Lost (spoilers)

[MacGuffin]

DING-DONG, THE WITCH IS DEAD,
THE WICKED WITCH IS DEAD!

WHICH OL' WITCH?
THE WICKED WITCH.

DING-DONG, THE WICKED WITCH IS DEAD!!!

Hurley will be so sad now.

hmmm... he'll be sad, but I don't think she's dead.

I agree.  We have no reason to be certain that she is at this point.  Though she'll probably be unconscious long enough for confusion to reign.

"Lost" Star Finds New Show
Wed Apr 19, 2:55 PM ET

And another one bites the dust?

Try as the Lost writers might to keep a lid on series-shifting spoilers, when one of its stars is tapped to join another TV show, it would seem that that person's fate on the island is pretty much sealed.

(SPOILER ALERT: If you aren't interested in hearing about a possible death on Lost, read no further. And avoid the Internet for the next four weeks.)

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Cynthia Watros, who plays Hurley's love interest, Libby, has been cast in a CBS comedy pilot, calling into severe question her chances of making it out of Lost's second season alive.

Watros has signed on to star opposite Love Monkey's Tom Cavanagh in the sitcom My Ex-Life, centering on a divorced couple turned best buds who are sharing custody of their children. The show is aiming for a slot on CBS' fall schedule, which will be announced next month.

In what appears to be attempt to minimize revealing Lost plot points, the Reporter notes that Watros has committed to be a guest star and not a regular on the show. However, with her character being one of the two divorced parents in My Ex-Life, it seems that the guest star line is just a smoke screen.

Per usual, Lost producers aren't talking. They've already killed one regular this season--Shannon (Maggie Grace) was mistakenly gunned down by Ana-Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez)--but with tension mounting between the so-called Lostaways and the Others, it would be surprising if there wasn't at least one more grave to be dug on the island.

Watros is one of three full-time cast members to have joined Lost this season, along with Rodriguez and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Mr. Eko). The three were among the "Tailies," those who were in the rear of the plane and survived on the other side of the island.

Fans, for one, have long been speculating on who would be the next Tailie to go, with early rumor-mongering centering on Rodriguez as the marked woman. Rodriguez and Watros were both arrested on DUI charges last year. Watros copped a plea and lost her license, but Rodriguez, who faces potentially more serious legal trouble because she's on probation in another case, decided to fight the rap and is set to go to trial next week. Tabloid reports have suggested that Rodriguez is a disruptive force on the set, and her character has never endeared herself to Lost's die-hard fans after killing Shannon.

But producers sought to quell predictions of Ana-Lucia's demise--or at least create a misdirection--saying that her personal life would not affect her tenure on the show.

Further suggesting that Watros may be, well, lost forever, is the industry precedent of offing stars who land pilot gigs on other networks.

The most notable would be Drea de Matteo, who, despite proclamations to the contrary, met her demise on The Sopranos shortly after signing on to Joey. More recently, 24's Dennis Haysbert (President Palmer) announced last year he had joined the CBS drama The Unit. By the end of this season's first episode, President Palmer was dead.

Lost ends its second season with a special two-hour finale May 24. In the meantime, pray for Libby.

[Kal]

They said that before... I read it a week ago... but also somebody said that it was only a pilot so nothing was confirmed... so who knows.

How ironic is the whole thing... I was just thinking...

At the beginning of the episode when Episode is ALMOST killing Ana Lucia I thought it was going to happen and it didnt. When it didnt, I was like.. of course they are not killing her yet. Then she wants revenge, so she gets the gun from Sawyer to kill Henry. That gun ends up killing her because she doesnt have the guts to finish the job. Poor bitch.

[MacGuffin]

"Lost" Book Clues In Fans



Bad Twin has only been available for three days, but the book has already nabbed endorsements from two high-profile names: Sawyer and Hurley.

Hyperion Books released the mystery novel Tuesday, marking one small step for Lost promotional tie-ins and one giant leap from fiction to reality.

The book, written by fictitious Oceanic Flight 815 passenger Gary Troup—for those without their decoder rings, his name is an anagram of "purgatory"—is being billed as the last manuscript from the author, who supposedly dropped the book off at his publisher just days before perishing on the made-for-TV flight.

