The Scorecard: The 'Lost' Deathwatch

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Spoiler alert — contains information about Season 4. Time to catch up already!

WATCHING "LOST" IS sometimes like being really into a sport. You watch it obsessively, talk about it late into the night over some beers, have heated arguments about the action's implications and, basically, allow it to consume your life. Most importantly, though, it's important to follow the stats.

Fortunately, Lost fans and sports fans alike have Web sites to keep track of these things for them and log the most obscure and possibly insignificant details.

And today, while baseball fans intensely discuss who's signing who and the best candidates for 2009's Rookie of the Year, Lostphiles are getting hyped up about what's going to happen in Season 5, airing on ABC at 9 p.m. on Jan. 21. (There's also a recap show at 8 p.m.)

With all the coming, going, drowning, and sudden disappearing of all the characters, we'll need a scorecard to keep track of who's dead, who's a ghost and who's the smoke monster's next victim.

THE OCEANIC SIX
If Ben is to be believed, whatever went wrong at the island after The Oceanic Six left can be corrected only if they all return. Also, as evidenced in Michael's case, people who have left the island can't die until the island lets them. Therefore, we can safely assume the Six will be around for a while — but we've also learned not to get too attached to the ones we love (we miss you, Charlie!).

» 1. Sun-Hwa Kwan
Status: Alive
Chance of Dying in Season 5: Very low
After losing her husband Jin in the freighter explosion, Sun made it back to the real world, had her baby, and took charge. She bought a controlling stake her father's company and later had a cryptic meeting with Charlies Widmore. Sun clearly has plans, and she's going to be a force to be reckoned with this season — plus generally, on this show, people with plans don't die until they need to.

» 2. Jack Shephard
Status: Alive
Chance of Dying in Season 5: Pretty much nil
Still the show's main character, Jack in Season 4 had his appendix removed, made out with Juliet, left the island, got engaged, became a drunk, got un-engaged, and saw his father's ghost. Jack's many issues are nowhere near being resolved, especially since he joins Ben in launching a campaign to return to the island. Love him or hate him, he's not going anywhere.

» 3. Kate Austen
Status: Alive
Chance of Dying in Season 5: Very low
Kate, being the female lead and the girl involved in a still-active love triangle, her story won't be done until the very end. For one, we still don't know what she was doing as a favor for Sawyer back in the real world in Season 4, plus she and Jack have major unresolved issues. The series won't end until she ends up permanently 1. With Jack, 2. With Sawyer or 3. Dead. None of those is likely to happen this season.

» 4. Aaron Littleton/Austen
Status: Alive
Chance of Dying in Season 5: Pretty much nil.
Claire's biological son and Kate's adopted one, Aaron doesn't yet have a personality, but his role in the series hasn't been anywhere near fully realized. The question of who is supposed to raise him has come up occasionally for the past couple of years, and it seems it'll be important to find out what eventually happens to kids born on the island.

» 5. Hugo Reyes (Hurley)
Status: Alive
Chance of dying in Season 5: Low
Hurley ending Season 4 in a mental institution, visited by Ghost Charlie, Ghost Mr. Eko and a creepy Matthew Abaddon. The reasons for his instability, as well as his part to play in the return to the island, may soon become clearer, but we can only hope the writers don't kill off one of Lost's only lovable characters before the very end.

» 6. Sayid Jarrah
Status: Alive
Chance of dying in Season 5: Moderate
In the future, Sayid's been working as a hit man for Ben, out of rage and grief from the death of his beloved Nadia. As much as we'd like to see more of him and his luscious locks, he seems that he's a likely candidate for death this year as soon as he fulfills his obligations to the island. Revenge doesn't always play out well on this show, and now that Sayid's lost his reason for coming home, his story might wrap up quickly.

