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This podcast included the full audio from the Lost panel Q&A at Comic Con 2007

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A transcript is a retrospective written record of dialogue, and like a script (a prospective record) may include other scene information such as props or actions. In the case of a transcript of a film or television episode, ideally it is a verbatim record. Because closed-captioning is usually written separately, its text may have errors and does not necessarily reflect the true Canonical transcript.


Transcripts for Lost episodes up to and including "Enter 77" are based on the transcriptions by Lost-TV member Spooky with aid of DVR, and at times, closed captions for clarification. She and Lost-TV have generously granted us permission to share/host these transcripts at Lostpedia. Later transcripts were created by the Lostpedia community, unless stated otherwise below.

Disclaimer: This transcript is intended for educational and promotional purposes only, and may not be reproduced commercially without permission from ABC. The description contained herein represents viewers' secondhand experience of ABC's Lost.


Nickb123 is responsible for this transcription.



KRIS WHITE: Welcome to a special summer edition of the Official Lost Podcast, hosted by ABC.com

(Lost opening credits theme)

KRIS: As promised, here is the audio from the Lost panel at Comic Con 2007. Our panelists include executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. I won't say more about the panel in case for some odd reason you haven't heard the good news that was recently announced about Season 4. I will say that you can go to ABC.com to check out the special surprises that happened during the panel after you've listened to this.

(A segment from The World of the Others is shown to the Comic Con audience)

SAYID: We're not alone.

HURLEY: One of them isn't in the manifest. He wasn't on the plane.

LOCKE: They've attacked us, sabotaged us, abducted us, murdered us. We're not the only people on this Island and we all know it!

(The audio then turns into cast and crew statements)

CARLTON CUSE: We knew that this Season was gonna be about the Others. It was gonna be about our guys versus the other people on the Island.

DOMINIC MONAGHAN: They needed something to give us nightmares. And that has become the Others.

MICHAEL EMERSON: They seem to be a kind of a rebel sect.

JACK BENDER: They are like us, but their survival traits are not necessarily like us.

HENRY IAN CUSICK: It seems that they are heavily funded, well organized, hiding some big secret that has ramifications for the whole world.

JORGE GARCIA: I'm getting an even more and more cult-ish feeling.

BEN LINUS: I was hoping you might join me for a walk.

JORGE GARCIA: They're kind of like come with us, you know, get rid of all your possessions, come and join us on our magic Island.

RICHARD ALPERT: The place we're taking you to is special.

M.C. GAINEY: By the time you see this, I will be dead.

DAMON: We killed a lot of Others in the finale.

(A faint director voice can be heard "3, 2, 1 and Go!". A explosion can then be heard, presumably this is behind the scenes footage from the beach scene in the Season 3 finale)

DAMON: There was a lot of house cleaning going on. There's still a group that's moving toward the temple, but Friendly is dead, and Isabel is dead, and Pryce is dead. Pickett obviously died earlier, Klugh is gone, Mikhail is dead, so you know, in the war of us versus the Others, we did pretty well in sort of the final tally.

JACK SHEPHARD: Tie him up, he's coming with us.

ADAM HOROWITZ: I think we shouldn't forget the unsung Others. The Jason's and the Luke's, and Aldo...

EDDIE KITSIS: They're not just henchmen as Adam was saying, they have wives, they have homes.

ADAM HOROWITZ: They have hopes and dreams that are shattered...

EDDIE KITSIS: By our people.

ADAM HOROWITZ: You know, I think we should just take a moment to think...

EDDIE KITSIS: I really think there should be a silent moment for the Others who we've lost here.

JOSH HOLLOWAY: I think the Others represent a different perspective, a different dynamic if you will. I think that the writers have in such an ingenious way have planted the question, who is good, who is bad, what is right and what is wrong? They're just fighting for what is theirs. It depends on how you wanna look at it.

M.C. GAINEY: Whoever is coming to this Island next, they're gonna wish they had the Others back. We were scientists and humanitarians compared to what kind of animals are coming next.

MICHAEL EMERSON: People are really getting hurt now, and things are being done that can't ever be undone. The survival of the Island is now at stake.

(Clips end)

WOMAN: Welcome to the Lost panel for 2007. Are you guys ready?

(Crowd cheers)

WOMAN: And now, introducing the famous voice-over artists from the Season 3 finale, stars of the Official Lost Podcast, wearing pants, and threatening to play the banjo, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof!

(Crowd cheers)

(Audio jumps)

CARLTON: Now obviously we're in a little bit of a difficult position, um, are we not Damon, because...

DAMON: Yes.

CARLTON: Because we wanna answer the questions, but we don't wanna at the same time demystify the show in terms of what's going on. So we've actually constructed a little fail-safe device for ourselves here. And what we've done is we've brought these bells with us.

DAMON: Right. Here's the thing, Carlton and I uh... well f- we're drunk first off (crowd laughs) um...

CARLTON: That was the first step.

DAMON: And when- when we're in that state, it- we tend to kind of prattle on and on, give away too much. Now, as you guys know, and thanks um mostly to the fans of the show, uh, we have been given an ending.

(Carlton's bell rings)

DAMON: Carlton's bell works, it should sound like that. But basically we've been given an ending to the show. Uh, we're gonna be doing um three more Seasons of sixteen each, uh which is very exciting. Um, you know, it's something which we never would have been able to do in a million years uh without you guys. And I'm not saying that because we're in this room, but for three years we've been coming down to the Con, and we've been getting asked that question and we've been saying we really wanna end the show, and I think basically the fans uh spoke up and uh the network and the studio really heard them but uh in any case we're not gonna be on 'til February this year, um, that's the bad news. Um, but we're gonna run straight, no reruns. Straight sixteen episodes.

