Another ‘Lost’ Mystery: How Does The Island Affect Body Hair?

As everyone knows by now, watching Lost is akin to having Damon Lindelof mount a stepladder week in and week out, and proceed to engage in vigorous intercourse with the squishy contents of your skull. Last night’s episode was no exception, offering us [spoiler alert] a flash-forward to Matthew Fox’s Jack, who, in a shower-reveal scene reminiscent of a gender-reversed “Bobby’s return” from Dallas, is shown to be living with Kate back home. This Jack, however, sported not the rabbi-envy-inducing beard teased in Season Three’s finale. Now bear with us, if you will, as we tumble even further down the manscaping rabbit hole:What the hell happened to his chest hair? As the above diagram clearly demonstrates, Jack has always sported a generous amount of torso fur. But in yesterday’s completely gratuitous towel sequence, he possessed not a single sprouting. Bald as a geisha! There’s more: Later on in the episode, Juliet is required to shave Jack’s belly as he preps for an appendectomy. Related? Not? And why do we never see completely gratuitous sequences of Hurley in the nuthouse wearing only a towel? Has Hurley’s body hair been fluctuating, too? The mystery deepens!

[Screengrabs: squarehippies.com, superherofan.net]

• Lost [ABC]