‘Lost’ star Michael Emerson and MTV News try to make sense of mysterious plot before series finale on Sunday. By Josh Wigler Cast of “Lost” Photo: ABC “Lost” is not simply about a plane crashing on a mysterious island. It cannot be classified as pure science fiction or jungle adventure or any other number of genres. There are numerous philosophical issues at the core of “Lost,” but distilling the series into one idea isn’t just a daunting task — it’s a virtually impossible one. But that won’t stop Michael Emerson, who plays the eerie Benjamin Linus on the hit series, from trying. “On the surface, ‘Lost’ seems to be a universal survival adventure,” Emerson explained of the concept in a message recorded for MTV News. “But as it goes along, it becomes revealed to be much more than that: a science-fiction and time-travel drama; an allegory of sin and redemption and past lives and hope for the future. “It’s a lot,” he ultimately conceded. We’ll try to clarify his explanation with some additional details. The series debuted in 2004 with a simple premise: Oceanic Flight 815 crashes on a tropical island with a handful of passengers miraculously surviving the accident. But this is no ordinary island: in addition to the expected wild boar and exotic birds, there are polar bears, an indigenous group called the Others and an ancient monster made out of black smoke. Our heroes are tasked with facing down these forces, while struggling to survive and find a way off the island. But when a lucky few finally manage to escape, it becomes apparent that these men and women were never supposed to leave. They were always destined to carry out a higher purpose in this jungle of mystery. As the show progressed and the mysteries deepened, “Lost” kept itself grounded through a compelling cast of characters: Jack, a heroic doctor with an obsessive need to fix everything; Kate, a fugitive with nowhere left to run; Sawyer, a conman hiding the heart of a hero; Hurley, an overweight multimillionaire with an unlucky curse; Sayid, an Iraqi torturer looking to put the past behind him; Jin and Sun Kwon, a married couple with trust issues; Claire, a pregnant woman unsure about becoming a mother; and Locke, a paraplegic whose spine is healed by the island, leading him to believe that he and his fellow survivors were always meant to be here — an assertion that Jack initially rejects. But Jack began to view the island from Locke’s perspective once it was revealed that the enigmatic Jacob brought the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 to the island — the skeptical Jack included — in an effort to find his successor as the island’s ruler. Before he could finalize his replacement, Jacob was murdered by Ben, the disenfranchised former leader of the Others who felt neglected by Jacob. Ben carried out the deed at the request of the vicious smoke monster, which is actually Jacob’s brother and eternal nemesis posing as a deceased John Locke. With Jacob dead, the monster simply needed to kill his brother’s remaining candidates, which would allow him to finally leave the island and explore the outside world. In addition to the already-dead Locke, the monster succeeded in killing half of these candidates: Sun, Jin and Sayid. A ghostly Jacob was able to reach out to the rest of candidates to warn them of what was at stake: If the smoke monster is allowed to leave the island, the outside world would succumb to his might. Furthermore, the monster should be prevented at any cost from gaining access to a sacred light at the heart of the island. In order to protect this light, one of Jacob’s candidates needed to volunteer to take up the mantle as guardian of the island. Jack volunteered for the position and was given instructions on where to find the light before the monster could get to it. But the monster currently has his sights set on something else: Desmond Hume, a tragic hero with a unique relationship to the space-time continuum as a result of exposure to electromagnetic energy — an energy that permeates the island’s all-important light. With Desmond’s help, the monster believes, not only can he leave the island, but he can destroy it too. The rub is that Desmond’s whereabouts are unknown. Last seen trapped in a well, he’s apparently escaped since then. Desmond’s ability to destroy the island might have something to do with his knowledge of a sideways universe where Oceanic Flight 815 never crashed and landed safely in Los Angeles. He is one of few people in this sideways universe who remembers his time on the island, something that he’s hoping to fix. As the finale looms, Desmond’s mission to awaken our heroes’ sideways selves remains an mysterious factor in the show’s end game. Indeed, there are countless characters, organizations and enigmatic entities that could have a huge impact on how “Lost” concludes. With so many questions still dangling unanswered, there’s really only one certainty at this point: On Sunday night, this confounding, occasionally frustrating and enormously entertaining journey will finally reach its end. How do you hope “Lost” will end on Sunday? Let us know in the comments! Related Videos Counting Down To The ‘Lost’ Finale! Related Photos Spin-Offs For The Characters Of ‘Lost’
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What Is ‘Lost’ All About, Anyway?
