PASADENA, Calif. — "Lost" fans, prepare to be confused.
The sixth and final season begins Tuesday, and — as has been the case since the show premiered in September 2004 — there will be mysteries galore.
"The premiere is definitely like, 'What? Wait. Let me read that part again. What?' " said Jorge Garcia, who plays Hurley. "There's some head-scratchers."
"I think I had to read it about three times before it actually made sense," said Emilie de Ravin, who returns as Claire. And Claire, when last we saw her, was dead. Or so we thought.
"Get ready to scratch your heads, America!" joked creator/executive producer Damon Lindelof.
More so than usual, the network and the producers have been tight-lipped about what's next. The final season premiere wasn't screened for critics, and there are indications that "spoilers" that are out there were planted to mislead the gullible.
We do know that the new season picks up right where the last
one ended. The nuclear bomb has been detonated, and either time has been reset to just before the original plane crash that launched the series — or it hasn't.
And in a way that will leave you scratching your head, apparently.
"But I think in such a great, thought-provoking way that it really draws you in more," de Ravin said.
The actors certainly seem enthused.
"I don't know of any other television show that's been able to give the audience what they've come to love and want to see and, at the same time, keep it dynamic for as long as they have," said Daniel Dae Kim (Jin).
"We're not bored yet, and we're in Season 6. That's unheard of for television actors," said Evangeline Lilly (Kate).
Yes, this is the season when we're promised answers to the mysteries that have swirled through the previous 104 episodes. All of this will end after 18 more hours — Tuesday's two-hour season premiere; 14 one-hour episodes; and a two-hour series finale scheduled to air in May.
The end, when it comes, will be what the producers envisioned when the show began. Sort of.
"I mean, we came up with the final image of the show a long time ago back when we were first plotting out the mythology in the first season," said executive producer Carlton Cuse. "And then we started adding elements to that as we went along."
There was not, however, a big plan during that first season when the show was an instant hit.
"Really, between the first and the second season is when we cooked the mythology," Cuse said. "We kind of knew what the end point was, but as you move toward the end point, you add elements."
Some characters were added and others were subtracted as actors came and went, which also affected the outcome.
The one thing the producers are promising is that the end will be the end. There won't be any spinoffs or sequels.
"We are definitively ending this story of these characters and the show that we wanted to tell in May," Cuse said.
The producers are not, however, promising that all the mysteries will be cleared up.
"Obviously not every question's going to be answered," Cuse said. "So obviously, some people are going to be upset that those particular questions don't get resolved. We felt if we tried to just answer questions, it would be very pedantic."
And they think it would be "a mistake" to "de-mystify" the island and all its characters altogether.
And the producers are also not promising that the ending will make everyone happy.
"All we can do is, basically, put our best foot forward," Lindelof said. "We do feel like the worst ending that we could possibly provide everyone who has invested this amount of time and energy into watching the show is the safe ending."
At the same time, he promised they wouldn't do something outrageous just for the sake of being outrageous.
"Fortunately for us, we've been talking about how the show's going to end since (the network) gave us an end date three years ago," Lindelof said. "So we really have no excuse to say anything other than this is the ending that we wanted to do on the terms that we wanted to do it."
Which is not to say that they're not trying to come up with the best possible ending.
"There is certainly a hope on all our parts that everybody sort of universally loves the ending that we put forward," Lindelof said. "But I don't think it would be 'Lost' if there wasn't sort of an ongoing and active debate amongst the people who watch the show as to whether or not it was a good ending.
"If I could put on my predicting hat, there would be people over here who say it's the worst ending in the history of television, and hopefully to balance them out, my mom, who will say it's the best ending. Although she doesn't understand the show."
If you watch ...
What: Sixth season premiere of "Lost"
When: Feb. 2, 8 p.m.
Channel: ABC/Ch. 4
e-mail: pierce@desnews.com