Bob’s Lost Power Rankings: Season Six, Episodes 1-6

A couple years ago, when the majority of my writing was for a film and television blog that was even less read than this one, I wrote weekly power rankings of all the characters of Lost.  Like power rankings in football, basketball, and the movie Love, Actually, these rankings have nothing to do with the ‘power’ of any of the characters, but rather with how much I have liked them over the course of the past six episodes.

This is written for readers that are caught up on Lost through the episode Sundown. 

25) Lennon and Dogen

While I was kind of surprised when Sayid ruthlessly murdered these two, I was pretty happy that their run on the show has apparently come to an end.  I don’t think any viewer needed to see new Others brought into the mix, and I’m pretty sure these two brought about more questions than answers.  Not that I desperately need answers like most fans, but I definitely don’t need annoying Japanese guys that refuse to talk English.

24) Aldo

Three years ago when Rob McElhenney appeared first appeared on Lost, he had a small bit role in the background that nobody really noticed.  At that time his show (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) was a somewhat unknown FX comedy, and his appearance on Lost wasn’t even noteworthy.  Three and a half years later, there are Green Men at every conceivable sporting event and The Night Man Cometh is widely recognized by many fans.  While the Lost producers have said in the past that they don’t want to cast well-known actors that would be distracting, McKelhenney’s appearance this season was kind of distracting.

Furthermore, his character was incredibly annoying.  He pretty much whined the entire episode and made me really happy when Claire shot him to death.

23) Kate

It’s not that I hate Kate episodes like most bloggers; it’s that I’ve been incredibly confused about what she is trying to do in the early part of this season.  While I understand that she is trying to find Claire, is the best way to go about that really to wander around in the jungle for three episodes and then just head back to the Temple?  Why did she even return to the Temple when she did?  Hopefully her story will get more interesting as she has now decided to follow Man-in-Black (although I’m pretty sure she has no clue what is going on).

22) Nadia

Some day in the future, when I have a girl that likes me, I’m going to try to push her on my brother.  I’m fairly certain this won’t work because most people aren’t as stupid is flash-sideways Nadia.  “Oh, Sayid doesn’t want to be with me so he can brood, that means I should marry his brother, this isn’t a bad idea.”  It wasn’t a stupid storyline (I liked the episode); it just showed that Nadia proved that she was a stupid person.

21) Sun

We’re now 19 episodes into the “How can I find my husband?” storyline for Sun, and I think I’ve been sick of it for roughly 18 episodes.  I think my friend Jack put it best when he wrote me saying, “Next thing we know we'll be watching a "Hard Day's Night" type scene (the hallway with all the doors, with Jin going in one door while Sun comes out another, etc). Honestly, no one cares.” 

20) Jack 

I think I need to see Jack brood some more.  Is it just me, or do most of the characters on this show now spend an inordinate amount of time brooding?  Sure I would be mad if I used to be an amazing doctor and am now characterized by my inability to fix things, but why’d he have to go and break Jacob’s magic mirrors.  The real question for the last 12 episodes is whether or not Jack will become likable.

19) Sayid

He’s a killer, we get it.  Do we really need this fact hammered into our heads once a season?  The best thing that Sayid has done this season was give Sawyer the opportunity to say, “He’s an Iraqi torturer who shoots kids, he definitely deserves another go-around.”  Sure his fight sequences are kind of fun (although I’ve been watching this season on my iPod), but I felt like his story was concluded when he shot young Ben last season.

18) Jin

Unlike Sun, Jin can be marginally interesting every so often.  Luckily he stepped in Clousseau’s (get it, Claire + Rousseau) traps and hasn’t had the opportunity to pull the Kate-plan and wander around the jungle searching for somebody, because his time in Claire’s camp was pretty fun.  Oh, and he was being held by Keamy in the sideways world.  That’s more interesting than anything that happened to Sun in two years.

17) Desmond

I’m trying to have complete faith in the writers of the show, but when they phase out one of the three best characters in order to focus more time on formerly interesting characters brooding/wandering through the jungle, I get concerned.  Desmond better play a big role at some point this season or I’ll be more than a little upset.

16) Juliet

Hopefully, when she said “It worked”, she was not talking about ABC’s new series V, which Elizabeth Mitchell is starring in.  I think my biggest problem with Juliet is that she was still alive after they shifted back through time.  Her and Sawyer’s goodbye at the end of last season was perfect, and one of the most emotional moments the series has ever given us.  Having Miles communicate a vague phrase to Sawyer wasn’t emotional, and it wasn’t necessary.

15) Richard

When Nestor Carbonell was promoted to a regular cast member heading into this season, I thought that meant we would see more of his compelling character.  This hasn’t happened yet, and until the oft-rumored Richard episode occurs (in which ALL OUR QUESTIONS WILL BE ANSWERED), we’re left waiting around for him to do something interesting.

14) Jacob

While I am very skeptical about the whole Jacob vs. Man-in-Black storyline that this season is centered around, I think that Mark Pelligrino’s performance has been awesome.  For a character that had been talked about for so many seasons, his introduction was a difficult challenge that Pellegrino has fully met.  I also think that his ability to communicate with Hurley because of Hurley’s gift is a lot of fun and brings necessary humor to the proceedings.  I hope we see Jacob often as the season continues.

