warning: this page contains spoilers. but also, this show is twenty gotdang years old. (by the way did you know that Darth Vader was Luke's father? whoa.)
when LOST first started airing in 2004, i was an ~edgy~ person in my early 20's who ~didn't watch tv~ and hated popular things because they were popular. and of course, LOST became immensely popular almost immediately after the pilot episode aired. hence, i resisted watching it for years. (never mind the fact that i was obsessed with the also-immensely-popular LotR movies at the same time, shhhh...)
then in the winter of 2009-2010, i had some work friends who got together every week to watch new episodes of the final season. i started tagging along, had no idea what was going on for a couple weeks, then binged the whole series so i could catch up with the tail end of the final season.
...and no, it was not purgatory the whole time all along. i will die on that hill. :P
Jin and Sun are one of my favorite heartbreaking ships and i love their story arc. the ways that each of them work to break the cycle and grow into their own people and not just fall into their predetermined roles.
oh Charlie Pace, you wonderful disaster of a human... i feel like every time i rewatch the series, i alternate between loving and hating Charlie. and i don't know why it's such a polarized feeling.
some of that could be chalked up to the writing being a bit inconsistent over the years. man, remember when tv series had 20+ episodes per season? now, i am a defender of filler episodes (how else would we have gotten some of the best episodes of DS9??), but Charlie's filler eps were some of the weakest (imo). idk, i just really preferred his non-flashback arc in the latter half of s3, after he sorted out some demons and was ready to relay the final urgent message of warning to Desmond.
Michael Dawson was a criminally underrated character that the fandom forsook. he was a single dad forced into the role by surprised, he had nothing, he was at rock bottom. of course he made some rash, unwise choices on (and off) the island. all he had was Walt.
at least they wind up being reunited in at least some way in the end as seen in the epilogue short. (okay, no, they're not literally reunited in the way one would think, but...)