(Fans cheer)

CARLTON: And, you know, so, you know, we wanted to, obviously, we haven't- we've been sort of in radio silence since the finale, so we wanna talk a little bit about, you know, the show but obviously since we're still seven or eight months out from when its actually coming back on the air, we- we don't wanna be in a position of saying too much. So we've constructed the following fail-safe. If either of us feels that the other person is giving away too much in an answer, he can (rings bell) ring the other person out.

DAMON: And that person has to shut up, immediately. So, you know, this way we can watch each other's back. And Carlton punched me in the mouth once after a panel because I said something about Nikki and Paulo, and we want to- we want to prevent that from happening.

CARLTON: So if I said the Monster was a uh security sys...

(Damon rings bell)

DAMON: Right.

CARLTON: It just works like that, just so you're aware of what's happening. Um, I would also like to just add our profound thanks to uh ABC Studio's Mark Pedowitch and Steve McPherson who really were able to help us arrive at this end date for the show, and it's been incredibly liberating for us because, you know, we had this mythology, and we didn't know how many episodes it had to play out over, whether we were gonna make two years of the show or ten years of the show, and now we know for certain there are gonna be forty-eight episodes of Lost left, we know exactly how much time we have to fill, and it really helps us as storytellers. And- and the three Seasons of sixteen episodes also is good because unlike a show like 24 that resets every year, we have to carry over this mythology, its a very hard show to write and keep fresh and kind of keep the ball rolling uh down the field, and- so it gives us more time to do our work, to make the show good, which is obviously we wanna do for you guys.

DAMON: So um the great thing about the Con is, this is really our time to talk directly with the fans, um, you know, we wanna hear your questions, hear your comments, um- and sometimes it can get a little brutal. But um that actually helps us write the show, I think um we need to make ourselves accessible to you guys and hear what your thoughts are because uh its worked out pretty well so far. Um, you know, uh, so there is a microphone I believe, somewhere in the middle, where is it?

WOMAN: Its right there. The microphone is in the middle of the room.

DAMON: Next to the camera. So if you guys want to start queuing up, I mean essentially this is really about creating a dialogue.

CARLTON: Yeah.

DAMON: And uh, you know, um I know that you have to follow the Comic Con rules of appropriateness, but uh if hugs are inappropriate, well dammit I don't ever want to come down here again.

(Crowd laughs)

DAMON: Seriously, say whatever you want.

CARLTON: So, uh, let's start out. Who's at the mic?

DAMON: Yeah, let's hear-

MAN: Hello.

DAMON: Hi!

MAN: How you doing?

DAMON: We're awesome, how are you?

TED: Thanks for coming down. Thanks for making one of the best shows on television.

CARLTON: Thank you.

[Claps, and a camera cut]

TED: And a huge thanks for the Season finale of Season 3 which brought Lost back into the amazing character development that Season 1 was for us.

DAMON: Oh, thank you.

TED: So please keep that up, and of course the uh flash-forward has still got us all spinning. My question is: Season 3 the violence really ratched it up, the Others are an extremely violent culture, and we saw a lot of Schindler's List kinda stuff going on. Can you- can you comment on that, can you help context that for us. And please please please tell me that we're not at the end gonna find that the Others really are the good guys and, you know, uh, the end justifies the means.

CARLTON: Uh, you know, I think that what we wanted to do most of all was that we wanted to make the Season tell a complete story, and the story of the Season was the story of the Others, and that story had a beginning middle and end, and we really felt that the conflict that the Others sort of brought to our guys, we had to resolve, and we didn't wanna, you know, we didn't really wanna dodge that, we wanted there to really be a kind of final summation, a showdown, a real conflict between them and that involved, you know, a body count, and it just- that's just kind of the way it unfolded for us.

DAMON: I would actually argue though, were you to go back and look at Season 1 that you would find more acts of violence that our guys committed upon each other than the violence that the Others committed upon them or each other, but our guys are just a lot prettier so (crowd laughs) you know, when Sawyer is punching you in the face you're kinda like more please, (laughs continue), you're just- you're just so attractive, do you wanna take your shirt off while the beating continues. That would work for me too so, you know, but when, you know, Pickett or Friendly is beating you up, its kind of like oh this is brutal violence. Not the- not the kind of violence we subscribe to, so we promise as the show moves forward, um if the violence stays intense, it will be perpetrated by uh catastrophically good looking people. (crowd laughs)

DAMON: Uh, next question please.

WOMAN: Oh my god, you guys look so much cooler in 3D. So um anyway.... my question is, each episode has its own writers, right? Like normally a pair, so how much of the content do they control over each episode, does each writer say, "OK I want Hurley to run over this dude with a bus," and it happens, or do you guys tell them, "OK you have to do this," or is it everyone backstage just kind of agreeing on everything?

CARLTON: Its kind of, its a real collective process, we break the stories in the writer's room, and its this conference room, and it's got white boards all over the walls, we all sit in there and this year there are 8 writers, including ourselves, and we work the stories out beat by beat, detail by detail, so a lot of those kinds of questions like should Hurley run somebody over in a bus are debated back and forth, and I think really kind of the best ideas went out at the end. And the process of breaking the stories is very collective, and then we break off a couple of writers who'll go write the outline of a script for that episode, sort of overseen by Damon and me, and we- they obviously contribute ideas, and the whole- really we just kind of try to see the writing process as very collective and inclusive, and, you know, so they can throw their ideas in at any point in the process, but we really work really hard on the stories and by the time the story's broken in great detail, pretty much all those kinds of details have been worked out so they really do get aired in the writers' room.

