Originally from DarkUFO.com.  Found on http://amazingexgirlfriend.blogspot.com/2010/08/lost-cartoon-poster-with-95-characters.html

The Best and Worst of the entire series of LOST.

I love LOST.  Rewatching the show this summer was a areal treat and I was able to find surprises throughout and to analyze situations and characters in a different light.  I am anxious to get this out because I may try and do a LOST fan fiction that I have been thinking about before school starts up in mid-August.

The list of the episodes in order from lowest to best will hopefully get completed soon as well.

Best and Worst Episode:  I am saving these for the complete list of LOST episodes.  My choices are not uncommon among other lists of the same.

Best Character:  Ben Linus.  So many choices.  This could legitimately be Locke or Jack or Desmond or Kate or Hurley or Sayid.  Ben, however, goes through such a dramatic shift in his character over the years and suffers such pain and loss because of his commitment to the Island only to be rebuked by Jacob…Michael Emerson really brought so much humanity to what could have been a one-note villain that LOST would not have been the same without Ben.

Worst Character:  Achara.  She made no sense.  She was the reason Jack had tattoos but it was nonsensical. She appeared in one episode and never heard of again.

Biggest Waste of a Character:  Matthew Abaddon.  He should have been an huge character, but he just never got his feet under him and he was dispatched way too easy.  He went from a mysterious enigma to a true waste of time.

Best couple:  Desmond and Penny.  This really became the heart of the show.  By the time we reached the Constant, I wanted this couple to get together more than anyone.  They were magical and perfection.

Worst couple:  Nikki and Paolo They were one of the bigger failures of the show, even though I loved the episode Expose where they met their fate.  They were a response to some criticism that the background members of Oceanic 815 never had any story.  So…we got Nikki and Paolo.

Most tragic couple:  Jin and Sun.  Easy.  They were separated most of the time.  They wound up dying together in Widmore’s sub, never to see their daughter again.

Best Death:  Charlie Hume.  There are a lot of great choices here too but none of the deaths had the impact on the show as Charlie’s demise in season three.  Charlie’s sacrifice was all done to get Claire off the Island.  And she does leave.

Biggest Surprise Death:  Dr. Leslie Arzt.  He was supposed to be at the Black Rock because he knew how to handle dynamite.  Since Hurley had to pick pieces of Arzt out of his hair several episodes later, Leslie must have been exaggerating his abilities.

Best Character Centric episodes:  Desmond.  Every flashback episode for Desmond Hume was a great hit.  His story was vital to the story of LOST and showed us what a wonderful character Desmond was.

Best Quote:  “If we can’t live together, we’re gonna die alone.” -Jack Shephard.  This quote was reused multiple times and even comes into play in the finale.  There were a lot of great quotes, but this one really informed on character (Jack) and plot.

Best Season:  Season One.  This was a real tough choice as well as Seasons two, four and five had to be in consideration, but the elite first season really put this show on the map.

Worst Father:  Anthony Cooper.  On a show with tons of characters with daddy issues, Anthony Cooper is easily the worst.  He threw his son out of an 8th story window and crippled him.

Best Father:  Pierre Chang.  Although Miles did not know, Dr. Chang sacrificed his happiness with his wife and son to save them from what was going to happen on the Island.

Worst Mother:  Eloise Hawkins.  Yes, she sent her son, Daniel Faraday, to the Island knowing that he would go back in time and that she would unknowingly shoot him.

Best Mother:  Cassidy Phillips.  She got pregnant with Sawyer, but there is no evidence that Clementine was anything but wonderfully loved and taken care of.

Best animal:  Vincent.  Another no-brainer here as Vincent makes the entire series and is involved in the first scene and the final scene.

Best Tail Section Character:  Mr. Eko.  I would have liked more with Mr. Eko, but he was clearly the most interesting and compelling character to come out of the tail section.

