Damon Lindelof has spent the years since he escaped ABC’s endlessly polarizing Lost engaged in the healing process, writing screenplays and serving as showrunner for the relatively placid The Leftovers. (After all, his new show might be inconsistent, but at least he doesn’t have to worry that people are going to scream at him about “flash-sidewayses” and “The Numbers” every time they find out where he works.) Also, just like most of the TV-watching world, he’s spent a lot of the time since the Lost finale—which Damon Lindelof would like to remind you was perfectly fine, okay—watching The Leftovers’ sister program, HBO’s Game Of Thrones.
That became very apparent during an Entertainment Weekly interview Lindelof recently gave, promoting the October 4 debut of Leftovers’ second season. In the interview, he peppered his responses with references to Westerosan goings-on, eventually prompting the EW reporters to ask him for his thoughts on the show. In response, Lindelof quickly generated a 1000-word essay on the topic, covering various aspects of the show’s cultural reception, a thesis that can best be summed up as, “People whine too much when influential, massively popular TV shows disappoint them,” a sentiment that presumably comes from the depths of his battle-scarred heart.
“I don’t watch television to find things to gripe about,” Lindelof wrote, adding, ”I think we live in a clickbait-y media culture that exists to pick things apart. I love-watch Game of Thrones, so I’m immensely forgiving of things that perhaps are not the strongest attributes of the show.” The love-watching even extends to forgiving author George R. R. Martin for his unkind words about the perfectly good finale of Lost, and only briefly thinking, “Well, I kind of hope Game of Thrones sucks at the end, too, so they’ll know it feels to have somebody say that to you.” Lindelof then reminded the interviewers, and himself, that the Lost finale wasn’t actually bad anyway, so whatever.
Beyond that, though, the writer and producer—who’s also effusive in his praise for the show, calling out the latest season’s battle-heavy “Hardhome” as “one of the most excellent hours of television I’ve ever seen”—took special issue with fans who turn on the show because it upsets them—by killing a popular character, for instance, or introducing a magical frozen donkey wheel and then never explaining from whence it came.
“When I see a blogger—thank God I’m not on Twitter anymore, because I get into all sorts of trouble—or a critic, or a recapper say, “I’m done with your show,” if I were running that show I would call them up and say, “You are not allowed to watch my show anymore. I’m going to f–king alert everybody in your life to watch you. I’m going to hire a private eye to tap your media consumption, and you better not ever watch it again. Are you sure you want to do this?“
So anyway, Damon Lindelof’s clearly doing pretty well, and everything is fine, just fine. Just like the ending of Lost.