[cassiel]

I somehow foresee John putting a bullet into old man Coop's brain. This could be the result of a flash-backy lifetime of being screwed over by people that he trusts. The flashpoint of the new John Locke begins with his assassination of the undercover cop in the forest. The gatherer becomes the hunter, a new predator is born, Locke becomes a driven man, but a lost soul. His new predatorial outlook on life leads him to seek out his 'father' for a reckoning. Their final meeting results in a tearful Locke shooting his father. The ensuing melee sees him falling into a situation which causes the lost of the use of his legs. Upon recovery he understands that a darker edge demands a price, and he begins to see the need to temper aggressive resolve with a gentle hand. He struggles to comes to terms with this but somehow fails. He takes a job in a box company and decides to spend his life in a quiet isolation from his past, while trying alternative methods to regain the use of his legs - he considers spiritual healing, Asian medicines, acupuncture, Aborigine spiritualism, etc. The man who lands on the island, is so jarred by his newfound mobility he finally becomes the man who know and love - he successfully finds the common ground between the hunter and the gatherer, with the odd crisis of faith, of course.

I think it will be a car accident in a chase sequence which does in his legs. But if the show writers want to toss in a doozy they'll make his infirmity a mental thing brought on by his guilt at killing his father, which means that the island didn't really heal him, it was all in his head. The traumatic experience of a plane crash broke his self-inflicted conditioning.