DAMON: What's kind of interesting is that every writer on our staff, and you know, our staff is amazing, and have their own sort of favorite character a lot like you guys. Eddie and Adam, the two guys who um we saw making jokes about the Others, the unsung Others, have been on the show since the first Season and they love Hurley and they love Charlie, so...

CARLTON: And all the minor characters like...

DAMON: Yes, Neill Frogurt. Neill Frogurt is mentioned by Hurley in an episode in Season 2 so we're gonna get around to his story (crowd laughs) you know, at some point. But essentially those guys, in fact Eddie pitched, you know, the VW van idea in the first place and that connected into an idea that we'd already had where Ben having killed his own father, and we said what if it was in that van and we can set up that van in the middle of the Season and then he can go back to it later so the coolest thing about the show is the way that the big plot ideas that we have begin to fit in with sort of the cooler more character driven ideas that come along and that's all sort, you know, it's an amazing team, and we spend, you know, 10-12 hours a day in a room together um writing Lost, and its the best job in the world.

WOMAN: Thank you, keep playing that banjo, Carlton.

CARLTON: Oh thank you.

DAMON: ....No. (Crowd laughs) No, Carlton.

CARLTON: No.

DAMON: Stop playing that banjo.

MAN: Hi, how are you?

DAMON: Good, how are you man?

CARLTON: Damon had to wear pants today, he really tried to take them off when we were coming on stage...

DAMON: I've actually taken them off since I got on stage. (Crowd laughs) Believe it or not. For those of you who are actually recording this against the rules, just watch my left hand. (Crowd laughs)

CARLTON: Wow.

DAMON: No, I'm taking off my pants.

CARLTON: Next question!

DAMON: Yeah.

(A bell sounds and the audience laugh again)

CARLTON: That was definitely the bell ring.

DAMON: We haven't used the bell yet.

MAN: Though I'm slightly terrified, I wanted to thank you for my new obsession, as far as your show goes, and I had a question that's been bugging me for about a year or so now, and I understand you can't say anything about it, but um where's Michael? And is that storyline dead is all I really wanna know.

CARLTON: Well, you know, probably most of you saw that Steve McPherson announced yesterday at the Television Critics Association meeting that uh Harold Perrineau will be back on the show this coming Season. (Crowd applauds)

DAMON: And uh, you know, uh this was kind of a bummer for us uh because we got spoiled, um and uh, you know, obviously, hopefully, we could have timed the announcements at the same time, but um that was an announcement we were hoping to make at the Con, so we're a little depressed.

CARLTON: But we had planned to announce that to you guys here, but we were not actually aware of the fact that the TCA was gonna be the day before Comic Con, so the timing of those dates was never really even in our brains, when we said okay w- we were going to announce to you guys that Harold will be returning, but yes, Harold will be returning.

DAMON: But we're not really going to be talking about, uh, how or when.

CARLTON: Yeah.

MAN: OK. Thank you.

DAMON: Thank you.

(applause)

DAMON: The questions are so nice this year. It's like, I know that- I know you. You are somewhere in that line, that- that special someone who's gonna make me wake up in a cold sweat for the next half a year, trying to make you happy.

CARLTON: Damon-

DAMON: But I can't ever make you happy, can I, you-

CARLTON: No- Why do you want someone to come out onstage and say the show sucks?

DAMON: I don't.

CARLTON: You do though, that's the problem.

DAMON: OK.

CARLTON: Should have had more drinks.

DAMON: I should have.

CARLTON: All right, let's go for another question. Let's see if it's a good one or uh, you know. Fan or non-fan?

MAN: New fan.

CARLTON: OK.

MAN: I was just wondering if in future episodes we'd see any more flash-forward scenes like in the Season finale.

DAMON: Ahhh!

CARLTON: The answer is yes. (Audience clap and woo). Let's say a little bit more about that right now. The- there's been a lot of speculation (Damon readies his hand on the bell), about what the show is gonna be going forward, certain people have speculated that the show will take place in the future but we will then flashback to the Island, but the truth is that going forward the show is going to feature flashbacks and flash-forwards.

DAMON: I'm not- I'm not ringing the bell. That's pretty cool. I think, you know, the operative question becomes how forward are we gonna go, and with whom, so uh I think if you continue to watch the show – I see you reaching – uh, you know, you're going to be sort of pleasantly surprised um and we'll just leave it at that for now.

CARLTON: Wow.

DAMON: ... ask the question. I don't want to get rung up.

WOMAN: Hey, what's up?

DAMON: Hi, how are you? What's up?

WOMAN: I'm good, how are you?

CARLTON: We're fine, how are you?

WOMAN: I'm fine. That's not my question.

DAMON: (Laughs) How's everyone else?

(Crowd cheer)

WOMAN: My question is like everyone on the Island is always connected, I mean you see Locke with Rose, or like Sawyer with Jack's dad, but the one connection that I was really surprised at was Jack and Claire being brother and sister and I was wondering if they're gonna find out in Season 4.

(Carlton puts his hand over the bell, crowd laughs)

DAMON: This is actually fun, its sort of like how can I not get uh, I would say-

(Bell rings, everyone laughs)

CARLTON: I'm sorry. We didn't talk about that.

DAMON: Yeah, we didn't- but er, thank you for asking.

WOMAN: Okay, thanks.

DAMON: Thank you.

CARLTON: Bye.

MAN: Hey guys, uh, I got a question about the DHARMA Initiative.

DAMON: Awesome. (Crowd laughs)

MAN: We've obviously seen a lot of the DHARMA zoo already, um, Ezra James Sharkington, and uh the polar bear, I was wondering if in Season 4 we'll maybe see more and maybe a little of Mrs. Ezrita James.

DAMON: For those nine of you who listen to the podcast, that was a very funny question.

