By: Amrie Cunningham [My Take on TV]
I made a decision on January 1, as a part of my 2008 resolutions, to start watching Lost from the beginning in order to be ready for when Season 4 starts on January 31. Here we are, ready for the new season, and I’ve accomplished the task set out for me. It was not easy. And seriously, because of my crazy schedule at work, only 50 hours spent in bed with a terrible stomach bug allowed me to finish. Fear not friends, I got through and I am even more excited for Season 4 than I thought I’d be! That said, let’s discuss the top ten moments that blew our minds over the past three seasons. I promise, shocker of all shockers, I am keeping my list to 10! Agree, disagree, have more moments to add? You know where to comment!
“I can do this…No, you can’t…” The writers took extra steps to pull a big reveal out of their hats on Locke’s flashback episode titled “Walkabout.” I seriously was not prepared to see Terry O’Quinn pull back from the desk in the Walkabout man’s office sitting in a wheel chair!!! It started one of the shows great mysteries and I loved the explanation, 2 seasons later, that his own dad had been the reason he was in the chair in the first place!
“I need to talk to you!” It may have been something that other viewers saw coming, but when Sun went to Michael looking for help in un-hand-cuffing the riled up Jin from whatever they had him hand-cuffed, too, I was quite shocked to find that she spoke English, and never told anyone, not even her hubby. It was a perfect little addition to the character!
Ethan Rom was not on the plane!! So, Claire and Charlie are off in the woods, celebrating the fact that Claire was not in fact having Aaron, he was simply kicking in her belly. Along comes William Mapother’s creepy Ethan character, all creepily saying “Hello” after we find out that Ethan isn’t on the plane’s manifest. I think this was hands down one of the most shocking moments of this brilliant show’s existence.
Charlie is hanged from a tree! I was sitting outside with a group of about 100 people in the parking lot of a grocery store, watching Episode 11 of Season 1 projected onto the side of a giant white trailer. It was the Campout for Hunger that the local radio station did and the show was so much more exciting in the freezing cold weather with a bunch of strangers! Imagine our group’s surprise when Jack and Kate happen upon a hanging Charlie Pace. When they pulled him down and he was dead and Jack couldn’t bring him back, we were holding our collective breath. When he was finally revived, there was much more celebration than one might expect. Truly a jaw dropping moment that defined the shockers that this show keeps delivering. I’m gonna miss the little bugger….
“You can’t save him Jack!” Say what you will about Lost and the meandering storylines, is has always been one of the shows that doesn’t stick to the “in the opening credits = safe” manifestos that other shows have stuck to. When Boone died because John Locke got a little too interested in opening a hatch that was possibly never meant to be opened, it was thrilling. It was sad, and emotional, and exactly what it needed to be, and the Lost writers really blew us away with the fact that we completely weren’t expecting to lose someone like Boone that soon into the show.
“We’re going to have to take the boy!” At the end of Season 1, Michael, Walt, Sawyer, and Jin, have headed out to rescue on their incredibly impressive raft. Who shows up but the man that would become one of my favorite characters, a one Mr. Friendly (with “Other” friends), telling the raft boys that he’s not actually there to help them to safety, and/or to save their castaway friends, but rather he was there to “take the boy”, aka Walt. As they pulled Walt away and Michael was left treading water screaming WALT, I could not wait for Season 2!!
“Make your own kind of music…” There wasn’t just something in the hatch that Locke blew up…there was someone. An attractive Scottish man that bought a boat from Libby and ran the steps of a stadium with Jack and who had a fabulous British soul mate who was actually looking for him since the day he went missing. We didn’t know all of that stuff when we met the man who was roped into pushing the buttons on the dated computer, but we loved him. Desmond being the Hatch habitant was definitely jaw dropping!
“How did Ana Lucia get your gun?” Michael was back and he had found the Others but they didn’t see him and he didn’t see Walt….or so we thought. Cut to Michael chatting up Ana as she cleaned her gun in the hatch. Somehow he talked her into giving him the gun. Bad mistake Ana Lucia. With maybe a small ounce of remorse, he aims at her chest, and shoots. Then hears a shocked Libby say his name and he sends two bullets into her! Michael lets himself into the hatch storage compartment where a battered Benry lives, shoots himself in the arm, and lets Ben out. That BLEW MY MIND. I never thought Michael would turn on his castaway friends! Totally turned the show on its ear and gave us something exciting to watch!
“Guess I’m out of the book club!” Season 3 opens on the gorgeous Elizabeth Mitchell (then not known to us at all but now known to us as the amazing Juliet Burke), setting up her house with muffins and Petula Clark songs. Turns out she’s prepping for a book club, and her buddy is outside fixing her plumbing. Suddenly what might be an earthquake hits her darling little abode, and we head out into her charming little neighborhood to find that it’s THE OTHERS’ neighborhood!! They aren’t dirty scoundrels out in the jungle. They live in darling little houses in a darling little compound on the castaways’ freaking island. Great opening to Season 3, for sure!
“We have to go back!” Something about Matthew Fox’s beard and Jack’s cool new phone should have told me, way before Kate walked out of the shadows at the airport, that he was in the future. A pregnant Sarah, a suddenly addicted to pain pills Jack Shephard, Mike from Las Vegas treating Jack like an outsider at his own hospital…they all were hints, but it still blew me away to see that they had gotten off the island, he was still in touch with Kate, and he wanted to go back, because he never should have left. Amazing ending to the (slightly imperfect) 3rd season.
I seriously hope that they keep the jaw dropping moments coming in Season 4! 