Unraveling the Mysteries of "Lost"

That still leaves a lot to reckon with. Whether Lost's characters ever leave the island or not, they still have to live with themselves — with the horrible things they've done, with the moral and emotional wreckage they've become, whether on an isle of miracles or not. Yet amid all the show's loss and darkness there runs a steady if uneasy current of hope: Some of these people have been looking for ways to atone, no matter the price. "The focus on redemption," says Cuse, "is something that is endlessly fascinating to both Damon and me — the fact that we are all sort of imperfect as people. Our characters are in extreme circumstances. They've confronted on the island various manifestations of the exact issues that they struggled with as people their whole lives. We feel there's an incredible universality to that. It's the human journey. Redemption is something that everyone seeks, and that's something we try to hold out in the show. If we acknowledge our imperfection, and if we ask for forgiveness for our imperfection, are we able to actually reset the clock?"

"There's a shift," Lindelof adds, "that started around the time we announced an end date, and that corresponded with the Obama campaign, towards faith. Carlton and I have made no secret of the fact that we're big Obama supporters, and we're very high on hope and change and optimism, and we hope the final seasons of the show will be infused with that idea. And we're seeing that reflected in the attitude of the viewers. People started to say, ?Maybe the show won't fuck me. Maybe if I believe in it, and change my thinking, I will get answers.'

"We have always known what the very end of this series will be," Lindelof continues. "We are going to present the audience with the empirical answers to these questions — the questions that we care about and that we feel are really important to understand in order to give the show the necessary closure. We will not be cutting to black as a Journey song plays. But as for the grander questions Lost raises — you know, does free will win out over destiny? — these sort of larger thematic questions can't be answered by a single show, and we certainly wouldn't have the hubris to try."

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