LOST: Is Locke Getting Dumber? (and other burning questions)

Being ‘stuck’ in Los Angeles, I’ve surprisingly had very little time to watch Television (I generally tend to make that sort of thing a priority!). But thanks to the innovation of ABC.com and their incredible online television player I was able to catch up on Wednesday’s episode of LOST.

The Sayid-centric episode had me fixated to my laptop for the entire 44 minutes (including three Burger King commercials — yes ABC, your online advertising works and I’ll be heading out to Burger King for a Stacker later!). The episode was everything LOST should be — exciting, mysterious and most of all left this TV addict with some serious questions.

Is it just me, or is the island making Locke dumber? Locke started out as a knife-weilding kick butt kind of guy (someone I’d trust with my life). Yet as the series has continued, he seems to be devolving into a senile old man. You know what I’m talking about — every neighborhood has one — the old guy who just sits on his porch all day and just shouts things to passing by cars. After the whole Hatch fiasco, why exactly is Locke allowed near a computer? And when is he going to return to his mysteriously cool ways circa season one?

Is the addition of Nikki and Paulo simply and inside joke with the LOST writers (essentially ‘red shirts’ from Star Trek)? Sure, show-runners Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindeloff have promised that Nikki and Paulo are going to play an integral role in the LOST mythos, but let’s face it — Cuse and Lindeloff have promised a lot, namely answers! When are we going to discover why Nikki and Paulo are on the show? and more importantly, why are they so integral?

Why did Eye-Patch (Mikhail Bakunin) kill Ms. Klugh and what were they mumbling in Russian? Does it not seem that these ‘Others’ (or is it ‘Hostiles’ now?) are an incredibly violent group of people? Is it not strange that they seem to place very little value on the life of their friends, colleagues and co-Others?

Has anyone online taken the time to review Sayid’s previous flashbacks frame by frame to see if his captor was ever in the show? (This being the internet, surely someone has!). Was Sayid lying when he told his captor that he was sorry for torturing her?

Finally, the most important question of all. Now that Sawyer lost to Hurley in Ping Pong, how are we going to survive an entire episode (or more specifically, a week in LOST time is what? Two seasons in ‘real’ time?) without Sawyer’s brilliant nicknames. ‘Zorro’, ‘Grimace’, ‘Avalanche’ and ‘Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon’ were some of his best yet.

So there you have it LOST addicts, five questions for you to mull over on a Friday. Post away with your theories, thoughts and answers. Because let’s face it — odds are you know a lot more about LOST than I do.