An Ode to LOST: A show that made me cry approximately 1,000 times

Oh, LOST.  You are quite possibly the most addicting show I've ever seen, and that includes Pretty Little Liars and Battlestar Galactica.  You made me happy, sad, angry, and really, really annoyed several times over, and even when you had an episode entirely on Nikki and Paolo (ugh, those two) I couldn't quit you.




It's kind of weird to write about Lost (I'll dispense with the all-caps, because it's obnoxious, even if that's how I say it in my head) because it hasn't been over long enough to feel nostalgic, but it's not recent enough to be current.  Still, Lost is a show that I will always love.  The pilot is one of the most thrilling episodes of TV I've ever seen, and if I ever need a good cry I know I can always watch a Jin-and-Sun episode or Desmond and Penny's The Constant*-- and if you can watch The Constant without feeling moved, you have no soul and I don't want to know you anymore.

*The Constant is hard to describe without giving away spoilers, but to jog your memory, it's about a Christmas Eve phone call and it is HEARTBREAKING and SWEET and LOVELY and OH MY GOD DESMOND AND PENNY.


I think a large part of my fondness for Lost comes not just from the show, but from the fact that an episode of Lost was always an *event,* whether it was watching the season finale in Ireland and shrieking at the twists, or sitting in the Storyhouse senior year, screaming WAAAALT whenever we were bored and catcalling Sawyer, or Vera coming over for dinner and an episode its final season.  Lost is inextricably linked with some of the best people and times of my life, and as a result I can forgive a lot of its sins (but not Nikki and Paolo).


Okay, enough about my sentimental attachment to Lost and the memories it represents.  Lost, as you probably know unless you've lived under a rock for the past decade, is an adventure-mystery set on an island.  A plane crashes there and many people survive, but rescue isn't coming because they were way off course when they crashed.  There are monsters in the jungle, and maybe a tribe of people out to murder them-- or maybe not.  The mysteries, while not always satisfyingly solved (no matter what Lindelof claims, I do not believe that they had the whole thing planned out from the beginning.  And if they did, why didn't anyone look at that explanation and say "well, that's dumb"?) but sometimes, the build up paid off.  I, for one, did not see what was in "The Hatch" coming, and I liked what we eventually saw of "The Others."  There are millions of characters, but I will limit myself to my favorites and least favorites, and will be as minorly spoilery as I can, just in case someone hasn't seen it yet-- and half the fun of Lost is not knowing what's coming, so I think that's important.



Jack Shephard 

Why no, his name isn't symbolic AT ALL.

Jack is a neurosurgeon with a suspicious amount of knowledge of emergency medicine.  I'm not sure why the writers didn't just make him an ER doctor, since that's what he spends most of his time doing on the island anyway.  Jack has a controlling father (just one of the many men on the island with some serious daddy issues) and is sort of an ass.  When he's not stitching people up or performing cringe inducing amputations (I think I hyperventilated that entire episode), Jack is wandering around the island after Kate, telling her what she can and can't do, and generally being a pain.  He did, however, give us the immortal "We have to go BACK!" scream, which is really useful when you've left a bar and realize you don't have your entire group with you.  So there's that.


Kate Whatshername

I can't be bothered to look up her last name.
It would just bore me to death.

Kate here is the ostensible romantic lead, and spends a ridiculous amount of time wandering around the island with Jack and/or Sawyer following her.  This wandering reveals one of the island's main secrets: sometimes, it takes her three days to cross the island.  Other times, it only takes an afternoon.  Clearly, one of the island's special powers is INCONSISTENT DISTANCES.  She's not very useful, which is strange because her off-island story is that she's a criminal, so you'd think she'd have more skills than "pine after Jack/Sawyer/whoever isn't paying attention to her this week."  I'm not sure why she's so boring, as a criminal with a heart of gold can be really, really compelling-- as demonstrated by Sawyer.  But unfortunately, Kate is just the worst, and a Kate-centric episode is guaranteed to be super boring, even when Nathan Fillion shows up.  (Note: for those who haven't seen the show, each episode is centered around a particular character. You see what they are doing on the island, and get flashbacks to relevant portions of their pre-island life.  This is actually a great way to balance such an enormous cast and make sure you care about everyone.  Except, of course, for Kate).


Sawyer Ford

I really, really love that Sawyer is a nerd.  It might be my
favorite thing about him.  That, and the nicknames.

Sawyer, like Kate, is a criminal.  He's a con man with a quick mind and an even smarter mouth, and he has no obligations to anyone except himself-- which means that he's basically the island's Han Solo, if Han Solo had a tendency towards super-racist nicknames.  Sawyer is the only likable part of the Kate-Jack-Sawyer love triangle, and is afflicted by a disease that eventually strikes most men on the island wherein they are incapable of wearing their shirts for long periods of time.  I am a fan of this disease.



John Locke

I think his name is also supposed to be symbolic, but it actually
makes no sense, as this Locke has nothing to do with
classical liberalism and the inviolate sanctity of private property.

