She’s a pawn, nothing more.

The Shape of Things to Come • season 4 • episode 9

Adriane, 20 – San Francisco, California (USA) :

His eyes wide, his lips nearly trembling, he continues to speak, desperately waiting for his words to have some kind of effect on the grinning mercenary standing outside the window, holding his daughter at gunpoint. “I stole her as a baby from an insane woman. She’s a pawn, nothing more.” He tries again: “She means nothing to me.” Ben stands his ground. “I’m not coming out of this house. So if you want to kill her, go ahead and do it–” BANG. Alex slumps to the ground as Ben’s eyes widen further, and for once, he is wordless, his face frozen in shock, then pain, as the image of his dead daughter burns into his memory forever. In this moment, Benjamin Linus becomes human, his loss echoing through every step he will take over the remainder of the series, and when he later says goodbye to his daughter, I cry with him.

You…?!

Man of science, man of faith • season 2 • episode 1

Yannick, 27 – Monte-Carlo (Monaco) :

After months of endless wait, some tidbits of the hatch could at least be revealed trough the healthy daily routine of an unknown man. I spent the whole 05′ summer like millions of other Lost fans, wondering what could possibly be inside that strange bunker. Spaceship? Atomic shelter? Underground city? As always with Lost, we were all far from the truth! At first sight, it looked like a charming apartment with all the needed conveniences… But as Jack finally enters the Swan Station, a totally different face of this mysterious place is shown: the strange mural painted on the wall, the magnetic force behind the concrete wall and the computer equipment under the geodesic dome. I remember feeling intrigued, curious, tensed – the Mama Cass tune startled the hell out of me – and more lost than ever!
The climax occurs when the mysterious gunman, holding Locke hostage, is revealed to be Desmond, a guy Jack met a couple of years ago. As I didn’t make the connection between the man we saw in the first scene and the running guy in the stadium, I truly shared Jack’s surprise when he recognizes him. The way Matthew Fox said “You…?!” was perfect, I was totally with him: I entered the hatch begging for answers, and I ended up with more questions than ever, willing to understand if it was coincidence, fate or manipulation. I was astonished, what a brilliant way to start this new season! Jeez, the feeling I had at this particular moment was pure magic, it was like being a child again, as excited and dreamy as with Star Wars, Back to The Future, Saint Seiya or Zelda, my all-time classics.

A man wakes in a bamboo grove…

Pilot, part 1 • season 1 • episode 1

Romain, 24 – Paris (France) :

A man wakes in a bamboo grove. A dogs comes by, then runs away. The man starts running and winds up on a beach where lies, in the middle of chaos, a wrecked plane. It only takes a few seconds for the man to start rescuing people around him. How did they survive? Why is the hero not on the beach like everyone else? I came to the conclusion that God has always been there, ever since the first episode. And in a few seconds, Lost became my passion.

Just had a bit of a deja vu, that’s all.

Flashes before your eyes • season 3 • episode 8

Laurent, 35 – Paris (France) :

Desmond stands still in Penny’s bedroom. He prepares for his meeting with Charles Widmore, but stares at his radio-clock which displays the same number as the Swan countdown : 1:08. In the background, the microwave alarm has the same beeping sound as the alarm hatch. Instantly, everything becomes possible, a breach opens up, and Desmond becomes my all-time favorite LOST character – the one who undergoes everything with no explanation ever given to him. And for me, something I have encountered more or less violently since my childhood is brillantly displayed : that strange feeling of déjà vu, déjà entendu.

I guess that’s a good thing I’m not one of them, huh?

The whole truth • season 2 • episode 16

Alexandre,29 – Mineola, NY (USA) :

It’s just perfect. This performance is the best example of the idea of emergence (Emerson?) : out of a system with its own direction comes an element that couldn’t have been predicted, that is greater that everything the system had created all along and that’s gonna change the system forever. That dynamic works within the narrative – the man of science is more clueless than ever, the man of faith is reduced to be the weak man his beliefs were saving him from – and within the making of the show : faced to an unexpected display of perfect acting, the creators of the show had to move the whole thing to another direction. And for the first time… “I guess that’s a good thing I’m not one of them, huh?” … Ben Linus’ voice was heard: a chilling, oddly off-key sound that confuses anger with fear, sophistication with childishness, helplessness with genius.

You can’t be… a superhero

Cabin Fever • season 4 • episode 11

JB, 28 – Paris (France) :

This is one of the flashback scenes in Cabin Fever, the season 4, perfectly titled episode about Locke’s connexion with the Island at crucial moments of his life. Locke is a nerdy teenager, the butt of the joke of his whole high school. His science teacher finds him trapped in a… locker. He brings him in his office and proceeds to tell him about the summer camp of a Portland-based company called Mittelos Laboratories. Locke is less than thrilled. “I like boxing and fishing and cars. I like sports!“, he says. His teacher turns pale, marks a pause, and goes on with a 15-second speech that, to me, became one of the most powerful lines in Lost, ever : “I’m gonna tell you something – something I wish someone had told me at your age : you might not want to be that guy in the labs surrounded by test tubes and beakers… but that’s who you are, John. You can’t be the prom king. You can’t be the quarterback. You can’t be… a superhero.”
I don’t know the name of the actor who portrayed this teacher, but I can’t think of any other actor in Lost who has used such a short screen time so intensely. Plus the line completely captures one the key notion of Lost : being able to “let go” and accepting who you are. A monologue so great it almost eclipses the iconic Locke signature phrase that comes as a sharp reply from Young John : “Don’t tell me what I can’t do“.

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