The Tail Section

As I said last week, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are popping up everywhere I turn lately.  I’m pretty sure I’m going to find an interview with them on my box of Grape Nuts tomorrow morning, which I will then promptly scan and post on TTS, of course.  Anyway, Kristin at E!Online recently interviewed the guys, and she asked all of the burning questions that we were wondering after "Cabin Fever."  Here is an excerpt:

How are you feeling about the finale about this point?  Are you feeling pretty confident about it?

C.C.:  Yes, we were up until the wee hours last night editing the finale.  I think we’re pretty pleased.  We want to be cautious in our optimism, but it feels like the film that we are getting back from Hawaii is fantastic. Jack Bender is doing a great job directing it, and I think that people will be surprised by the finale.  Not in the literal M. Night Shyamalan way that we surprised the audience last year, but I think emotionally satisfying and also intriguing — and we’ll leave people very excited and interested to figure out what season five is going to be about.

D.L.:  Yes, there’s a sense of completeness this year in terms of what we set out to do in season four: to tell the story of how the Oceanic Six got off the island, why they are lying and what happened in the immediate aftermath of them being rescued, all the way up to Jack yelling at Kate, "We have to go back!"  And we feel we’ve accomplished that, and beyond that, there’s an indication in the finale of what the future may hold. We’re really glad that we got the extra hour from ABC.  That made a huge difference in being able to do the two-hour finale, or else it would’ve felt…We were sitting in the editing room last night watching one of the scenes, and we looked at each other, and said, "I can’t believe we ever  thought we were going to be able to do this in an hour."  The scope is large.

Obviously the big question after last night’s episode, leading into that finale, is: "How are they going to move the Island?" which is a fantastic twist.  Also, "Is Claire dead?"  Is that a question you are wanting the fans to be asking at this point?

C.C.:  I think we want the fans to ask, "What’s happened to Claire?"  I don’t think it’s "Is she dead?"  I think it’s like, "Where is she?" and, "What’s going on with her?"

D.L.:  What’s fascinating with Lost is there’s a scene where Claire is in the cabin, and she is sitting next to a guy who is dead, and nobody is saying "What’s up with that?"  They’re all asking "Is she dead?"  I think the more operative question is "What is dead?"  That’s a good question to ask, and one you will certainly be asking over the long hiatus.

Check out the entire interview here.