Few answers, more mysteries in ‘Lost’ finale

updated 1:10 p.m. ET May 26, 2005

NEW YORK - The “Lost” castaways managed to open the mysterious hatch.

But after they blasted it open with dynamite, what did they find? Not so fast! Viewers will have to wait through a long, hot summer for that answer.

During the thrilling first season of “Lost,” fans of this information-stingy ABC serial may sometimes have felt a little lost themselves. No wonder they were hoping to find a few more clues as the two-hour season finale aired Wednesday night.

Sorry. The episode — fascinating and frustrating, as usual — mostly compounded the mystery.

It also left the audience with one particularly agonizing cliffhanger.

That came in the face of what seemed like a long-awaited rescue. The raft that took off from the island last week carrying four of the refugees encountered a rickety fishing boat in the dead of night.

Jin (Daniel Dae Kim), Sawyer (Josh Holloway), Michael (Harold Perrineau) and his young son Walt (Malcolm David Kelley) were ecstatic — until a rough-looking sailor on board the other vessel ordered harshly, “Give us the boy.”

A fight broke out, then the bad guys snatched Walt, plowing away through the inky water as they set our heroes’ raft ablaze.

You’ll be waiting until fall to learn Walt’s fate, too.

Riveting tales of crash survivors
In its first season, the breakout hit “Lost” has tantalizingly tracked the adventures of some four dozen survivors of a jetliner crash on a tropical island who-knows-where (turns out the plane’s last transmission before splitting apart in midair pegged its location as hundreds of miles from where it came down).

On a recent episode, a freak accident claimed the life of one of the main refugees.

But there were plenty more, as portrayed by a large cast of featured regulars including Matthew Fox (as the sexy doctor, Jack), Evangeline Lilly (a dishy jailbird), Terry O’Quinn (the mystical outdoorsman, Locke), Dominic Monaghan (a rock-star junkie), Jorge Garcia (the fat guy, Hurley, who says “dude” a lot) and several others.

As they have struggled to determine where they were and how to get away, these characters have also forged some semblance of a civilized community, however fractious at times.

Meanwhile, details of their past have been filled in with flashbacks leading up to that doomed Oceanic Flight 815. Wednesday’s episode had numerous scenes from the Sydney airport as characters unknowingly crisscrossed each others’ paths on their way to their assigned seats on the plane.

Yes, the finale delivered a promised glimpse of the polar bear-like creature that, since the premiere, has stalked the castaways, but until now was never really seen (at least by viewers). But on the finale it was almost an embedded joke, appearing in one drawing of a comic book Hurley was seen reading on the plane.

What's in the hatch?
The main thrust of the episode was the trek through the jungle to reach the strange hatch installed into the ground.

Discovered in a recent episode, it has held out a promise of safety — or at least some answers.

“What do you think is inside the hatch?” Hurley said.

“I think hope’s inside,” Locke replied.

Then a bit later, he told Jack, “The path ends at the hatch. All of it happens so we can open the hatch.”

“No,” argued the more practical-minded Jack. “We’re opening the hatch so that we can survive.”

“Survival is all relative, Jack,” Locke replied.

If you wanted clear answers, you could have watched the conclusion of “American Idol” on Fox, against which “Lost” boldly went head-to-head.

For mesmerizing drama, however stingy its disclosures, you couldn’t beat “Lost” Wednesday night.

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