13) Man-in-Black

As disappointed I am that Locke is no longer alive (at least in the normal timeline), Terry O’Quinn has done an amazing job as the doppelganger with all the answers.  I’m a little worried that every question the audience has is going to be answered by saying that either Jacob ‘made it that way’ or ‘it was Man-in-Black’, but the guy is a lot of fun to watch.  I also hope that we can see his original incarnation (Titus Welliver) again soon, because that guy was great as well.

12) Helen

In the wonderland where Flight 815 lands in LA, Helen is a stabilizing force in Locke’s life.  She is the reason why he laughs when he falls into the grass, and the reason why he isn’t a beaten man in that life.  While we all know that she wishes she could dance with him at their wedding, she knows that she must help him get past the loss of his legs.  Helen is a smart and great woman, and the complete opposite of the other wonderland love interest we have seen (Nadia).

11) Keamy

Before Sayid ruthlessly shot him to death, Keamy looked like the type of high class gangster that had his act together.  Anybody that decides to fry eggs while grilling a guy about a debt that sent somebody to the hospital is my type of gangster, and the fact that he had Jin in the back room makes me wonder if he’s still working for Mr. Widmore in the reflection-timeline. 

10) Rose

It sucks that she still has cancer when she doesn’t get to the island.  I mean, if Jack can have a teenaged son in the cuckoo-world, then why can’t Rose be healthy?  Why couldn’t Jughead’s explosion have spread the islands healing powers all the way to LA?  Even though she still has cancer, Rose is still spreading her pearls of wisdom to anybody she can while helping Locke find his place in the world.  This is why we’ve always liked Rose, and why I’m glad that her and Bernard probably had their happily ever after on the island.

9) Illana

I’m pretty certain that Illana knows a lot about the island, and is going to start spilling her knowledge soon, but for now I like her because she led the rescue party into the Temple.  Their appearance at the end of the episode was a great sequence made for any action movie.  Just when things look perilous, help comes at the final moment and whisks everybody (or, just Miles) off to safety.  That sequence bumped her up immeasurable (or nine) spots on this list.

8) Locke

Sure he’s six feet under (or probably more like two or three feet) on the island, but back in LA he has finally found his  calling as a substitute teacher that is about to marry the woman of his dreams.  To make things even better, he’s now working with Benjamin Linus, European History.

7) Ethan

Dr. Goodspeed was our first surprise cameo of the flash-sideways, and it was a great one.  Ethan was one of the original, more interesting, Others, and I only hope the rest of his brethren can join him in the other universe (namely, Tom).

6) Claire

After missing an entire season because she wandered into the jungle in the middle of the night, Claire is now back and completely different than she was when we last saw her.  Three years of apparently living in the jungle on her own has morphed her into Rousseau (or Clousseau as one might say) and convinced her that the Others have her baby.  While she is crazy (I mean, she did leave her baby in the middle of the jungle), the craziness also caused her to ax an Other in the chest (which was awesome).  I don’t know where they are going with this, but it had clearly been planned for awhile, and should be awesome.

5) Hurley

Hugo continues to be one of the best characters on the show.  His interactions with Miles and Jacob are hilarious, and his reminiscing with Jack while they were walking through the jungle was awesome.  He says, “This is cool, dude.  Very old school.  You know, you and me, trekking through the jungle, on our way to do something that we don’t quite understand . . . good times.”  Hurley works best in the show because he is the voice of the audience.  Not only is he able to ask the questions the audience wants to ask (specifically when it involved time travel), but he is also able to connect things back to previous seasons.  This is what makes him so great.

4) Ben

“John Locke was a believer, he was a man of faith, he was a much better man than I will ever be.  And I’m very sorry I murdered him.”  While Ben hasn’t been in nearly enough of this season thus far, the two or three episodes that have featured him have done so brilliantly.  Aside from his awesome eulogy of John Locke, Ben also had great a great scene in the Temple with Sayid, and another equally awesome scene in the flash-sideways when he ranted about the coffee machine in the teacher’s lounge.  With next week’s entitled Dr. Linus, I have a feeling we’ll be in for a treat because any episode that makes Ben a focal point is usually a great one.

3) Sawyer

If we were giving out awards for the first third of this season, Josh Holloway would have edge out Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emerson for the best actor award.  Sawyer’s grief over Juliet’s death has been pitch-perfect for the character, and his scenes following Man-in-Black through the jungle and into the cave were equally compelling.  Sawyer has definitely developed the most as a character over the past couple seasons, and he is the few original cast members that is actually tolerable. 

2) Frank

While the characters that have been around the longest have become the dullest, Frank has been one of my favorites in the 2+ seasons that he has been around.  His comment that it was the “Weirdest damn funeral I’ve ever been to” pretty much shot him towards the  top of this list, and makes me hope that we’ll be getting a lot more Lapidus as the season wears on. 

1)  Miles

This island medium might not be the most compelling character on the show, but right now he is definitely the most fun and down to earth of them all.  Whether he is making banter and playing Tic-Tac-Toe with Hurley, telling Sayid that he was really dead (I wonder what he heard when Sayid woke up), or updating everybody on what is going on, Miles has been my favorite character in the early episodes of this season.  Furthermore, his remark to Kate about considering going after Sawyer reminded the audience that while Kate has only really been near Sawyer for roughly 100 days, Miles and Sawyer had three years to develop a friendship (something that is unique in this show).  His position atop these rankings was solidified in the last week when he described Claire by saying, “She just strolled in here a couple hours ago acting all weird, still hot though.”