events that brought the characters to the island.
9.It was just a vision of his future, he didnt literally travel to the afterlife, as in season 3 when he kept seeing visions of a possible future, this was caused by his prolonged exposure to the EM field whilst in the hatch.
10.It was simply a businessman, who like the others Sayid killed for Ben was allied to widmore.
Seriously people stop listening to these lost haters they have no clue what they are talking about.
Seriously ALL these were answered.
1.Walt had gifts given by “the source” You know the source of all lfe, “Every man has some of this energy, some more than others”, Walt was taken by the others because they took all childreen as they couldnt reproduce their own, after they discovered he had abilities they experimented on him, but after he killed a flocke of birds they were afraid and let him leave with his father.
2.Christian Shephard off island was Jack’s hallucination brought on by alcholhol and the large amount of drugs he was taking at the time. In the Cabin Hurley saw the Mib as Christian, the other person was Jacob whi had not yet been cast, therefore the ambiguity. And when he appeared on the freighter it was INSIDE theislands magnetic field, Get your facts straight before bitching.
3.It was Charles Widmore who was the leader at the time, Ben NEVER said it was him that did it.
4.The smoke monster was a combination of “the darkness” (physical manifistation of evil) and the mib’s consciousness, the mib was not killed just his physical body. The entity is made of electromagnetic energy, this is why he cannot leave, nOT simply because Jacob wont let him.
5.Typical Lost haters, cant fill a list so they revert to silliness.
6.Only the candidates travelled back to 1977, ie Jack, Kate(Who replaced Locke), Hurley, Sayid, Sawyer was already there, and Locke was dead.
7.Keep up if you can, When water was entered into the chamber housing the electromagnetic field, the em field expanded opening up a wormhole sustained by( as chang mentioned “a limitless amount of negativley charged exotic matter”) This wormhole thrust the island through time and space.
8.The numbers are many things but most importantly they are a predestined sequence that is forever connected to the island and the people chosen to inhabit it, they were seen everywhere because they influenced decisions and events that brought the characters to the island.
9.It was just a vision of his future, he didnt literally travel to the afterlife, as in season 3 when he kept seeing visions of a possible future, this was caused by his prolonged exposure to the EM field whilst in the hatch.
10.It was simply a businessman, who like the others Sayid killed for Ben was allied to widmore.
Seriously people stop listening to these lost haters they have no clue what they are talking about.