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A transcript is a retrospective written record of dialogue, and like a script (a prospective record) may include other scene information such as props or actions. In the case of a transcript of a film or television episode, ideally it is a verbatim record. Because closed-captioning is usually written separately, its text may have errors and does not necessarily reflect the true Canonical transcript.


Transcripts for Lost episodes up to and including "Enter 77" are based on the transcriptions by Lost-TV member Spooky with aid of DVR, and at times, closed captions for clarification. She and Lost-TV have generously granted us permission to share/host these transcripts at Lostpedia. Later transcripts were created by the Lostpedia community, unless stated otherwise below.

Disclaimer: This transcript is intended for educational and promotional purposes only, and may not be reproduced commercially without permission from ABC. The description contained herein represents viewers' secondhand experience of ABC's Lost.



Episode: - "Exposé"

Commentators: Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis

Commentary[]

Adam Horowitz: Welcome to episode 31 4, Exposé my name is Adam Horowitz and l'm here with Eddie Kitsis.

Edward Kitsis: Hello.

Adam Horowitz:We co-wrote this episode.

Edward Kitsis: We see digging.

Adam Horowitz: Digging generally involves lifting earth up out of the ground. Nikki is doing that very well here. Well, anyway, the idea of her exposé actually started season one of Lost.

Edward Kitsis: And right now, what you are seeing is probably the greatest accomplishment of our career on Lost. Which is the fact that Exposé a show that Adam and I love, and that the Lost writer's room love, actually got filmed.

Adam Horowitz: The season one laid the idea for the character of Nikki, having someone who was on a show like Exposé was first hatched.

Edward Kitsis: We literally would spend time breaking episodes of a fictitious show.

Adam Horowitz: You'd be in the writer's room and it can be daunting sometimes...

Edward Kitsis: Long hours and even if you go back and look at 313, Locke's watching an Exposé, we had probably 10 episodes of Exposé broken. Adam, tell them about this.

Adam Horowitz: Back up for a second. Right here we're seeing Billy Dee Williams as Mr. LaShade.

Edward Kitsis: And the hat is the Lando colors, is it not, Adam?

Adam Horowitz: The color scheme was inspired by Lando Calrissian, who is one of my personal heroes. I know he's fictional, but he's still one of my heroes. The reason why we cast Billy Dee Williams when we conceived this character and the idea for the girls' boss in the fictional show. It was always Billy Dee, it had to be Billy Dee. There was no way it could be anything but Billy Dee. There's a 8x10 of Billy Dee sitting over my desk that has inspired me over the years, so this was, in a lot of ways, a dream come true.

Edward Kitsis: At one point, we wanted to do the whole show, so that this scene you're seeing right now was the last scene of the flashback. And you think you are in this really bad... You're like, "What am I watching? She's a stripper who solves crimes?" Then at the end you realize it's a TV show, but we realized there was too much ground to cover, so...

Adam Horowitz: It became the jumping off point for the story of Nikki and Paolo. And what they were going through.

Edward Kitsis: There's Howard L. Zuckerman, who is the prolific producer.

Adam Horowitz: The creator of Exposé. The mastermind behind the show.

Edward Kitsis: This is a cool shot Stephen did. It's all one shot, and of course, Sidney behind us, was put in after.

Adam Horowitz: Now, I think Eddie mentioned this just before, but this is not the first appearance of Exposé on the show. In episode 313, Man From Tallahassee, in one of the flashbacks where we see Locke in his apartment, eating dinner alone in front of the TV you can hear on the television the soundtrack to to an episode of Exposé. That was something that we, as the writers, cooked up and put in there.

Edward Kitsis: So, for us, we wanted to open the show with Nikki dying. Instead of, uh... And the room actually, we all talked about the most interesting way is you walk out, she dies. You're immediately sucked in. Because a lot of people at this point didn't know who they were. And so we thought what more shocking way, right?

Adam Horowitz: What better way to end the teaser with having Sawyer voice what a lot of people were probably thinking.

Edward Kitsis: Which was, "Who the hell is Nikki?"

Adam Horowitz: The title card "84 Days Ago" was one thing we found in this episode was because the flashbacks were going off the island and on the island, we really needed a way to orient the audience. Let them know where we were in the chronology of the show.

Edward Kitsis: Right, and like 84 days, you know, we realized we couldn't do Day Four, Day Five, so we decided to go backwards.

