Lost Hiatus

I've had time to digest the finale and cope with the fact that Lost wont return until 2010. The questions are still swirling in my brain and will be for the rest of the year. Since this is a Lost blog and there is not a lot of Lost news, the posts will come fewer and further between. Do not fear though I'll get you any and all Lost news as soon as becomes available. As well as some extra stuff over the coming months. So be sure to check back in regularly and if you follow me on twitter ( _Lost_Island ) you'll receive updates every time I have something new.

By the way, I'll be re-watching the entire series leading up to the season six premier. I hope you are too. Enjoy the hiatus!

Juliet: Dead or Alive?

Juliet news from EW:

And now for some news that should surprise no one: ABC is expected to announce tomorrow that it has picked up a reboot of the camptastic '80s thriller V and that Lost heroine Elizabeth Mitchell is a full-time castmember.

Translation: She will not be returning to Lost as a series regular.

However, before you go declaring Juliet DOA from last week's detonated hydrogen bomb, I should point out that this piece of scoop comes with a big but attached: Mitchell's Lost days are not done. Multiple sources confirm that the actress is expected to appear in an unspecified number of episodes next season, so it's entirely possible Juliet survived Jughead and her absence will be explained in another way. (Check out Doc Jensen's column this Wednesday for a comprehensive Juliet theorypalooza.)

I for one am still under the belief Juliet did not die from the bomb, but I also assumed she would still be a regular. Either way I hope it goes better than the last time a Dr. Burke left an ABC show.

The Dharma Initiative

In USA Today they have an article of the University of Michigan and it's recent appearance in Hollywood. This is what they had to say about Lost. Here is the rest of the article.

...Another critical hit, Lost, wraps up its season with a two-hour show on Wednesday. But unlike House,Lost decided to go ahead with its Michigan connection without any input from the school — a move that at first was a tad unsettling for Doyle, the film office chief.

She found out about it while watching the show.

"I was sitting in the living room with my husband and said 'Oh my goodness!' I won't quote exactly what I said. (It was) more colorful than that," she said, laughing.

The university talked about it, but opted against reaching out to the Lost producers to discuss the use of the name.

"We decided to let it ride," Doyle said. "As time goes on, it's more apparent they're (the Dharma Initiative) not horrible people."

But, much like the show itself, they're plenty mysterious.

According to an "orientation film" played during a past Lost episode, Dharma is described as being the brainchild of the DeGroots, who "imagined a large-scale communal research compound where scientists and freethinkers from around the globe could pursue research in meteorology, psychology, parapsychology" and other disciplines.

During this season, viewers finally are getting a better idea of how Dharma-types lived and worked on the island setting of the show, which through its time-travel trippiness sent its main characters 30 years into the past.

With Dharma at the forefront of the current season, the Michigan references have been coming at a greater frequency, with a Dharma resident in a recent episode threatening to "call Ann Arbor" to settle a dispute.

Lost executive producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof stress that the decision to base the Dharma folks at a 1970s-era U of M should be viewed as a compliment. After all, Cuse said, they chose the school because of its reputation as "a real center of intellectuality."

"There was an incredibly vital university academic community, and we just felt like acknowledging that by making the characters from there was just kind of cool and very sort of appropriate for the time," he said.

Cuse and Lindelof say to expect the Dharma-Michigan connection to play a significant role as the show heads into next season, its sixth and final one.

The Future of Locke

Terry O'Quinn talks about the future of John Locke:

Viewers of ABC's "Lost" saw the body of a dead John Locke in the show's Season 5 finale Wednesday night. However, a very alive Terry O'Quinn, who plays Locke, was in Spartanburg on Thursday to play in the BMW Charity Pro-Am at Carolina Country Club.

Between holes, O'Quinn was happy to talk to fans about golf, the finale and the fate of his character in the show's final season, beginning in 2010.

O'Quinn called himself an OK golfer, saying he would be happy with an 85 or under.

"I played well on the front. A little bit rough on the back," he said as his group neared hole 17.

O'Quinn said he hasn't seen the finale and didn't know how the story was edited.

