Food for Thought: The Final Main Cast

For the past four years, people have been speculating on the main cast lineup of the next season of Lost. Many draft picks have not made the cut several times in a row (fan favorite Richard Alpert has not been on the main cast yet), though quite a few have (Michael Emerson and Henry Ian Cusick joined the cast for season three onward). But by the end of this year, the speculation on who will be a member of the main cast will be over for good -- press releases will be out by December, if not earlier, and we'll find out who is in the final lineup. Here's my guess for the main cast of next year.

I think by now that we've ascertained that all our seventies friends survived the blast (simply because there are so many integral characters in that group). So that means that next year we'll (of course) have Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, Josh Holloway, Jorge Garcia, Daniel Dae Kim, and Ken Leung on the main cast once again. I don't think that Sayid (played by Naveen Andrews), despite the gutshot, is done quite yet either, so we'll add him to the queue as well. However, I think that Elizabeth Mitchell is done for, regardless of the reset or not. Not only is she starring in V next year, but she looked in pretty bad shape at the end of last year, and she detonated the Jughead. So I'm ruling her out.

The 2007ers are probably all safe too. Terry O'Quinn as Jacob's nemesis, Michael Emerson as Ben, and Yunjin Kim as Sun are all safe, undoubtedly. Henry Ian Cusick, who remains off-Island, was extremely underused last year, but it's safe to say he'll be back into the fray before long. We're not done with him.

So here's where we determine who's going to be on the main cast next year. I think it's high time we get Emilie de Ravin back on the cast, so she'll probably rejoin for the final season. Frank, with his candidacy, looks to be a pretty likely pick for next year's cast, as do Ilana and Bram, who are apparently going to be major players next year. Then there's Richard, who fans have been dying to find out about since his appearances in season three. I think there's little question that he'll be on the main cast.

There are a few other recurrings that I'll go over the chances for in the list below.

Matthew Fox as Jack Shephard -- Certain.
Evangeline Lilly as Kate Austen -- Certain.
Josh Holloway as James "Sawyer" Ford -- Certain
Jorge Garcia as Hugo "Hurley" Reyes -- Certain
Michael Emerson as Benjamin Linus -- Certain
Daniel Dae Kim as Jin-Soo Kwon -- Certain
Yunjin Kim as Sun-Hwa Kwon -- Certain
Ken Leung as Miles Straume -- Certain
Terry O'Quinn as Jacob's nemesis -- Certain
Henry Ian Cusick as Desmond Hume -- Certain
Naveen Andrews as Sayid Jarrah -- Likely
Nestor Carbonell as Richard Alpert -- Likely
Zuleikha Robinson as Ilana -- Likely
Brad William Henke as Bram -- Likely
Jeff Fahey as Frank Lapidus -- Likely
Emilie de Ravin as Claire Littleton -- Likely
Elizabeth Mitchell as Juliet Burke -- Unlikely
L. Scott Caldwell as Rose Nadler -- Unlikely
Sam Anderson as Bernard Nadler -- Unlikely


Now, you may think that I'm being a little too liberal with the "certains" and "likelies" but even if everyone I listed as certain or likely was a member of the main cast next year, it still wouldn't be as large of a cast as the cast of season four was.

But now, it's your turn. Who do you think will be a main character next year?