Adam Horowitz: The mislead in this scene is that this is their first meeting, and setting up for the twist later that these two know each other and work together.

Edward Kitsis: This scene was actually going to be dinner and... ...we ended up having to shoot it for breakfast. We rewrote, that was like a Friday night call, right?

Adam Horowitz: Yeah, sometimes you have to shoot things at different times of day.

Edward Kitsis: I think it's better. You understand she slept over. You understand the intimacy, it's a great mislead because you think this is actually when she met Paolo. She did a great job, Kiele, of selling it here. You know, l'm fooled that they're in love.

Adam Horowitz: Eddie didn't read the script.

Edward Kitsis: I just helped write it.

Adam Horowitz: Experiencing it first now. Now we're getting the sense of there's something darker to these characters than we've seen before. When we find out that, uh, they killed poor Mr. Zuckerman. He is gone.

Edward Kitsis: The writers on Lost, we were really inspired by film noir. So, what was fun here was the perfect plan uh, that seems to work out, and then, of course, goes bad. And the key there around the neck obviously is a reminder of the one Jack wears around his neck.

Adam Horowitz: Now, this scene here, where they're discovering the nesting doll, which will later be revealed to have diamonds in it, um, you know we had a... we wrote this in and Stephen did a great job, it's our little Pulp Fiction shot where she opens it up and we never see what's in there till the very end. But, uh, but we see they've found something that's really... ...important to them.

Edward Kitsis: My favorite of this whole scene is when she repeats right there, her catch phrase, which is a Damon Lindelof special. He came up with "razzle dazzle." So we have to give him props on that. That is one of my favorite things in this episode.

Adam Horowitz: Now, one of the challenges in writing this episode was, on the island side of it, we had a mystery that our regular characters were trying to figure out. But, in terms of writing it, it was really challenging because they don't know what's going on, they don't know a lot about these characters. And it's a lot of scenes trying to figure out these dilemmas. What we did was really hone in on the conflict of Sawyer and Hurley and Charlie. And maybe setting up this idea that something was going on with Sawyer, which would cast suspicion on him.

Edward Kitsis: Now, this scene, one of the inspirations for this whole thing was people always say "what about these people in the background?" which we call "socks," the background people you see in each scene. We wanted to show that they were a part of all the iconic images of this show. And for us, what was great is we start this... If you notice in this episode, more than any other, there's two flashbacks an act and, um...

Adam Horowitz: There was a lot of ground to cover.

Edward Kitsis: What was great here was getting to see... Right now you think they're in a bar, and then we place them and they're at the airport. Not only are they at the airport, they are there the day of Flight 8, and then Boone and Shannon. Which was great to get to write for them again.

Adam Horowitz: This is what was exciting for us as writers, to be able to bring back characters we loved. And who we hadn't written for since season one. And have fun with them and bring them back in an organic way.

Edward Kitsis: And Shannon yelling at Boone is always fun to write. And what was great here is also the idea they see Shannon and Boone and think they are a couple they don't realize they're brother and sister. Their fear is, "l don't want to end up like them." Again, this is the best laid plans. They were about to get away except for the fact that their plane was going to crash.

Adam Horowitz: This sequence here was really amazing, what Stephen was able to pull off and the whole crew out there.

Edward Kitsis: It's a joint effort, editing and Gene and Stephen and everyone involved, Damon and Carlton, with everyone on this show, really planned to make this feel like it was the day of the crash.

Adam Horowitz: What we did was, um, when we first started writing the script, we knew we wanted to use this sequence and come back to it. We knew we wanted to be back at the day of the crash. We had, um, Stephen Semel, who edited this episode, go back and he went back to the dailies from the pilot, and was sifting through all the footage that was shot stuff that was used and unused, to find different elements that we could use to cut back together to seamlessly put Nikki and Paolo into the day of the crash. While also recreating on set some pieces of the fuselage and it was a really monumental task to sort of match all this stuff and put it together.

Edward Kitsis: Yeah, and there's Leslie Artz, which was great 'cause we only briefly saw him, there's Boone asking for the pen which was an iconic moment from the pilot. This is one of my favorite scenes because, you know... you remember the crash again, and you're like, "Oh, that was so awesome." At the same time, you get an insight into her, the fact that she only cares about one thing. Their greed is overcoming them.

