Lost's Greatest Character Arcs That Went Nowhere

Just as Lost's Island ping-pongs through spacetime, its characters have undergone wheeling personality shifts. Unfortunately, some of these character developments became eclipsed by the show's sprawling tapestry of weirdness. Here are 7 character plots the Smoke Monster apparently ate.

7.) Charlie The Creeper

After Charlie's noble sacrifice at the end of Season 3, most references to him have been nothing but hagiographical - Desmond named his son after the former Drive Shaft bassist, for Pete's sake - but remember in Season 2 when the jocular junkie was up to the somewhat unforgivable shit? Kidnapping and baptizing Aaron in the middle of the night? Pretending to kidnap Sun to make Locke look incompetent? Sure, the guy was recovering smack addict, but for while there it looked as if the Survivors would have a deranged wild card among their ranks. That would've made for great TV.

6.) Malibu Sayid

Sayid Jarrah's big shtick Season 1 was that he was a member of the Iraqi Republican Guard (remember, this was 2004, it was topical). Given the fact that Sayid was a Saddam-administration hard-ass, it was pretty hilarious to see him shack up with all-American ice queen Shannon. Even when Ana-Lucia shot her, he still remained an interesting character, as he was chock full of righteous rage. Since then, Sayid hasn't whispered a peep about Shannon. It's wild. He never mentions this earth-shattering moment in his life again. Then again, when you're on the Island, an earth-shattering moment happens every 10 minutes.

5.) Miles' Daddy Issues

I like Miles Straume. He's got the acerbicness of early Sawyer and we both had the same awful haircut when we were teenagers. In Season 5, he finally got to know his dad, Dharma grump Pierre Chang, whose death/continuation of his own timeline without his son/whatever the heck his fate was when Jughead went off was the real heartbreaker of last year's finale. Sure we'll miss Juliet, but her death seemed a smidge shoehorned in to give the Jack-Sawyer-Kate-Juliet love trapezoid more poignancy. Miles' loss was like some horrible version of the Back to The Future in which Marty watches the Hill Valley High School prom burn down with everyone inside. I hope Season 6 will address his grief, particularly since Pierre Chang was secretly [SPOILERS] Master Shredder.

4.) The Crabby Jin

When Jin and Sun crashed on the Island, their marriage was in shambles, what with Jin being Mr. Paik's legbreaker and all. These were Jin's salad days as a fun character. He'd frown for entire episodes, only stopping intermittently to throw a right hook. Fortunately for the Kwons, 100 days marooned on a spooky island was more effective than years of marital counseling. Jin's volte-face from his mob persona was less enjoyable for audiences, as it effectively relegated Jin to sidekick status.

3.) The Vengeful Sun

Remember when Sun hostilely took over her father's company and devoted 3 years and her newfound millions to killing Ben Linus? Remember how her years of presumably meticulous planning culminated with her pulling a gun on him in a parking lot? Remember how long it took for Ben to talk her out of her vendetta? Goddammit, Sun - you had the potential to be such a player, but now you're just hanging around with Lapidus with your go-to look of befuddlement on your face.

2.) The Monster Eats The Pilot

We now know the Smoke Monster has a method to its madness and won't attack for the hell of it - the "security system" would rather steal an identity (i.e., Eko's brother, Rosseau's shipmates) or judge someone for his or her "sins" (Eko). Its only truly inexplicable victim was the pilot, Seth Norris, from the very first episode. Given that Smokey brutally killed the pilot in a manner akin to Eko, we can only assume that Seth harbored the darkest of all the Survivors' dark secrets and was thus judged and killed tout de suite. R.I.P. Seth Norris - your unknown transgressions were too horrible for network television.

1.) Jack's "Locke Problem"

At the end of Season 1, Jack foreshadowed that John Locke would be the Big Bad for the next season. Remember this quote from the last episode of Season 1?

"Everybody wants me to be a leader until I make a decision that they don't like. You want to keep second guessing me, Kate? That's your call. There's something that you need to know. If we survive this, if we survive tonight we're going to have a Locke problem and I have to know that you've got my back."

Did Jack have a Locke problem? Well, sort of. Locke's always been a minor pain in the ass, prattling on about what he can and cannot do and throwing knives at people's torsos. But was he ever the season-wide threat that Jack intimated he'd be? No, during Season 2, Ben assumed that role. In sum, viewers waited an entire season for a Locke problem that never materialized. Suffice to say, there was a Locke problem, but it was as relevant as how the Survivors kept all their hairdos so coiffed and lustrous.

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