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#18. ===========The Jackface Line of Demarcation===========
<img src="https://decider.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/jackface-5.png?w=618">

Appropriately right smack in the middle of the list, separating the good characters from the bad, is the most polarizing and inconsistent character on LOST: Dr. Jack Shephard.

Jack is one of television's most schizophrenic personalities. At times, it seems as if there was a different writer writing his dialogue in each different scene and Matthew Fox just went for it. One episode, Jack will be the educated, thoughtful, calm surgeon; and in the next, he is a raving lunatic who is punching anyone and anything in his way, asking questions later. Jack has some of the most interesting flashes with his father in one episode, and some of the dumbest subplots with Bai Ling in another. The man is a riddle wrapped in mystery inside an enigma.

And you know what? Jack is pure fucking entertainment to me. In my second watch-through, I loved hating him. I loved hating his stupid facial expressions, I loved hating his irrational bursts of violence, I loved hating his asinine decisions to be an action hero (despite being the only doctor of the group). But does that make him a good character, let alone a good main protagonist?

Like much of LOST, it's impossible to say for sure. And in many ways, Jack is a microcosm for the show. I loved hating it sometimes, and it filled me with enjoyment and profound disappointment. Jack is everything that is good in the show and also everything bad about it. But after much deliberation, this is where he belongs--in the middle, but never mediocre.