Best Freighter character:  Daniel Faraday.  I really love Miles too, but Faraday was the most interesting and important character to come off that freighter.  He led us to understand the time travel as well as played a huge role in saving Desmond.

Best Actor:  Terry O’Quinn.  O’Quinn was always brilliant in his performance as John Locke or the creature that took John Locke’s place.  While there were other great actors on the show, O’Quinn gave the consistently most layered performance.

Best Actress: Elizabeth Mitchell.  I hated Juliet for a long time, which is what we were supposed to do and then when we needed to love her, Mitchell turned it around.  She broke your heart when she died and melted it again when reunited with James.

That’s all I have.  Episodes will be next…

The final season.  You know, I liked this final season more on this watch than I did the first time. Maybe it was because I knew what the flash-sideways world was so I was able to look at it like it should have been looked at.  I did not have my own preconceived notions or expectations about what was happening that I was able to enjoy it more.  I also saw some new things that I missed the first time through.

Best Episode:  The End.  I don’t care what anybody says, The End was an emotional thrill-ride that was as satisfying as could be.  If you wanted them to list off all the answers that you don’t understand in a big exposition drop, then you’re gonna be disappointed.  If you want an awesome conclusion to the story about the Oceanic 815 survivors started six years prior, then you probably loved it like I did.  Runner-Up:  Ab Aeterno

Best Flashback:  Richard, Ab Aeterno.  Richard’s story finally told was the best flashback, forward or sideways of season six.  It confirmed a lot of the speculations that we had about Richard and it told a wonderful romantic story as well.  Runner-Up:  Across the Sea

Best Performance:  Terry O’Quinn.  Terry O’Quinn was remarkable all year long as he was now playing a new character and there were moments where he was spectacularly chilling.  There were other times where he seemed like our old friend Locke.  He played the layers to this villain whom you understood since the moment you found out who he was.  Runner-Up:  Josh Holloway

Biggest Jerk:  John Locke/Man in Black. I think it has to be because, it the end, he tried to murder the entire group by blowing up the submarine and he succeeded in killing Sayid, Jin and Sun.  Runner-Up:  Charles Widmore

Best Death:  Sun and Jin.  This one was a heart-breaker, but beautifully done.  Sun and Jin had been separated for most of the last two seasons, off the Island to across time.  They reunited and then, before you knew it, they were drowning.  Such a tragic end for the Kwons.  Runner-Up:  Jack Shephard

Biggest Surprise: Desmond hits Locke with his car.  Desmond is our hero.  He is here to help everybody…wait…what are you doing???  Stop!  Desmond plowing down a man in a wheelchair seemed to be going opposite of what he had intended. Yet our sneaky Scot apparently knew what he was doing.  Runner-Up:  Sawyer’s a cop?

Funniest Moment: Ilana blows up.  Like Dr. Arzt before her, Ilana needs to be more careful when handling dynamite when the Island is through with you.  Runner-Up:  Frank Lapidus reactions

Best Moment:  Everyone meets at the church. The final scene where the group gets together and gets ready to move on is a beautiful ending for these characters story.  Everything built this season to this moment and it big not disappoint. Runner-up:  Jack gives the Island to Hurley.

That is the season 6 review.  I plan on doing a season 1-6 review and expand it a bit and I will be listing the LOST episodes from worst to best as well.

Thanks to Vincent, Jack did not have to die alone.  I hadn’t thought about that until this rewatch so the heart of the scene really hit me even harder.

There was a lot of backlash against “The End” because of the fact that it did not come right out and answer every little question that the series posed (although I could argue that MOST if not almost all of the questions can be answered from what we know) and because some people did not understand the ending.

It became popular to say that the Island was a purgatory and that all of the Oceanic 815 passengers died in the original plane crash.  People used the final scene as evidence since they were all dead there.  These people did not watch this show very closely or had preconceived thoughts that could be altered.

