Feeling Lost

The following post will be about the television show Lost. If you did not watch last night's episode (Abandoned) and do not want to know anything about what happened, you should stop reading now.


I mean it. Don't look.


So, last night was the super gigantic "someone's gonna die" episode. I had read many times in many places who it was, but it still sucked that it was true. I happened to like Shannon. She was one of the characters who had changed for the better throughout the course of the show. When we first met her, she was doing nothing but lounge around demanding that her step-brother wait on her hand and foot. We watched her exert her independence by having using other people to do her bidding. She rapidly became one of the most readily hateable characters on the show. As season 1 progressed, we began to see more strength come out in her. When Sayid asked for help, she was reluctant but pushed on. The more it became evident that someone was willing to put faith in her, the more she showed she was willing to do. Eventually, Boone died and she lost her last tie to her life off the island as well as her last tie to her former dependence. She became stronger and eventually showed her strength by admitting to Sayid in the season finale that she needed help.

Last night, we saw through her flashbacks how exactly she became the manipulative person we saw when she first arrived on the island and in Boone's flashbacks. After her father died (because Jack ignored people's pleas for him to stop working on Sarah and help the man who was about to die), Shannon's stepmother cut her off from all of her father's money. When she asked for help getting started so that she could take a prestigious internship in New York, her stepmother still refused, telling her that she couldn't do it, that she would only quit again. She went to Boone for help, but quickly realized that he had no faith in her either. The only way was for her to come up with a plan to make money herself. How better than by manipulating the people who refused to believe her? The Shannon we first met was damaged, weak and vindictive. The Shannon we had by the end of this episode was stronger and reaching out to Sayid for someone to believe in her. She needed him and she needed him to believe that she had seen Walt.

Unfortunately, it was too late because as she ran through the jungle after the creepy wet backward-talking Walt, she came into direct contact with the tail section survivors and Ana Lucia. Spooked, Ana Lucia fired and killed her. The raftaways, tail section and main survivors are all now reunited, but judging by the look of pure hatred in Sayid's eyes, Ana Lucia has made a serious enemy.

A few more brief notes:

-Everyone seems to like the character of Mr. Eko. I think he's been great so far, but I'm a little worried since we know nothing of his background. He may turn out to be a completely horrible person, but we are being led to like him before they reveal it.

-I truly wish Ana Lucia was the character to die. Michelle Rodriguez can't act, and her character is by far the most annoying one on the show. That said, she has a flashback episode in two weeks and the writers may pull off the reverse of what I just suggested for Eko. Perhaps we will be able to understand her better and not want her kidnapped or killed by the others. Then again, maybe she needs to watch out for bamboo under the fingernails; just ask Sawyer about that.

-My biggest issue with Shannon dying (other than that I had grown to like her) is that it really was not much of a risk. She didn't have a central role. Yes, she was one of the main 14, but it would have been a much greater impact if someone like Jack died.

-I'm very interested to see what happens when they show the history of the tail section survivors next week. They went Lord of the Flies much more rapidly than the first group. With Ana Lucia running the show, it's as if this is what would have happened to the front section group if they had allowed Sawyer to be in charge.

It's going to be long week.


Until later...