Once again Lost’s Jack is on his way to the mysterious Island, and once again he’s bringing a corpse with him. This time he’s going on purpose, and the corpse is part of the plan, but I like the motif.

I’m reading a lot of speculation online, though, about whether or not we should expect John Locke (played by Terry O’Quinn, who I loved before you even knew who he was) to get some kind of resurrection down the line. A fair question, though of course he doesn’t need to be un-killed to continue to be on the show. Has there even been a better show than Lost for keeping the actor of a dead character employed?

If you’re wondering if Locke’s going to stay dead, I’d remind of two things: 1. It’s still not exactly clear what “dead” means on the Island, and 2. Jack’s dead-but-recurring father, Christian Sheppard, arrived at the Island in a coffin, too.

Every time I think the science-vs-faith relationship between Jack and Locke has wandered too far, the writers find a way to bring it back into focus. Jack may be able to frame his mission to Go Back to the Island pragmatically by telling himself it’ll stop people getting killed, but how will he change if returning Locke to the Island proves that Locke was right (to whatever degree) all this time?

In these first two episodes, we’re seeing the writers hide the question of how Jack explains all this to himself — I imagine so that we can see him answer these questions to Kate, in a hurry, because “there isn’t time to explain!”  — while actor Matthew Fox creates this great sense that Jack has made up his mind without completely understanding what’s happening. That’s a kind of faith.