CARLTON: Yeah that was- that was, you know, you need to get a new hobby I think, um. The- yes, as a matter of fact the DHARMA Initiative, you may be learning more about the DHARMA Initiative sooner than you even imagine. How about that for you?

MAN: Would that be the mobisodes?

DAMON: You mean like I'd have to wait until February to learn more about the DHARMA Initiative?

CARLTON: Uh, how about (looks at watch), 5:58?

(Crowd scream)

DAMON: Wow. What's- what's gonna happen at 5:58 Carlton?

(Both hit bell at same time and laugh)

DAMON: Next question.

MAN: Thanks.

DAMON: Thank you very much.

MAN: Hi my name's Paul, I was- I wanted to know if uh you said that there was not gonna be any show 'til next February, are there gonna be any uh repeats from this Season through- before then, and also when is the Season 3 DVD gonna come out?

DAMON: Uh, go ahead.

CARLTON: The Season 3 DVD is coming out for the holidays, I think it's, the exact date I'm not sure has been set, but its gonna be the end of November beginning of December, um and...

DAMON: As to re-runs, you know um, there are no plans right now to have the show on the air. I think the people who watch the show like to watch it sequentially and ABC have a whole new schedule to launch, you know, and have a whole new Wednesday night. So we'd be surprised if there were any re-runs of Season 3, but the DVDs will be out there, and I'm sure they'll do a very good job of uh...

CARLTON: Plus of course, you know, ABC.com, we live in a new media world where you can see I think the last 6 episodes that were on available on abc.com, you can obviously buy the videos on iTunes. So and then you'll also have the DVD...

DAMON: And Carlton sells them out of the back of his car. (Crowd laughs)

CARLTON: They're dubbed in Chinese though, unfortunately.

WOMAN: The DVD is also coming out December 11th.

DAMON: December 11? Excellent. Thank you very much.

CARLTON: We have a lot of the DVD folks over here.

DAMON: Thank you.

CARLTON: Alright.

MAN: First, I wanted to say Mazel Tov on your Emmy nomination for best writing, the best Season finale ever.

CARLTON: Thank you.

DAMON: Thanks very much. Mazel Tov is Jewish for well done.

MAN: Congratulations. I had a question about Ben in Season 2, the first time we meet him he's caught in Rousseau's trap, did he actually get caught in the trap or was that a deliberate, did that deliberately so that he could infiltrate the hatch...

DAMON: (Rings bell) I'm joking, you can finish your question.

MAN: And did- and did he actually kill Henry Gale or did Henry get killed when the balloon landed. Any answers you can give us?

DAMON: If we had to answer just one of those questions, which one would you choose?

MAN: The truth is I bet you don't know it because you only wanted him to be in six episodes and then you expanded it, but I'm going to say...

DAMON: There you are!

CARLTON: There you are.

MAN: You don't know!

DAMON: You Trojan Horsed me with your Mazel Tov! (Crowd laughs)

CARLTON: You made Damon such a happy man. My god, if we went through this entire panel and everybody was nice, he would be miserable.

MAN: No, you make it up as you go, it's fine, um alright did uh...

CARLTON: What answer would you like?

MAN: I'd like to know if he actually- actually got caught in the net deliberately, or was Ben just actually, you know, get caught.

CARLTON: He got caught deli- he got caught by accident.

MAN: By accident?

DAMON: Yes, he was not- he did not try to get caught in uh Rousseau's trap.

CARLTON: Yeah.

MAN: Did he kill Henry?

DAMON: The r-

MAN: Did he kill Henry?

DAMON: (bell rings) (giggles) Killing is a very- is a very broad term, I would- you know... They had words.

MAN: Okay.

DAMON: But we will be revealing um exactly why Ben was headed across the island when he accidentally got caught.

CARLTON: They just turned your light off, that's not a good sign.

MAN: No. Just- thank you.

DAMON: Thank you very much.

WOMAN: Hello.

DAMON: Hi.

CARLTON: Hi.

WOMAN: Um, with the decision to end the series after a certain amount of Seasons coming in the middle of the year, did that directly impact how Season 3 wrapped up or was that already on the docket from the get go?

DAMON: May I begin?

CARLTON: Sure.

DAMON: Um, basically, we've talked about the show um and what the Island is and certain major, um, plot turns like when the Others would reveal themselves and uh you know, when Desmond would um, you know, when Penny would become aware of the Island, et cetera, et cetera, so we have all of these things in play, but as long as we were sort of proceeding without knowing what the finishing line was, we had to delay stuff that we would have liked to have done sooner and push it off later because it became about tap dancing. And I think when the uh general audience and the critics and everybody else, you know, became aware of the fact that, all right, there's a little bit too much tap dancing and not enough story telling going on here, um this sort of critical mass began to build about needing to end the show and then it was announced okay, you know, they're gonna let us do it. So one of the things that we have wanted to do for, you know, probably since the very end of Season 1, Carlton and I, um, sat down and said this...

(Carlton rings bell)

DAMON: Do I have to stop talking? You just wanted to do that.

CARLTON: I just wanted to do that.

DAMON: The uh, this flashback device is not going to work forever. Um, the minute that we stop showing the audience revelatory moments from these peoples' lives and the minute it starts feeling like we're making it up as we go along, cause when you're dealing with the past, you can't make it up as you go along, you kind of have to be like, oh suddenly like, you know, Jin had a second wife and, you know, its like oh really, he never mentioned her, so um we knew that we were gonna have to switch gears, and that the way we were gonna be switching gears was in the flash forwards.