In the finale, Christian Shephard specifically said that everything that happened, happened.  He said that the people were dead, some before Jack and some long after Jack.  That seemed clear to me.  They did not die in the plane crash and everything that happened from season 1-6 actually happened.

The confusion comes from people not understanding the flash-sideways world.  Christian answered this as well when he said that this place was a place they all made up together to find one another.  It also seems that some of them can spend longer times in the flash-sideways world because they are not ready to move on.  It would take some of the sting out of Jin and Sun’s death if they were able to spend time with Ji Yeong in the flash-sideways since time is not an issue here.

If you understood what happened, it was a beautiful ending to a story that was about the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815.  It was not a story about the Island or the mythology of the Island (though that was used to tell the survivors’ stories).  The story was what happened to the survivors and that was covered very well.

The battle between Jack and Smokie ended quicker than I expected, but it was emotionally compelling,and Kate getting a chance to “saved you a bullet” was a nice call back to earlier in the episode.

Everything with Hurley and Jack was heart-wrenching.  Jack knew what was going to happen and Hurley could not accept it (even though I think he knew as well).

I had a memory of a scene that I missed in the rewatch of the finale.  I remember Richard noticing that he had a grey hair forming.  My memory was this happened on the Ajira airplane, but I missed it in the rewatch.  That was one of my favorite little character moments so I hope it didn’t get edited out.

It was awesome to see the group reunited in the church afterwards, though I wondered about Miles and Faraday and Charlotte.  At least Miles should have made the cut as he spent three years in the Dharma Initiative with Sawyer and Jin.  Helen was not there with John Locke, but most of the memories with Helen came from the flash-sideways.  No Mr. Eko or Ana-Lucia (although it was nice to see her in the flash-sideways as the cop willing to take Hurley’s bribe money).  Lapidus wasn’t there either.

The heart of the Island with the giant cork was a bit hokey, but a lot of science fiction can be hokey.  It is more of a figurative metaphor than anything else.  It is the last thing that Jack needed to do for the Island.

The End was a beautifully written and acted episode and a fitting conclusion to the best show on television.  I am always so disappointed when people claim that LOST fell by the side in its later seasons.  If you have patience and if you understand what the show is about, there is so much here for you to love.  I had a hole in my heart for years after the show ended and I was reminded how wonderful this was watching these episodes over the last month or so.

Namaste

Some really great character moments as the show barrelled toward the finish line.  We get a new Island Protector and we find out why the other candidates had to die.

Kate was very emotional when she confronted the ghost of Jacob about the reason Jin, Sun and Sayid died.  He did not make excuses or platitudes.  He did not dodge the question either.  He admitted to his mistake, the one that he has been trying to fix ever since.  It was the mistake we saw happen in “Across the Sea” where Jacob sent his brother down the hole to the heart of the Island and the Smoke Monster was created.  Jacob knew that the Monster was going to try and find a way to kill him and that he would one day succeed, so he had to find someone to replace him.

He claimed that Kate’s name is scratched off the wall simply because she became a mother (to Aaron), but that meant nothing more than a chalk mark on a wall.  He said the job was hers if she wanted it.  I liked how straightforward Jacob was in this moment and one wonders how well things would go if he had been as straightforward as this for his entire reign as Island Protector.  He did learn the secretive and manipulative manners from Mother and he would not have had any other examples.

Sawyer got mad at Jacob for playing with their lives and Jacob responded with the fact that none of the people he brought to the Island were happy or knew where they were.  They were lonely and lost and Jacob gave them an opportunity to find themselves and their purpose on the Island.

Jack stepped forward and agreed to take on Jacob’s responsibility and there was a ceremony with water from the stream.  Jacob repeated the “Now you are like me” line that Mother used.  Hurley said he was just glad it was not him, a line that even on my first viewing way back when, I took as foreshadowing.

While Ghost Jacob was doing his thing, John Locke arrived in New Otherton and crushed the heck out of Richard, knocking him into the jungle.  Dead?  Ben immediately took his place at Smokie’s side answering any question he wanted to know.  Specifically, where was Charles Widmore.  Widmore and Chloe were hiding in Ben’s closet and Ben was happy to share.

