IGN staff rated "The Moth" as the 36th best episode in all of Lost, explaining, "The moth of the episode's title appears both as a metaphorical and physical symbol of the struggle to find strength within yourself, as Locke explains to Charlie, and to take charge of your own life without relying on anyone else to do it for you."[13] In a review focusing solely on "The Moth", Chris Carabott of IGN gave the episode a 9/10, writing that the episode "does a great job of utilizing screen time for most the major characters on the show", and that "Locke's analogy of 'The Moth' in comparison to Charlie's situation perfectly encapsulates what many of the characters are going through on the island."[14] In a ranking of all of Lost's episodes, Emily VanDerWerff of the Los Angeles Times placed "The Moth" at number 102, complimenting Monaghan and O'Quinn's acting, but criticizing the storyline for containing "nonsensical drug abuse storytelling."[15] "The Moth", along with "Pilot" and "House of the Rising Sun", won a PRISM Award for Charlie's drug storyline.[16]