CARLTON: It gave us license to basically execute that idea, which we were waiting on because we didn't know how many episodes we had to fill, but once we knew, OK we're down to 48 episodes we thought OK now we can actually put that out there. I mean right now the story telling on, previously the story telling in the show had taken place in the present, and gone into the past, and we had always sort of wanted to introduce this notion of the future, and now with an end date we had the sort of certainty to allow ourselves to do that. We sort of view the show as a mosaic, and going forward you're going to be seeing pieces of the show that take place in each of those different time zones, and what you saw with Kate and Jack was not the end of the show.

DAMON: Yeah, I mean, that's the big thing that Carlton just said which is you know, we wanted to communicate to the audience that the show has never really been about getting off the Island, um and people have been asking us all along is there gonna be, you know, an after-Lost, like if the show ends with them getting rescued, will we see what their lives are be like. And we were kind of sitting on this knowledge of knowing there's this whole chapter of our story that takes place off the Island, but we can't start telling it until we tell the audience that the show is going to end, because they would s- if you had seen the Kate and Jack scene, and it was just the end of Season 3 and it was another episode as opposed to one less episode, I think you probably would have thrown up your hands on your head and said they are fucking stalling again. You know, but it was- because it was in the context of we're really moving toward the end now people, we- we feel we owed to the audience, um we needed to do something radical in an effort to basically say to everybody, come with us all the way to the end and it won't, you know, be a waste of time, and, you know, they were- they let us do it, which was cool.

CARLTON: Yeah.

WOMAN: Thank you for making Wednesdays the best day ever.

DAMON: Oh, thank you.

CARLTON: Thanks.

DAMON: I'm- I'm a big Friday fan myself, for the- for the obvious reasons.

WOMAN: Hey guys.

DAMON: Hi.

WOMAN: You're awesome in your podcasts. Thank you for those.

DAMON/CARLTON: Thanks.

WOMAN: I totally understand that you were spoiled, but I also feel like you, I don't know, were gonna bring something unique by talking about Michael here, and I think that it'd be a shame if we don't get when or where, I just kinda feel like its a hoax and he's coming back in a flashback, cause you've done that to us before.

CARLTON: Oh good, this is another fan of yours Damon.

DAMON: What is uh...

WOMAN: I don't mean to put you in a cold sweat but I just- I just think we need to know a little more, its a little bit unfair.

CARLTON: Oh, okay, okay. Um, all right, all right, all right. Well, you know, what?

WOMAN: Just give me a when!

DAMON: All right!!

CARLTON: Enough!

WOMAN: Don't you guys agree?

CARLTON: Please. Please. Okay.

DAMON: What does your shirt say?

WOMAN: Dad.

DAMON: Oh, that's so sweet. Um, okay.

CARLTON: All right, you know what?

WOMAN: Let him be redeemed!

CARLTON: Okay!

DAMON: We will tell you everything you wanna know about Michael when- when...

(Bell rings)

CARLTON: Did you ring your bell?

DAMON: I didn't ring a bell.

CARLTON: Who rang that bell?

DAMON: I don't know, who- (bell rings) Ladies and gentlemen, Harold Perrineau!

(Crowd screams and claps as Perrineau enters)

(Incoherent talking as crowd loudly talk with excitement)

MICHAEL: Yeah, yeah, got one. Hello, beautiful people!

WOMAN: Thank you!

CARLTON: Are you happy now?

DAMON: Does that answer your question?

HAROLD: Man I've missed you all!

(Crowd cheer)

DAMON: So er obviously now Harold will answer any questions that you ask, he is- he has got his own bell, but I know that I, you know, I speak for everybody involved with the show um when I say how excited we are um to bring you back, Harold is actually the first and only actor who's ever left the show and is actually part of a grander design to come back, and it was excruciating for us to kind of keep our mouths shut, all of us, for- for a season, essentially 28 weeks later kind of kicked ass so.... (inaudible) And we're just thrilled to have you back.

HAROLD: And its the same here, its been one of those long tricky like, I mean, they've had more information than I've had and so, I've made choices and then finally its all worked out, and I'm really really excited to go back to Hawaii and hang out with a bunch of my friends. And now we know when its going to end so this time if Michael goes away, he's going to be gone.

CARLTON: Michael's story is for us one of the most becoming storylines on the show because here's a character who obviously, you know, took- undertook some very extreme actions in order to basically get his son off the Island and then when he sailed off in that boat I think everyone was very curious about what happened to him, what is his fate, and in a series that deals a lot with the powers of redemptive on the Island and what these characters need to do to redeem themselves, we really feel that Michael's story will be a really compelling part of the Season.

DAMON: And, you know, we can confirm that Harold is not coming back for a quick pop in an episode, he is gonna be a series regular, he is rejoining the cast.

(Loud claps)

DAMON: We are- we're not going to tell you when, but it is going to be early in the fourth Season, because I think the way that we're doing it is going to be fairly awesome. (Crowd laughs) So er feel free to direct your questions to Harold.

HAROLD: If you want, but I have the same answer I've had from the beginning – I don't know! (All laugh) But really any questions you have, talk to the two men, they have it all in their heads.

CARLTON: Okay, go ahead.

MAN: Good to see you back Harold.

HAROLD: Thank you.

MAN: I had a question about the Lost Experience. After Season 2 that really kept me just loving Lost and after I found out that it wasn't here after Season 3, I was really disappointed cause I need my little fix, you know. And I was wondering if we're ever going to get one back, and also if Rachel Blake's gonna end up on the Island any time soon.

DAMON: Good question.

