LOST Week, Part Six, or It only ends once, everything else is progress
And here it is, my final LOST Week post, less than 24 hours away from the series finale. Here I’ll count down my Top 10 Episodes of all time. That’s right. All time. And I did say 10. Because 5 isn’t enough and it’s time to go big or go home.
Let’s do this.
10. “Do No Harm”, Episode 120 – This season episode gives us a birth and our first major death, as Boone dies on Jack’s island operating table. The death/life juxtaposition alone should be enough to make this list, but there’s also some great Charlie/Jin stuff when Claire’s in labor, we begin to see Jack’s constant need to fix everything, and the seeds for the Jack/Locke rivalry that lasts the whole series are planted.
9. “The Moth,” Episode 107 – This episode is the one I realized this was going to be more than a tv show. That this show was going to be “about” something. That there would be spiritual avenues explored. Locke tries to help Charlie kick his drug habit, and the metaphor of the moth in its cocoon strikes home perfectly. The flashbacks are heartbreaking, as you see Charlie fight and fight the rockstar lifestyle until he finally gives in when he realizes it’s no longer about the music to his bandmates. This episode is the first time an attempt to escape the island is sabotaged, when Sayid is knocked out and his equipment destroyed (done, we find later, by Locke).
8. “Flashes Before Your Eyes,” Episode 308 – Time travel is introduced to the show here, as Desmond’s conscious travels back to his time with Penny. Starting here, every single Desmond-centered episode has been outstanding. That’s one of the reasons he’s my favorite character on the show. There are little gifts sprinkled throughout the episode as well, like Charlie’s busking in Des’s flashback, singing “Maybe you’re gonna be the one that saves me…” This is also our first glimpse of Eloise Hawking, who comes to play a much more important role than we know at the time.
7. “The Incident,” Episode 516,17 – The fifth season finale and an eventful one. Here we get our first looks at Jacob and the Man in Black, we see Ben kill Jacob, we find out that the revived Locke isn’t really the revived Locke, but is the Man in Black instead, Sayid gets shot, Juliet detonates the H-bomb, we see Jacob “touch” all the people we find out are candidates in season 6 by flashbacks…Yeah, a lot happens and it never felt too busy. This is the quintessential LOST finale.
6. “Walkabout,” Episode 104 – John Locke was in a wheelchair?!?!?!? Whaaaaaat? Here we find that the island may not just be an island. This is also the beginning of Terry O’Quinn’s dominance of this show. Has there been an actor play a character so well so consistently for so long better than Terry O’Quinn as John Locke? I’m not sure there has been. The reveal is still one of the best in the show’s history, as John yells his now-famous phrase, “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!”
5. “The Constant,” Episode 405 – Another Desmond time travel episode, and one with one of the two most emotional endings in the history of the show. Desmond becomes unstuck in time, his 1996 consciousness traveling back and forth between his 2004 body and his 1996 body. He has to establish a constant, someone he knew and was in contact with both before and after he began traveling. The only person he can think of is Penny, and the two share an emotional phone call to end the episode. I’m not ashamed to say I shed a few tears.
4. “The Candidate,” Episode 614 – Remember how I said “The Constant” had one of the two most emotional endings in the history of the show? Well this episode has the other. Sun and Sin die together Titanic-style as the sub fills with water. I was fine until Hurley started crying…then I lost it. But that isn’t all this episode gives us. Here we see Jack has come full circle, he’s no longer a man of science, he’s a man of faith. Glimpses have come slowly all season, but it’s here he’s become the leader John Locke wanted to be all along. He’s able to do the thing John never could, to have faith without being blinded by it. Sayid has a moment of redemption, sacrificing himself to save the others, running away with the bomb MiB has snuck into Jack’s pack. And there’s some great off-island flash-sideways stuff with Jack and Locke.
3. “Through the Looking Glass,” Episode 322,23 – This is my favorite season finale of the show so far. Here, we witness Charlie’s heroic death, Jack attempt to get the survivors rescued, and Sawyer finally gets even with “Zeke”/Mr. Friendly. But most importantly, this is the episode that changed the scope of the show forever. For the first time, we realize that the writers aren’t going to just tell the story through flashback, but they plan to flash-forward as well. The chills I got when Jack yelled “We have to go back!” are indescribable. Also, realizing that at least some of the survivors eventually get off the island changed the show completely. For three years we thought the endgame of the show was to get the Losties off the island. When we know that’s going to happen, the purpose changes. The scope grows. Brilliant.
2. “Ab Aeterno,” Episode 609 – My single-most anticipate episode ever, other than the series finale. We finally find out Richard’s history: who he was, why he doesn’t age, how long he’s been on the island. It helps that this is perhaps the best-acted flashback in the history of the show. Nestor Carbonell deserves two or three Emmys for his performance. This episode also gives us a bit more mythology, and we find out Richard’s job as Jacob’s mediator to the people Jacob brings to the island. Not really much else to say about the episode, other than wow wow wow what acting.
1. “Pilot” Episode 101,2 – I can’t really see putting any other episode here. The scope of the Pilot episode of LOST set it apart from every other TV show being made at the time. This wasn’t just a tv show pilot, this was a feature. This was legit. The ability of the writers to write a two hour event that completely pulled you in and had you wanting more is uncanny, and the built in mythology that’s still intact and interesting 6 years later is amazing. I’ve yet to convert someone to the show who wasn’t hooked after the pilot. In my opinion, it’s the best pilot episode in the history of television.
So there you have it. My top ten all-time LOST episodes. Tomorrow night is the series finale. I don’t know what I’m going to do with my brain after the show is gone. It’s certainly given it much-needed stimulation.