"Don't tell me," he joked. "I want to be surprised."

In the season cliffhanger, a bomb, which could prevent Flight 815 from ever crashing on the mysterious island, was detonated.

As for his character, O'Quinn says he's really gone. Locke's dead body was rolled out of a metal box toward the end of the two-hour episode, baffling islanders who had been following a Locke imposter. Exactly who is now occupying Locke's body wasn't revealed. O'Quinn said it would be "a good guess" to assume it's a man seen with the infamous Jacob in the beginning of the episode.

"I think, unfortunately, I think it's ended for Locke. But I'm still there, as far as I know," O'Quinn said. "I don't know how it's going to end for this other guy. I'm sad. I miss John Locke, poor guy. He was a pawn."

O'Quinn is gearing up to play a new character when the sixth season begins next year. As for the rest of the story line, he swears he has no idea.

"Your guess is honestly as good as mine is," he said. "There's going to be some confrontation that will somehow, I'm guessing, have to do with Jack or Locke or something like that. I think these guys are just setting up good and evil. It's the way Locke said in the very beginning of the show: One is light and one is dark. Two sides. I think that's what we've got."

Go Up State

Juliet Will Be In Season Six

Latest From Watch with Kristen:

Can you tell me if Elizabeth Mitchell will appear on Lost in season six? She was my favorite actress on the show, and I think after last night, I may have died a little on the inside. Thank you!
Sources confirm that Elizabeth Mitchell will appear on Lost next year. But does that mean Juliet's alive and a going concern on the show? Well, we're meant to debate all summer who lived and died in the Lost finale, but you will note that she fell hundreds of feet into the waiting arms of a hydrogen bomb. You'll have to do your own calculations about her realistic prospects for survival—there are many variables to include in your equation!—but we've been asked nicely not to show you our answers. Good luck.

Well I personally believe that Juliet along with the rest of the 77 crew caused the Incident but blowing up the nuke and the energy that was released time warped them, just like Marty and Doc Brown, back to the future! So I think she'll be alive in season six not just in flashbacks or through reanimation. So what's you're theory on Juliet, is she dead or alive? Either way it's good to hear she'll still be on the show.

The Incedent Review

The Incident started around 1845, when the Black Rock was coming to the Island. We meet Jacob for the first time, and we meet the yang to his yin. The man who is not Jacob questions why he continues to bring people to the Island insisting it always ends the same. Jacob comes back with “It only ends once. Everything before that is just progress.” The other man tells Jacob how much he wants to kill him and tells him he'll find a 'loophole' eventually. Through the course of the episode we see that Jacob visits several of the flight 815 survivors at pivotal moments. He visits Jack after the surgery he told Kate about in the Pilot. He shows up at a convenient store after Kate and Tom steal a lunchbox. Jacob distracts Sayid, while Nadia walks into the road and gets hit by a car. He's waiting for Hurley with Charlie's guitar case when Hurley gets out of jail. Jacob visits Jin and Sun at their wedding and tells them to never take their love for granted. He gives Sawyer the pen he used to write the letter to Anthony Cooper. And after his father threw him out the window, Jacob brought John Locke back to life. There is one other person Jacob visits off Island and that's Ilana. She's in a hospital, but Jacob comes to her requesting her help. She tells Jacob she's been waiting on him. With flashbacks out of the way time to move onto the meat and potatos of The Incident. In 1977, Ellie, who we found out was leading the Others at the time, and Richard helped Jack and Sayid get the bomb, but that's as far as they're going. This leaves Jack and Sayid to make their way out through Dharmaville. When blending in doesn't work out thanks to Rodger Linus, a gunfight breaks out. Sayid gets shot, but Hurley saves the day, again. What would a season finale be without Hurley saving the day with a Dharma Van? Meanwhile, Kate convinces Juliet that they need to go back to the Island because Jack is going to detonate the nuke. Once Sawyer, Juliet, and Kate return to the Island, they run into some old friends. It's Rose, Bernard, and Vincent! They've been living “off-the-grid” in retirement on the beach. They are very happy and want to be left alone. Sawyer, Kate, and Juliet catch up with Jack and the rest of the gang on their way to the Swan station. This doesn't go well, Sawyer tries talking some sence into Jack, but they end up in a fist fight. Juliet then changes her mind and wants to help Jack, all over the way Sawyer looked at Kate. Eventually, Jack will get just about everyone on board with this idea and they head into the construction area to detonate the nuke. This leads to another shootout with the Dharma drones. A handful get away, but by this point the electromagnetic energy is sucking anything metal down the hatch. A chain gets caught around Juliet and pulls her into the pit. Sawyer tries to save her, but after a tearful goodbye she lets go. In 2007, Ben goes along with John's plan to kill Jacob with little resistance. The group for flight 316 tries to get Lapidus into their club, but he's not so sure about them. He sees what's in their box, but he wishes he hadn't. They make their way to the cabin, but Jacob is not there. They burn the cabin to the ground. Both groups make their way to the statue, John and the Others make it their first. John and Ben go in to see Jacob. The Arjians show up and ask Richard, “What lies in the shadow of the Statue?” He answers in Latin, but it translate to, “He who will save us all.” Then they show Alpert, what's in the box. Just like last season's finale, we see it's a dead John Locke. The episode ends with Juliet at the bottom of the shaft. She wakes up and beats on the nuke until it flashes white and Lost season 5 ends. And that's what you need to know so you're not lost when it comes to Lost.

