Ranking Episodes, Season Three (top half)

11. Catch-22 (3x17, Desmond)
Episode highlight: The helicopter crashes
#2: Jin's ghost story

10. A Tale of Two Cities (3x1, Jack)
Episode highlight: The opening five minutes
#2: Confirmation that the Others and DHARMA are not the same group (already suspected, of course)

9. The Brig (3x19, Locke)
Episode highlight: Sawyer kills Cooper
#2: Richard Alpert's chat with Locke

8. Enter 77 (3x11, Sayid)
Episode highlight: Mikhail's chat with Locke, Kate, and Sayid
#2: The Flame blows up

7. One of Us (3x16, Juliet)
Episode highlight: Juliet's flashbacks
#2: Juliet dresses down Sawyer and Sayid

6. Greatest Hits (3x21, Charlie)
Episode highlight: Charlie emerges in the Looking Glass only to be met by Bonnie, Greta, and their guns
#2: Karl arrives and ratchets up the urgency

5. Not in Portland (3x7, Juliet)
Episode highlight: Room 23
#2: Juliet's ex gets hit by a bus

4. Flashes Before Your Eyes (3x8, Desmond)
Episode highlight: We meet Ms. Hawking
#2: Desmond and his professor friend discuss time travel

3. The Man From Tallahassee (3x13, Locke)
Episode highlight: Cooper is revealed
#2: We finally see how Locke was paralyzed

2. The Man Behind the Curtain (3x20, Ben)
Episode highlight: Jacob's cabin, of course
#2: The Purge

1. Through the Looking Glass (3x22, Jack)
Episode highlight: We see the future
#2: Penny's call to Charlie

Ranking Episodes, Season Three (bottom half)

22. Further Instructions (3x3, Locke)
Episode highlight: Desmond's first flash
#2: Locke's creepy Boone airport dream
Episode lowlight: Locke saving Eko from a polar bear...c'mon

21. Expose (3x14, Nikki/Paulo)
Episode highlight: Paulo finds the Pearl
#2: They're dead
Episode lowlight: Their ridiculous murder of the producer (and yes, I'm fully aware of the meta-nature of this episode and appreciate it...but it doesn't fully fit in a serious show like LOST)

20. Tricia Tanaka is Dead (3x10, Hurley)
Episode highlight: Roger Workman
Episode lowlight: Starting a car as a metaphor for redemption and renewed purpose...it's a stretch

19. Stranger in a Strange Land (3x9, Jack)
Episode highlight: Cindy and the kids
Episode lowlight: Bai Ling

18. Every Man for Himself (3x4, Hurley)
Episode highlight: Bunnies!
#2: A second island

17. The Cost of Living (3x5, Eko)
Episode highlight: "You speak to me as if I was your brother"
#2: Juliet's video

16. The Glass Ballerina (3x2, Jin & Sun)
Episode highlight: The Red Sox win the World Series
#2: Ben's talk with Jack

15. I Do (3x6, Kate)
Episode highlight: Jacob is mentioned for the first time
#2: Jack springs his plan

14. Par Avion (3x12, Claire)
Episode highlight: Jack catches Tom's pass (no, not like that)
#2: Claire is confirmed as Christian's daughter

13. D.O.C. (3x18, Sun)
Episode highlight: Naomi tells Hurley that all the Oceanic passengers are dead
#2: Hurley, Desmond, Jin, and Charlie encounter Mikhail

12. Left Behind (3x15, Kate)
Episode highlight: The monster has three heads
#2: The "worst con in the history of cons"

Ranking Episodes, Season Two (top half)

12. ?(2x21, Eko)
Episode highlight: finding the Pearl
#2: Morbid, but I jumped in my chair when Libby coughed up blood

11. The Hunting Party (2x11, Jack)
Episode highlight: Tom's talk with Locke, Jack, and Sawyer
#2: Alex is alive

10. Lockdown (2x17, Locke)
Episode highlight: The blast door map
#2: Jack and Kate discover the pallet

9. Maternity Leave (2x15, Claire)
Episode highlight: Claire's on-island flashback, the first full-length on in LOST history (not counting The Other 48 Days)
#2: Exploring the staff

8. Three Minutes (2x22, Michael)
Episode highlight: Sun spots Desmond's boat at the funeral
#2: Ms. Klugh and her interactions with Michael

7. The Other 48 Days (2x7, Tailies)
Episode highlight: The fist time we see the Others attack the camp, barefoot around the fire
#2: Ana-Lucia confronts and kills Goodwin

6. The 23rd Psalm (2x10, Eko)
Episode highlight: Eko stares down the Monster
#2: Eko's backstory, one of the most compelling on the show

5. One of Them (2x14, Sayid)
Episode highlight: We meet LOST's most complicated and fascinating character
#2: Hieroglyphics on the countdown clock as it reaches zero

4. Two for the Road (2x20, Ana-Lucia)
Episode highlight: Michael murders Ana-Lucia and Libby, one of the most shocking endings of any episode
#2: Jack, Kate, Locke, and Sawyer have it dawn on them that Ana-Lucia has the gun

3. Man of Science, Man of Faith (2x1, Jack)
Episode highlight: Make Your Own Kind of Music...the first scene is amazing
#2: Desmond and Jack at the stadium

2. Orientation (2x3, Locke)
Episode highlight: Mythological overload...DHARMA, Hanso, the Incident, the button...
#2: Did I mention Marvin Candle, electromagnetism, missing segments, ...?

1. Live Together, Die Alone (2x23, Desmond)
Episode highlight: They reach the capsule dump, which ties both major plot points together--the hatch and the trek to fight the Others
#2: "Ms. Widmore, I think we found it"

Takeaways from Comic-Con

Watching Damon and Carlton's panel at Comic-Con on YouTube, these are the items that stood out to me. Obviously they are spoilery, so if you don't like that sort of thing, don't read it:

* Season 6 will feature some characters we haven't seen since Season 1
* Faraday and Juliet will appear in Season 6
* Season 6 will not be pure flashbacks, flashforwards, or time travel--it will be something different
* In faux commercials, Hurley has won the lottery and owns Mr. Cluck's, introducing an Australian Outback chicken dinner after having a dream. Oceanic Airlines has cute flight attendants touting its perfect safety record.
* We will see Alpert's backstory
* We will learn about the DHARMA supply drops (as in 2x17, Lockdown)
* But there will not be a whole lot about DHARMA--they feel it was sufficiently addressed in Season 5