‘Lost’: I see dead people

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Another post-show chat with ‘Lost’ Show Tracker Denise Martin and Times Staff Writer Patrick Day about Hell, blowing up Ben and one big gopher.

DENISE: Now we’re getting somewhere! I am loving this new idea that the survivors are actually dead, perhaps even as Locke’s late Daddy Dearest suggested, in Hell. Sure, it’s not likely, but what a theory to throw around. Here’s hoping for a payoff.

PATRICK: That episode left me wired. And also marveling at how the season seems to be taking quite a dark turn. It seems like it was just a few weeks ago that everyone was complaining about Hurley joyriding a VW bus around the island. Now we get a surprisingly disturbing murder scene. I actually didn’t think Sawyer would kill Locke’s dad. Boy was I wrong!

I agree with you about the Hell theory. I don’t think they’re in Hell, but I do think the show will turn out to have a slightly religious bent at the end of the day. Remember the two skeletons they found on the island in the first season? Man and woman? Adam and Eve?

What do you think Rousseau is planning to do with that box of dynamite?

DENISE: Blow up Ben? Probably wishful thinking.

Hurley’s quest to save the VW was a particularly wasteful episode -- and all the more reason why I was mesmerized by tonight’s tricky moral dilemmas. You have to see now why I find the show frustrating when the writers give us a clunker like the Hurley episode and then a completely amazing, layered hour like this latest. Some consistency is in order here.

I still keep asking myself if they are in Hell, why are certain people there? I hate adding any new minor characters at this point -- Nikki and Paulo left an especially bitter aftertaste -- but I want Naomi to tell us what is going on! I know ‘Lost’ fanatics think this game of cat and mouse is suspenseful, but I’m all for speeding things along. They’ve got enough balls in the air to do it already.

PATRICK: You know that game ’20 Questions?’ It’s fun, right? But it’s only fun because you have to earn the knowledge of what your friend is thinking. They could just tell you right off the bat, or you might even guess it right away, but that sure doesn’t make it as much fun. That’s what ‘Lost’ is. That’s how you have to approach this show. If you’re here looking for answers, you should just tune in again next May when the series is (probably) going to end.

This will probably drive you nuts, but I’m hoping the producers don’t answer every question at the end of the series. I think one of the reasons ‘Twin Peaks’ has had such a long afterlife is because it left quite a lot of lingering questions.

My own theory about Rousseau is that she’s chasing after a gopher on the island.

DENISE: ‘Twin Peaks,’ FYI, my all-time favorite series, wasn’t engrossing only as a result of all the twists and turns the show took getting to the bottom of the Laura Palmer murder. Rather, it was the twisted Twin Peaks denizens and their double lives that made it an addiction! (Just try and tell me ‘Lost’ wouldn’t benefit from a dream sequence in which a dwarf in a red suit reveals clues while speaking backwards -- I kid, I kid). But I could have watched Agent Cooper and the gang forever because they kept things unexpected while somehow making sense within David Lynch’s upside down world. The Laura Palmer mystery was icing.

I know what you’re saying with the ’20 Questions’ assessment but as I’ve said before, if ‘Lost’ was populated by equally intriguing characters, all as strong and well-conceived as Locke, Juliette and maybe Sayid, I would have little problem with them dragging out the enigma of the island. As it is, not all of them are compelling anymore and I find my mind wandering back to the power of the first season when everything was still brimming with potential. I’m not bitter, I just want the show to recapture that same momentum and rebuild people like Charlie and Claire to the point where I care whether they live or die.

Since we’re allegedly about to find out more island secrets with Locke next week, give me your best guess as to what it is. I haven’t completely ruled out that they’re all dead and Ben is Satan, torturing them with his inability to answer questions.

PATRICK: The island isn’t Hell, but I think Ben and the rest of the Others are fallen angels. The island is their attempt to recreate paradise. Hence, the Adam and Eve skeletons. The only problem is they keep attracting sinners, like all the survivors of Flight 815, the slave ship, etc. They’re trying to procreate, but their sin prevents them from doing it. Some religious beliefs state that children are without sin until they are born. The black cloud seems to be some kind of litmus test. Do you belong in that place or not?

DENISE:...You’ve given that quite some thought.

PATRICK: I’m sure I’ll be proven 100% wrong next week after Ben’s big episode. If you don’t like Ben after next week, I’m going to suspect that you dislike him so much because he scares you deeply.

DENISE: Can you blame me? He’s got crazy eyes!

(Photo courtesy ABC)