What You May Have Missed

There's quite a bit here but wow was it a big episode. Also coming soon, a review and some thoughts toward the upcoming season. Just because the season ended doesn't mean we have to stop obsessing. Here's what you may have missed:

• Lost uses black and white to show opposites, good and evil, yin and yang, such as in chess or backgammon or the stones found with Adam and Eve in the caves(speaking of Adam and Eve could they be Rose and Bernard) Jacob wore a white shirt while Man #2(as he's credited on imdb) wore black. So this would lead us to believe Jacob is good and Man #2 is evil. (I'm kinda routing for Man #2)
• In the opening scene, the Black Rock is coming over the horizon, which puts this flashback around 1845.
• The boy with the toy airplane in Kate's flashback, was Tom, Kate's childhood sweetheart. She went to great lengths to get that toy airplane back.
• The license plate of the truck young Kate and Tom are standing in front of has the number 23 in it.
• Patsy Cline's music is heard in the convenience store. The music of Patsy Cline appears in every single one of Kate's flashbacks.
• When Jacob visits John, he was reading this Flannery O'Connor book of short stories. Published posthumously, the book was written when O'Connor was in the final stages of her illness and many of the short stories deal with the end, with religious-sounding titles like "Revelation" and "Judgment Day."
• Ben admitted to being a liar, so it's possible his claim to John Locke that his sign is a Pisces is just a lie. Either that or a continuity error, because we know he was born on December 19, which makes him a Sagittarius.
• In Aaron's crib, Sun found a ring marked D.S. This was Charlie's old ring that he left behind for Aaron. D. S. stands for Dexter Stratton, the paternal grandfather of Megan Pace.
  
• In Jack's flashback, Jacob visits him right after the surgery he told Kate about in the Pilot.
• After surgery, Jack's snack of choice was an Apollo Bar. The Fake Apollo Bar has been seen in many situations on and off Island.
• "What lies in the shadow of the statue?" "He who will protect us" or "He who will save us all." These are the translations of the line of Latin Richard gives as the answer.
• When it's revealed that John Locke's body is in Ilana's box, the camera angles and movements are identical to the same scene in last season's finale when John Locke's body was revealed in the coffin.
• Jacob spent many years weaving the threads together for this tapestry. It contains two ancient Greek sayings from the book The Odyssey. The first is: "May the gods grant thee all that thy heart desires." The second is: "May the gods give you happiness."
  

The Incident Sneak Peaks

Team Darlton with The NY Post

The NY Post sat down with Lindelof and Cuse for an interview and Team Darlton gave some serious insight to the shape of things to come:

This season of "Lost" has been the story of how five of the Oceanic 6 - all but young Aaron - returned to the island, which has jumped back in time 30 years.

