(Cross-posted at Zap2It’s Guide to Lost)

Well, its Day 2 of the writer’s strike, with no talks at all today between the Writer’s Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. For some reason, I’d envisioned everyone by this hour sipping on tea, eating crumpets, and laughing about days past. Apparently not. These two are in it, if not for the long haul, a longer haul than many had envisioned.

I’m one to worry about things I shouldn’t, so this has me a bit frazzled. Hearing about what Heroes has planned has me even more worried: apparently, they’ve gone and shot an alternate ending to the current volume, “Generations,” that would serve not only to finish the volume, but the entire season. That sound you just heard is me squealing, crying out in anger, hitting a wall with my fist, yelping in pain from fist meeting wall, and then crying out to my Maker, “God, dear God, wherefore you smite me thus?” (Just in case all of that wasn’t clear from your computer.)

Even more disturbing, a spy within the production staff of Lost sent me a copy of the script from the final filmed episode of Season 4, which now not only serves as a season finale, but a series finale as well. Some big revelations occur, as you can expect, although things happen a little too rapidly for my tastes. Be warned: insanely fake spoilers lay ahead.

Jack: Tell me why you’ve kept us here all this time!
Ben: No, never!
Sawyer: Lookie here, amigo with the plan doesn’t wanna give it up! We got ways of fixin’ that, yessir, I’ll start shoving fish biscuits where the sun don’t shine!
Kate: Sawyer! That’s enough. And ew, you kept fish biscuits all this time?
Jack: Tell us now!
Ben: Fine, fine. You’re all dead.
Sayid: Something tells me you’re not telling us the truth.
Locke: I knew you’d say that. Jacob told me.
Ben: Jacob always loved you best! You’re not all dead, you’re right, Sayid. You’ve all been brought here by a greater power.
Locke: It was destiny! The Island brought us here! I knew it.
Ben: You fool, not the Island. I told you it was a “greater power”, not “an anomalous land mass possessing inherent unique magnetic properties concealing it from satellite view.”
Hurley: Dude, you just totally said a mouthful of stuff I don’t understand.
Claire: Can you hurry up? Aaron needs to feed, and while he’s supposedly only a few weeks old, he’s bigger than most toddlers at this point, not that anyone here seems to notice.
Locke: What’s the greater power you spoke of, Ben? Is it Jacob?
Ben: Man in a Shack, the Greater Power? I’m afraid you have it all wrong, my friend. You sought to supplant me. You sought to lead the Others. But beneath it all, you ignored one crucial element.
Jack: And what’s that, exactly?
Ben: That, Jack, is the simple fact that…YOU GOT PUNK’D!
Sayid: Punk’d?
Desmond: Didja say “punk’d,” brutha?
Ben (now laughing hysterically): Come on in, fellas.
Enter a gaggle of film crew, including Ashton Kutcher, all smiling and cackling
Ben: Gotcha!
Locke: This…isn’t real?
Ben: Of course not.
Hurley: But…but…the Numbers…all the weird connections to our past…there’s a freakin’ smoke Monster that ate half of us at one point or another!
Ashton: Smoke monster my trucker hat wearin’ heiney…just some well-placed speakers in the woods, a little burned rubber, and “101 Cityscape Sound Effects” CD. I particularly like Track 87, “New York City Taxi Cab Receipt Printer.”
Rose: No wonder I knew that sound! Also? I hate you.
Ben: You guys got so punk’d, it’s unreal.
Kate: So if the Smoke Monster wasn’t real, who grabbed the pilot? Eko? Who killed them?
Ashton: May I reveal to you Smokey himself…Mr. Gerald Degroot!
Gerald: Whassssup, playahs?
Claire: OK, I have no idea who you are.
Sawyer: This fancy pants founded the Dharma Initiative. Didn’t you see the Orientation tapes?
Claire: They never let me in the Hatch. Not that I’m bitter. I’m Australian, not bitter.
Desmond: Aye, the founder indeed. You’re the reason all those men were killed? And why I bounce around time and space like Tigger on acid?
Gerald: Yea, and I would have gotten away with it, if it wasn’t for you meddlin’ kids! HA! *high fives Ashton and Ben*
Locke: Now just wait a second, here: so our plane crash landed, we’ve lived in perpetual fear, we’ve been intermittently kidnapped and/or killed, and now we learn it was all a hoax perpetuated for the enjoyment of Generation Y?
Ashton: In our defense, this is for sweeps, so we gave it a little bit more of that punk’d fever, you feel me?
Sawyer: How about you let my fist feel your face?
Jack: Now wait, just WAIT? We’ve gone through all this struggle, all this pain, all this inner torment, all for this?
Ben: And the pudding.
Hurley: Dude, there’s pudding?
Ben: Turns out the unique electromagnetic properties of this island are conducive to making the most excellent tapioca pudding. Jell-O underwrites the majority of the Dharma Initiative, not the Hanso Foundation. If either existed. Which they don’t. Because you got punk’d.
Sawyer: Well, isn’t this plum dandy, all this time and this is how it ends.
Sayid: It’s almost as if the 13-year old, pudding-obsession son of a member of the mailroom decided to script the ending of our drama in lieu of more talented, more experienced writers.
Locke: Indeed.
Jack: Indeed.
Ashton: SHAZAM!