Adam Horowitz: One of the things we did when writing this episode, and breaking the story, we tried to sort of figure out, what were all the points we wanted to put them in, the moments to revisit. And there were so many it was tricky. Only 43 minutes to reach that many. And the crash was obviously a very important one. The airport, which we saw, was an important one. We kind of approached finding those moments we wanted to revisit and then seeing how we could fit the story into them. There were many more we wished we could have done, but we were really happy with what we were able to get.

Edward Kitsis: There we see Paolo.

Adam Horowitz: One of the things we did in this episode, we seemingly broke one of our rules which is that you only flashback off of living people.

Edward Kitsis: Which still is true.

Adam Horowitz: Right. In this episode we seem to break that rule until the end when you realize that they're not really dead. And every time we whoosh off these faces of seeming corpses one of the things we're hoping to do in some of the audience is to raise the question of "What's going on, are they changing things?" But, you know, also leaving a little clue for astute viewers.

Edward Kitsis: This is an important scene, because you saw Sawyer looking this is where he begins to realize that they, um, buried something. You know, he's a con man, he knows a thing or two about human nature and he, in this scene realizes that something was buried.

Adam Horowitz: So, this is another one of those moments we wanted to go back to. Which was, um...

Edward Kitsis: Jack's famous "live together, die alone" speech.

Adam Horowitz: But, we thought it would be fun to play out their story against the backdrop of that and see their different attitude to this and also bring in another character that we love.

Edward Kitsis: We remember Ethan in the scene he was discovered not on the manifest. But, here, you realize he was here from day one. And he is wearing a Wisconsin T-shirt, why Adam?

Adam Horowitz: That was where Eddie and I met in college, University of Wisconsin. There's no greater mystery to it. That was just a shout out to...

Edward Kitsis: To us.

Adam Horowitz: ...our school.

Edward Kitsis: A self-indulgent thing we got away with.

Adam Horowitz: Go, Badgers.

Edward Kitsis: Go, Badgers. And we love Ethan just being the kind guy and you see Paolo's a little nervous about the jungle, and the monster. This came right after they saw the trees move. I just love this, that Artz is there you're getting a sense of the whole world of Lost. All these characters that you only met briefly. And this huge iconic moment where Noone stole the water and Jack comes out and gives this great speech you realize Artz was there, and everyone else was there. I love that Ethan was watching.

Adam Horowitz: And this was a really tricky scene to write and to shoot, because a very simple thing that you take for granted when writing, very often is geography, where you're putting characters in a scene. Because we were matching this other scene, we realized we couldn't have a moment between Hurley and...

Edward Kitsis: Kate, wasn't it?

Adam Horowitz: Hurley was already somewhere, it had been shot two years earlier.

Edward Kitsis: We had to mix this with existing footage. This is the footage you've already seen, exactly what Adam was saying, so Hurley was where he was. But, I love that Jack's delivering this speech and you get to see all these faces. And really, once again, they only care about their greed. It does. Locke said when Eko died, his last words were "you're next". And Nikki and Paulo were with them. These guys are always awesome in scenes.

Adam Horowitz: There's really nothing more fun to do than writing a Sawyer-Hurley scene.

Edward Kitsis: Sawyer, Hurley, Jin, they're just, for whatever reason, those guys, when they're together, it's great. And Tricia Tanaka, they're great. Jabonies is a word Damon uses a lot, we thought it was funny to put in the script, nothing more than that.

Adam Horowitz: Now, a nice missing moment, that was Nikki and Dr. Artz, had a friendship we never knew about. And we thought it was fun... One, to bring Artz back was awesome, but to put him at the center of this story we thought was great, given his dilemma in season one of never feeling the center of what was going on with the others.

Edward Kitsis: I love this scene, you get an insight into Dr. Artz. Because he was the guy who was just a science teacher, and he never felt that special. And you realize his whole plan was he was going to discover all these species, come back and be the next Charles Darwin. But, unfortunately, he blew up.

Adam Horowitz: And I love that he really feels she's impressed by this. His knowledge.

Edward Kitsis: Yeah. And you have to hand it to her for being smart enough to wonder about the map. Uh, but this, of course, sets up the spider, and, uh... [both] Yeah.