Poor, poor Locke.  His backstory is probably the most heartbreaking of all the castaways, and his personality is also the most infuriating.  He's always on a MISSION and that mission is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING, EVER, even if his current mission is in direct opposition to his previous one.  The only thing constant about John Locke is his bullheadedness and his raging case of daddy issues.  He also has a very scary looking collection of knives.


Sayid Jarrah

Much like Jon Snow, Sayid has really enviable hair.

Oh, Sayid Jarrah.  I could write an entire post on Sayid, and *still* have things to say.  He is my favoritest character on this whole damn show, and not just because he's prettier than a sunrise.  Sayid is so TORTURED (heh, see what I did there?) and badass and useful.  He has two different love stories, one of which is achingly sweet and one of which is really weird and annoying.  Really, Sayid: her?  Anyway, back to Sayid being the best:  he is, quite possibly, the most useful person on the whole damn island.  At one point, he is shown a trashed communications room-- wires everywhere, broken boxes, the works-- and is asked to repair it.  He responds, "I'll need a minute" and then GETS IT TO WORK.  He also can break a man's neck with his feet while his hands are tied behind his back, a skill that is very, very handy on an island full of people trying to kidnap and/or murder you.  Team Motherf*cking Sayid.


Hurley

Aww.

Hurley, je t'aime.  I don't care if you're crazy, you're the sanest person on the island, and also the nicest. Stay gold, Hurley-boy.  Stay gold.


Jin and Sun Kwon

Jin gives Sawyer and Sayid a run for their money in the
"Most Impossibly Handsome Man on the Island" contest.
Sun is 15x more useful than Kate.
Jin and Sun=Better than you.

Jin and Sun are a married Korean couple, and most of their dialogue (at least in the early seasons) is entirely in Korean.  I'd never seen this on network TV before, and I love it-- and there should be a special shout out to the actors, who are clearly fluent in both languages (Daniel Dae Kim was born in South Korea but raised in the States, and Yunjin Kim's bio only says she was born in South Korea, but her English is flawless.)  Also, high five to the casting people for casting Korean actors to play Korean characters, instead of the usual "eh, he/she is Asian.  What's the difference?"  When I first started watching Lost, I had no idea I would soon be weeping uncontrollably at just about every Jin and Sun episode I saw.  The birth episode?  Cried like a baby, pun intended.  The last episode involving the freighter?  Absolutely gutted me.  Jin and Sun do not start as a loving couple-- in fact, Jin seems kind of horrible at first-- but by the end, I think they tie Penny and Desmond for most gutwrenchingly romantic storyline.

               Subcategory to Jin, Sun, Hurley and Sayid:  My husband has a theory that on Lost, the most useful people to have around are the people who aren't white.  Think about it: the plane crashes and they're stuck, so Jin starts fishing, Sun plants and tends a garden, Sayid gets to work making transmitters/radios/communication equipment AND can kill people with his ankles, and Hurley takes charge of keeping everyone from killing each other.  Even Michael builds a boat, although he later just yells WAAALT!  MY BOY!  THEY TOOK MY BOY!  Ana Lucia might be a bitch, but she keeps her people together (and gets rid of Shannon, thank god.)   Meanwhile, Jack, Kate, and Sawyer go for endless, angst-fueled hikes, Locke rants about his destiny (although he does hunt, so one point to him there) and Charlie writes love songs to Claire while she screams MAH BAYBEE!  MAH BAYBEE! over and over again.  The lesson being: if you're ever in a plane crash, hope the plane isn't full of white people.

Desmond Hume and Penny Widmore

I feel like the writers wanted people's names to have a deeper meaning,
but they slept through 11th grade history and don't remember
why these philosophers are important.  Or else David Hume was also a
sexy Scottish man searching for his lost love in addition
to being an  Enlightenment scholar.  It's possible.

Des and Penny aren't really a strong presence until later seasons, so it's hard to discuss their importance (and their relationship) without being spoilery.  However, in a show packed to the gills with love stories, Penny and Desmond's is one of-- if not the-- best.  Fun fact:  I really like the name Desmond for a hypothetical child, but I'm not sure my husband (and to be honest, myself and my friends) would be able to resist saying, "See yeh in anotha life, brotha," or "NOT PENNY'S BOAT" to him constantly.


Benjamin Linus

Given the insanity of this show, it's entirely possible that
Ben really IS Henry Gale.

I couldn't have a review of Lost without mentioning this guy.  He's just so entertainingly EVIL.  And as soon as you think you've got his endgame figured out, it changes.  Also, he gets punched in the face constantly, and it's really, really satisfying.


There are dozens of other characters I could talk about-- Boone and Shannon, Michael and Walt, Claire and Charlie, Rose and Bernard, Ana Lucia and Libby, Juliet, Mikhail the unkillable Russian-- but if I did, this post would be neigh-unreadable in length.  But the fact remains:  Lost, even with all its problems, is one great piece of entertainment.

Verdict:  Perfectly awesome.