ABC announced plans to market the character's book last November and have since managed to crowbar in several scenes which find castaways perusing the manuscript, which miraculously managed to survive the crash, the ocean, the fires and the routine pillages by the seemingly illiterate Others with all its pages in tact.

Just as miraculously, the completed book also managed to find its way to a Disney-owned publishing house.

"We got this manuscript from this guy and we couldn't reach him," Hyperion president Bob Miller told the Associated Press. "He apparently got on this plane in Australia and has been lost at sea."

The book's cover features a tantalizing selling point for would-be Troup fans, declaring the mystery "His Final Novel Before Disappearing on Oceanic Flight 815."

The plot, pieced together for fans who may actually read the book and not just scan lines for clues pertaining to the series, centers on the detective Paul Artisan who is hired to track down the "bad twin" Zander Widmore by his "good twin" Cliff. Along the way, Artisan enlists the help of a good buddy who just so happens to be well-versed in biblical parables and metaphors on the meaning of life.

As expected, Bad Twin is chalk full of cheeky references to the primetime juggernaut, including several mentions of the 17th century philosopher John Locke (that's the sound of legions of Lost fans perking up), a makeshift boat named "Escape Hatch," allusions to life being complicated and unable to be boiled down to something as simple as, say, "a string of numbers," and of course, most of the action takes place on a mysterious—and fictional—island.

"As with every island, there was something slippery and mysterious about Peconciquot," the book reads, per an excerpt from the Toronto Sun. "It was connected to the larger world, and then again it wasn't. It had a logic of its own, a highly local mythology that made perfect sense within its confines yet fitted uneasily with the mind-habits of the world beyond its boundaries."

That clears that up.

For those fans wishing to check out more of Troup's work, they may want to dig up his first novel, The Valenzetti Equation. That is, if it actually existed they might. The book is described as centering on a mathematical equation which predicts the apocalypse and while no more specifics have been released, it's likely Lost fans could hazard an accurate guess as to which numbers may be involved in the solution.

Still, should fans decide to crack open Bad Twin, they'd be in good, albeit fake, company.

On Lost's Feb. 8 episode, Hurley pulled the immaculately preserved manuscript from the plane's wreckage and just this week, unlikely bookworm Sawyer was happened upon extolling the literary merits of the whodunit.

Of course, thinly-veiled as the novel may be, one mystery still remains: Who actually wrote it. While Stephen King and Ridley Pearson, both self-confessed fans of the show, have drawn speculation as the author, harsh critics dismiss the theory, claiming the tome is too poorly written to come from the mystery masterminds. Most likely, the book was a committee effort.

But for those who just aren't into the whole reality thing, an interview with Troup has been made available on Amazon.com.

Lost's season finale airs May 24.

[polkablues]

Of course, thinly-veiled as the novel may be, one mystery still remains: Who actually wrote it. While Stephen King and Ridley Pearson, both self-confessed fans of the show, have drawn speculation as the author, harsh critics dismiss the theory, claiming the tome is too poorly written to come from the mystery masterminds.

Thereby catapulting Dan Brown to the top of the speculation list.

[grand theft sparrow]

Of course, thinly-veiled as the novel may be, one mystery still remains: Who actually wrote it. While Stephen King and Ridley Pearson, both self-confessed fans of the show, have drawn speculation as the author, harsh critics dismiss the theory, claiming the tome is too poorly written to come from the mystery masterminds.

Thereby catapulting Dan Brown to the top of the speculation list.

There's an easy way to determine this.  If the last lines of each chapter sound like they would be good places to stick commercial breaks were it on TV, then it's Dan Brown. 

[Kal]

Interview: J.J. Abrams
The co-writer and director of M:i:III!

IGN FilmForce recently took part in a conference call interview with J.J. Abrams, the co-writer and director of Mission: Impossible III, his feature film helming debut. Abrams is currently one of the most powerful creative forces in U.S. television, having created such series as the powerhouse Lost, the departing Alias and the past hit Felicity.

Abrams spoke to the press about the rigors of making M;I:III, as well as what fans of Lost and Alias can look forward to:

Q: And with Lost, do you have to come with a season cliffhanger that will top the hatch in the last season?

