This clip I love: I am – Hercules!!

I really am bummed about losing Faraday and his necktie (and Jeremy Davies!) after he was gone so many weeks. Hopefully we’ll learn this week or next what he was really up to during Faraday’s three years on the loose in the swinging 1970s. I am hugely excited about tonight's Alpert-centric “Follow The Leader":

Jack and Kate find themselves at odds over the direction to take to save their fellow island survivors, Locke further solidifies his stance as leader of "The Others," and Sawyer and Juliet come under scrutiny from the Dharma Initiative. Guest starring are Nestor Carbonell as Richard Alpert, Francois Chau as Dr. Pierre Chang, Doug Hutchison as Horace Goodspeed, Patrick Fischler as Phil, Eric Lange as Radzinsky, David S. Lee as younger Charles Widmore, Alice Evans as younger Eloise Hawking, Leslie Ishii as Lara, Sebastian Siegel as Erik, Kevin Chapman as Mitch, Elisabeth Blake as Vanessa, William Makozak as Captain Bird, Victoria Goring as mother and Maya Henssens as young girl. Written by Paul Zbyszewski & Elizabeth Sarnoff and directed by Stephen Williams.

ABC says of next week’s two-hour fifth-season finale, titled “The Incident” and hailing the return of Rose and Bernard:

Jack's decision to put a plan in action in order to set things right on the island is met with some strong resistance by those close to him, and Locke assigns Ben a difficult task. Guest starring are L. Scott Caldwell as Rose, Sam Anderson as Bernard, John Terry as Christian Shephard, Nestor Carbonell as Richard Alpert, Jeff Fahey as Frank Lapidus, Francois Chau as Dr. Pierre Chang, Patrick Fischler as Phil, Eric Lange as Radzinsky, Zuleikha Robinson as Ilana, Brad William Henke as Bram, Jon Gries as Roger Linus, Alice Evans as younger Eloise Hawking, Andrea Gabriel as Noor "Nadia" Abed Jaseem, Kevin Chapman as Mitch, Mark Pellegrino as man #1, Titus Welliver as man #2, Emily Rae Argenti as young Kate, Tanner Maguire as young Tom, George Gerdes as Mr. Springer, Agnes Kwak as Aunt Soo, Amy Stewart as mother, Rylee Fansler as young Juliet, Savannah Lathem as young Rachel, William Makozak as Captain Bird, Daniel James Kunkel as anesthesiologist, Sonya Masinovsky as Russian nurse, Keegan Boos as young Sawyer, Colby French as Uncle Doug, John Pete as prison clerk, Michael Trisler as father, Sally Davis as woman and Adam Bazzi as cab driver. Written by Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse and directed by Jack Bender.

Finally, tonight’s episode screened at an Ohio State Carlton Cuse appearance Tuesday night. “Tstewie” has the report:

