What We Learned from Comic-Con

Lindelof and Cuse weren't kidding when they said they'd been planning their Comic-Con panel for months. In the span of an hour, they provided fans with guest appearances, lots of exclusive videos, some live skits, and even a couple pieces of knowledge about Season 6.

I'll post as many videos I can find, but first, here's a rundown of what we learned:

-There's a "good chance you'll be seeing many characters you haven't seen since the first season."

-Confirmed to return: Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet), Jeremy Davies (Faraday), Ian Somerhalder (Boone) and Dominic Monaghan (Charlie). Of course, we don't know if these appearances will be cameos or full-on recurring roles. Mitchell is also starring in ABC's V, while Monaghan is also starring in ABC's Flash Forward.

-Richard's backstory is "fairly involved", but we'll be getting it in Season 6.

-The Dharma Initiative won't play as big a role in this season because "we have many other interesting things to be dealing with." Since last season was very Dharma heavy, they feel they've explored pretty much all we need to know (although we will find out where the Dharma food drops come from). However, there will be a web series (it'll be included in the DVD) called "Mysteries of the Universe: The Dharma Initiative" that will provide some backstory that they felt didn't need to be included on "the mother ship" (a.k.a. the show).

-Jacob has never appeared in another form. (Apparently only Man #2 has that ability?)

-From Carlton Cuse: "There was a certain kind of feel [in the first season]: they were running around in the jungle, things felt intense and surprising; the emotional discovery that went on in the first season with these characters...we feel like we have a way we're going to be doing that in the final season of the show that we like, and hopefully you will too."

-From Damon Lindelof: "We are doing something different in the sixth season...the Time Travel Season is over, the Flash-Forward Season is over. We have something different planned, so hopefully you will like it, but we're not going to commit to what exactly that can be today."

Might it be...the Alternate Universe Season? Early on in the panel, they showed three exclusive videos, all implying that the H-bomb worked and the timeline was erased. The first was a commercial for Mr. Cluck's restaurant, featuring one Hugo Reyes: "Hi, I'm Hugo Reyes, the owner of Mr. Cluck's. Ever since I won the lottery, I've had nothing but good luck. On a recent vacation to Australia, I had a dream while camping under the stars of the outback. A dream...of chicken."

The second was a quickie commercial for Oceanic Airlines, trumpeting their "perfect safety record."

The third was a clip from America's Most Wanted (complete with John Walsh) about Kate Austen, still on the run for blowing up her house. However, instead of killing her father, she accidentally killed somebody named Ryan Milner, her father's work apprentice, who was sent by her father to lock up the house.

The takeaway from these, aside from the fact that they're teasing the hell out of us, is that in this alternate universe, a lot of things have changed -- not just the plane's failure to crash.

After these videos aired, Jorge Garcia (Hurley) was planted in the audience and went up to ask a few scripted questions of Lindelof and Cuse. The major one was: if you actually go through with the alternate reality thing, the last five seasons have been erased, and that would be a major cheat, right? Lindelof's answer: "You'll just have to trust us. We've gotten this far, we're not going to answer, but: trust us."

TAGS: Boone, Carlton Cuse, Charlie, Comiccon, Damon Lindelof, Faraday, Hurley, Jorge Garcia, Juliet, Kate, Richard
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