Another one bites the dust.

Just in time for November sweeps, Lost made good on its promise to off a main character Wednesday night, with spoiled daddy's girl Shannon Rutherford (Maggie Grace) biting the bullet.

In the episode, Shannon meets her untimely death while chasing (a vision of?) young Walt through the jungle. She is mistaken for one of the resident Mystery Island baddies, aka the Others, by trigger-happy Ana-Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez), who shoots Shannon in the stomach. She winds up dying in the arms of Sayid (Naveen Andrews), who, just moments earlier, proclaimed his love for her.

But while ABC had hyped the show as one "people will be talking about all year long," the chatter about which cast member was doomed began last spring, when E! Online TV columnist Kristin Veitch broke the news of a key season-two death on Apr. 18.

Despite producers' best efforts, the identity of the ill-fated character was no secret to fans of Lost message boards and spoiler sites.

While Veitch chose to hint at the identity of the victim to keep from ruining the surprise for non-spoiler-seeking fans, Ain't It Cool News was the first site to actually print the name--albeit in invisible type and with plenty of spoiler warnings.

Grace is the second major player to be killed off the ABC hit. Last spring, Lost producers broke hearts nationwide when they killed off Shannon's stepbrother, Boone (Ian Somerhalder), in a freak plane accident.

Still, there are still plenty of avid Lost watchers for whom Shannon's death came as a shock, and a development they're wary of believing.

"I'm not putting it in ink that anyone's dead or 'lost forever' until they're in the ground or the show's off the air," Thedeadpolarbear posted on the popular fansite lost-tv.com.

Fellow poster Jaffa420 agreed: "Yep, I take it at face value that Cindy was the only one that was 'lost forever.' Shannon's still alive and kicking...come on, people, Shannon's not dead."

While the episode did leave the possibility open that the death could be either Cindy, the "tailie" who disappeared on a climb up a hill, or even bad boy Sawyer, whose gunshot wound rendered him unconscious, show insiders are setting the record straight.

"It's always hard to see one of us go, because you know, we have such a strong bond with one another, and we were the original group," Daniel Dae Kim (Jin) tells E! Online. "We missed Ian when he left. We still miss Ian, and we're going to miss [Maggie] too. But at the same time, we know that that's the kind of storytelling they're doing."

Producer Carlton Cuse tells USA Today that Grace was "really awesome" about being written out of the show when her fate was decided last spring. "We had to negotiate her contract for this season, so she's known for a long time this was coming.

"But she was nothing but absolutely professional and completely tight-lipped and completely a team player in terms of going to events, doing interviews and participating as a full member of the cast without giving any indication that she was dying."

The demise of Shannon proved to be a blessing for ABC. Wednesday's episode was seen by 20 million viewers, according to ABC, making it the most watched show of the night.

And even though Shannon's dead, on a show like Lost, it doesn't mean she's gone forever. Indeed, Somerhalder made a return visit to Wednesday's Lost, appearing in Shannon's flashback.

Since being written off, Somerhalder has signed a personal TV deal with ABC and has taken to the big screen with three upcoming projects, including the thriller Pulse, alongside Veronica Mars' Kristen Bell and pop star Christina Milian.

Now that her gig on Lost is up, Grace may also make the full-time jump to the big screen. She recently starred in the thriller The Fog with Smallville's Tom Welling and Selma Blair, which opened last month at number one.

Meanwhile, ABC is throwing more bones to the seemingly insatiable Lost fans.

In addition to the forthcoming book Bad Twin, based on a manuscript "written by" one of Flight 815's doomed passenger and featured in an upcoming story line, the network on Thursday announced the creation of the Official Lost Fan Club. For $28, fans can sign up at lostfanclub.com for exclusive online content about the show and a special "Survivors" package that contains Oceanic Airlines paraphernalia, trading cards and a special DVD.

As for the show's ever-evolving cast, four new actors have been added to the ensemble this season--Rodriguez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Cynthia Watros and Sam Anderson--all of whom play tailies, whose backstory will play out next week.