Abrams: I can tell you that Damon Lindelof has done just that. The ending of this year of Lost blows the ending of last season out of the water. It is an incredible finale.

Q: But there has not been like a single thing... like last year, the hatch was sort of a dominant mystery. Now there is so many. What is the one thing that you can leave hanging?

Abrams: You will see what happens but I can tell you that a lot of it has been there and has been building from the beginning of this season. It is not out of the blue, but what happens at the very end of this year is... for me, it is like the greatest finale I have ever heard.

FUCK YEAH

[MacGuffin]

Lost in 'Lost'
By Bill Keveney, USA TODAY

One theory posits a huge psychological experiment. Another tinkers with numerical analysis. Other schools of thought examine collective consciousness, electromagnetism and theology.

An Ivy League seminar? Hardly. It's speculation about the meaning of Lost, the second-season ABC drama (tonight, 9 ET/PT). Devout online followers slide each episode under the microscope, seeking to answer questions that go far beyond if and when castaways will get off their mysterious island.

Though some fans would seem to be putting in the time necessary to earn a Ph.D. - and numerous Ph.D.s analyze the show - a CliffsNotes may be in order for new students. Lost follows the survivors of a Sydney-to-Los Angeles flight that broke apart and crashed on a tropical island. After encountering an inchoate "monster," a polar bear and other odd doings in the 2004 premiere, junkie rocker Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) asked a question that still consumes fans: "Where are we?"

Some devotees seek a unified theory that explains the mysterious island, why these particular people are there and why no rescuers have arrived more than a month after the crash.

The show's producers say that there is no single explanation and that a simple answer would leave viewers dissatisfied. "We go on record saying, 'Here's what it's not,' " says Damon Lindelof, who created Lost with J.J. Abrams (Alias, Mission: Impossible III).

Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, the executive producers who oversee Lost, say the survivors are not dead and trapped in some kind of purgatory. Nor does Lost take place as a dream or hallucination in one character's mind - a concept they call "the snow-globe theory," after the hospital drama St. Elsewhere, which was revealed in its 1988 finale to have all taken place in the snow globe of an autistic boy.

That doesn't deter cybersleuths who are enamored of those theories. "What's cool about the fan community is that it doesn't seem to care what we say or don't say," Lindelof says.

To encourage extensive analysis, Lindelof, Cuse and the writing staff have seeded Lost with so many clues that they can't fit them all in a TV show. The series has jumped wholeheartedly into multimedia synergy, creating everything from Lost-related websites (such as www.thehansofoundation.org) to spinoff books (Bad Twin, a real novel written by fictional Gary Troup, one of the passengers on Oceanic Flight 815) that may or may not provide helpful hints.

Last week, ABC inserted a faux Hanso Foundation commercial during the show to launch the Lost Experience, a parallel Internet hunt designed to give players additional clues but not affect the viewing experience of those who don't play.

The maturation of Internet communication has led to a level of scrutiny and viewer/writer interaction above and beyond such spellbinding ancestors as Twin Peaks, The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. With thousands of fans collecting string - or expounding on String Theory - viewers can feast on a thesis's worth of analysis every week at sites such as thefuselage.com, lost-tv.com, lost-forum.com and lost.cubit.net.

"With Lost, there are so many ways to interact ... that there's so much more of a community that gets into more research and more levels of discussion," says Lynnette Porter, an associate professor in humanities at Florida's Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and co-author of Unlocking the Meaning of Lost: An Unauthorized Guide.

Last week, viewers got plenty to ponder when Michael (Harold Perrineau), single-minded in his pursuit of kidnapped son Walt (Malcolm David Kelley), shot fellow survivors Ana Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez) and Libby (Cynthia Watros). Tonight, fans will get more information on the underground hatch that is a remnant of a huge island psychosocial experiment, the Dharma Initiative. Appropriately, the episode is titled "?," named for the question mark in the center of what appears to be an island map.

The season's final episodes also will offer a resolution to the situation of Michael and Walt, who was seen at times as an apparition, and the survivors will prepare to take on The Others, a mysterious group who kidnapped Walt. Desmond, the man discovered in the hatch at the start of the season, will return as well, and viewers will learn why the plane crashed.