CARLTON: Rachel is probably not going to end up on the Island any time soon, we are, obviously we've been taking long-term about doing these Lost mobisodes which are going to be for Verizon, little short movies that you're going to be able to access on your cellphone. Those are still in process, we're hoping to get those down and out this fall, they might be the next thing that you see in terms of original content on Lost apart from what's going to happen at 5:58 tonight! And, you know, in terms of Lost Experience, we sort of felt it was a mixed bag, I think, you know, for the hardcore fans it was very satisfying, but we had a hard time making it work for a large audience, and honestly we just didn't really have the time this year with planning out the show, with the whole announcement of the season ending, with everything else going on, to really engage in doing another Lost Experience, but that doesn't mean we won't do another one or revisit that between other Seasons of the show.

DAMON: Its really tricky because, you know, we want to do stuff that is really exclusive for the hardcore fans of the show, the people who really sort of pour their, you know, their energy, their blood, their sweat, the ones, you know, who are sitting outside this room for hours upon hours... (crowd cheer)... I know who you are! But, you know, as a result of us wanting to do that, that stuff has to be in canon, you know, we can't say like oh that had nothing to do with us and therefore you wasted your time going through that Lost Experience, so as Carlton said, you know, it requires us to, you know, kind of be in full creative control of that, um and not at the expense of the mothership. One of the good- awesome benefits I think of doing just 16 a year is that we will be able to refocus our time and energy into creating, you know, separate medias, you know, attention on the game, you know, mobisodes, another Lost Experience – we have a couple of cool book ideas that tie into the show, um, and really um supervise that stuff so that it's awesome and worth your money, so, you know, that's kind of where we stand on that.

MAN: Thanks guys.

DAMON: Thank you.

MAN: Hello, my name's Michael.

CARLTON: Hi, Michael.

MAN: Michael is my favorite character, so I'm glad he's coming back.

MICHAEL: Right on.

MAN: My question is um, after Lost is completely over, what would you guys like to do next?

(someone sighs)

MICHAEL: Sleep?

CARLTON: I don't know. You know, I'll answer that first, then Damon can take a shot at it himself. I mean, Lost is so all-consuming, that it's really hard to think about anything beyond that. I mean, one of the things that you know, doing the show require- is a high degree of difficulty. It requires such a full time commitment, that, you know, at least for me, other gestating project ideas are kind of in the back of my brain, and I think will emerge as the ending of the show gets closer, but right now I think what's- what's great about our partnership on this show and our commitment to the show, is that we're both fully committed to the show, we along with ending the show and also signed on to finish the journey, that's what we're doing full time, we're committed to doing that for the next three years, making Lost as good as it can, all the way to the end.

(crowd applauds)

DAMON: You know, I think, you know, um, there's, you know, sort of a lot of amazing and exciting projects that have been kind of thrown, you know, uh, at Carlton and I and some of the other writers, in terms of like, hey do you want to go off and do this, do you want to write this during hiatus, and, you know, we can really just keep our eyes on the ball of the show, as you guys know, it's so complicated, and we know if we trip up and, you know, make significant story telling mistakes, you know, there's kind of no going back, we're not a show, um, you know, that is like a procedural drama, or a show like 24, which is serialized, but can re- reboot every season, there's always a new crisis. You guys, if you don't like the finale, you might not watch the premiere, if you don't like episode 5, you might miss episode 6, so you know, it really requires a tremendous amount of attention on our part, so I'm not even really thinking beyond the show. I mean, I just want to say, kind of looking out at this room, it's every writer's dream, every actor's dream, every storyteller's dream to kind of be able to just sit at a table and have a dialogue with people who are into some, you know, watching something that you're, you know, a story that you're telling them, and, you know, I wouldn't want to make the mistake of kind of trying to chase, you know, something like Lost again, so, you know, I might just write a pamphlet (everyone laughs) or a, you know, a grocery list. Something that I- that I...

CARLTON: An annual report.

DAMON: ...that I know I can take on.

MAN: Thank you.

CARLTON: Thanks.

MAN: Hey guys, I'll make this quick, cause I know people behind me, but um, I just wanted to say that uh, Richard Alpert, the guy that never ages...

CARLTON: Yeah.

MAN: ...is an awesome, awesome character.

DAMON: He is, yes.

MAN: A lot of potential. Um, but uh...

DAMON: And he's played by, uh, Nestor Carbonell, who is- who is awesome, but is actually on a uh, he's on a CBS show this year...

CARLTON: We run into this problem a little bit, which is, you know, you make a show, but you make a show in the real world where people have other commitments and issues and I think, you know, Harold kind of alluded to that too, I mean, Harold had other projects and things going on and it was hard and it took a while for us to work out our schedule in conjunction with a lot of the other artistic projects that Harold was involved in. And I think we're gonna have the same problem a little bit with Nestor, I mean he's doing this show with Jimmy Smits, and you know, so we- we may be limited in how much we can use him until that show resolves.

DAMON: And we want that show to do very, very bad. (Crowd laughs)

MAN: No we don't. He's got so much potential, he's a very, very good actor. Anyway, Season 4, that's why we're here, that's what I wanna ask about, um, you answered this question the last time, Damon, and I'm gonna ask you the same question, please, please answer it. What's the title of the first episode? Please!

DAMON: What's the title of what first episode?

MAN: The first episode of Season 4.

DAMON: Oh.

CARLTON: You know what, I can tell you honestly, we are in the middle of writing it right now, we do not have a title.

DAMON: Literally, we're being honest with you and not cagey, we don't know! The- it's- it's written and there- there have been several title ideas pitched out, um, one that I think we're kind of favoring, but, uh, we're not gonna reveal that here.

MAN: No, come on!

CARLTON: We don't- don't have it, we don't- we honestly-

DAMON: We'll make one up.

CARLTON: We'll make one up.

DAMON: We'll work on it, we still have ten minutes.

MAN: Hey, thanks a lot, the show is absolutely brilliant. Thanks guys.

