Comic Con: What We Learned From The Lost Panel

For the most part this morning's Lost panel was just a bunch of smoke (monsters!) and mirrors, Damon Lindelof and Carlton offering us antics to cover up for the fact that they didn't actually tell us anything. But! They do know how to keep a group of rabid fans happy, and that's to tell you a little bit to keep you going until January. So what do we know now? Not much, but a little.

1. Dead people will be back next season. Daniel Faraday is most certainly dead, they admitted. They implied that Juliet is too (thought it's worth noting that she wasn't in the In Memoriam tribute). But both of them will be back next season in some capacity. Which leads us to...

2. The bomb reset might have actually worked. Before Jorge Garcia showed up at the mic, we saw a series of fake commercials, each stranger than the next. Hurley, inspired by a trip to Australia, has bought the Mr. Cluck's chicken franchise and is adding Australian flavor to everything. Kate is on America's Most Wanted, still at large after blowing up the house. And Oceanic Airlines has a perfect 30-year record without crashes. They are very, very strongly implying that the last five years on the island never happened. Jorge Garcia even asked it point blank, and of course got no answer. But would they really do that? Beats me.

3. Kate didn't actually kill her stepfather. According to America's Most Wanted, the guy she blew up in the house was just a random plumber assistant! Given the history of Bad Dad Confrontations on this show, I guarantee that-- no matter what happens with the plane-- Kate and her dad will come face to face. If Locke did it, so can Kate.

4. Season 1 characters will be coming back. Damon and Carlton said straight-up we'd be seeing characters who hadn't been around since Season One. That lends lots of credence to the reset theory-- all the people who died back then will be alive, and we'll see how their lives go. But who will those characters be? Boone is one of the few major characters who hasn't been revisited since the first season, setting aside a handful of Locke smoke lodge hallucinations. Other characters likely to show back up, even though they've been around more recently, include Walt and Claire, who was a big part of the spirit of the panel. Anyone else you guys are dying to see again?

5. Richad Alpert is due for more screentime. Nestor Carbonell's appearance on the panel was one of the most fun moments, with the video of him freaking out about his eyeliner. But Damon and Carlton also promised that we'll be getting a lot of Richard's back story, finally figuring out the secret to the man who never ages. Of course, given that it's the last season, we probably could have guessed that. But it's nice to hear it confirmed.

6. We might be done with the flashbacks. When a guy specifically asked if there would be more flashbacks to the characters' childhoods, Damon and Carlton didn't give any specifics, but suggested that the old season one flashback structure might not be what we're getting. We had a flashback season, we had a time-jumping season, we had a flash-forward season-- and in season six, we'll be getting something totally new.

7. Jacob's evil friend is probably not named Esau, but we're close. Damon and Carlton handed off the answering of the Esau question to MIchael Emerson, who suggested that the Biblical imagery might be a little subtler than that, but the idea was pretty much spot on. So if the guy winds up being named E or something, we'll all know what that really means.