it could be worse. you could be sayid. // abc promotional photo

Damon Lindelof was at the Star Trek DVD party last night, and one of Kristin dos Santos’s little minions asked him about Sawyer’s love life.  When asked to compare Sawyer’s romantic storyline with any other story from fiction, the better half of Darlton responded:

“Wow,” said Lindelof, “Sawyer’s love life compared to any…” (He looked a little dazed at all the possible options, so we threw The Notebook, Jane Eyre and Gilligan’s Island at him as totally random starting points for thinking about the question.) “All way off so far!” Lindelof said, “Perhaps the relationship between Gilligan and the Skipper, because there’s a lot of hitting on the head with hats…OK. Serious…I think Wuthering Heights is probably a good one then. We’ve got a little Heathcliff action going on.”

It’s a slow news morning and I passed English lit in high school, so I’ll bite.

Heathcliff was madly in love with Catherine, but their relationship is doomed from the start.  Although she returns his affections, she is engaged to another man, and Heathcliff never learns about her true feelings for him.  She marries the other guy.  Catherine dies.  Heathcliff becomes crazy and mean and cruel.  Heathcliff and Catherine’s children marry each other, but not because they want to–Heathcliff wants an estate.  (Sad sad.)  At the end, Heathcliff dies, taken away by Catherine’s ghost.

I don’t know about you, but I’d say this sounds pretty grim for Sawyer, a man who’s just lost his Catherine.  (Not his Katherine.)  Will we see an on-island Sawyer plagued with regret and anger?  Will he take it out on the people around him?  Will he ever find a way to move past his grief, or is he destined to live a life of heartache until he meets up with Juliet in the afterlife?

In my opinion, there’s no way Juliet’s death won’t permanently affect Sawyer’s life.  (That opinion is easier to take when there are only 18 episodes left.)

My hope (and it may be a sick hope built on my Jate-addled brain) is that Sawyer dies in the series finale defending the camp once and for all.  Sawyer takes the reins from Jack, refusing to let him handle this very dangerous A-Mission.  (See, in my mind, Jack has two little babies at this point.) So Sawyer takes care of business. And he dies. And in a flash of light, we see Juliet greet him from the other side or from another dimension or whatever, and it’s less cheesy than it sounds. Or maybe it’s exactly that cheesy, but it’s awesome.

And the Sulieters get a nice moment of closure, a nod to fate and destiny.

And the Skaters are appeased because, oh, holy crap, Sawyer friggin’ died for Kate.

And the Jaters are appeased because, um, neener neener neener.

juliet & the red shirt. should've known. // abc promotional photo

In last week’s Entertainment Weekly, Elizabeth Mitchell talked about her new series, V, as well as the fate of Juliet on Lost.

This morning, EW released some extra quotes from her interview, including this gutwrenching story from filming the final moments of “The Incident”:

At the time, I didn’t think I was ever coming back.  So for me it was just a really big goodbye and easily heartbreaking. It wasn’t one of those things to think about it. Also, Josh [Holloway] is really strong, so I was on this pulley, and I had them loosen the pulley so he’d really be holding me up, and it killed both of us every time. When my hand slipped from his, it was because he couldn’t hold on any longer. So that hit us with a real punch.  And then, to be trapped in that cave and to have no way of telling anybody and to be too hurt to move—who does that happen to?  Is that not your deepest, deepest nightmare? So that was very easy to play because it was so big…. We were all broken-hearted and crying quite a bit.

Meanwhile, Carlton Cuse hints at the future, saying, “There’s still something very significant that we have not yet learned about [Juliet].”

Of returning later on, Elizabeth says, “It’s probably exactly what you expect, but because it’s Damon and Carlton, you know they’re just going to turn it on its ear.”  For the record, what I expect is that she’ll be part of some reset universe in the beginning of the season; I’m also confident she’ll be back for May’s series finale, to shepherd Sawyer into the beyond when he dies protecting Kate and her children with Jack.

What are you expecting?

This is consistent with what we’ve been hearing about the final season–that producers will try to make it all the way to the premiere without showing a single frame of new material before airtime.

On the one hand, it makes sense.  Because they’re either on the island or at LAX, right?  There’s no way they can show promos that don’t give away whether or not they’re going for the reset.  I understand why they’d be reluctant to show new footage.

That said, sounds ridiculously difficult and, as someone who lives for sneak peeks, promos, and the music videos that have accompanied seasons past, I’m a little frustrated.  A good idea to combat this frustration would be for Lost and ABC to film non-canon material for promos, similar to the UK’s Channel 4 promotional campaign.

Notice how even though this promo is fantastical, it also highlights some major themes of season one: Locke as a bizarre ringleader figure (with a curious Walt nearby), Sun and Jin’s tumultuous relationship, the Shannon/Boone/Sayid love triangle, and, of course, the rivalry between Sawyer and Jack over Kate.

remember when? // abc promotional photo

The titles of the first five episodes of Lost (including the two-part premiere), as well as their rumored centricities, are after the jump.

“LA X, Part One” and “LA X, Part Two” open the season, and it’s expected that these episodes will be multi-centric, not focusing specifically on any one character.

It’s followed by “What Kate Did,” which is obviously Kate-centric.

Then we have “The Substitute,” rumored to be Locke-centric.

Then a Jack episode, “Lighthouse.”

And now we know that the fifth episode will be called “Sundown,” likely referring to a Sun-centric episode.

As Dark pointed out, these episodes appear to mirror the centricities of season one–so far, to the letter. If the pattern were to continue, we’d next see a Charlie-centric, a Sawyer-centric, a Sayid-centric, and a Claire-centric.

Obviously we know that Dominic Monaghan will be spending some time on the island, but it’s not known yet whether or not his role will be significant enough to merit a whole episode devoted to his character.  Also, so far all of these other characters–the not-dead ones–presumably have two stories to be told: their on-island adventures in either 1977 or 2007 and their off-island adventures in 2004 post-reset.

The title of Jack’s episode is intriguing, because last season, Darlton revealed the image of a theretofore unmentioned DHARMA station. It would later become known as “The Lamp Post,” but at the time, a lot of people speculated that it would be called “The Lighthouse” or “The Beacon.”  Could this episode refer to another new station?

Regardless, it seems unlikely that they’ll be able to stick too closely to the season one order of business–for starters, they’d be unable to have a Ben-centric episode under that model. But I like the idea of getting back to basics.

i'm desperate to see that smile on a baby // screen capture from jackandkate.org

It’s time for Lost to come back, okay?  With 101 days to go, I’m aching for new content.  Anything.  Can I have my season five DVDs, just for the deleted scenes that are presumably worse than every scene that actually made it to air?  Can I have any kind of season six promotional materials?  There’s actually a rumor going around–started by Kristin dos Santos, so take that as you will–that they’re going to try to promote season six without showing ANY new footage before the premiere.

I’m just starting to get really, really, really antsy.  It was around this time last year that the very first new-material-included promo for season five aired–clocking in at 1:15, it received a significant amount of airtime in my apartment.  Will we get one of these this year?

Despite the promises I’ve made every year, there’s no way I can remain spoiler-free for the rest of the season.  I’m too on edge waiting for ANYTHING Lost.  Hell, I’m eating up spoilers about Sun and Hurley like it’s my job.  Just TRY to keep me away from anything Jate-related.

Oh, boy.  It’s gonna be a long hundred days.

@carltoncuse

@therealdamon

I would really enjoy it if these are real.