Adam Horowitz: Then here, we're setting up a bit about the issue with these two is, which is jealousy, and that Paolo feels, is starting to get that inkling, that the only reason they are together is because of this search.

Edward Kitsis: Did the inhaler gag make it?

Adam Horowitz: No.

Edward Kitsis: There was a great gag here, where Paolo is walking and he is upset that they're following this map, he's obviously jealous over Artz, and he is walking and he says, "Why are we doing this? We haven't found any luggage, the only thing we found is..." Adam?

Adam Horowitz: "All we found was this inhaler" and tosses it in frustration. And it was meant to be...

Edward Kitsis: Shannon's inhaler. We loved the idea that he found it and threw it away. And again, what's cool about this episode is you realize these characters found things before everyone. And, once again, it was the Nigerian plane, a huge thing in Boone's life, Locke's life, Eko's life and here it is and they're the first to see it. And they're too focused on their own petty needs to really care about anyone else And it is that selfishness that is their undoing.

Edward Kitsis: There they find the question mark. If Locke buddied up to them from the beginning, he could've saved himself a lot of trouble, is what I'm hearing. But, things like the inhaler gag we were just talking about, were one of the challenges with this episode. There was so much we wanted to put in. There really wasn't the time to keep it all in You had to pick and choose and cut some things out just to make sure that the story flowed and moved.

Edward Kitsis: And that shot of that is a CG shot, correct?

Adam Horowitz: I believe it is.

Edward Kitsis: Uh, there's not really a hatch on the island with a stairwell that long. I don't think so. Poor Paolo and Nikki. Again, this scene was, uh...

Adam Horowitz: This is a scene I think we really enjoyed, um, the way it came out. lt also goes way back in it's genesis. One of the original ideas with having the character Nikki on the show was that we would find a script with her for her show, so to actually have an Exposé script appear on the show, and Hurley reads from it was fun.

Edward Kitsis: And Hurley to talk about The Cobra was awesome. And I love Hurley's enthusiasm for Exposé, and, and, and I think what's great about this is you know, Sawyer's clearly in here looking for whatever they buried or some clue to that. And he throws, as always, Sawyer, so smart, he throws them off by finding the walkie talkie.

Edward Kitsis: All these scenes were tough to shoot. This whole episode had an interesting tone because parts were comedic, but you needed to play this as real as possible. because parts were comedic, but you needed to play this as real as possible. And you have all these people in every scene and Stephen did an amazing job maintaining that tone. And also being able to shoot all these. These are really, really difficult scenes to do.

Adam Horowitz: When you shoot a scene, the more people you have, the more difficult it is, just in terms of the length of time of shooting the coverage of everyone. This episode was just filled with giant scenes. This was a page, page and a half scene, with five people in it. It was logistically difficult, though on the surface it may seem simple.

Edward Kitsis: There's the Animal Farm shout out, the pigs are walking, from Artz, who believes that Kate and Jack are, no one asked them to be a leader.

Adam Horowitz: There was also another bit cut from this sequence here that we just didn't have the room for. Which was a moment where Nikki and Paolo were having their discussion.

Edward Kitsis: Right here. Boone and Locke appeared with shovels. It was during that period they were excavating that hatch in secret. There's the awkward moment between them. Everyone is hiding something and they are staring at each other so it was great. But, unfortunately, because of time, it had to go. And for us, it was important in this scene, we loved this moment, it was great with Kate and Sawyer, and whatever the case may be, for us it was interesting in this scene because, you know, Paolo here lies to her. And it was great because we knew that he was doing it to protect their relationship. As opposed to greed, which was driving Nikki a little more.

Adam Horowitz: This is the key moment in the story for Paolo, where he makes this choice to lie to her. And it's hard, 'cause he feels that he is going to lose her otherwise.

Edward Kitsis: And this, of course, is Hurley's beginning of suspicion. And, what was cool about this episode although we were focused on what happened to Paolo and Nikki, here, while Sun is talking about who dragged her in the jungle, and you see Charlie and Sawyer, they did it and they feel guilty, and you're wondering... I just like that this came out naturally in the scene. In this episode. And it's these moments we try to find in these stories which make them emotional. Which is that Charlie now has a dilemma because he knows what he did. And he knows that's causing a misconception in Sun and everyone else. So, now he is forced to admit something difficult. He'll have to think on that a little bit.

