finale to explain the identity of the man Sayid
(Naveen Andrews) shot on a golf course in sea-
son four's "The Economist."
isn't going to spend time on them. They ex-
plain the man was named Peter Avellino, he
was a partner of the economist working with
Charles Widmore (Alan Dale) and that Ben
(Michael Emerson) had Sayid eliminate him
to annoy Widmore. "I think that's a good ex-
ample of something where there's informa-
tion you can cull from watching the show
that pretty much tells you everything you
need to know about Peter Avellino,"
Horowitz says. "What's his relationship to
the economist and what Ben was doing --
it's exactly what we were talking about, in
the sense that there's stuff out there. If you
look back and put stuff together, you can cre-
ate what you need to create to get what you
need from the show. There isn't a need to ex-
time we have to talk to you about the guy we
shot on the golf course or we can show you
more Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick)."
the island. "We spend about 80% of our time
talking about the characters, the character re-
lationships and the character interactions
and about 20% of the time on mythology,"
Cuse estimates. "Mythology is what every-
body talks about and what everybody asks us
about, but we feel that we're making a char-
acter show, first and foremost. That's really, I
think, why the show has crossed out of being
a small genre show and into more of a broad
appeal show."
ters to a great depth. "If we're
going to introduce a charac-
ter, even if we don't ever show
all of it -- as Damon and Carl-
ton say, it's under the iceberg
-- we need to know all of it,"
Kitsis says. "Yes, there's a mys-
tery element to the show, but
we aren't writing toward any
answers, because at that point
we might as well have Damon
and Carlton come out and
read them." So while many of
the answers are known in ad-
vance, what the writing staff
prefers to do is "earn" the an-
swers through character de-
velopment and story.
Richard Alpert (Nestor Car-
bonell), who was first devel-
oped in the third season's
mini-camp. "When we first
introduced Richard, I don't
think we even hinted at the
fact that he hasn't aged,"
Kitsis says. "What's cool is
that by the time you got it,
you were already with
Richard. So when we started
to peel off layers, you were
into it."
ended up on the island. "Well, we have the
Black Rock," he says. "You're free to play with
the universe of the show in a very cool way if
you have that freedom to spend some time be-
fore each season to really delve into who these
characters are and who they're going to be.
There's so much more about all the characters
than we actually need to put out there. But by
having all that, it allows you to keep revealing
things about them as you go along and hope-
fully continue to make them interesting."
Hints of Richard's history have been peppered
throughout the show since the character's ap-
pearance. In the season six episode "Dr. Linus,"
written by Kitsis and Horowitz, Richard and
Jack (Matthew Fox) share the following mo-
ment transcribed below.
examining a set of MANACLES
fastened to the wall of the
ship's hold.
I've spent on this island,
today is the first time
I've ever come back.
come a full concept episode focusing on
Richard's flashback story -- a rare departure
from the show's usual format of interspers-
ing the present day with flashbacks, flash-
forwards and even flash-sideways stories.
Previous concept episodes include "The
Other 48 Days," "Meet Kevin Johnson" and
"Flashes Before Your Eyes." "Richard Alpert
was not going to be told in five beats," Kit-
sis says, recalling the discussion. "And what
we started to realize was Richard Alpert is
not going to be told in six beats." Ideas con-
tinued to snowball around Richard's episode
and long-awaited origin story until a varia-
tion on the stand-alone concept episode
was outlined. "And then you just get going,"
Kitsis says.
of the island's biggest mysteries is a character.
Season six begins with the revelation that the