When four of those five - Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Hurley (Jorge Garcia) and Sayid (Naveen Andrews) -- finally are reunited with Sawyer (Josh Holloway), Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell), Jin (Daniel Dae Kim), Miles (Ken Leung) and the now dead Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies) - back on the island, they find themselves 30 years in the past.

Heading into the two-hour season finale on Wednesday, May 13, Sun (Yunjin Kim) is in the present with Ben (Michael Emerson) and Locke (Terry O'Quinn), who are battling over who will lead the island. "In the grand mapping out of things, one would assume Sun has a larger role to play," says Lindelof.

Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sayid are all in 1977. Sawyer, Juliet, Sun's husband, Jin, and Miles have made a home for themselves there among The Dharma Initiative, a group that's set up camp to study the island and construct research facilities. Sawyer, Jin and Miles are all part of Dharma's security team, but that cover has just been blown.

Dharma has enemies on the island, The Hostiles, so the Initiative is a bit jumpy. The arrival of Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sayid upsets the balance; exposed as outsiders, Sawyer and Juliet are forced to arm themselves and fight their way out.

Meanwhile, Jack and Kate must decide their next course of action.

"There are two fundamental approaches to the show. There's the Jack approach, which posits that there's no real explanation for what's going on. Or there's the Locke approach, which assumes that everything on the show is happening for a very specific reason. We are very strong supporters of the Locke approach," says Lindelof.

The reason some folks have traveled back to 1977 was explained by memory-challenged physicist Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies). Faraday thinks people might be the variables in time-travel equations. That means it might be possible to diffuse the electromagnetic energy that brought down Oceanic 815 by exploding a hydrogen bomb (named "Jughead") that just happens to be on the island, allowing the past - and thus the future -- to be changed. Faraday dies before he has a chance to test that theory out, now it's up to Jack, Kate, Sawyer and the rest to decide what to do - try to change the future or let it ride.

"Not everybody is interested in Faraday's mission," says Lindelof. "It's a very divisive issue and one that the audience is feeling too. It would be a big cheat, erasing the last five years of the show, and making it so that we never came to this island in the first place."

Jack, however, has already expressed interest in Faraday's mission, while Kate is clear she wants to stick with the life she has. Regardless of what Jack and crew decide, next season will find the show's core characters all back on the island resolving why they landed on the island in the first place.

In the finale, more will be revealed about such mysterious symbols as the four-toed statue and the Egyptian hieroglyphics, says Lindelof.

The show has been a wild and often confusing ride, but Lindelof and Executive Producer Carlton Cuse say they know exactly where it's all headed.

"That was a conversation that started back between seasons one and two of the show," says Lindelof. "We are following the plan pretty much to the letter, although there is room for improvisation." Lindelof says next season - which will be the Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning series' last - will bring things full circle.

"Season six will feel a lot like season one," says Lindelof. "The focus comes back to the characters with whom we began. We've been winnowing away everyone else who came along. The Tailies are gone, only Miles [Ken Leung] is left of the Freighter Folk and only Juliet [Elizabeth Mitchell] is left of The Others. We're getting down to the end now."

"The metaphor we like to use is that this is a road trip. We know we intend to end up in New York City, but maybe we'll pick up a hitchhiker or stop at a bar and get drunk along the way," says Cuse.

"And then linger there for six episodes," jokes Lindelof.

Michael Emerson's EW Interview

(Artwork from Flickr)

Michael Emerson gives us entertainment weekly, so Entertainment Weekly sat down with Emerson from the set of the season 5 finale:

Michael Emerson rocks our world.

We just chatted up Lost's Ben Linus about the season-five finale, and according to Emerson, who's been a very reliable source in the past, we're in for just about the two craziest hours of television ever aired!

Find out why he says that Lost's last two hours of the year might truly be the most game-changing finale yet...

As a Lost fan yourself, how shocking did you find this season's finale? Is it more shocking or less that the season-three finale where we learned Jack and Kate got off the Island?
Ours is a show that specializes in big shock endings, but I think season five...None of the other shock endings left me wondering how the show goes on. We have two kinds of huge shocks at the end of this one. Each one alone would be enough to keep an audience eating its own soul for the whole hiatus, but with two, I don't know what you can do with that.