The theories

Lindelof and Cuse, speaking from Lost's Hawaii set last week as they wrapped up Season 2 and outlined Season 3, say there are too many questions for a simple explanation. "We know where they're at and what's going on, but that wouldn't qualify as a unifying theory," Lindelof says. Numerous questions yield multiple answers, they say.

"One layer speaks to electromagnetism, another to psychological experimentation, another to why they can see Walt. Coming up with one answer that unifies all those things is next to impossible. Hopefully, every sublayer will be explained" by the end, they say.

Although the theorizers are Lost's most intense and vociferous fan group, the producers say they ultimately have to focus on the much larger audience of casual viewers, developing characters and relationships to retain their interest. (Lost is averaging 15.3 million viewers this season, ranking 15th among prime-time shows.)

For those who want to analyze, however, they welcome speculation. "We don't want to eliminate too many theories," Cuse says. "What people enjoy about the show is being able to theorize."

That they do. From websites to Entertainment Weekly, trying to figure it all outhas become a participatory sport. Prominent theories and areas of investigation:

•Island as laboratory This season's revelation of the Dharma Initiative, a secret organization with a stated goal of human betterment, led many to embrace the theory that Lost is a huge experiment. The Hanso Foundation, which has ties to Dharma and delves into such topics as mental health and life extension, also suggests social-science tinkering. The hatch, which requires a recurring sequence of numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42) be punched into a computer every 108 minutes, suggests a Skinner Box, named for famed psychologist B.F. Skinner.

•Electromagnetism This was an early favorite after a compass wouldn't work properly in the first season. Theorists note the shadowy Hanso Foundation conducts research in this field, and the hatch was designed for such study. This theory may help explain the malfunction of the plane's instruments.

•Time-space continuum In physics, String Theory suggests other dimensions of space and time, which could help explain why rescuers haven't found the castaways. Shifts in time could help explain why a medical facility where pregnant Claire (Emilie de Ravin) was held looked as if it had been abandoned for years when survivors discovered it just weeks later, Porter says. A website credited to ABC parent Disney (www.oceanicflight815.com) also raises the question of time: A baggage claim ticket for survivor Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) appears to be dated Sept. 21, 2009.

•The numbers The appearance of the sequence on a winning lottery ticket owned by survivor Hurley (Jorge Garcia) has spawned a cottage industry of number crunchers. One theory says they match up to the retired uniform numbers of New York Yankees. Producers have reacted to fans' interest in the numbers, featuring them on everything from field hockey uniforms to police cars, Porter says.

•Collective consciousness Past connections among survivors - Sawyer drinking with Jack's father, Jack's father hiring Ana Lucia, Locke working for Hurley's company - have led many to surmise that those links are tied to their presence on the island. The psychic aura of the island raises the question of whether characters are insinuating themselves into each other's consciousness in the individual characters' flashbacks that are a Lost signature, says Porter's co-author David Lavery, a professor at Middle Tennessee State University.

With speculation comes disagreement, which may be half the fun. Orson Scott Card, author of the best-selling Ender's Game science-fiction series, says a collective-consciousness theme would turn whatever solid ground viewers can count on into quicksand. "One thing we're counting on is that the back stories are true," says Card, who is editing an upcoming book of essays, Getting Lost: Survival, Baggage and Starting Over in J.J. Abrams' Lost, due in August.

Lost may be teasing viewers at times, too. Producers say it isn't purgatory, but the name Gary Troup is an anagram for that transitional realm, Porter says.

Lost's many literary and philosophical allusions don't provide specific explanations, but they offer a cornucopia of considerations. Characters bear the names of famed philosophers Locke and Rousseau. The novel Watership Down is about rabbits that must flee their warren, and tesseracts, or time ripples, are found in A Wrinkle in Time, two of the many books read on the island.

An Ambrose Bierce story on Lost's reading list, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, toys with the snow-globe theory, telling the story of a man who thinks he has escaped hanging only to find it occurred in his own mind just before he is hanged. But Lavery points to Bierce's The Damned Thing, which is about an invisible monster.

