I get to choose the manner of my death? Fantastic. I choose old age. 

@avclub-fd11043c50c15f9e700a52b3f00136f8:disqus Sigh. This was actually explained in the show. The sideways world was a construct our characters made so they could meet up with each other once they were all dead. Yes, the whole thing was pretty well metaphorical, which is most likely why they showed the island on the…

I'm not sure what you mean by "a lie." I think it was a metaphor, and people wanted a plot-related explanation for it that doesn't exist. You're referring to Ben and his father talking about the island, right? They were discussing a time before The Incident, which, building off the Season 5 finale, could have been…

In the flash-sideways? Symbolic of the fact that the island had no control over the characters in the afterlife world, and they were free to make their own decisions, I think. You may have seen that as a plot element, but once the flash-sideways was revealed as an artificial construct, I think everything in it can be…

How the island's energy works is a mystery everyone, from the Dharma Initiative to the Others to Charles Widmore, was trying to understand. Making it beyond understanding was the point. In some ways, Dharma was the showrunners' comment on fans who were obsessed with deducing the sci-fi explanation behind it all. That…

The pregnancy thing can be traced back to the Incident - we saw babies being born on the island before that. And Walt was a candidate who just happened to be special, the same way Miles and Hurley were special.

Ah, gotcha! And thanks!

I'd respond to that if I had any idea what it means. Sorry, just frustrated at the reaction to a show I loved. I'll try not to keep hammering on about it, but most of the charges leveled at the show just aren't true, I think.

@005 That's cool. I have signed our agreement to disagree. Cheers, and thanks for the discussion.

I know I'm coming off as the ultimate Lost apologist here, but… I've heard people say this a million times, that the show introduced elements and then just dismissed them without a thought. I'm hoping you can give me some examples of this. What, specifically, are you talking about? 

@avclub-814a827b74482a16511fe0e8cec210c0:disqus : That's what the Dharma Initiative was trying to do. Find a way to use the island's energy for a real purpose.

005, I can answer all of those, if you like.

Honestly, you care that much that they didn't pay off the outrigger shooting in a way everyone expected them to? That would have been cool, but really, it's pretty incidental to the whole thing. The lighthouse was intended as an answer, actually, and a step on Jack's journey in the last season. It wasn't a new…

Yeah, but it didn't "get religious" at the end. It was always a spiritual show, concerned with the struggle between faith and reason. That's a deep-running theme throughout all six seasons.

I'm interested in which long-standing mysteries were retconned or abandoned. I think many people expected the answers would involve some sci-fi plot revelations, and when they ended up being about the characters of Jacob and Smokey, people were upset. The island is what it is because Jacob has made it that way, and…

The Lost showrunners were very interested in the mythology of that show. That's why they spent all of Season 5 and half of Season 6 tying it up. I think people were looking to the last episode as The One With All the Answers, and they missed the fact that answers were liberally sprinkled throughout the preceding two…

Galifianakis was terrific in the otherwise slight It's Kind of a Funny Story. He showed he could convincingly do drama. I've been waiting for him to do it again.

Strapping Young Lad. Heavy enough to vent my rage, melodic enough to soothe it. 

I knew a guy once who would walk up to random people, and in as creepy and disturbing a voice as he could muster, say, "I kill myself for you, I kill you for myself." And then just walk away.

That's therapists, Mr. Connery.