It's like nine months until season six! We're gonna die!
[Laughs] It's going to be a long one. I'm sorry.

It's OK, just come to Comic-Con this summer and talk to us. Now, does Ben still have a plan?
I think Ben has a lot of layers of plans, but I think we're way off the main stem of anything that works for him. I mean, Ben's doing like moment-to-moment scrambling now.

Ben's role was always all-knowing evil overlord of the Island—and pardon me for using the word evil, I know that's debatable—but these days he seems very buffeted by circumstance. Will we see a different persona for him in season six?
Ben has tended to swing like a pendulum from positions of power to positions of questionable circumstance, but I think it's possible that we could have a wholesale change in how Ben ticks next season if the circumstances of the show are as altered [as they would seem to be]. If there's a wholesale set of new problems, Ben's role may shift at the same time. Actually, I'm curious to see. If Ben has a dramatic life in season six, I'll be curious to see what the nature of it is.

Ben tried and failed to kill Penny this season. Will he try again, or is he done with that effort?
I think he has bigger fish to fry. And I think he's still digesting what happened that day.

Getting his ass kicked?
Getting his ass kicked is all in a day's work—in fact, that's a strategy of his—but there's the business of how Penny escaped his wrath. What was the trigger? What was the thing that made that not happen? And what must he be thinking about it? We shall see.

Ben has tried and succeeded to kill Locke once this year. Would he try again, or does he believe Locke is untouchable, which Locke almost seems to believe about himself?
Yes, John Locke is certainly newly expansive and bold. He seems not to have any of his old vulnerabilities. I think Ben would think twice about attacking John Locke on a purely physical plane.

Are you already eating your soul over the finale? Any theories on those two giant shocks?

Lost's two-hour season finale airs next Wednesday at 8 p.m. on ABC. See you there!

EW

Lost: What You Need To Know

Lost: What you need to know for Follow the Leader

Questions Will Be Answered, But Not All of Them

Damon Lindelof tell us what we'll get answers to and what will be left unanswered. This is the latest from Watch with Kristen:

WHAT'S TO COME

Lost boss Damon Lindelof attended the excellent Juan-Manuel Rocha-hosted Comics on Comics event at Meltdown on Sunset tonight. He offered the assembled crowd several very interesting insights about the future of Lost.

VOTE NO ON MIDI-CHLORIANS: Damon gave us a sense of what kind of Lost questions will be answered, and which other mysteries won't explicitly be explained by the end of the series: "There are certain questions about the show that I'm very befuddled by like, 'What is the Island?' or 'What do the numbers mean?' We're going to be explaining a little more about the numbers, maybe significantly more about the numbers, but what do you mean by 'What do the numbers mean?' What is a potential answer to that question? I feel like you have to be very careful about entering into midi-chlorian territory...I grew up on Star Wars, I've seen the Star Wars movies hundreds of times, I can recite them chapter and verse, and never once did anyone ever say to me or did it occur to me to say, 'What is the Force, exactly? Can you explain that for me, better than Alec Guinness does?' I understand, 'When are we going to find out about Libby?' That's a very finite question. 'Who is Jacob?' OK, yes, we've been talking to this guy named Jacob, so those questions then should have answers, but 'What is the Island?' That starts to get into 'What is the Force?' It is a place. I can't explain to you why it moves through space-time, it just does. You have to accept the fact that it does." Can you live with that?

SURVEY SAYS, ZZZT! WRONG ANSWER: Regarding the approaching final season and possible fan reaction to the accompanying reveals, Damon says, "There isn't a perfect way to end the show, but the end inevitably approaches and so the show has to start answering more and more questions. To me the greatest thing about Lost, just in terms of writing it, was that [over the years] the show could ask a question, and everyone [watching] could say 'Here's what I think the answer to that is.' And next year we're basically going to spend the entire season telling you you're wrong. 'Here's the actual answer to that question.' And you're going to say, 'S--t, my answer was actually much better.' " Have you been satisfied or displeased with the answers we've gotten so far?