Edward Kitsis: Um, you know, this is fun, because again, it's, you know, here's a character you didn't know much about, Paolo, and then you realize, um, you know, he knew everyone. John Locke just shows up right in the jungle, doing his John Locke-ness, and it's cool to see that they, you realize there's this whole world going on in this show even, other than the hour you see once a week.

Adam Horowitz: And we also wanted to, from a story sense, keep alive the idea of the nicotine gum here, just that little bit of him popping it in. That'll play an important part later. lt was just one of those things we just tried to kind of layer through it. So that, uh, we can get to that moment of Nikki realizing Paolo's lied to her.

Edward Kitsis: Of course, this was also a mislead at the end because they, as we know what their fate is, or we'll soon see, um... "Things don't stay buried on this island" is great. Except for people, I guess.

Edward Kitsis: Here again, he has a choice to make. He hears Locke, he thinks "Am I doing the right thing? I don't know." Then of course, he once again chooses, uh, to lie to her. I think that's the main problem with these two, they keep lying and sneaking around. It's unfortunately corrupted their relationship. Um, for us, it was cool, this scene, because it puts... once you realize what he's doing there, and you go back and watch episode five, uh, 305, The Cost of Living, you realize there's a whole other meaning, we'll see those scenes later, of him volunteering to the question mark, why he didn't want to go and why he was in that bathroom. I love that. You look at one thing as a joke and realize later it was serious.

Adam Horowitz: One of our goals for this episode was so you could look back, rewatch the season, and realize there was this story running concurrently.

Edward Kitsis: Between these two, that is set up. Which, right here, this is the very first time Ben is showing Juliet Jack Shephard, someone who would become such a huge part of her life.

Adam Horowitz: And also, it was a way we found was fun to be able to reveal exactly what Ben's thinking was. Something we wouldn't be able to do.

Edward Kitsis: This is before he became Henry Gale, trekked over and got caught, already the wheels were turning. Ben's basically in control is what you have to understand.

Adam Horowitz: This was another sequence where we had to go back and work with Stephen Semel, the editor and sift through old footage and find what could we plausibly use from the hatch, from the time period that would match with this, that we could put on the monitor. We knew we wanted her to be able to see Jack. And that became one of the challenges.

Edward Kitsis: And the episode we got that from was 209?

Adam Horowitz: I believe it was What Kate Did. What Kate Did, when Sawyer was back and recovering and Jack was there and Stephen pulled a bunch of clips and we looked at and had to figure out what was the one. This is what we love because, really, at it's core, this is Hurley going to the psychic. He has exhausted all other avenues of investigation and he's going to the guy who can tell the future. But, uh, and that's, I love this scene. As far as superpowers go, yours is kind of lame. But, his suspicions are correct here. So, again, to make the island story as interesting as we could, we had to keep pushing the suspicion onto Sawyer. And have the audience see it through Hurley's point of view. Start to think more and more that Sawyer is up to something. So that it wasn't just a mystery about two people we had never known well, it became more about our characters who have been there the whole time.

Edward Kitsis: Vincent knows they're alive. That is what he's trying to communicate. That is why he's taking that out, but no one understands it. They think he's playing. But that moment is Vincent trying to tell them they're alive.

Adam Horowitz: Sun's adamant defense of Sawyer is what really twists the guilt in Charlie and makes him confess to her.

Edward Kitsis: What's great, also, is that Charlie's digging a grave. He's just been told by Desmond, "You're gonna die." He, uh, you, he's, he's, he's he's basically trying to clear his conscience before he goes. You know, and I love that, digging a grave for someone else. Wondering if it could be himself. And, uh, and he's coming clean. He's confessing.

Adam Horowitz: Yeah, there's a lot of deaths in this episode. A lot of it takes place around what we call "Boone Hill." Where all the graves are on the show. And, uh, there are quite a few.

Edward Kitsis: And, you know, what's great for us what we all talked about when we wanted to do this episode, we really wanted to do something for fans who had watched it from the beginning, and now we've caught up to season three. This is where Locke is... volunteering. This is where people first said, "Wait, who the hell are these two? Why are they showing us these two? I don't understand."

Adam Horowitz: This is actually footage from Cost of Living. That now is hopefully playing in a new light.

Edward Kitsis: And, again, uh, there's the question mark. And this is all stuff from episode five of season three.

