Ranking the Top 100 ‘Lost’ Characters

Ah, Lost. You beautiful hot mess. I’ve missed you.

With this past May marking the 10 year Anniversary of its final episode airing, I decided to revisit the show in earnest, something I hadn’t done in a decade’s time. And I have to admit, I was shocked how much of the show I had forgotten outside the impressionable first season and the muddled finale episodes. So much so that I thought it would be worthwhile to make a comprehensive character guide to memorialize the scattershot of characters on ABC’s infamous sci-fi island nonsense drama.

My only rule for making this list was a that character had to appear in more than one episode to make the rankings (although I’ve included a few single appearance character, so even that is a flimsy requirement).

But whatever, let’s do this:

100. Stuart Radzinsky

Radzinsky was the most frustrating season five Dharma dweeb and worthy of Lost’s all-time worst character title. Abrasive and irrational, and not in an amusing way like Artz or Frogurt, Radzinsky was a dull attempt at an antagonist in a season of floundering ideas. There’s a theory floating around that Leonard, the man who gives Hurley the numbers in the asylum, was a later verse Radzinsky, but honestly who cares? This character was the worrrrssst.

Worst Moment: Pushing the killing Sayid platform

Quick Fix for this Character: Have a piano fall on Radzinsky every episode

99. Horace Goodspeed

So, let me get this straight, Horace was so worried about keeping the truce with the Others, that when he captured Sayid, a man he believed to be an Other, he voted to kill him to protect the truce? I don’t think he gets how truces work. One-star review as leader.

Worst Moment: All of Them

Quick Fix for this Character: Make Horace a dancing robot

98. Phil

I cheered when Phil was impaled by that flurry of rebar. It was his finest moment as a character. Another bargain bin dharma dweeb dispatched by the Island.

Worst Moment: Attempting to kill Sawyer

Quick Fix for this Character: Have him fall down a well every episode

97. Jacob

Ah yes, everyone’s favorite resident island overseer/protector/Norman Bates. After begging Lost for answers, you almost wish they hadn’t given you Jacob’s backstory, because what you got was a dull Cain/Abel yarn, rounding out as one of Lost’s all-time worst episodes (Jack’s Tattoos and Aaron forced baptism are in the mix too).

Worst Moment: Realizing Jacob is pure nonsense

Quick Fix for this Character: Make him a talking animated cat

96. Mother

Woof. This character. Poor Allison Janney gets stuck playing Jacob and MiB’s unstable mother in the aforementioned trash fire episode. Silly nonsensical turns and wishy-washy lore bog down what should have been intriguing world-building.

Worst Moment: All of them

Quick Fix for this Character: More exposition to inform her actions

95. Ethan Rom

Ethan’s infiltration of the 815 passengers made absolutely no sense. He’s way too creepy for sleeper cell work. His resting creep face is a dead giveaway. I would 100% remember seeing this nightmare of a person if he was sitting next to me on a plane. Plus, I’m going to hold it against him that it’s later revealed that Ethan is Horace’s son. But as far as creeps go though, he’s a great creep. A+ creep work.

Worst Moment: Hanging Charlie from a tree

Quick Fix for this Character: Turn down the creep

94. Eloise Hawking

I truly believe the show had no idea what to do with this character, because she was full of platitudes, lies and nonsense. The faux Godmother of the island sacrifices her only son (a perfectly good Daniel Faraday) to the Gods of the island, because why? Because reasons. Boo!

Worst Moment: Sacrificing Faraday

Quick Fix for this Character: Sacrifice herself

93. David Shephard

You’re not a real boy, David! You’re just make believe! Shoo! Shoo!

Worst Moment: Mopey Jack

Quick Fix for this Character: Have Ben Linus play this role without any explanation

92. Dogen/Lennon

What a waste of Hiroyuki Sanada and John Hawkes. Why are people so committed to giving these two such terrible roles? Remember when John Hawkes was nominated for an Academy Award for Winter’s Bone? Or when Hiroyuki Sanada looked like the second coming of Toshiro Mifune because of his stellar work in Last Samurai? I do!

Worst Moment: The poisoning Sayid plan

Quick Fix for these characters: Give them both sunglasses and rename them the Dogen brothers

91. Bea Klugh

You wouldn’t be blamed for forgetting Bea, one of the many fake out “leaders” of the Others. Although it’s extreme, she does go out like a champ, choosing death-by-Mikhail instead of spilling the beans to the survivors of flight 815. But again, that route seems highly unnecessary considering what we later learn about the Others.

Worst Moment: Asking Michael to murder his friends in exchange for Walt

Quick Fix for this Character: Pick an early leader for the Others and stick with them

90. Oldham

The Dharma Initiative has a torturer who lives in a tent and torturers people by giving them tabs of acid? Sure, Season 5, whatever you say. William Sanderson is a solid character actor (see: Deadwood and Blade Runner), but even his reliably quirky energy can’t salvage this misstep of a character. This episode is torture itself.

Worst Moment: The glamping torturer  

Quick Fix for this Character: Have him torture Sayid with slam poetry

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