EVERYONE ELSE
While the roles of the Oceanic Six are more clearly defined for Season 5, the others are in serious limbo. With the island "moved," the freighter in pieces and the raft in the middle of the ocean, we could see any number of confirmed deaths as early as the season premiere. On the other hand, the deaths in Season 4 weren't ever definitively proven, so we may see some familiar faces once again. As for Daniel Faraday, Charlotte Lewis and Miles Straume, as well as little-seen other characters in Season 4 like Walt and Charles Widmore, their fates are pretty much too ambiguous to speculate on for the moment.

» 1. Claire Littleton
Status: Presumed dead
Claire got knocked out when her house was fire-bombed, but she was rescued by Sawyer and woke up. But based on ghost-hunter Miles' cryptic comments and her sudden disappearance, it seems she's no longer among the living. Leaving Aaron in some plants (because what could be the danger in leaving a baby alone on the island?), Claire was then seen in Jacob's cabin, indicating her other-worldliness. Well, at least maybe she'll get to hang out with Charlie (who died in Season 3) again. However, like Christian Shepherd, she didn't bother leaving behind a body, so we can only assume she's really gone.

» 2. Jin-Soo Kwon
Status: Presumed dead
Season 4's heart-wrenching scene where Sun has to watch the boat carrying her husband explode was one of the season's most emotional, and we also see his tombstone back in South Korea, where Sun brings her new daughter to visit. But again, due to lack of a corpse, he's only presumed dead — it would be nice to see a reunion later in the series between husband and wife, especially since Jin finally made up for his life of crime and jerkiness and got Sun safely on the helicopter.

» 3. Desmond Hume. Status: Alive (and happy)
Chance of Dying in Season 5: Moderate
Desmond, the focus of last season's best episode, "The Constant" (full episodes are online), made it to his girlfriend Penny's boat and left the island for good. But based on Ben's threats to Charles Widmore, Penny's life is significantly in danger, and we know Desmond would do anything to save her, including sacrifice himself. Still, it's hard not to hope that if this series has any happy endings, they'll include one for Desmond and Penny.

» 4. John Locke
Status: Dead in the future
One of the only corpses presented in the entire season, Locke (known in the future as Jeremy Benthem) is really, truly dead. We'll no doubt see some of him back in 2005 after he moves the island, though — after all, he has some reason to leave and hunt down the Oceanic Six. Also, Ben's command that "We have to take him too" implies that not just the Six have to return, but everyone from the plane (which might also include Walt). And we know what happened last time someone took a dead body to the island ....

» 5. Juliet Burke
Status: Unknown
Chance of dying of Season 5: Moderate to high. Juliet's not one of the most popular characters, but her personality is at least very well developed. She often shows signs of guilt, pride, despair and hope all rolled up in one big ball of angst, but the girl can still get things done (see: removing Jack's appendix.) She disappeared with the island in the season finale, so we can't say for sure where she is — but it's safe to say the island's not gone for long, and that she'll be back. In the long run, though, her role is mostly related to the fertility issues of the island, a plot line that desperately needs to be wrapped up soon. Juliet's a likely candidate for the island's next sacrifice (plus her death would give Ben a reason to go even further off the deep end).

» 6. Sawyer (James Ford)
Status: Unknown
Chance of dying in Season 5: Moderate. Sawyer's a fan favorite, but his role on the island has been in question for a while. Having resolved his own childhood issues, he's just been running around for the last few seasons, toting a gun, acting snarky and being helpful on occasion. He disappeared along with Juliet and the island after heroically jumping out of the helicopter and swimming back to the island. If he's going to stick around to please the fans and keep the Jack/Kate love triangle going, the writers had better come up with something interesting for him to do besides take his shirt off.

» 7. Benjamin Linus
Status: Alive
Chance of Dying in Season 5, or ever: Zero
Remember, Ben ALWAYS has a plan.

Written by Express contributor Afton Lorraine Woodward

» Becoming 'Lost': Five mysteries of the twisted TV show that we hope will be explained in season five. [Express]

Photos courtesy ABC