10 Worst ‘Lost’ Episodes, Ranked
You probably know the deal about Lost, even if your knowledge only goes so far as “It’s that show about the plane crash on the island that gets really weird.” And that summary honestly isn’t far off, even if it’s a generalization that only scratches the surface. Lost is initially about survival, but there’s also more to it than just staying alive on an island, with mysteries piling up as early as the first couple of episodes.
From that point, Lost does indeed get weirder, and some might even say it bit off more than it could chew in a few places. Lost took big risks, and they paid off more often than not, but these episodes show what happened when things didn’t pay off quite so nicely. These episodes are among the worst aired during the show’s six-season-long run, and are ranked below, starting with some slightly messy hours and ending with a handful of outright disastrous episodes.
10
“Sundown”
Season 6, Episode 6 (2010)
As the final season of Lost, Season 6 might well have been the most controversial, but even the weaker episodes here don’t do much to taint the drama show’s reputation as an overall great one. Yes, even the finale is better than some give it credit for, and there’s going to be no hate thrown that one’s way here (sorry to disappoint, finale haters).
It’s not as easy to forgive an episode like “Sundown,” though, with Sayid being at the center of this one and the hour overall feeling like it spins its wheels a bit, as a piece of the final season. It plays some kind of role when it comes to developing the Man in Black a little further, sure, but in the moment, it’s not a terribly exciting episode, either for what happens in the “original timeline” or in one of the season’s flash-sideways.
9
“The Package”
Season 6, Episode 10 (2010)
Similar criticisms made about “Sundown” can be made regarding “The Package,” too, which is a weaker hour when judged on its own, but plays something of a role in hindsight. Season 6 is frustrating in that way, but the show was winding down at this point, and anyone still on board with Lost was in for the long haul, so to speak, so perhaps the writers felt a bit more comfortable making things burn a little slower.
It’s also hard to delve into the plot here without giving away some significant spoilers for the season as a whole… but “Sundown,” narratively, does only move the plot forward in fairly minor ways. The season has gotten so convoluted by this point that you sort of go along with the madness of it all, the flash-sideways, resurrected characters (but not really), and grand-scale battles between good and evil and all.
8
“Whatever the Case May Be”
Season 1, Episode 12 (2005)
Even the earlier seasons of Lost had their less-than-great episodes; Season 6 is not the only flawed batch of episodes, after all. Season 1 mostly lived up to its reputation as one of the most exciting shows of its era, but it slowed down a little here and there and proved occasionally capable of missing the mark, as seen in episode 12 of the season: “Whatever the Case May Be.”
It’s an episode that largely revolves around Kate, whose not-always-interesting past is explored in flashbacks, while the on-island story centers on her and Sawyer finding a case underwater and disagreeing over what to do with it. It leads to some mild conflict between them and some other survivors, but it isn’t terribly engaging. But hey, for what it’s worth, you should still probably watch it, given it’s hard to recommend anyone outright skip any individual episode of Lost, since even the less-eventful ones usually add something by way of story or character development.
7
“The Other Woman”
Season 4, Episode 6 (2008)
As the title sort of implies, The Others play a pretty big role in “The Other Woman,” with Juliet being the central character of the episode… sort of. She gets some flashbacks centered around her, with those flashbacks also going a little way to elaborating on Ben’s past, and some more information on the way The Others reacted when Flight 815 crashed on the island gets revealed.
Watching this episode feels a little like being forced to eat one’s vegetables, since there’s a bit of info and context here that helps in the overall scheme of things, even if “The Other Woman” is a little flat and even melodramatic at times in ways that don’t entirely work. Still, adding something is better than adding next-to-nothing, which is what a couple of soon-to-be-mentioned episodes pretty much do, unfortunately.
6
“Recon”
Season 6, Episode 8 (2010)
Is Sawyer too popular to be called an underrated character? Maybe he is in the sense that he’s one of the best of the main characters, but he might not be too many people’s pick for #1 (few would say he’s one of the worst in the main cast, though). Still, the episodes centered on him probably deserve to be a little better than “Recon,” in any event, which is another less-than-stellar episode from Season 6.
