Locke

BACKSTORY John Locke was an unremarkable foster child whose biological father reentered his life only long enough to con a kidney out of him. He bounced through jobs (store clerk, house inspector, collections supervisor at a box company) and finally found solace with Helen (Katey Sagal) — he even proposed marriage — but his unwavering devotion to his emotionally manipulative father proved his undoing, and she left him. Sometime after, Locke was paralyzed from the waist down (the how and why remain a mystery); undeterred, his passionate desire to find his true destiny took him to Australia four years after his accident for an aborted spiritual ''walkabout'' in the outback.

ISLAND LIFE SO FAR The moment Locke awoke on the island, his legs were miraculously healed; he soon became the castaways' go-to hunter and the island's greatest disciple. His abiding (if vaguely defined) faith in the tropical locale's Grand Plan often put him at odds with the pragmatic Jack, and it even inadvertently killed his personal Padawan, Boone. But what finally ran Locke's faith ragged was the hatch, that mysterious underground lair that housed a map of the island and a blasted button that needed to be pressed every 108 minutes or else...something. For nearly a month, Locke blindly insisted on playing along, until he and fellow castaway Mr. Eko discovered yet another hatch that seemingly exposed the button to be part of one big psychological experiment. Except it wasn't: When last we saw Locke, the counter had reached zero and the hatch was in the process of imploding. As Desmond flicked the switch, bathing the island in that ominous, blinding white light, Locke seemed a stricken shell of his former self.

BURNING QUESTION FOR SEASON 3 ''Now that the hatch is gone, what is John Locke's new purpose?'' asks Lindelof.

WE PREDICT With Jack at least temporarily out of the picture, the survivors of Oceanic 815 turn to Locke for guidance, but he may not be entirely himself. Maybe that blast will have him sprouting new hair?

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