The return of 'Lost' is less than a month away, and still so many questions

I've come up with a list of 10 loose ends I'd like to see tied up during the final season of ABC's Lost. If they're not, I'm going to lose sleep:
  1. OK, so we know now "what lies in the shadow of the statue": the mysterious Jacob, who appears to have been brutally murdered (and torched) by Ben Linus via the evil peer pressure of the Locke impostor. But who is this fellow who took on Locke's form? Is he the dark-suited guy who told Jacob that he really wanted to kill him? Is he the human embodiment of the Smoke Monster?
  2. Claire is dead. Or is she? She wandered off into the jungle and left her baby behind. We didn't see old smokey envelop her or rip any of her limbs off. And she has appeared in Kate's dreams. And she has been cast in the final season. So, are we going to be getting Claire flashbacks, or Claire in the flesh and blood?
  3. Jack's dad, Christian, is dead. But on the island he is alive and walking around and being creepy. He is on the "dead" part of the island—where Sun, Lupidus, Ben and the Locke impostor row in the long boat. And Naomi, the woman who parachutes onto the island from the freighter's helicopter, told Miles in a flashback that there were dead people roaming around the island. Which means the walking-dead theory is plausible. But it has never been explained.

4. There are different parts of the island. One seems to be stuck in the past, another in the present. There's the part where Ben, Juliet and the Others imprisoned Jack, Kate and Sawyer a few seasons back. What's the thread that connects each part of the island? Or is the island just "special" and doesn't deserve explanation?
  5. Desmond Hume and Daniel Faraday seem to have greater-than-usual importance in the grand scheme of things. Last we saw of Desmond, he was recovering in the hospital after being "shot" by Ben Linus. Last we saw of Faraday, he was being shot by Eloise Hawking (his mother) in the past.
  6. Did Juliet trigger the hydrogen bomb, and did it really revise history? If she did, will the plane land in L.A. as scheduled? Will Jacob be back to being alive on the island? Will Christian still be dead, and Locke still be crippled? Will the island still exist, or will it have been blown to bits?  
  7. We know that Eloise Hawking and Charles Widmore were once an item and had a son, Daniel Faraday. What's with the different last name? Why are both Eloise and Charles off the island? What significance does this couple play in the grand scheme of things?
  8. Who are the "What Lies in the Shadow of the Statue" people? Ilana, Bram and crew. What's so damned important about them? Is the group what Jacob told the Locke impostor in his death throes was "coming"?  
  9. What does the sacred Temple look like beyond the wall that protects it, and why does it have hieroglyphics all over it? Why does the Smoke Monster live underneath it and guard it? What does ancient Egypt have to do with all of this?
  10. This is one of my most nagging questions: Who the hell is Richard Alpert, and why does he never age? We know that Jacob did this to him, but we don't know why.  
  Barring a presidential disaster, season 6 of Lost premieres on Feb. 2.

—Posted by Will Levith