The first season finale was so momentous at the time. Sure Walt being captured by Mr. Friendly and Locke et al. opening up the hatch are extremely trivial moments looking back on them, but at the time they were huge deals. When Sawyer, Michael and Jin set off on the raft it was the first of many times the castaways thought that getting off the Island was what they needed to do. They were wrong, but it was fantastic television.
9. Tricia Tanaka is Dead (Ep 310)
Just an extremely fun episode which highlighted the four dudes hanging out with the Dharma Van. There was Sawyer teaching Jin how to say "You don't look fat" in English while chugging Dharma beer. We got Hugo driven to get that darn van to work, even if it took Sawyer and Jin to push him down a gigantic hill. And once it worked the elation that ensued has been hard to top.
8. The Long Con (Ep 213)
This Sawyer ep was outlined beautifully in my opinion. In the flashbacks we followed Sawyer pulling a really long con on his then girlfriend, Matt Saracen's mom or Janette from Treme. On the Island we witnessed a similar long con on all his castaway pals, but we never really saw him doing it. That's why when James revealed that he had all the guns and there was "a new sheriff in town," we were all a bit surprised.
7. Happily Ever After (Ep 610)
At the time it seemed like Desmond was figuring out some sort of way to converge the sideways and the Island universes during this ep. Now we know that he really didn't have a good understanding of what was going on, but that doesn't mean it was an awesome ep as it happened. Any ep that surrounds Des and Penny is gonna be great, but when Sideways Des and Sideways Penny meet at the stadium I almost lost it.
6. Through the Looking Glass (Ep 322)
The third season finale was the first time that the audience really got a sense that this show wasn't about the castaways leaving the Island. The trickery that was the flash forward put Lost on another level. Add the chilling death sequence of Charlie Pace and you have a fantastic hour and twenty minutes of television.
5. Pilot (Eps 101-102)
The one that started it all. Gigantic in scope. Thrilling in action. Touching in moments. The Pilot was a broad idea of what Lost could be. In and of itself it was a great two hour watch. We got one of the most quotable lines of the series in Charlie's "Where are we?" And thankfully we didn't get the death of Jack Shephard, which was the original plan for the series premier.
4. The Incident (Ep 516)
You start the episode with the infamous conversation between Jacob and the Man In Black on the beach, and you end it with Juliet attempting to explode the bomb after falling to her death after losing grip of Sawyer's hand. And in between we got a whole lot of Fake Locke goodness, Jack and company mirking a bunch of Dharmas, and Bejamin being tricked into killing the sacred Jacob.
3. The Constant (Ep 405)
This was probably the first time I completely freaked out about how crazy Lost was and how crazy emotional it could be all in the same episode. Desmond flashing between consciousnesses in 2004 and 1996 really tripped me out. But it was after he went to the love of his life Penny in 1996, told her to pick up the phone eight years from now, and then called her immediately after flashing back to 2004 when I lost it. Truly fantastic.
2. LaFleur (Ep 508)
Sawyer was my guy on Lost. It was in this middle fifth season episode when he got to showcase himself as the absolute stud that he was. A guy that started out as an outcast with the group became the leader. Sure Jack and Locke had left, but Sawyer was getting it done. After nudging his way up the Dharma ranks we see him as the head of security in 1977 and he's living the life. What makes it all that much better is when Jack, Kate etc. come back to the Island and find him taking care of business.
1. The End (Ep 616)
It would be real easy to hate on the final episode of a series you loved because it didn't live up to your expectations. Lucky for me, The End did. It answered all the questions I need from it, it pulled at my heartstrings on numerous occasions, we got to see many of our old friends from seasons past, and the entire group of main character castaways got a fitting send off as they left our tv sets for good.
Good list. Top 2 for me would be through the looking glass and the constant, though. I also liked the episode when Shannon got shot. So fucking unexpected.
ReplyDeletethe funny thing about the episode where shannon got shot is that you could be talking about one of three eps.
ReplyDeleteAbandoned is a Shannon backstory that ends with her getting shot. The Other 48 Days shows the tailies backstory and ends with Shannon getting shot. And then Collision is the aftermath of the shooting. I assume you're talking about Abandoned.
The funny thing about these lists is that they will always skew to the characters you like. As you can tell from my list, Sawyer, Ben and Desmond had my favorite eps.
Locke guys or Eko guys would definitely have Walkabout or 23rd Psalm in their top tens.