lost

The last time viewers saw Locke, he was face to face with the man who ruined his life -- his father.

In a dramatic revelation, the same swindling con-man who stole Locke's liver was also the same man who pushed him out of a window. Because of his injury, Locke was confined to a wheelchair.

The unexpected twist in Locke's relationship with his father came late this season when Ben, himself now confined to a wheelchair, led Locke down a strange, darkly lit corridor and introduced him to the "man from Tallahassee."

Sitting in a chair, bound and gagged, the man in question was Locke's father.

Wednesday night's episode of "Lost" promises to bring a sense of closure to Locke's struggle with his daddy-issues. It will also introduce a new connection between two castaways that hardly anyone has seen coming.

But Locke isn't the only lostie with father issues - many of the other survivors of Oceanic Airlines flight 815's crash also have dark parental relationships.

• Jack's relationship with his father was front and centre for many of his flashbacks; his father Christian was a drunk and verbally abused Jack, who eventually had to fly to Australia to take his dead father's body home.
  
• Jack's half-sister Claire may not have endured verbal abuse by Christian, but she was abandoned by him and grew up without a father.
  
• Kate killed her biological father Wayne, who also abused her mother, in a house explosion. The father that raised her, Sam Austen, even alerted the police to her location while she was on the lam.
  
• Hurley's dad, David, left him when he was a child, only to return to his life after Hurley won the jackpot.
  
• Jin has lied about his fisherman father, claiming he was dead, while Sun's disapproving father is a business tycoon and backroom mobster.
  
• In the first two seasons Michael struggled with being a father to Walt, whose adopted father gave him away after Walt's biological mother's death.
  
• The fate of Desmond's biological father is unclear, and his fiancé's father, Charles Widmore, completely despised him and would not let him marry Penelope.

Sawyer, aka James Ford, also has a complicated and troubled family history. His father committed suicide after killing his wife, all of which he witnessed as a young child. The incident was inspired by a con-man, the real "Sawyer," and by taking on his name, the young James Ford pursued the con-man in skewed take on a parental relationship.

Fertility has already been proven to be a grave issue for the Others on the island, with mothers unable to give birth and dying during pregnancy. The idea of lineage and disaster is already a major theme - perhaps there is a greater theory going on in the background of "Lost" that hasn't been fully revealed yet.

It could be the mysterious "Jacob," the one with his ominous "list," that turns out to be the father-figure to all the inhabitants of the island.

All of the Others revere Jacob -- whoever he is -- and his name is even included in the brainwashing materials that Karl (Alex Rousseau's young boyfriend) was bombarded with in a mysterious prison-like room.

Many of the "fathers" that have made appearances in the show are also very rich, and very, very powerful.

Most notable is Charles Widmore, whose fictional company "Widmore Industries" has had its logo featured in the background of many scenes during the show, including advertisements and birth control tests. Some theories go so far to suggest the Widmore Corporation built all the hatches on the island for the Dharma Initiative.

Sun's father, Mr. Paik, and his company, Paik Heavy Industries, were mentioned in the novel "The Bad Twin." The book, released last summer as a fictional companion to "Lost," highlighted an interesting business deal between Paik and Widmore.

Paik's relationship with Dharma grew deeper with a clue hidden on thehansofoundation.org (the fictional website for the Hanso Foundation, the bankroller for Dharma), that suggested Hanso teamed up with "Paik Motors" to build something.

With all these father-figures and their companies working in the background, as well as all these characters struggling with father-issues, expect "Lost" to reveal more about these conflicts in the next upcoming episodes.

After all, as the show shifts more of its focus to the lives of the Others, including Ben's upcoming flashback episode in a couple of weeks, family lineage just might explain more island secrets.