EW: The wholeidea of flash-sideways and the plan to use season 6 to show us a worldwhere Oceanic 815 never crashed — how long has that been in the works?Why did you want to do it?
DAMON LINDELOF: It’s been in playfor at least a couple of years. We knew that the ending of the timetravel season was going to be an attempt to reboot. And as a result, we[knew] the audience was going to come out of the “do-over moment”thinking we were either going start over or just say it didn’t work andcontinue on. [We thought] wouldn’t it be great if we did both? That wasthe origin of the story.
CARLTON CUSE: We thought just doing one [ofthose options] would inherently not be satisfying. Since the verybeginning of the show, characters started crossing through each other’sstories. Part of our desire [in season 6] is to show that there’s stillthis kind of weave, that these characters still would have impactedeach other’s lives even without the event of crashing on the Island.Obviously, the big question of the season is going to be: How do these[two timelines] reconcile? However, for the fans who have not watchedthe show closely, that’s an intact narrative. You can just watch theflash sideways — they stand alone all by themselves. For the fans whoare more deeply embedded in the show, you can watch those flashsideways, compare them to what transpired in the flashbacks and go,“Oh, that’s an interesting difference.”
LINDELOF: Right out of thegate, in the first five minutes of the premiere, you get hit over thehead with two things that you’re not expecting. The first is thatDesmond is on the plane. The second thing that we do is we drop out ofthe plane and we go below the water and we see that the Island issubmerged. What we’re trying to do there is basically say to you, “Godbless the survivors of Oceanic 815, because they’re so self-centered,they thought the only effect [of detonating the bomb] was going to bethat their plane never crashes.” But they don’t stop to think, “If wedo this in 1977, what else is going to affected by this?” So that theirentire lives can be changed radically. In fact, it would appear thatthey’ve sunken the Island. That’s our way of saying, “Keep your eyespeeled for the differences that you’re not expecting.” Some of thesecharacters were still in Australia, but some weren’t. Shannon’s notthere. Boone actually says that he tried to get her back. There are allsorts of other people that we don’t see. Where’s Libby? Where’s AnaLucia? Where’s Eko? These are all the things that you’re supposed to bethinking about. When our characters posited the “What if?” scenario,they neglected to think about what the other effects of potentiallychanging time might be and we’re embracing those things.
Thatsaid, are you saying definitively that detonating Jughead was the eventthat created this new timeline? Or is that a mystery which the season 6story will reveal?
你们是要明确地讲，引爆核弹就是创造这条新时间线的大事件么？或者，这是一个第六季会揭示的谜团么？
LINDELOF: It’s a mystery. A big one.
LINDELOF: 的确是个谜团，大个儿的。
CUSE:We did have some concern that it might be confusing kind of going intothe season. To clear that up a little bit: The archetypes of thecharacters are the same and that’s the most significant thing. Kate isstill a fugitive. If you were to look at the Comic-Con video, forinstance, that now comes into play. There was a different scenario inthat story. She basically blew up an apprentice plumber as opposed tokilling her biological father/stepfather. Those kind of differencesexist, but who the characters fundamentally are is the same. If itbecomes too confusing for you, you can just follow the flash sidewaysfor what they are. It’s not as though there’s narrative that hangs onthe fact that you need to know that this event was different in thatworld, in the flashback world versus the sideways world. That’s notcritical for being able to process the narrative this season.
Isthere a relationship between Island reality and sideways reality? Willthey run parallel for the remainder of the season? Will they fusetogether? Might one fade away?
LINDELOF: For us, the bigrisk that we’re taking in the final season of the show is basicallythis very question. [Lindelof then explains the show has replaced thetrademark “whoosh!” sound effect marking the segue between Islandpresent story and flashbacks or flash-forwards, thus callingconspicuous attention to the relationship between the Island world andthe Sideways world.] This is the critical mystery of the season, whichis, “What is the relationship between these two shows?” And we don’tuse the phrase “alternate reality,” because to call one of them an“alternate reality” is to infer that one of them isn’t real, or one ofthem is real and the other is the alternate to being real.
CUSE: Butthe questions you’re asking are exactly the right questions. What arewe to make of the fact that they’re showing us two different timelines?Are they going to resolve? Are they going to connect? Are they going toco-exist in parallel fashion? Are they going to cross? Do theyintersect? Does one prove to be viable and the other one not? I thinkthose are all the kind of speculations that are the right speculationsto be having at this point in the season.
LINDELOF: But it isgoing to require patience. We’ve taught the audience how to be patientthus far, so while they’re getting a lot of mythological answers on theisland early in the season, this idea of what is the relationshipbetween the two [worlds] is a little bit more of a slow burn.
DidJughead really sink the Island? And is it possible that the Sidewayscharacters are now caught in a time loop in which they might have to goback in time and fulfill the obligation to continuity by detonating thebomb?
LINDELOF: These questions will be dealt with on theshow. Should you infer that the detonation of Jughead is what sunk theisland? Who knows? But there’s the Foot. What do you get when you seethat shot? It looks like New Otherton got built. These little clues[might help you] extrapolate when the Island may have sunk. Start tothink about it. A couple of episodes down the road, some of thecharacters might even discuss it. We will say this: season 6 is notabout time travel. It’s about the implications, the aftermath, and thecausality of trying to change the past. But the idea of continuing todo paradoxical storytelling is not what we’re interested in this year.
