I count myself among the millions of fans who are jonesing for a new hit of Lost. As the painfully long-awaited February 2 premiere of the sixth and final season looms closer, ABC has released a set of (surely clue-filled) teaser pictures. (You can view the full-sized pictures here.)

Having been done many times just in recent years by Battlestar Galactica, House, The Sopranos, (and technically South Park,) tribute renditions of Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper with a show's cast members are almost cliché at this point. However, this is Lost, and as always, nothing is without reason.

The first thing that's noticeable, is that a conventional interpretation of assuming that each character represents a specific Apostle is probably moot, as besides having one too many, some of them are placed in different positions in each of the photos. However, the "constants" (to use Lost terminology) are bounty hunter/Jacob friend, Ilana, age-less Richard, Sayid, Kate, Sawyer, Jack, Jin, and Frank. I'm not sure if that has any significance, but I could be wrong.

At the center, (of course,) is John Locke in the position of Christ. With a background of a tattered wall, representing the remnants of the fateful DHARMA Swan hatch, human remains, and debris, it is clear that despite a possibly altered present, that the island will still be the central theater in this epic drama.

What, then, does it mean?

It seems to me, that Locke and Jack are the key to these pictures. It could be meant to imply that season 6 will focus on the martyrdom and resurrection of John Locke. (That is, if those events even occur in that order.) Last season, we saw what we THOUGHT was the resurrection of Locke. Of course, that turned out to be one of the biggest swerves in TV history as it was the evil "Man in Black" using Locke's visage to manipulate everyone.

What relevance does that have now? It could mean that season 6 will bring about the ACTUAL resurrection of Locke. Themes of Locke being a Christ-like figure are hardly new to the Lost mythos. In fact, in a recent example, just before Jack and the other Losties leave the States to go back to the Island (with Locke's dead body in tow, no less,) the painting of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio's The Incredulity of Saint Thomas is brought into focus as it hung in the DHARMA Lamp Post station in Los Angeles. In the painting, even as he examines his wound, Saint Thomas the Apostle remains stubborn, resisting the notion that Christ has indeed returned from the dead. 

Jack had always been the "man of science" versus Locke's "man of faith." They were always portrayed as polar opposites in the ideological approach to the Losties' time on the island. Therefore, does one need to guess too hard as to which Lost character is occupying Thomas the Apostle's place in the "Last Supper" photo? Yeah...

Has Jack lost what faith he gained? While in the last season, Jack seemed to be far more passive and ready to believe in Locke's divine magic, he did start to pick things up in the end and once again became that proactive Alpha Male that had to "fix" everything. Perhaps, it wasn't the Losties' "destiny" to detonate that hydrogen bomb, which (we can speculate) has created this alternate Lost universe. (Where dogs and cats live together and Biff owns all of Hill Valley, I presume?)

I would be interested in hearing what our loyal readers have to say about this puzzle. (At least the ones that are not going waste time posting that you "don't watch the show" like we care what you don't watch.) Is there some meaning to these pics even deeper than "Locke the Messiah?"

Perhaps, if anything, it's that having seen Richard Alpert in 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, and 00's, it's very clear that he's a BIG fan of the same collared shirt with sleeves rolled up. He threw us a bit of a curveball in the pictures with the red one, but really...