HOW IT ENDS: Just as an insight into Damon's mind (and thus a pointer to possible plans for the Lost series ender), you might be interested to know that the M*A*S*H finale is Damon's all-time favorite series conclusion.

MORE SERIES FINALE CLUES: Damon says that when the show ends, "All of the character resolutions will be very defined. There is going to be no cut to black. The show for me and Carlton [Cuse] and J.J. [Abrams] and all the people writing it—it's not about the Island. The Island is where it takes place. It's about this group of people who crashed on the Island on Sept. 22, 2004, and how they influenced the history of the Island in some ways and had a very significant and pivotal role to play there. You're going to see that role play out, and their fates will all be resolved by the end of the series—that's the story that we're telling. In terms of every little bit of minutiae about the Island itself...there will be questions [left unanswered] after the show [ends]."

LIBBY SAYS HI: Libby's story will not be wrapped up on the show. Says Damon, "I have learned that if you kill someone off the show, they are less likely to cooperate with you." Basically, Cynthia Watros is busy until further notice and they can't explain Libby without her, at least not in any way that shows her story rather than annoyingly tells her story. What's the takeaway for us fans? Next time you've got Damon cornered, don't waste your breath asking about Libby. Instead, bust his chops about another very important blonde: Claire! Where is that little minx, anyway?

THE SUM IS 108: This one goes out to all the Lostpedians out there. Damon said, "Here's the story with numbers. The Hanso Foundation that started the Dharma Initiative hired this guy Valenzetti to basically work on this equation to determine what was the probability of the world ending in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Valenzetti basically deduced that it was 100 percent within the next 27 years, so the Hanso Foundation started the Dharma Initiative in an effort to try to change the variables in the equation so that mankind wouldn't wipe it itself out." This information, in more convoluted form, was leaked out via the online games rather than explained on the show itself, says Damon, because, "That would be the worst thing ever. We have to make the show for the hardcore fans who care about the numbers, but we also have to make it for my mom, who just wants Sawyer to take his shirt off."

SO THERE: While discussing Wolverine and the role of canon in comic adaptations, Damon said, "At the end of the day, you can do anything you want [as a storyteller] so long as it's cool." Certainly applies to Lost too, don't you think?

E!Online

What You May Have Missed

• When Hurley and the gang first got back to the 70s, Hurley worried that someone might question him on something like, who's the President. Sawyer told him it's not a quiz, but that's exactly what question that Dr. Chang asks him.
• Eloise says, "All right let's get started." when Jack, Sayid, Richard, and her make it to the cave with the Jughead. It's also what she tells Jack and the others in the lamp post station before explaining how to get back to the Island.
• And what would an Episode of Lost be without at least one numbers reference. As they begin to dive in the sub, the captain calls for a check on engines 2 and 3. 23 being on of the Numbers.
  

The Incident Promo

Follow the Leader Review

Follow the Leader stayed entirely on Island, no off island flashes. It started with the return of John Locke to the others camp. He brought Sun and Ben with him, Sun asks Richard about Jin and the other survivors from 1977 and he tells Sun that he remembers them because they all died. Things are not going well in 1977, Jack and Kate get caught by the others and Sawyer and Juliet get caught by the Dharma Initiative. In the 1977 Others camp Ellie believes Daniel is her son and from the future so she goes along with Jack in trying to see out Daniels plan to change the future. Kate doesn't agree at all. In 2007, Locke, Richard, and Ben trek off in the jungle on a mystery trip. The three of them end up at the moment when John was skipping through time and had just been shot. Current John tells Richard what to say to past John. How did John know when to be there? Turns out the John has been talking to the Island and apparently Ben never talked to the Island. It also seems Ben has never seen Jacob either. In 77, Chang presses Hurley, Jin, and Miles about being from the future. Hurley needs to be quicker on his toes, because he cracks under the pressure and tells they're from the future. Chang agrees to evacuate the Island. In the Other's camp, Richard, Ellie, Jack, and Kate are on their way to the Jughead, when they run into an old friend. It's Sayid! He's not happy to hear that Kate and Sawyer saved Ben's life. Kate has also had enough of Jack's plan to change the future and she heads back to Dharmaville. Jack, Richard, Ellie, and Sayid head to the tunnels to retrieve the Jughead, unfortunately the Initiative has built their city over the bombs finale resting place. Sawyer and Juliet make a deal that they will tell all if they can get on the sub. So they get on the sub to go live happily ever after, however freckles once again throws a wrench in Sawyers plan when she shows up on the sub. Once again in 2007, John gives his people a speech, telling them that he's tried of taking orders from someone he's never seen, so Richard's going to take him to Jacob and everybody's going with. The episode ends on their pilgrimage to Jacob, John let's Ben in on his plan, he's going to kill Jacob.