Other essayists cite philosopher Francis Bacon and mathematician René Descartes in their musings. "I think Lost, more than anything else on TV to date, provides a forum for philosophical and critical discussion," says Amy Bauer, an assistant professor of music at the University of California-Irvine who moderates a peer-reviewed online journal, The Society for the Study of Lost (www.loststudies.com).

Everything about Lost is designed for analysis, says Joyce Millman, who wrote one of the Getting Lost essays. She credits the writers with "a rich variety of references: scientific, biblical, pop-cultural, literary, historical, philosophical."

Millman, whose essay is called Game Theory, sees Lost's structure attracting fans via familiarity: She thinks it works like an interactive video game. "The story line and the action develop on multiple levels. There are hidden clues that function like the Easter eggs in gaming," Millman says. "Lost is a big game, and the act of watching it forces you to play along."

The nature of theorizing

Trying to make sense of mystery is human nature. "That's what people like to do. We see all these patterns, and we try to make meaning out of them," Porter says.

Lindelof and Cuse say other Lost writers monitor the fan theories and websites because they don't want to get drawn into just serving that audience. But they learn from and respond to fan concerns. Dissatisfaction with the number of answers in last season's finale has led to more of them in this season's final, two-hour episode May 24.

Some fans are "surprisingly close" with theories, Lindelof says, but don't have "enough information yet to totally get there."

Card enjoyed the first season more and says he's not certain Lost is revealing answers quickly enough. Its future success depends on providing enough answers and making them complicated enough to be worth the fans' commitment.

"Real suspense comes from answers, not questions. Suspense comes not from wondering what's going on but from wondering what happens next," he says. "If you withhold answers, it becomes impossible to satisfy."

Some fans will never be satisfied with the pace or quality of Lost's answers. Others wonder whether the producers can maintain their brilliant balancing act of characters, mystery and allusions. "The producers have ... set the bar very high," Bauer says.

At least one dedicated fan leans more toward Zen than analysis. As in life, not everything in Lost will make sense, nor does it need to, says Charlie Starr, another Getting Lost essayist and a teacher of English and humanities at Kentucky Christian University in Grayson.

"Maybe we're not supposed to be theorizing. Maybe we're supposed to surrender to it. We've got to be people who can handle mystery, to surrender to the text and let it take us where it wants to," says Starr, referencing English poet John Keats. "With Lost, maybe the best thing to do is simply to watch with a sense of wonder and surprise."

[Gamblour.]

I loved the playing with dreams and visions in this episode, very nice. Can't wait for the end of this season.

[grand theft sparrow]

SPOILERS

Libby went out exactly as I expected.

Marvin Candle's idle arm was moving in this orientation.

The psychic was lying to Eko about being a fraud just to make sure he would get on Flight 815.  If he was really a fraud, he wouldn't have bought a pregnant girl a plane ticket to LA.

I wish Aronofsky had directed this episode, just to see what he would have done.

[Gamblour.]

Oh, wow I didn't even notice that was the same psychic that Claire went to.

[modage]

i didn't recognize the face either but my girlfriend insisted it was.

[A Matter Of Chance]

SPOILERS

Marvin Candle's idle arm was moving in this orientation.

He also gave a different name if I am not mistaken?

[RegularKarate]

Anyone else thing that the fact that both DUI ladies were killed in the same episode?

I mean the writers claimed that Killing off Ana Lucia had been planned since the begining and they in fact thought about NOT killing her when the DUI came up, but it seems like a strange place to kill Libby... she still had that Hurley mystery going on.

[polkablues]

It seems like the production window would be a little tight for this not to have been planned ahead of time.

I'm picturing Damon Lindelof browsing through The Smoking Gun, spotting the mug shots, and frantically dialing the writing staff: "KILL THEM OFF!!! NOW! BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!!!"

[MacGuffin]

Anyone else thing that the fact that both DUI ladies were killed in the same episode?

Spoilerific Q:

Chicken or the egg: Libby and Ana get killed off for getting DUIs, or get DUIs because they found out they're getting killed off?

The announcement of Aronofsky directing an episode came October 27. The DUIs happened December 2nd. Someone do the math.