DAMON: Thank you, man.

CARLTON: Thank you.

WOMAN: Hi, I have a question for all three of you, including Harold. So the fans, we ask lots of different questions, there's a lot of people in line right now, but what questions are we not asking that we ought to be?

(All laugh and clap)

DAMON: That's kind of a Mobius loop of a question...

CARLTON: Yes... Who's in the coffin? (Rings bell quickly) (everyone laughs)

DAMON: That's a good one.

(All laugh and clap. A fan shouts an incoherent line from the crowd, possibly “Who's in the coffin” and both writers ring their bells in response)

DAMON: Actually, if I can ask Harold, you've been watching the show...

MICHAEL: Right.

DAMON: ...since you left, and you obviously know just as much about it as you did before (laughs)...

CARLTON: Who do you think is in the coffin, Harold?

DAMON: Yeah if you had to make a guess, who would you say is in the coffin?

HAROLD: Well I mean, this is just me guessing, and someone on, I think, online had blown up the uh article that Jack showed to Kate, and it said that he had left behind a teenage son, so my guess is that, the person with the son, it's probably Locke. (Crowd laughs) It's just a guess, I don't know.

DAMON: I think a very educated one.

MICHAEL: I don't know.

CARLTON: Well we'll wait and see if Terry reads this online.

HAROLD: Exactly. Harold said I'm dead!

(Crowd laugh)

DAMON: You know another- another question that I would be lining up to ask and therefore, you know, would be, who's, you know, who's on that freighter out there, and what do they want out of the Island? That's what- that's what I'd be asking.

CARLTON: And then another question which I would ask which we're not going to answer is OK Kate and Jack obviously got off the Island, did anybody else get off the Island?

DAMON: Oh oh oh, what about those uh those skeletons from Season 1.

CARLTON: Oh yeah.

DAMON: What about those guys?

CARLTON: And what about Nikki and Paulo, are they really dead?

(Crowd laughs)

DAMON: Yeah, are Nicki and Paulo really dead?

HAROLD: Hey, and is Penny gonna be on the Island? I want to know that...

DAMON: Oh the public outcry when we killed them, to bring them back! (Crowd laugh) It's been overwhelming! Uh, so yeah those are just a couple of questions that we'd be asking, and not answering.

(All laugh)

WOMAN: Well its about 5:55, so we have five minutes left, and three minutes 'til 5:58. Two more questions!

CARLTON: We'll have three more questions, we started a little late.

DAMON: Three more questions.

WOMAN (audience): Thanks for the questions.

DAMON: You're welcome.

CARLTON: Thanks for the question about the question.

MAN: OK, I'm going to make this one short. In Season 1, when Hurley saw somebody fall off a building, was that Locke?

DAMON + CARLTON: No.

CARLTON: Sorry. Look at that, he just left.

(All laugh)

CARLTON: Bye-bye.

DAMON: Looks like someone lost a bet!

CARLTON: A lot of traffic out there.

DAMON: And I believe I just got the finger.

(All laugh)

CARLTON: OK. Yes, sir?

MAN: I'm gonna ask a very volatile question right now, Libby! We were told that we were going to get more of her in uh flashbacks and stuff, revealing stuff, and there's been a couple of hints that she possibly worked for DHARMA, I don't- uh, it's been theorized online and stuff, uh, what do you have to say about the absence of Libby and are we getting more of her any time soon in flashbacks like you promised?

CARLTON: It- it is our intention to get to Libby's story this year, and we think you will be very happy when we actually do finish that.

DAMON: You're not, um, you're not barking up the wrong tree either with some of your speculative online questioning.

MAN: Thank you very much and keep writing.

CARLTON: Oh, he gave you the finger too but it was your...

WOMAN: Hi, first I just wanna say thank you for everything, and my question is my favorite character on the show, or one of them, is Danielle Rousseau and we've been getting hints of her story and now, you know, she's reunited with Alex, I just wanna know is she getting her own flashback any time soon?

(some crowd cheer)

CARLTON: Um... We- we would like to do Rousseau's flashback story, I'm not sure if we'll do it this year or next year, but um...

DAMON: There are important things revealed in that story, and they have to kind of sync up with something else that...

CARLTON: Going on (rings bell). That's enough out of you.

DAMON: Barring unforeseen circumstances, you will be seeing that story within the next season or two.

CARLTON: Yes.

WOMAN: Thank you very much.

DAMON: Uh, one- last question.

CARLTON: Let's do two more questions...

DAMON: Can we do more questions?

CARLTON: I know its a little late but it'll keep.

WOMAN: Good evening.

CARLTON: Good evening.

WOMAN: The question I have has to do with how you plan to film the next three Seasons, I know that normally since you've got the 16 episodes per year, do you plan on speeding up filming and writing and just kind of holding back, or kind of letting things develop and kind of take their time.

CARLTON: The whole idea was to take our time, I mean, the reason that we're doing 3 Seasons of 16 was to give us the chunk of time where we can really work on the stories, I mean, the process of making television is so quick, I mean I think we spend about 10 days in total basically breaking the story and writing the finale, it was totally crazy, I mean, we were working around the clock, we were barely sleeping, and I think we sort of believe with more time we can kind of keep the quality bar of the show high. So that's- we'll be filming 16 episodes each season to air in each of those years.

DAMON: Also I think what's going to be tricky for this year is that we're going to be- to have written through episode 14 or 15 before you guys even see the premiere.

CARLTON: Which means if we do something that you guys don't like we're kind of screwed.