Six Sneak Peaks for Follow the Leader!

Jack and Kate get caught by the Others:

Hurley needs to learn his history:

Sun talks to Lashes about Jin and 1977:

Kate and Jack discuss changing time:

Locke returns to the Others camp, this time will a purpose:

Sawyer gets the third degree:

Lost: What You Need To Know

Lost: What You Need To Know for The Variable

Twitchy's Last Episode

Team Darlton and the cast talk about Faraday and his part on Lost. This is from Access Hollywood:

“Lost” celebrated its 100th episode on Wednesday night with the death of a very important character – and producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof told TV Guide in a new interview that the death had launched the “the start of the final chapter of the entire series.”

(SPOILER ALERT: Stop if you haven’t seen the 100th episode!)

In the episode, Daniel Faraday – the time-travel expert physicist played by Jeremy Davies – returned to the island in 1977 from the Dharma Initiative’s headquarters in Michigan. Thinking that he and the Oceanic 6 were “variables” who could change the future, he tried to track down his mother, Eloise Hawking – only to be shot by her in the Others’ camp at the episode’s conclusion.

“It was an incredibly painful thing to kill this beloved character,” Carlton told TV Guide. “But we feel that’s what this show has to do. His death is kind of the culminating event in the entire season. It really ends one chapter and commences the start of the final chapter of the entire series. Once we explained that to Jeremy, while he was personally saddened that his full-time status on ‘Lost’ was coming to an end, he put the story above his own personal self.”

Damon seconded Carlton’s emotions, adding that Jeremy had taken the news well.

“When Carlton and I called Jeremy to explain what was going to be happening with Faraday, we’ve never had a more awesome exit interview with somebody on the show,” he said.

The character of the quirky scientist, who was introduced in Season 4, became a fan favorite, and the producers were quick to praise Jeremy’s work on the show.

“For us, Faraday really was the cornerstone of the fifth season – he really shined,” Damon said. “I can’t imagine what Season 5 would have looked like without Jeremy Davies. When you think about all the crazy stuff that had to come out of that guy’s mouth, for him to be as interesting and emotional and poetic as he was is really extraordinary.”

He’ll be missed by his castmates as well, though he may not be done with “Lost” – Carlton only said Jeremy’s “full-time” status was over, and dead characters have been known to reappear on the show.

“[He was] a great sensitive guy who got deep into his character. He really lived it,” Michael Emerson, who plays Ben Linus, told the mag.

And while his on-screen character was discouraged from playing piano by his disapproving mother, Jeremy had no problem bringing his tunes to the set.

“Most actors walk around with headphones, but Jeremy would walk around holding a miniature boom box,” Terry O’Quinn, who plays John Locke, added. “He always wanted to provide music for everyone — whether they wanted it or not.”

What Lies in the Shadow of the Statue

Another TV Guide report:

Lost fans will see the last angle of the ancient, Goliath four-toed statue on the two-hour May 13 season finale. “You’ve seen its foot. You’ve seen its back,” says exec producer Damon Lindelof. Now at long last, the face will be revealed. Michael Emerson, who plays Benjamin Linus, hopped on the computer and did some research of his own after he realized that the same figure is represented on wall carvings in the island’s underground temple. “She’s Taweret, the goddess of childbirth,” concludes Michael, referencing the pregnant, hippo-headed Egyptian deity. “That dovetails in pretty well with our themes, wouldn’t you say?” says Michael, who also discovered that whom Taweret mates with, and when, is of great relevance.

