'Lost:' 10 Dynamic Duos

CHARLIE & HURLEY
Whoda thunk the heroin-addicted rocker would mesh with the funny, overweight lotto winner? Yet Charlie found a confidant in Hurley — who, among other things, helped care for Aaron and served as a shoulder for the drug-plagued castaway to lean on. Soon, the duo became as inseparable as, well, Hurley and an Apollo bar. That is, until the very end, when Charlie tragically rebuked his pal before meeting his imminent demise in the Looking Glass station: ''Catch up with you later. Just remember I love you, man.'' We know who was sobbing after watching that final exchange of brotherly love: Everybody. —Kate Ward

MILES & HURLEY
With Charlie gone, Hurley needed to find someone to serve as the yin to his yang. And he found the perfect foil in newbie spiritualist Miles, who traveled to the Island alongside Faraday & Co. Miles and Hurley's love-annoy relationship is not only fascinating to watch, but it also led to one of the funniest, self-referential exchanges in Lost history (about the writers' mind-boggling time-traveling plotline):

Miles: ''It doesn't work like that. You can't change anything. Your maniac Iraqi buddy shot Linus. That is what always happened. It's just — we never experienced how it all turned out.'' Hurley: ''That was really confusing.'' Miles: ''Yeah. Well, get used to it.''

And how perfect is it that the man who hears dead people has aligned with the man who sees them? —K.W.

ROSE & BERNARD
We want to be Rose and Bernard when we grow up — totally devoted to each other, and so gosh darn level-headed despite being marooned on a time-traveling island. Then again, said island seems to have provided these deserving souls their unlikely happy ending: After all the decade-skipping quieted down, they built a cabin in the woods to peacefully live out their days together and enjoy what appears to be a cancer-free vortex for the once-terminal Rose. —Jennifer Armstrong

JIN & SUN
Though at first they seemed all Asian-sex-roles stereotypes, we learned through flashbacks that they were so much more. Enough, in fact, to warrant their own epic love story for the ages. The poor son of a fisherman won the wealthy girl's heart — and bargained for her hand in marriage by doing her ruthless father's (sometimes violent) bidding. They were hoping to start a new life on their doomed trip to Los Angeles, but instead found themselves in forced couples therapy on the Island, an endless dance of revelations (her affair, his onetime infertility) and grand gestures (thanks for almost dying while trying to disarm that freighter bomb, Jin!). Here's to hoping time travel reunites these two crazy kids at last. —J.A.

LOCKE & BEN
Batman and Joker. Coyote and Road Runner. Charlie Brown and Lucy. Locke and Ben. The epic, often deadly dance between these two rivals for Island Golden Boy status has produced so much intensity, so much rich drama — and so much dark humor. Their rapport launched with the season-2 classic ''Lockdown'' — it's a masterful duet between Terry O'Quinn and Michael Emerson, the show's only acting Emmy winners. The strangulation scene that closes ''The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham'' is easily the best single scene Lost has ever given us — followed closely by the terrifying Jacob's-shack sequence at the end of ''The Man Behind The Curtain.'' But nothing was more entertaining than ''Dead Is Dead,'' chockablock with verbal parries and manipulative one-upmanship, culminating with Locke at long last getting the best of his cunning nemesis...although that really wasn't Locke anymore, was it? —Jeff Jensen

DESMOND & PENELOPE
The epitome of long-lost love. All sorts of forces (including that coldblooded Charles Widmore) conspired to keep Penelope and her lover, Desmond, from fulfilling their romantic destiny. But Des-n-Penny never gave up hope — and gave us one heckuva romantic ride. Their desperate phone reunion in ''The Constant'' could melt the hardest of hearts. —Dan Snierson

KATE & JACK
They are Lost's First Couple, in more ways than one: After the crash of Flight 815, the doctor and the fugitive were the first survivors to log some serious bonding time in the pilot episode's now-iconic Kate-stitches-up-Jack-while-they-talk-about-fear scene, and they've subsequently served as the castaways' de-facto leaders. Naturally, this has lead to some deep-dish romantic tension, complicated by their screwed-up psyches and Lost's other leading couple? —Adam B. Vary

KATE & SAWYER
Ah, Kate. While gallant Jack has been her man-you-want-to-marry, goofus Sawyer — with his carefree locks and penchant for oily shirtlessness — has been her man-you-want-to-boink. And boink they have, in a polar bear cage, with Jack watching from a security camera. Distance, time-travel, and the considerable charms of Juliet have kept Sawyer out of the picture for a couple seasons, but now that Juliet made Jughead go boom (and apparently her with it), Lost's reformed rogue can renew his pursuit of the show's flighty fugitive. —A.B.V.

SAWYER & JULIET
They totally took us by surprise. Compassionate Other Juliet and sarcastic con man Sawyer were by no means a likely couple (we thought his heart belonged exclusively to Kate), but when a season 5 time warp stranded them in 1970s Dharmaville, a sunflower-filled love blossomed. Convincingly. The two cemented their place as a Lost dynamic duo with last season's gripping finale, as Juliet slipped away from Sawyer. Literally. — D.S.

JACK & LOCKE
Together, these headstrong ideological opposites and frequent opponents have formed the show's defining philosophical conflicts: science vs. faith; naturalism vs. supernaturalism; free will vs. predetermined fate. But to be clear, neither represents their position well: Both are damaged souls whose deep, troubled investment in their respective worldviews blinds them to the truth about the world — and themselves. Jack and Locke have bickered so much and pointed so many guns in each other's faces over the years. But in the final season of Lost, we find ourselves hoping the two might become friends and even allies in their respective struggles. —J.J.