[Python] Why is my Python code returning a list of characters instead of items?

Question:

I'm trying to solve the following problem: given two arrays of strings list1 and list2, find the common strings with the least index sum.

A common string is a string that appeared in both list1 and list2. A common string with the least index sum is a common string such that if it appeared at list1 and list2[j] then i + j should be the minimum value among all the other common strings. I need to return all the common strings with the least index sum.

Here's the code that I've written so far:

class Solution:
def findRestaurant(self, list1: List[str], list2: List[str]) -> List[str]:
res = []
smallest_n = float('inf')
for i in range(len(list1)):
if list1 in list2:
res.append(list1)
if len(res) == 0:
return False
if len(res) == 1:
return res.pop()
if len(res) > 1:
for i in range(len(res)):
n = list1.index(res) + list2.index(res)
if n < smallest_n:
smallest_n = n
result = []
for i in range(len(res)):
n = list1.index(res) + list2.index(res)
if n == smallest_n:
result.append(res)
return result


My issue is that the code is returning a list of characters instead of items. How can I modify my code so that it returns the expected list of items instead?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I tried to return a list of the least index sum string with each item being a word, but instead, I returned the (correct) result as a list of characters of the word.

I attempted to change the result.append(res) to result.append(str(res), but I got the same result.

Edit: an example of an input with unexpected results would be:

Input:
["Shogun","Tapioca Express","Burger King","KFC"]
["Piatti","The Grill at Torrey Pines","Hungry Hunter Steakhouse","Shogun"]
Output:
["S","h","o","g","u","n"]
Expected:
["Shogun"]


Edit: thank you very much for all the help, the error was using .pop() to return the only value in the list rather than the list itself.

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