In 2008, JJ Abrams presented a TED Talk called "The Mystery Box." You can watch the 18-minute presentation below:
In his presentation, Abrams relates a story about buying a sealed box of magic tricks for $15. He was told that the contents of the box were worth $50. However, he has never opened the box. He leaves it, sealed, in his office. Why? Abrams explains, "I find myself drawn to infinite impossibility." Mystery, he says, is the catalyst for imagination, and sometimes mystery is more important than knowledge.
Here are a couple of articles that may shed some additional light on the concept of "mystery box" storytelling:
It was this particular type of storytelling that made "LOST" a smash hit TV show when it debuted 15 years ago in 2004. The show succeeded, in part, because the writers provided so many questions up front without immediate payoff, keeping the audience guessing for seasons at a time - all in an era without the spoiler-rampant culture of social media and binge-watching to ruin surprises in advance.
Of course, the series' divisive and controversially ambiguous ending left some fans furious at the apparent lack of answers to some of the Island's biggest mysteries. Admittedly, not all of the twists worked as well as they could have, but some of those surprises were absolutely brilliant. Here are our five favorites (with a few others receiving honorable mention):
5. The Man from Tallahassee
Anthony Cooper was a real piece of work. From stealing one of his son's kidneys then pushing him out a window, Cooper's constant manipulation of poor John Locke was tough to watch. In "The Man from Tallahassee," Ben Linus brings Cooper to the Island to be confronted by Locke. Later, in "The Brig," animosity between Locke and Cooper reached a boiling point. Locke calls in James "Sawyer" Ford to kill Cooper when "LOST" dropped a bomb that even the Dharma Initiative would be proud of.
It is then revealed that Cooper is also the original "Tom Sawyer" - the man who conned James Ford's parents and whose moniker was adopted by the Island's resident redneck. After years of searching, Sawyer had finally found the man who ruined his life.
4. Jeremy Bentham
For the entirety of Season 4, we wondered who on earth Jeremy Bentham was and why his death was so unsettling for the Oceanic Six. In a dramatic turn of events, we find out that the body in that coffin is none other than John Locke, who we didn't even know ever made it off the Island!
Equally as shocking was finding out who put him in the coffin to begin with. Although Jack Shephard and the gang were led to believe that Bentham had committed suicide, it turns out that Locke was prevented from killing himself by a perfectly timed visit from Ben Linus. However, mere moments after talking Locke off of the ledge, Ben strangles him to death in the emotional conclusion of the Season 5 episode "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham."
ScreenRant.com lists seeing Locke in the coffin and watching Ben kill Bentham as two of their Top 25 moments of "LOST."
Rarely does a TV show ingrain something as clearly in the minds of its viewers as "LOST" did with the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42. Were the Numbers special? Were they bad luck? Did entering them into the computer at the Hatch really save the world? Did they even do anything at all? Such were the mysteries of those lottery-winning digits. In Season 6, we discovered that the Numbers were linked to "Candidates" who were being brought to the Island by Jacob as a way to select a new Protector.
The Numbers also served as Easter eggs, from blatant usage such as "Oceanic 815" to other less obvious appearances. To the keenly trained eye, the Numbers were everywhere. All these years later, we can't help but repeat them every time we fly into LAX.
2. Not Penny's boat
In perhaps the most tragic of twists, Charlie Pace put a Sharpie to good use and spent the waning moments of his life to inform Desmond Hume that the freighter the survivors had just made contact with was not who they thought it was. Nope. It was "NOT PENNY'S BOAT," after all. His dying message became one of the most widely recognized images of the entire series.
So you mean those flashbacks in Season 4 were actually flash-forwards?! In. Sane. At the shocking conclusion of "There's No Place Like Home," it is revealed that Jack has constantly been booking flights, hoping that he crashes back onto the Island. In a drunken bender, he begs Kate Austen to meet him at the airport where he pleads those classic lines -- say them with us -- "We have to go back, Kate! We have to go back!"
Without a doubt, this is the most classic and best twist in all of "LOST." Over the course of four seasons, viewers had grown to know the age-old formula: on-Island drama, off-Island flashback. But in the Season 4 finale, they flipped the script (quite literally) by treating everything like a flashback and revealing the first of many mind-bending time jumps to come.
Honorable Mention:
It is revealed that Locke was paralyzed before he got to the Island ("Walkabout")
What are your favorite mysteries from "LOST"? Do you agree with us? Did we leave anything off the list? Let us know in the comments section below or on Twitter at @SotTUnderground.
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