Locke went down to the hidden room with Ben, killed Chloe immediately and started asking Widmore questions.  Apparently, Jacob had returned to speak to Widmore recently and told him how to find the Island, refocusing his cynosure.  He was now concerned with Locke instead of Ben.  Locke told Widmore that if he did not tell him everything, the first thing he will do off the Island is kill Penny.  As Widmore was whispering to Locke, Ben shot Widmore to death saying that Charles did not get to save his daughter.

The whole situation with Charles only brought back the memories of Alex and her fate.  Miles had run into where Richard had buried her as they returned, causing him to pause.  Ben thanked Richard for burying her.

Desmond got out of the well apparently because when Locke and Ben arrived t kill him, he was gone.  Locke was happy though because he decided he was going to use Desmond to help destroy the Island.

This is one of those totally divisive episodes of LOST that I loved.  “Across the Sea” was a great origin story of the Smoke Monster and it lent us a look at Jacob and his brother, along with the crazy Mother.

Allison Janney starred in this episode as Mother.  A woman who was already on the Island as the Protector when a ship crash landed on the shore and a pregnant woman came stumbling into the jungle. Mother helped the woman give birth to twins- she only had one name, Jacob- and then Mother killed her.

We saw how the Man in Black and Jacob developed over the years.  The Boy in Black discovered that he was from another land after conferring with the ghost of his birth mother.  He was already curious about what was out across the sea.

Jacob and the Boy in Black discovered the others from the ship and went to Mother.  Mother took them to the heart of the Island, the glowing light.  She said it must be protected above all else and that one of the boys were destined to take her place as protector of the Island.  On the way, she told them that they could never hurt each other.

The Boy in Black decided to leave and he wanted his brother Jacob t go with him, but Jacob refused and they started to fight.  The Boy in Black left to go with the other people.  Jacob stayed with Mother.

Mother eventually took Jacob and made him protector, despite Jacob not really wanting the job.  After drinking some wine, Mother said “Now you and I are the same.” Mother stopped the Man in Black from building the donkey wheel.  Then she went and killed the other people.  The Man in Black, angry from the betrayal, stabbed Mother with a knife (without letting her speak) and she died, thanking him.

Jacob arrived and was angry at his brother.  Jacob took the Man in Black to the light and knocked him out.  Mother had once warned him never to go down in the hole because that would be much worse than dying.  Jacob threw him into the water and it took him into the hole.  A few seconds later, the Smoke Monster roared from the hole.

Jacob found the body of his brother nearby and he took him and Mother to the caves and set them inside.  That made Mother and the Man in Black the skeletons that were found in the first season, Adam and Eve.

A major question in this episode… how did Mother kill all of those other people?  I believe that she was able to do that because she was already a Smoke Monster. She spoke about that hole being worse than death because she knows first hand.

Plus, if the Man in Black was the Adam skeleton, that means the Man in Black that we have been seeing since is actually not Jacob’s brother.  This means though that apparently the rules still apply as the Man in Black was unable to kill Jacob on his own.  However, Smokie retained the memories of the Man in Black which makes one wonder if he has all of Locke’s memories as well.  How about Christian or Yemi?  There is evidence that might support that as a fact.

Sure there are plenty of questions raised by this episode, but they’re the type that do not require an answer.  I actually like the uncertainty better.

Why is there so much hatred over this episode?  I think some probably hated the placement of the episode, the third to last episode of the series.  That is important though with how much the heart of the Island will play in the finale.  Some people hate when episodes raise questions and do not answer them.  I already said that does not bother me.  I can come up with solutions for everything.  I think some of the answers that were presented were just not the ones people wanted or that they disagreed with.

Any way, I really enjoyed “Across the Sea” and look forward to the final three hours of LOST.