Whattup AICN?? I attended "How I Made Lost" with Carlton Cuse last night at OSU in Columbus, OH. The writer and executive producer spoke about the making of LOST, did a Q & A, and treated us to the world premiere of today's next to last episode of season five, "Follow the Leader." Cuse was great, humble and hilarious. After letting us know that Richard Alpert is not wearing eyeliner, (that's just his weird-ass eyes!) Cuse got down to business talking briefly about the creation of LOST. It was great to hear how it came about from his viewpoint. It was originally concieved as a scripted "Survivor," he said, which I thought was interesting because I feel like I've always heard it was concieved as a "Castaway" TV show, but anyhow, Cuse came to the show after J.J. had filmed the pilot. He said he fell in love with the show and chose "passion over commerce," leaving his nice secure job working on "Charlie's Angels" to do this weird show nobody really thought would go anywhere. It might be a cult hit, he thought, but he and Damon Lindelof (whom Cuse had given his first TV job on "Nash Bridges") were not expecting a hit, deciding that they would focus on complex storytelling and basically just have fun. Their criteria for what went into the show was essentially "if we both thought it would be cool, we'd put it in." One of the funniest moments of the night was when he described Lindelof coming into his office with the ratings for the pilot in his hand, crying and asking "We have to keep fucking doing this?" He spoke about how they hit a wall in season three citing the famous Jack tattoo episode a lot. He said at one point that that would be one they wish they hadn't made. He described the process of "cancelling themselves" and how LOST is a "story show" as opposed to a "franchise show" like ER. LOST is about the journey he said, and we are getting to experience that journey in the best way possible, having time to analyze and speculate between episodes, unlike those that watch the seasons one after another on DVD. I couldn't agree more. We are marching towards the end now, he said, and they feel like they have bought their audience a fantastic Christmas gift and they can't wait to give it to us. Oh, me neither. Carlton Cuse was a real trooper when it came to Q&A time, fielding (I'm guessing) 30-40 questions. He said he'd do his best to answer what he could, but we needed to understand that he had to dodge some. "I've gotten pretty good at not anwsering questions," he said, "I've been studying George Bush." Most of my fellow "scholars" had obviously unanswerable questions such as "What lies in the shadow of the statue?" or "Why dosen't Richard age,?" the latter of which Cuse responded to with "Really? You stood in line to ask that"? Highlights of the Q&A were Cuse saying that he can or cannot say we will ever see the real Henry Gale, we will learn more about what Locke saw in the face of the smoke monster by the end of this season, and Rose and Bernard will return by the end of this season. Someone finally asked an intelligent question, bringing up the vision Desmond described to Charlie in which he said he saw Claire getting on a helicopter. Cuse said that was a good question and there will be more on that to come, promising that that was something they had not forgotten, unlike Libby, which I assume means we will never know how or why Libby was in the same mental institution as Hurley. Someone asked whether we'd see Vincent again, and Cuse said Vincent is the one character he promises will survive he island, joking that the entire show was actually taking place inside the dog's head. He said that this season's finale was his favorite episode of season five, and that "The Constant" was one of if not his favorite episode of the series, which I appreciated because it's definitely one of my favorites, second maybe only to "The Brig." At one point, one student asked "Do you think in a hundred years there will ever be a show as good as LOST?" Immediately after posing the question the student literally ran back to his seat without waiting for a respone. God I love power nerds. Cuse actually responded to that silly question with a very serious answer, speaking briefly about the evolving economics of television. Today, audiences have so many different ways of watching TV, with DVR and the internet, and Cuse is not sure how long expensive, complex shows like LOST will be commercially viable. Cuse ended his talk, after a prompt by a screenwriting professor, with some advice to young writers. He recommended Stephen King's "On Writing" and stressed reading. "If you want to be a novelist, read a lot of novels. If you want to be a screenwriter, read a lot of scripts." He encouraged us to follow our passion, and believe in what we do, saying, "If you do that, others will believe in it too." And then, we saw tonight's episode! Commercial free and on the big screen! LOST fans: it was amazing. For me, LOST is the STAR WARS of TV. I love LOST on a STAR WARS level, and last night I got to watch an episode in a midnight showing of a SW prequel environment. The crowd was cheering and clapping and (unlike the SW prequels) it was actually good. I'm not one for spoilers, so I'll just say it's a fantastic, Locke-centric episode that charges toward the finale and gives all the remaining main characters classic moments. "Ok, we're from the future!" and Sawyer's Han Solo-esque exchange with Juliet in particular. (I think it worked, you'll decide for yourself.) It's mind-bending and incredibly entertaining and concludes with a "We have to move the island" type of ending that makes you go, "What-wha-what?!" You'll see. So there you go. Carlton Cuse seems like a great guy and is "honored and flattered" by fans' devotion and appreciation. Hey, on behalf of us all, no problem. Happy LOST-ing everyone! Enjoy your Wednesday. Call me TSTEWIE. Peace.

9 p.m. Wednesday. ABC. Follow Herc on Twitter here.

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