So you decided to eat the cake, huh? Yummy!

So here's the scoop. Lindelof says the series will not have an ending that makes you throw fruit at the television. It won't be another Sopranos, My So-Called Life, Twin Peaks or Blake 7. This fight will be to a finish.

He said, "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]."

When a fan - obviously digging for a psychological insight - followed up by asking what his favorite final episode of any series ever was he answered "M*A*S*H*." That's a fairly obvious, popular choice but it's also perhaps the classic example of a series ending that wasn't very open-ended.

One could play the presumption game and throw out extrapolated claims like, "That means people have to die!" or "That means the past has to be erased!" It's hard to know how one could define a clear ending fans could have confidence in when the nature of reality on the series is so lucid that next week's episode could plausibly see the last five season stricken from the books. But by the same token it's hard to make confident assertions about how Lindelof will or won't deliver on such a promise when we've already established that the man colors outside the lines.

Lindelof believes that fans' natural tendency to speculate may bite him in the butt, as he explains.

"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!'

One of my persistent, haunting concerns is that there are a lot of questions he'll never answer at all. Lindelof could put filet mignon on the table for years just by answering questions at fan conventions and publishing debatably non-cannon books with titles like "Lost Secrets Revealed."

Lindelof admits there's a lot he won't reveal by the end of the series, but at least he has a good reason, and amusingly enough it concerns Star Wars.

"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."

Lindelof seemingly contradicted himself, though, because he did reveal what the meaning of the numbers was, as well as the true purpose of the DHARMA Initiative.

Lindelof said, "Here's the story with numbers. The Hanso Foundation that started the Dharma Initiative hired this guy Valentzetti 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."

When asked why he didn't reveal this on the series itself Lindelof said, "That would be the worst thing ever. We have to make the show for the hard-core 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."

Excuse me while I stop to say, "What?" No, I'm not responding to the claim that there's a one hundred percent certainty the world will end within 27 years of the Cuban Missile Crisis. (For those racing to Wikipedia I'll save you the trouble. The central event happened in 1962. That means the world should have expired by 1987.) Obviously the world has somehow stayed up past its bedtime (or the DHARMA Initiative completed their mission years ago.)

What puzzles me is Lindelof's suggestion that senior citizens would be confused by the explanation. I found the story very coherent and straight forward, and would consider it fairly crucial information for the series to ever make sense. I feel quite sure that if I went to my grandmother and related the whole end of the world thing she'd roll her eyes and say, "Well that's original!" not "What's that, dawling? Explain it more slowly."

In one more comment that's likely to have fans making funny fishy faces at their computers Lindelof says the story behind the character of Libby will never be told.

"I have learned that if you kill someone off the show, they are less likely to cooperate with you."

He says the actress who played Libby - Cynthia Watros - hasn't made herself available to them. He's decided that if he can't 'show' her story but merely 'tell' it then he won't revisit the subject at all. I understand that he had a vision he liked of what the moment would be like and he's frustrated by having to compromise. But without that comrpromise a huge swath of the second season will never make sense, and fans rewatching it years later will always say, "That was lame. Her story needed a payoff. Lindelof dropped the ball." He cannot - at this point - simply sweep that under the rug and hope people forget about it. They won't.

So what do you think? Do you want a clear ending or do you like open-ended stories that let you come up with your own theories? Does the story behind the DHARMA Initiative and the numbers satisfy you? And are you alright with Libby vanishing never to be seen or heard from again?


<<PREVIOUS




-Henry Jenkins, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of ABC)