Truly Sexy Nerdy

via slashfilm.com
Lost has always had a massive presence At Comic Con, but the panels have always been more of performance pieces to celebrate the show’s fandom than deeply revelatory insights into what we can expect from each progressive season. While this was also true of this year’s panel, there were at least a few interesting hints and teases that squeezed through the cracks.

It’s already been revealed that Season 6 of Lost is very much intended to bring things back to the show’s first season, but it’s never really been clear what exactly that means. When asked to elaborate on this, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse were cryptic as always, explaining that they’re “closing the loop”, and that we can expect to see many characters we haven’t seen since Season 1. Does this mean that Jack’s (or rather, Faraday’s) plan from the end of Season 5 worked? It sounds likely, at least to some degree.

Lindelof and Cuse also showed us a series of faux ads and video clips, that while seemingly being played for humor, contained several peculiar inconsistencies of past events on the show that may indicate the timeline has been altered. The first clip was an ad for Oceanic Airlines, with a voiceover that proclaimed the airline had gone 30 years with a perfect safety record. Does this mean the plane didn’t crash? It also claimed that the company was founded in 1979, which is around the time that many of the losties found themselves transported back to. Could this be a clue as well?

The second clip was a Mr. Cluck’s commercial, featuring Hurley detailing his recent trip to Australia as a way to introduce a new “outback” menu item. Does this mean he arrived safely in LA instead of crashing on the island? The third (and most confusing) clip featured Kate on America’s Most Wanted, with the host explaining that her plan to blow up the house with her stepfather inside backfired, and she instead killed a plumber named Ryan Milner by mistake. I’d hypothesize what this means for the show, but that would suggest I have even the slightest idea. Even if Faraday’s plan worked, that should only affect the character’s lives following the flight from Sydney to LA. …unless of course the prevention of the hatch’s development somehow connects to Kate’s life in other ways outside of the flight, which seems unlikely.

If we’ve learned anything from Lost though, it’s that “unlikely” does not mean “impossible”. Maybe things aren’t as black and white as “Did the plan work or not?” According to Damon and Carlton, the final season is a complete change of pace from what we’ve seen in previous seasons. “The time travel season is over, the flashforward season is over. Season 6 is something different.”

They also confirmed that we would be seeing more of Faraday and Juliette, but didn’t say whether or not it would be in flashback form. The Dharma Initiative, meanwhile, will play a much less significant part this time around. It won’t be completely absent though, with the question of where the food drop from Season 2 came from being just one of the many open-ended mysteries that will be expanded upon in the final season.

We will also learn more about Richard Alpert’s backstory. He has a flashback in Season 6 that was described as being “very involved”. Apparently, we can expect to see a lot more of him.

These little tidbints were about the extent of the potential show reveals, but given that this is the last year Lost will have a central presence at Comic Con, it should be mentioned that Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have done a wonderful job of essentially making the panel a show in itself. It could really be called an interactive play. At one point, Jorge Garcia (Hurley) appeared during the Q&A as one of the audience participants to ask some pointed questions about where the show was headed. As the conversation grew more heated (and in turn, more comical), Michael Emmerson (Ben) stepped up beside Jorge to complain that only one question per person was allowed. Funny stuff.

Later on, the creators played a retrospective with all the characters that have died on the show, ending with a lengthy sequence of Charlie’s emotional demise. As soon as the light’s went up, Dominic Monaghan was ready and waiting on stage, and the crowd went wild. With that, the panel was over. Nothing was said. No questions were answered. But if the hints that we had been picking up on during the rest of the panel are any indication, this may just mean one of Lost’s best characters will be back in action for the final season. We can only hope.