Lost - Goofing On The Fans, And We Love It

This week's episode of Lost, "Expose" (imagine and accent egout over the final e), was a treat. Of course it was an aside to the main plot exposition of the show, but so what. It was fun, and was done with the usual high style of the series.

The focus was on two characters viewers didn't meet until this season, Paolo and Nikki, above. Speculation on the web forums is discussing the possibility that this pair were, in fact, not on Flight 815 when it crashed and are further evidence of some kind of time anomaly. I prefer to believe that they were there all along among the background Losties and that the producers only decided to hire these particular actors at the end of last season. To their credit the Lost creators did go back and reshoot scenes from season one and two in order to add the actors, even bringing back two now deceased characters/actors in the process.

SPOILER WARNING!

The episode unfolds like a murder mystery of the film noir era. Both Nikki and Paolo are found, apparently dead. Dear Hurley is the lead detective on the case, calculating the possible causes of death and trying to preserve the evidence of wrongdoing. The "crime" is solved when we learn that the Nikki "killed" Paolo, and accidentally herself, with poison spiders.

In the end, the show is really an hommage to Edgar Alan Poe and other writers who have scared the be'jesus out of us with the theme of premature burial. For the spider bites did not kill them, only paralyzed them for and eight hour period. Now dangling before us for resolution is the question of Nikki and Paolo's future, if any. Are they to be left for dead and finally buried, or will one or both of them be found or manage to claw their way out of their newly filled grave?

Add that to the list of Lost mysteries, large and small, to be solved. And, while you're at it, put that in your Sherlock Holmes meerschaum pipe and smoke it.