'Lost' return reveals answers, but more questions

Here's the good news about Lost's return tonight: As the island castaway drama builds toward its end next season, there are more answers coming on TV's most complex and occasionally irritating series.

The bad news? It may be even tougher for newbies to join in.

For instance: In the first episode of tonight's jolting two-hour jump back into the Lost world, we meet the guy who taped the instructional videos explaining the island's various stations back in season two. Tonight, we learn he's not such a nice guy, and he knows a secret that helps explain how the island disappeared at the end of last season and why so many powerful forces are fighting over it.

And in true Lost tradition — a habit producers likely picked up from show co-creator J.J. Abrams (Alias, the new Star Trek film) — every answer breeds at least two more good questions.

The storytelling amps up to a breathtaking pace this season, with revelations dropping like no-name extras on the island. Here are a few thoughts you'll have fun picking at tonight:

• Is the island alive, or under the control of someone (or something) else that is?

• Is the island moving through space? Or time? Or both?

• Why do no-name castaways who appear on camera have such a short shelf life?

• Why did producers make Matthew Fox (playing hero Jack Shephard) wear the fakest-looking beard seen since the felt fabric on old school G.I. Joe dolls?

As a reminder: Most of last season — disrupted by the Hollywood writers' strike — jumped between the present-day life of six castaways who made it off the island and the story of how they got away, thwarting a crew of mercenaries sent to find the spot by a wealthy villain.

When the show picks up tonight, hero Jack is going along with a plan by onetime nemesis Ben Linus (Michael Emerson) to return to the island with the five other castaways and the body of another Lostie who came for them, John Locke (Terry O'Quinn). Now, the action alternates between Jack and Ben's efforts and a time three years earlier, when the folks still on the island had to cope with the impact from the island's, um, dislocation.

Good thing our castaways have physicist Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies), one of three people left from the mercenary crew, to explain things. And his answer — which comes from a past connection to the land previously unknown — is so cool and momentous, it can't possibly be revealed here.

Let's just say Faraday's explanation helps make sense of many confusing things in Lost's past mythology, including the series' fondness for jumping back and forth through time and space with little or no explanation. And it will make sorting through all the old episodes on ABC.com or DVD even more delicious.