>: 42 BEST & MOST SHOCKING MOMENTS & 15 MISTAKES

MOMENTS

Killing the pilot in the pilot, that last frame 1.01

Locke watching the chair burn while the score swells and you realize that he's at last home. 1.04

"What if I told you everything happened for a reason?" Locke to Jack, 1.05

Ethan, that sick feeling in your stomach when Hurley says he's not on the manifest, but even more so the next week, that shot of him coming out of the rain to just whip Jack's ass, which of course we've all been waiting for but just had no idea it was coming from this direction 1.10 & 11

Shannon singing La Mer to Sayid, with MG's score 1.12

Musical montage endings in general but ARE YOU SURE? at the end of 1.05 and DELICATE at the end of 1.17 certainly jump out ahead of the pack

The numbers being on the hatch 1.18

Boone dying/Aaron's birth 1.20

Raft leaving 1.23

Meeting Desmond, though we don't see his face, making his own kind of music, which apparently involves lots of healthy eating and sweat and fitness 2.01

Jack and Locke watching the orientation tape 2.03

Ana shooting Shannon especially since the suspense lasted three weeks before finally finding out What Happened Next 2.06-.08, with a skip week in there, thanks so much

Eko recites the 23rd Psalm while burning the plane, and you just really don't see how the show can get any better 2.10

"This is not your island" 2.11 Bonus points for that long shot of them walking back, after

Introduction of Henry Gale 2.14

Jack vs. Locke over the Button, glyphs 2.14

On-Island flashback with Claire's missing two weeks 2.15

Every time Ethan shows up

Radzinsky's black light map 2.17

Michael kills Ana and Libby 2.20

Eko finds the Pearl/? underneath the plane 2.21

Triple cliffhanger of Season 2, followed by finally getting an off-Island scene so that we know that the world hasn't like ended while we've been running through the jungle 2.23

Opening scene of Season 3, Juliet and 815 breaking up in the sky, first glimpse of DHARMAville/New Otherton, so good they didn't really recover until coming back from the break after Christmas 3.01

SHAMBALA by Three Dog Night and Michael Giacchino, cued up for Hurley and Charlie and Sawyer and Jin by Roger Linus maybe fifteen years before they find his body and inadvertantly decapitate him 3.10

Um, is this Richard Alpert guy immortal? Ben flashback 3.20

Roger = Skeletor 3.20

"That's for taking the kid off the raft." Sawyer ending Tom 3.22

The revelation of Bearded Jack AKA "We have to go back!" 3.22

Sayid caps that guy on the golf course and walks off, doesn't give a damn about sprinklers 4.03

Desmond talks to Penny on Christmas Eve 2004, really that entire episode 4.05

Rousseau and Karl catch bullets the last scene before the writer's strike kicked in 4.08

Ben waking up in the Tunisian desert 4.09

Ben's face when Kimi shoots Alex 4.09

Ben on the donkey wheel/moving the Island 4.13

Jack waking up at the top of 316 5.06

Yeah, all of LAFLEUR, every single bit 5.08

Hurley writing EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, just the episode title, even 5.13

Juliet detonating the bomb, setting off eight months of crushing ? 5.16

The massacre at the Temple, just because it was so gratifying that the writers also knew that it was time to go 6.05

All of HAPPILY EVER AFTER, of course 6.10

Taking out Sayid and Sun & Jin in a single 8-minute segment 6.13

Making probably the last -centric a Jacob/Monster double-shot 6.14


****


MISTAKES (or just Wha?)

Charlie fucking shooting Ethan right when they had him and we might have gotten answers, man, I've never come closer to just walking

Making us wait all summer long to find out what's in the hatch (23.4-->15.8)

Making Locke a bitch, it turns out, nothing like the badass implied by the entirety of the first season

The whole Walt misfire. He was one of the most intriguing mysteries, then just had to go. Damn you, puberty! BONUS: "Waaaaaaaalt! That's my son!"

S.O.S. - the definition of filler

The 3.1 - 3.6 section. I understand what they were trying to do, but just telling the story of the cages wasn't enough, not even with sprinkling in a bit of Desmond the time traveler. Paolo & Nikki might have gone over better if they hadn't been dropped in, in the middle of this.

But, yeah, just Paolo & Nikki. EXPOSE about makes up for it, but I was howling along with everybody else before then. "Where the hell have these guys been?"

Eko's death. Clearly mandated by the actor. So forced and unnecessary. Biggest waste of the entire series. Would just love to see him one more time, but I'm pretty sure there's a reason they had Hurley playing chess with his ghost a couple years back.

Bringing Jin back after the freighter explosion. I wasn't just baying for his blood, but that was a pretty cheap, almost X-MEN-level resurrection. Not earned.

Faraday death/undoing the Comic-Con video, improvising that out of canon. The summer before Season Five aired, Lindelof & Cuse screened this video at Comic-Con. Over the course of writing the fifth season, they decided that their was no way that it could have happened and declared that it wasn't canon. I'm all for improvising and following the "Wouldn't it be cool . . ?" philosophy, but a huge chunk of fun the entire season was wondering how things were eventually going to line up with both that opening scene with Faraday down in the mine and this video. Just throwing one of those things out was cheating.

Juliet dying again. And again. And . . . I could buy it that she survived the fall. I mean, I can really hold the disbelief at bay. But there was simply no reason to bring her back for the final season premiere so that she could have yet another tear-soaked farewell with Sawyer. Wasn't feeling it. And, man, if I'm not feeling it, I promise you something's out of whack.

The strange entrance of Dogen & Lennon. What were they there for? Why did we need those characters? The entire Temple diversion seems a bit misconceived. No way I believed that they'd been around the entire time just, what, running things at the Temple while Ben and Tom and company marched around? It was too late to try to introduce major characters, and we all could tell.

Speaking of which, what was up with that undead Sayid arc? He was dead for two hours and came back filled with darkness that was supposed to consume him, which seemed to be the case for a while, before he was just all of a sudden okay and ready to sacrifice himself for the rest of them. Unfortunate non-resolution to the arc of one of the excellent ensembles best characters.

Ghost Claire. And I call her that because she DIED, man. Getting caught in that explosion and then the way Miles was looking at her the next week, followed by her just leaving Aaron out in the jungle like that. Since her return, there's been no attempt to explain that at all. I guess it's still possible we'll get something tonight. I need to go to sleep.

Cutting Christian Shephard for the final season/no -centric). I was just positive that the all-time greatest flashback character was going to eventually earn his own -centric, and, while I can let it go in the case of someone like Rousseau, it's really a shame to just toss this fine character and actor out for the entire final season. Again, still possible that he'll show up tonight, but it's going to be a pretty crowded situation.