Look for some very large and seismic events to overtake the castaways of Oceanic Flight 815 by this season's finale.

Despite the best laid plans of ABC and executive producers DAMON LINDELOF and CARLTON CUSE, this season's "Lost" didn't run uninterrupted as a result of the writers strike.

But the show, which returns with all-new episodes Thursday, April 24 at 10 p.m., will begin airing the second half of the season and they promise that all the events that were set up in the first half of the season are going to pay off.

"Obviously, we are missing a lot of pieces between the flash forward from end of last season and how the Oceanic Six [Jack (MATTHEW FOX), Kate (EVANGELINE LILLY), Hurley (JORGE GARCIA), Sayid (NAVEEN ANDREWS) , Sun (YUNJIN KIM) and baby Aaron] got off the island and what connects us to that event. We are going to move forward from that event in time. A lot of those events are pretty seismic and epic," Cuse says.

As to whether or not there will be deaths to explain why more of the castaways didn't make it off the island, the producers are staying mum.

"If we were to tease there were going to be a death on the show, like when Shannon [MAGGIE GRACE] died, it would lead everybody to chase it down and spoil it," Cuse continues. "On the other hand, if we were to say that everyone stays, that would ruin the dramatic impact of the finale. By the end of the season, some people's fates will be clear, others not."

Fans of "Lost"'s love stories, including the Jack/Kate/Sawyer (JOSH HOLLOWAY) triangle and the Desmond (HENRY IAN CUSICK)/Penny (SONYA WALGER) long-suffering separation, are also in for a treat. Look for it in the three-hour finale. Part one airs on Thursday, May 15; followed by a two-hour episode on Thursday, May 29.

"Sawyer is not one of the Oceanic Six and Jack and Kate are," Lindelof points out. "There will be a huge focus in the final three hours of the show that comprise the finale in terms of how that series of events trials transpired and, ultimately, what happens to Sawyer, and it is all on the axis of the love triangle."

As for Desmond and Penny, he says, "We introduced Penny in the second season finale. You had never really seen her before. By making the two-hour finale all of Desmond flashbacks -- considering he had run off into the jungle at the beginning of the season -- it was our intention to make that an epic love story. Because of the chemistry between Ian Cusick and Sonya Walger, it was a well we wanted to return to time and time again. Obviously, it became pivotal in Charlie's death and, we feel, some of the best episodes we had ever done. It isn't because they are weird time travel episodes, but focused on that love story between Penny and Desmond."