Lost Finale Scoop

The latest from tvguide:

The dead will walk again in Lost's two-hour season finale on May 13. Michael Emerson, who plays Ben Linus, tells me, “We see some people from the past. It keeps us speculating why certain people seem to be holding on and revisiting the living in some interesting ways.” Terry O’Quinn--whose John Locke is one of the undead, says the finale will help explain why John, as well as Jack’s father, Christian, came back to life on the island. “Someone thought they’d be useful,” teases O’Quinn. “Someone is using Locke to their ends.” So who do you think might be making a return appearance in the finale? Claire? Charlie? Charlotte? (What’s with all these C characters anyway?) And if Charles Widmore is Daniel’s father, who else might he have fathered on the island? Might Charlie and Charlotte have both been named after him?

Lost with Kimmel

Jokes, interviews, and a scene from Lost we didn't see, all on Kimmel:

Photos From Follow The Leader

Check out the rest of the promotional photos from Follow the Leader at Spoilertv.com.

The Official Lost Video Podcast

Follow The Leader:

Follow The Leader Promo

The Variable Review

Lost's 100^th episode, the Variable was a Daniel Faraday centered episode. We first see Daniel as a young boy playing the piano, Eloise points out Daniels gift and tells him he must focus on his work. The next time we see Daniel is at his college graduation, once again mommy tells him to focus on his work. They get into a bit of an argument, but that quickly ends when Daniel mentions his grand of 1.5 million dollars from one Charles Widmore. Eloise quickly give Daniels his time travel journal and leaves. Then we go back to the moment where Daniel sees the Oceanic plane on the bottom of the ocean floor. This is a pivotal scene for Lost because for the first time we learn who's telling the truth about the plane. Widmore shows up at Dan's and offers him a job on the frieghter and tells Daniel that the Island will heal him. He also tells Daniel that he was the one who put the plane at the bottom of the ocean. So it turns out Ben was not lying about this one, Widmore is the one who faked the plane crash. In one last flashback, Daniel comes full circle and is back to playing the piano and his mother comes in to tell him to go to the island and continue his research knowing what will happen to him if he does. Thirty years earlier Daniel comes back to the Island after seeing the new Dharma recruits. He tries to convince Pierre Chang that he is from the future and Chang needs to evacuate the Island because of the upcoming incident. Chang refuses to believe Daniel. Back at the Barracks Sawyer informs the gang that the jig is up, they're moving on, so it's back to the beach or commender the sub and head back to the main land. The vote ends up being for the beach, but Dan wants Jack and Kate to take him to the Others. After a shootout with some Dharma folks, they make it out of Dharmaville. Once in the jungle of mystery Daniels lays his plan out for Jack and Kate. Use the jughead to prevent the swan from being built, so Desmond will never end up in the swan, and will never cause Oceanic flight 815 to crash on the island. Once they get to the Others camp, Daniel goes in waving a gun in Richards face and gets shot by his mother Eloise. We find out that she knew all along that she was going to kill him and she pushed it to happen anyway. We also find out at the end of the episode something many people have been speculating, Charles Widmore is Daniels father. In next weeks episode Follow the Leader, Jack and Kate find themselves at odds over the direction to take to save their fellow island survivors, Locke further solidifies his stance as leader of "The Others," and Sawyer and Juliet come under scrutiny from the DHARMA Initiative.

What You May Have Missed

• In the first flashback, Daniel counts 864 beats on his metronome. 864 is 8 times 108. 8 is one of the numbers and 108 is the sum of all the numbers.
• The Numbers popped up again when we find out Charles Widmore's grand to Daniel was for 1.5 million pounds. 15 is one of the numbers
• And finally, when Faraday fulfills his destiny with Charlotte in 1977, she said that she's not allowed to have chocolate before dinner. She also said this in "This Place is Death" right before she died.