Leading up to Lost!

There is less than a week left until the premiere of Season 6 of Lost! I can’t contain my excitement anymore. Since I am insanely obsessed with this show, I’ve decided to post a couple of pre-season 6 musings. Favorite characters, favorite episodes, questions still left, etc. First is my favorite characters. One of the aspects of this show that I think is executed so well is character development. While the plot can sometimes be intricate and hard to follow, it is the characters that keep us drawn to the events and motivated to what the next episode even if we are completely lost. We may be stuck in a world where it’s hard to believe everything that happens, but these characters are real, believable people. These are my five favorites, the ones who have kept me invested the past five years.

5. Hurley—Clearly part of the show for comic relief, but you can’t help but love him and root for him. He has this child-like innocence which is very endearing, but also on a more serious note, he is one of the characters who seems to care about everyone not just himself. Great comic Hurley moments: building the golf course, coming barreling down in that blue van to save Sawyer and the rest, writing the script to The Empire Strikes Back. Everyone loves you Hurley! And if time does get all reset this season—I hope he gets a chance with Libby (slight spoiler, but I hear that the actress who played her has been signed for season 6).

4. Desmond and Penny—While I guess picking two characters is technically makes this a list of six, these two cannot be separated ever again, so they remain together on my list. I loved Desmond when he was first introduced because he had the best Scottish accent. Just the way he said certain lines: “See you in another life brotha.” or “You’re gonna die, Charlie.” (C’mon, you know you remember the exact way he said those lines.) But what really makes his character wonderful to watch is how his relationship was developed with Penelope. All they each wanted was to find the other one. The Constant was one of my favorite episodes of the whole series. And then seeing them together at the end of season four—I thought, finally a happy ending on a show where it seems like we aren’t going to get many. And to top off how wonderful they are, they name their baby Charlie.  The writers can do anything they want with everyone else, but they better not dare mess with these two.

3. Sawyer— From the comic relief with the nicknames (Frogurt probably one of my favorites) and sarcastic one-liners, to the intense hatred he felt towards the man who destroyed his family, to the passion between him and Juliet or Kate (I prefer him with Juliet, but he certainly had better chemistry with Kate than Jack did), this man has it all. (Plus he reads which gets him bonus points from the English teacher.) Josh Holloway knows how to work his eyes so you can see everything he’s feeling written in his face (something Matthew Fox hasn’t ever been able to do). I loved Sawyer’s development into a leader in Season 5 (especially that moment where Jack has to take a backseat to him). I almost wish Kate, Jack and co. didn’t come back, so he could have continued being awesome.

2. Juliet—She almost topped Ben as being one of the most unreadable characters on the show in Season 3, and then in the past year and a half we have grown to see the human side of her--who she is and what she cares about, and she has become a character who you really wish would have a happy ending. I love the fact that she’s a strong female character who can fight (or shoot actually) just as well as the boys, but underneath she’s just a normal, good person. I’m not sure exactly why I like her so much more than Kate. Maybe it’s because all of her insecurities and issues don’t dominate her screen time as much. Or maybe Elizabeth Mitchell is just a better actress. She and Sawyer are also my second favorite couple next to Des and Penny. I was a little annoyed at her last speech to Sawyer which made her lose some of her strength, but she made up for it with her last scene. And what a last scene it was. I wish she could have lived, but if she had to die at least she went out with a bang. (Alright that was pretty bad, I know.)

1. Benjamin Linus— It’s funny because I think he goes against everything that makes me love all the rest of the characters. I can’t sympathize with him, I don’t know why he does what he does, I can’t predict what he’s going to do next, I never know if he’s telling the truth. And yet isn’t that what Benjamin Linus is all about. He defies everything that’s expected, and people still follow him. We first saw him in Season two as Henry Gale (which, btw, definitely a reference to the Wizard of Oz), and from the first shot this guy rubbed you the wrong way. At first, I was hoping never to have see him again, but eventually, I just became drawn to him and his creepiness until now I consider him to be one of the greatest characters I’ve ever seen in my television watching experience. As Samuel Taylor Coleridge once described the villain Iago of Othello, the man is “a motiveless malignity”. You know he’s not good, but is he bad? And why? The question is always why does he do what he does? There are moments when you almost believe you can see a crack in the façade: When Locke heard Jacob and he didn’t, trying to kill Locke twice, confronting Alex in the temple, killing Jacob (like almost every other male on the island he has serious daddy issues). But are those cracks or aren’t they? He always leaves you guessing, it’s just so wonderful. And the kid they got to play him in the past, just as creepy as the older one. This man still freaks me out, even after four seasons, and I love him for it.

Next Lost Post: Revisiting Season 1