'Lost': Zeke's been moonlighting

Wondering why you haven’t seen much lately of Zeke, a.k.a. Mr. Friendly, the stage-bearded leader of the scary Others on Lost? Maybe it’s because M.C. Gainey, who portrays Zeke, has been busy elsewhere on ABC. In fact, he popped up just this past Sunday as Claude, the sinister Sexaholics Anonymous sponsor of Bree’s crush object Peter on Desperate Housewives.

Is the castaway drama making me paranoid? In what may be a coincidence (then again, there are no coincidences in the world of Lost, are there?), I also spotted a bespectacled man walking down Eighth Avenue in Manhattan last Tuesday, a man I could swear was Michael Emerson, who plays Zeke’s presumed cohort Henry Gale. Not only is it freaky and surreal to see these performers out of Lost‘s tropical-island context, but to see them working (or walking) somewhere other than Lost‘s Hawaiian set makes me fear for their safety, or at least the safety of their characters.

Does this mean that Zeke and Henry have already been killed off, or are they just finished for the season, since the remaining episodes through the May 24 finale have presumably completed filming by now? I don’t know, but I’ll be on the edge of my seat watching tonight’s Lost, especially since, with Michael’s return, a confrontation with the Others is looming, and since (warning: mild spoiler ahead) tonight’s episode reportedly sees trigger-happy Ana Lucia interrogating Henry one more time.

By the way, if you want to see something really creepy, rent last year’s Dukes of Hazzard movie and see Gainey’s performance as Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane. Unlike the TV Rosco, played by James Best as a giggling buffoon, Gainey plays the character as a competent and corrupt cop, a heavy no less menacing than Claude or Zeke. Make of that what you will, Lost conspiracy theorists.