In Beetlejuice, we knew that the main characters were dead, and there was still some tension in the story.

That's because they were very clearly presented as dead, as soon as it happened (something that has not, IMO, been done here)

Plus, there were dead folk in episode 1, when the survivors were roaming around in their shell-shocked state. If the survivors are dead, too, what does that makes the not-walking-around dead passengers? Massively dead?

Soon Jacks will dominate fandom.

Ah, the Era of Will is over....

Those are not punishments for sins, or problems for dead people, those are all very clearly delineated problems of the living.

But that's in *your* mind. Do you see what I mean? I actually don't think this is going to be a purgatory story, but it's too early to make a judgment like the one above, because we really don't understand the rules of their universe, and if it even is a separate universe.

Taking what are clearly delineated problems of the living, in your mind/our world, and defining them as such in a 'verse we don't yet know, is akin to saying during S1 Buffy, that Angel couldn't be a vampire, because he didn't sleep in a coffin. My only point was that ruling out* a purgatory story, because it doesn't jibe with the a common cultural definition of such a thing, doesn't make sense, when we really don't yet know their rules.

*edited to clarify...
I do not even mean "ruling them out," just judging that it would be a cheat. We are not yet working with anything close to a fully fleshed out mythology.

I'm still waiting for one of these Amazing Jacks to have a last name like Czarnowski.

Also waiting for the show to pull a full Swiss Family Robinson so that Charlie can ride up to camp one day on the back of a tamed ostrich.

Maybe one of the other characters will be from Bristow, California.

Also waiting for the show to pull a full Swiss Family Robinson so that Charlie can ride up to camp one day on the back of a tamed ostrich.

That would be AWESOME. There should absolutely be ostriches.

Those are not punishments for sins, or problems for dead people, those are all very clearly delineated problems of the living.

But maybe the person being punished was Boone or Jack, and not Nameless Swimmer girl.

First let me clarify something:

Those are not punishments for sins, or problems for dead people, those are all very clearly delineated problems of the living.

But that's in *your* mind.

No, that's not just in my mind, Cindy, I was very specifically refering to in those stories (Dante's afterlife stories, and Beetlejuice). In Dante's poems, the pains and punisments people suffered were (as I understand it, more knowledgable people please correct me if I'm wrong) specific to their sins, and very much not real world problems, even though there was (I think) actual physical suffering involved. In Beetlejuice we were given problems for dead people to overcome. Neither of these things occured just in my mind, they were facts about the stories in question.

That being said....

Taking what are clearly delineated problems of the living, in your mind/our world, and defining them as such in a 'verse we don't yet know, is akin to saying during S1 Buffy, that Angel couldn't be a vampire, because he didn't sleep in a coffin.

I respectfully disagree. I can't judge what I would have thought about Angel in Buffy S1, because I didn't start watching until S3, but needing food, water, sleep, to not get gored by a boar, and to not die by shooting, drowning, or falling off a cliff are pretty clearly delineating some real world, not dead problems, and it's not doing that just in my mind.

Whether you agree with it or not, that's fine, but to me, that's pretty clearly anchoring the show in "not dead" territory, even if the mythology is not fully fleshed out yet (which I agree, it's not). I just am apparently more willing than you or le nubian to say that the show has textually ruled out a "they're dead" scenario, which I do actually feel the show has done.

Those are not punishments for sins, or problems for dead people, those are all very clearly delineated problems of the living.

But maybe the person being punished was Boone or Jack, and not Nameless Swimmer girl.

Maybe she had a family emergency and Christof let her off the island...

Also, that last post may have come across as snippy. Cindy (or anyone else for that matter), if you felt snipped at, I apologize. That was not my intent.

I would be more than a little pissed if J.J. Jacob's Ladders the story. There are instances where a nihilistic punchline of an ending works for a story, but this is not one of them. We have mysteries and characters we're already pretty damn invested in and god knows how much more complicated and thorny this will get--I don't think they can possibly do "They're all dead" reveal without the whole thing falling into the despair of futility, or turning into a hokey quasi-spiritual kitsch.