Adam Horowitz: We cut inside, this is the new stuff of Paolo and they're tying the story together with what we're doing in this episode.

Edward Kitsis: And we wanted this one to be for fans who watched from the beginning, and who loved Artz, who liked Ethan who love seeing all these moments again and really understand what we were trying to do. So, this is for you. And, again, as Adam said, this is seen in a new light. And, if you go back and watch episode five, you will see the scene, the minute he leaves, and think, oh it was just a joke. It's great now, to go back and watch the whole season and realize, you know, he hid something there.

Adam Horowitz: Now, we're back and this is footage from 305. And it seems pretty seamless.

Edward Kitsis: It's interesting, at the time, people always asked us, "Who are those people in the background," when this aired, we tried to show people, they were like, "Why are you showing Paolo and Nikki?" And I think that this episode really... You know, I'm glad we did because I think this is one of my favorite episodes of the show. I like Hurley being the tough cop here. Again, Stephen did such a great job. This is just such a tricky shot with all these people and the intensity, Sawyer's being confronted.

Adam Horowitz: Well, one of the hard parts in putting this episode together for us was that we broke the two stories separately the story of what happened in the past with Nikki and Paolo, and then what happened on the island. Then it became about how do you put it together. Do you show the flashback of Nikki and Sawyer before this scene or after this scene? And it was a really tricky thing to sort of figure out how to lay out the story chronologically on both ends for the maximum dramatic effect.

Edward Kitsis: And, what's interesting is, um, here you finally see what they are, they're diamonds. And this is what they basically killed each other over, Nikki and Paolo. I love Sun's philosophy here, which is they have no value on the island. And, it's kind of a sad thought, in that, you know... ...It's like, then has she given up hope of getting off? You know, that she gives them back to him. You know, that she gives them back to him. But, here we go. Again, I love this because Paolo hid the diamonds from Nikki but he did it to kind of make the relationship stronger. And this is where you start to see her change and you think, you know, had she not found the Nicorette wrapper at the end of this scene, they may have been happy, they may still be alive, they may be actually on their way to having a normal healthy relationship. This is really as close as she gets to redemption.

Adam Horowitz: This was also one of my favorite moments in the episode. When she talks about missing Thanksgiving. 'Cause it was an opportunity to really humanize the character as much as we could. We wanted to humanize them as much as we could and also to have that sense of people who are really sad and they're missing their lives. And learned to question what they're doing. And that's the tragedy we're trying to go for here. Which is that these two really almost could have been great together. But, they just couldn't get past their greed.

Edward Kitsis: Yeah, it's a good moment. And, you know, it's genuine here.

Adam Horowitz:And then it all turns right now. She sees the nicotine gum. Which oddly looks like... ...normal gum. Now, in this scene, Sawyer is...

Edward Kitsis: Reading.

Adam Horowitz: ...reading Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie. It was our sort of shout out to Agatha Christie and these kind of noir mysteries. And we just thought it would be a fun little thing to have Sawyer uh, Sawyer reading that while, uh, in the midst of his own murder mystery on an island.

Edward Kitsis: Again, asking who she is. Which is what I think the entire audience was... ...asking. So here, uh, Sawyer is gonna get about to the business of digging the grave.

Adam Horowitz: he's feeling sorry, he's feeling like crap, and closing the eyes was ultimately needed for the final reveal.

Edward Kitsis: I like that Sun is going to keep it quiet. She doesn't want her husband to kill Sawyer. And that's still out there. But, I like the way that in this episode about Paolo and Nikki that this got resolved. Kind of, it came out of... It organically works in this episode, but you would never think this is the episode where this reveal would be that Sawyer dragged and kidnapped Sun.

Adam Horowitz: I always like to see Sun tough like this.

Edward Kitsis: Sun tough is awesome.

Adam Horowitz: The daughter of Mr. Paik.

Edward Kitsis: Yeah, you see it come out right there, she had to slap him. She doesn't let Sawyer get away with anything. Again, you know, funerals are never great on this island. And there's been so many when you think about it. And with Jack gone and Hurley leading this, it kind of highlights that Jack isn't on the island, who normally does the eulogies. And I love that he looks for the good thing to say about them, even though he thinks they killed each other over greed.