DAMON: Right, we're sort of flying without a net a little and I think the reason that every- all of you came today is because you wanna know, you know, ahead of time what's coming up and, you know, we want to have events like Comic Con and we'll have some web events, some podcasts, but at the same time there will be significant spoilers. If you want to, you can find out about the first 10 episodes are about online before you even tune in to the first episode of Lost. And of course there are people who always want to turn to the last page of the book and there are people who aren't, and it's our job to try to make sure that the people who don't want to get spoiled, you know, don't get spoiled. Which while as cutsie as we are with the bells, we err on the side of not giving away too much because, maybe 85% of the people in this room want to know, you know, there's a subset who want to go for the ride.

CARLTON: We were incredibly grateful for the fan community when it came to the finale, about what a rebellion it was against people who were trying to spoil the finale. I mean, thanks to you, I think a lot of people got shut down and got the door slammed in their face in terms of basically trying to spoil the finale. And I think people who did find out about the finale, really, it kind of ruined the experience for them. So we hopefully we'll count on you, our most avid fans, to help us with policing spoilers. We're not the CIA, and obviously the show goes through 500 people's hands between the inception of the story and the conclusion of the episodes, and we've realized it's virtually impossible to keep spoilers from getting out there, but you guys can help us in terms of keeping the spoilers away from people who don't really want to see them.

DAMON: Wow that was like a public service announcement.

(Crowd applauds)

CARLTON: Yes it was.

WOMAN: I just wanted to say thank you for making a highly intelligent high-quality show.

CARLTON: Thank you.

DAMON: Thanks for coming. We really appreciate it.

CARLTON: Yeah.

MAN: Hi my name's Aaron. I had a question about the Monster.

DAMON: Excellent.

MAN: Yeah, um... Can I call him- can I call it Cerberus? From the blast door map?

CARLTON: If you want.

DAMON: That is, you know, on the blast door map, ther are- those things referred to as CV vents, Cerberus Vents, so yes the person who drew that map, um, you know, Radzinsky first and then Kelvin, uh, did refer to it as Cerberus, although, you know, that might have just been the DHARMA Initiative's name for it.

CARLTON: Right, that's one of its names.

MAN: What I wanted to know...

DAMON: Aaron may I call you Cerberus? (Laughs)

MAN: Sure.

DAMON: Okay, continue, Cerberus.

AARON: What I wanted to know is um, it kind of seems like it represents judgment, when it killed Eko, it seems like Eko messed up in his life before the island, and when he got back though, it- he really changed, and uh even though he didn't confess the way that he was supposed to, it seems like he was really going on the right path, so why did he have to die, I just want to know if that's going to be answered later in the show?

DAMON: You know, what the Monster is, who made it um if anyone did, and what motivates it to do the things that it does is hopefully gonna be definitively answered, um, at least in our minds, we think it's a really satisfying answer, but I think its one of those things like Kate's plane which we've talked about at the Con before, you know, you give the most definitive answer in the world and people are still like but there was microfilm inside it right!

CARLTON: And ultimately- ultimately there are mysteries that- about the world of the show that- that will always remain mysteries, I mean, that's the nature of life, that's the nature of the world, and I think that will be part of the show, so I can't imagine that when we come to the conclusion every question that you have, and every mystery will satis- finally be answered, but some of those mysteries are okay cause that's the nature of the world that we live in and the world in our show, but we will, we obviously want a satisfying ending, its not gonna be ten seconds of blank tape, it's- it's, you know...

DAMON: Its gonna be twenty seconds!

(Crowd laughs)

DAMON: Of blank tape. Twice as mysterious.

CARLTON: Hopefully in the- as the show concludes, further information about the Monster will satisfy you, Cerberus.

DAMON: One final question.

CARLTON: One last question, and then we are going to show you the overdue piece of film.

WOMAN: That actually was.

DAMON: That was the last question!

CARLTON: All right, so we're- we're...

DAMON: Before we get into this, an explanation, again just, um, Harold came, braved the traffic of uh the 405 Freeway to get down here in the nick of time, uh, again let's give it up, Harold Perrineau back on the show!

(Crowd cheers and applauds)

CARLTON: OK, we didn't want to- since the Harold announcement was not completely revealed here, we do want to give you something special, something no-one has seen before, something that is absolutely brand new and hopefully something that will fire your imaginations about what you're gonna see in Season 4.

DAMON: And if I may interject, what was really tough this year is, you know, we haven't started shooting Season 4 yet, we don't start, in fact, for another four weeks. So we were like-

CARLTON: Fortunately, we had an incredible circumstance befall- we um- it came to our attention that this piece of film was discovered in a vault in a building in Narvik, Norway that was scheduled for demolition- for demolition and it got sent to us and we were like...

DAMON: It was basically a trimden, like an old school trimden with all this film hanging in it, that sort of, you know, it was numbered.

CARLTON: Stuck together and been spliced together.

DAMON: And once you see it you'll understand why they called us, but uh, you know, we- we put our editors on it, and we have- we've restored it to the best of our ability, the sound quality is kind of shoddy, but what it means, who knows, um but uh we felt that we would share it with you guys first.

CARLTON: But we're also, um, yes, you guys will get a chance to see it first. But we're gonna end with the film, so we wanna say thank you guys so much for all turning out, it was completely awesome.

(crowd cheers)

DAMON: You know, this is uh- this is literally the highlight of our year. And it is not um, it is not at all um a falsehood to say um that this show is born out of the Con, and you guys saw it first and championed it, and we do it for you and with you, and we thank you for everything! (crowd cheers and audio fades out)

KRIS: That wraps up this summer edition of the official Lost podcast. You can go to ABC.com to check out the special DHARMA video the guys were talking about during the panel. And stay tuned to ABC.com and the Official Podcast for more exclusive Lost content in the coming months as we get ready for Season 4.

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