PASADENA, Calif. -- It's the beginning of the end as ABC's "Lost" returns next week for its final season. A recap hour airs at 8 p.m. Tuesday on WTAE, followed by a two-hour season premiere.

When the show's last episode aired in May 2009, viewers were left to ponder:

• What became of Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) when she used a rock to pound on a bomb after getting dragged, tangled in chains, into a pit?

• Presuming the bomb detonated -- the screen did go white -- did the explosion do what Jack (Matthew Fox) said it would: Re-set time and prevent Oceanic 815 from crashing on the island in the first place?

• John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) turned out not to be Locke, who died and evidently was not resurrected. Instead it was some sort of unnamed island entity (the smoke monster's cousin, perhaps?), previously seen as The Man in Black (Titus Welliver), who took the form of Locke.

• Ben (Michael Emerson) stabbed Jacob (Mark Pellegrino), angry at him for allowing faux Locke to meet Jacob the first time he asked, even though Ben was on the island asking to see Jacob for decades.

ABC and producers have been cagey about discussing the final season, only showing a few snippets of scenes in promos that tease the season premiere.

"The premiere is definitely like, 'What? Wait. Let me read that part again. What?' " said Jorge Garcia, who plays Hurley, at a press conference earlier this month.

"Big though, too," said Josh Holloway, who plays Sawyer. "It felt like a finale. That scale."

Emilie de Ravin, who returns as Claire after sitting out a season, said she had to read the script three times before "it actually made sense. Totally does, but just getting my mind wrapped back into it."

"It's not helping," joked executive producer Damon Lindelof, reacting to the cast's initial confusion. He wrote the season premiere with fellow executive producer Carlton Cuse. "Get ready to scratch your heads, America!"

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