BTW...what if Jack's dad is the monster. A shape-shifting monster.

I mean, even if his father did come back to life, where in hell would he get ice cubes on the island?

Maybe there's a hotel with an ice machine on the other side.

Right -- where the French people are laughing about the practical joke they played on the Americans.

You'd think that someone might propose doing a perimeter check of the island, at least.

There are probably a finite number of Ontological Mysteries available, falling in to three classes: the world is strange, or the people are strange, or there are strange people in a strange land.

My guess is that the island is last one. Jack was hallucinating the ice cubes (he is strange) the hallucinations were particularly vivid (the strangeness of the island at work.)

I'm reminded of The Forbidden Planet, with a lighter reliance on the Tempest paralells.

eta: Do I worry about a spoiling a movie made in 1956? Well, it doesn't hurt to whitefont:

There was a machine on the planet that magnified and made physical the impulses in a person's id. This manifested as a large invisible creature that liked to stomp on things and batter stuff down. My parallel from this to Lost is there may be some magical something on the island that works similarly.

Eek, Identity was the one of the first possible explanations I thought of. I actually wouldn't mind it, if I hadn't already thought of it... but since I have, I don't want them to do it. Unless it's all happening in Walt's head as a result of his three traumas in close succession. Maybe all the survivors are caught up in Walt's traumatized imagination; that could be fun. Derivative, but fun. Is there anything that isn't derivative?

I've got a theory, some kid is dreaming, and we're all caught in his wacky Broadway nightmare...

If it's Forbidden Planet , who's the innocent girl? Kate? Or is that taking it too far?

Interesting that "Kate" means "pure" when the character clearly isn't... unless it's a reference to her innocence of the crime she was accused of. I think the whole fake-arm-Kimble thing was meant to show us that she's innocent, otherwise why give the farmer a prosthetic at all?

Well, I'm not convinced she's innocent of anything. She has done something illegal/criminal in her past. Her statement to Sawyer "you don't know women who are exactly like me" indicates that she's definitely got an edge to her.

I think she killed someone, perhaps in self-defense, or she was high at the time, but I believe she did commit a serious crime.

Pardon the serial, but I just thought: If the island is turning everyone into the opposite of what they've been before, then shouldn't Jack become callous and selfish, or else ineffectual a la "I'm a lifeguard!" Boone. He's always been a help-the-helpless hero type.

And why isn't the island mojo working on everyone? Dang, I wish I'd been taping this thing.

If it's Forbidden Planet , who's the innocent girl? Kate? Or is that taking it too far?

I think it might be too far. The only paralell I see to the movie is the possibility of an id-magnifier.

I'm going with the first one for now, Gus. Abrams has said he likes to write about "ordinary people in extraordinary situations," and Jack's hallucinations can be explained away as him being sleep-deprived.