The flash-sideways he has is a little weird, while the stuff he does on the island (the recon mission the title alludes to) does manage to be a fraction more interesting, admittedly. It’s a bit of a set-up episode, in the overall scheme of things, and ultimately emerges as really just okay at best, even if you’re accepting of it being another late-era episode of Lost that really takes its time.
5
“Something Nice Back Home”
Season 4, Episode 10 (2008)
There’s a good deal of drama that comes about because of the romantic pairing that is Jack and Kate, but you might not know it from “Something Nice Back Home.” The flash-forward stuff elaborates on that relationship in a way that does drag a little, and the stuff that’s happening on the island—namely, Jack getting appendicitis—also feels like it wastes a bit too much time.
There’s almost something to “Something Nice Back Home,” but it feels just a bit too inconsequential to leave a mark. And a one-off episode isn’t inherently a bad thing, especially if the flashback, flash-forward, or flash-sideways manage to be intriguing enough, but this 10th episode of Lost’s fourth season doesn’t exactly have that going for it, either. It might well be close to skippable, in all honesty.
4
“What Kate Does”
Season 6, Episode 3 (2010)
Some shade was thrown earlier at the Kate-centered episode that was “Whatever the Case May Be,” but that one is better than Season 6’s “What Kate Does.” Of all the original main characters, the episodes centered on her were probably the least interesting, though it’d be unfair to say that all of them missed the mark.
Regarding “What Kate Does” specifically, though, it feels like a pretty significant comedown after the impressive and odd double episode that began Season 6. The flash-sideways is a bit of a letdown, and the main plot, which concerns Kate trying to chase down Sawyer, is also somewhat tedious… though for shedding light on Sawyer reacting to something that went down at the end of Season 5, “What Kate Does” isn’t entirely worthless; more just quite slow for the bulk of its runtime.
3
“Stranger in a Strange Land”
Season 3, Episode 9 (2007)
There are a few notorious episodes of Lost that can be summarized rather succinctly because of the fact that they weren’t very good. Well, more specifically, you can do that for the following three episodes. First on the chopping block is Season 3’s “Stranger in a Strange Land,” AKA that episode that rather needlessly explains the origin of Jack’s various tattoos.
That doesn’t make “Stranger in a Strange Land” sound very thrilling, and that’s fitting, because it’s not. It’s a time-waster, and the writers of the show pretty much agreed with that common sentiment, and it ended up showing to them that they couldn’t keep relying on flashbacks. So, come Season 4, Lost got more experimental and moved beyond flashbacks, and the rest is history. Also, it’s pretty wild how “Stranger in a Strange Land” follows right on from one of Lost Season 3’s best episodes: “Flashes Before Your Eyes.”
2
“Fire + Water”
Season 2, Episode 12 (2006)
“Fire + Water” perhaps has its heart in the right place, focusing on Charlie and attempting to explore his past (and possibly present) struggles with addiction, but the execution is more than a little off. It has some weird dream sequences that make Charlie act out in concerning ways, which leads to some drama regarding the idea that he might’ve returned to using drugs while on the island.
It’s all a bit silly, and it’s telling that when The L.A. Times ranked every single episode of Lost, “Fire + Water” was put in second-last place. It’s the weakest episode in what’s otherwise a very strong season of Lost, and it does very little for the show overall. Even if you’re a pretty big fan of Charlie as a character, this one can be a somewhat tedious watch.
1
“Exposé”
Season 3, Episode 14 (2007)
With “Exposé,” it never really feels like the episode was supposed to add much, but that still doesn’t entirely mitigate the feeling that it’s not really worth the time it takes to watch. It sheds light on the infamous Nikki and Paulo, showing various flashbacks that are intended to reveal more regarding what they’ve done on the island since the plane crash (all done because these characters never actually appeared prior to Season 3).
They’re survivors who’d never really been in the spotlight, but this revealed another potential issue with Lost going forward: the idea that with a single plane crash, there could only be so many “new” characters introduced. There was an attempt made to cast light on a couple more of them with this duo, but it didn’t work, and honestly, Nikki and Paulo probably didn’t get killed off soon enough. Hell, maybe they never should’ve materialized out of seeming thin air to begin with,