Adam Horowitz: But, that's Hurley. He's always the optimist. This was something that had changed slightly in editing. The flashback we're about to go into originally happened before the funeral. It's one of those things when you read it on the page, it played fine, but when you get in the editing room and see it cut, you realize you need to see this final flashback as close to the last moment of the episode as possible. To get the dramatic effect of realizing they were actually alive down there.

Edward Kitsis: And, again, l... Again, it's great because this is... They were at the moment of almost redemption. Now, Nikki is back hardcore. I always loved this story because, slowly start to put together what you saw in the beginning that made no sense.

Adam Horowitz: To us, the thing that helped make this story work and us able to write it was, once we were able to hit upon the idea that Paolo really loves her, and that he's really... that it's not simply about greed. But it's about his love for her.

Edward Kitsis: And fear of losing her. In his mind, if she finds the diamonds she won't need him anymore. And so, in his mind, it's better they never find them and they don't get all that money. Course this is where people start to realize they're not dead, they're buried alive. Which was a genius idea Damon came up with to bury them alive.

Adam Horowitz: For those wondering, there is no such thing as a Medusa spider. We made it up, don't worry. You will not be buried alive because of a spider. I'm guessing that you have the diamonds on you. And in this moment here where she thinks she's got him, and she gets the diamonds, we really wanted to build to the... ...to the moment of him telling her why. And then giving her just that brief choice of realizing that maybe it isn't worth it to go on.

Edward Kitsis: But, it's too late. And, if you listen closely you'll hear a familiar noise. Uh, right before she realizes there's a spider on her. And that is the, uh... how would you describe the noise of the monster?

Edward Kitsis: Tika-tika-chika. Carlton does it well.

Adam Horowitz: Carlton does a great monster.

Edward Kitsis: If you ever see Carlton Cuse, ask him to do his monster-approaching- tika-tika-tika noise.

Adam Horowitz: Then ask him to do his Carson.

Edward Kitsis: Yeah, his Carson's phenomenal. His Ted Danson's even better. So, again, Paolo bears his heart. And you think, "Oh, man." but, you know, it's too late, there's the noise. and it's too late for her, and I like that she... ...had she not stopped to bury, you think she would have made it back?

Adam Horowitz: No. No, I don't.

Edward Kitsis: You don't? I don't know.

Edward Kitsis: She might have had a shot, been able to get "paralyzed" out.

Adam Horowitz: Mmm, seeing as I co-wrote this, I'm gonna say she wouldn't have made it out either way.

Edward Kitsis: Well, I think that you're being judgmental.

Adam Horowitz: OK, maybe I am.

Edward Kitsis: I think she would have had a shot.

Adam Horowitz: Now, there is a mix here of real and CG spiders. Don't know which are which. That's because our people are so good at doing that.

Edward Kitsis: Again, she, I believe if you look at this time, that might have saved her.

Adam Horowitz: Perhaps.

Edward Kitsis: And of course in the beginning we think she says "Paolo lies" or "power lines" and now we get it from her point of view. Which is great. I love this shot that Stephen did.

Adam Horowitz: I don't know if anyone's mentioned this in other commentaries, but the ping pong is a staple of the Lost offices. The writers play a lot of ping pong.

Edward Kitsis: A lot of competitive ping pong is being played and, so... So, it was...

Adam Horowitz: Damon is quite good.

Edward Kitsis: Uh, write what you know. And we know ping pong. We know ping pong and burying people alive.

Adam Horowitz: That's what we do at Lost. And, this is that moment where you're hoping boom, someone sees this, but no.

Edward Kitsis: This is Lost and if everyone was wondering, "Do they really die?" If you have this entire boxed set of season three, you'll realize they are indeed dead. But, thus is 314, Exposé.

Adam Horowitz: Yeah.

Edward Kitsis: And hopefully we can get future Exposé episodes on Lost. I really think people want to know the makings of the Cobra, don't you, Adam?

Adam Horowitz: Yeah, how did the Cobra happen? Thank you for watching, thank you for listening to us. To you who are not our family, we know this was a big ordeal to get through.

Edward Kitsis: My mother and father, my nephews and nieces watching me, thank you.

Adam Horowitz: Any non-blood relatives, you put up with a lot.

Edward Kitsis: You really have. Hopefully we've informed you. Any other questions you have, I don't know what to tell you.

Adam Horowitz: For those using this to go to sleep, I hope you're sound asleep.

Edward Kitsis: Good night, everyone.

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