Kate Austen

Prior to the crash of Oceanic Flight 815

The cryptic Kate is not quite the innocent figure she initially seems to be.

She grew up in Iowa, the daughter of a soldier and a diner waitress. As we learn in flashbacks in What Kate Did, her parents divorce and Kate's mother marries a man named Wayne, an alcoholic who physically abuses Kate's mother (Diane) and may or may not have abused Kate. When Kate is making a scrapbook as a present for her father, she discovers that the man she thinks is her real father was still in Korea when she was conceived, and she then realizes that Wayne is her biological father. Kate takes out an insurance policy and blows up the house with Wayne in it, meaning to benefit her mother. She explains all this to her mother and then flees, but is captured at a bus station by US Marshal Edward Mars, who claims that Kate's mother went to the authorities with what Kate had told her. She later escapes from him, while being driven to the indictment hearing for Wayne's murder, after a large black horse appears in front of the Marshal's car, causing him to swerve off the road. While the Marshal is still stunned from the deployment of the air bag, Kate is able to take his keys. After a brief tussle in the car, Kate knocks him out of the car and drives off.

In the flashbacks in Born to Run, Kate travels around the country with a car trunk full of license plates from various states, using hair dye to disguise her appearance.

When she receives a letter that her mother is dying from cancer, Kate takes a chance and goes home. There she meets and reignites the romance with her childhood boyfriend Tom Brennan, now married and a doctor at the hospital. The two dig up a time capsule they had buried 15 years earlier, which contains a tape recording and a selection of Tom's toys, including a little toy airplane. Kate convinces Tom to arrange a visit with her mother, who is being guarded, apparently in case of her daughter's appearance. However, once Kate reveals herself to her mother, Diane begins screaming for help, and Kate is forced to flee. She asks Tom for his car keys, but he demands to go with her, saying that the police will be easy on her if she cooperates. Kate speeds through the parking garage, directly at a police car blockading the entrance, but an officer fires off a few shots as she passes, and she then crashes into another car. Kate turns to Tom and sees that he is dead. Kate flees the scene, leaving behind the toy airplane.

Subsequently, Kate is involved in an elaborate bank robbery in New Mexico, in which she presents herself to the bank manager as an innocent bystander, while she is actually romantically linked with the bank robbers' supposed leader. Posing as a "Maggie Ryan" applying for a loan, Kate is rounded up by the robbers as one of the hostages.

When another hostage overpowers a robber, Kate grabs one of their guns, but she immediately claims not to be able to use it. The lead robber then takes Kate into a back room, and after a quick kiss, hits her to continue the ruse. The robber brings in the bank manager and claims he will kill the seemingly innocent Kate, unless the vault is opened. Thinking he is saving her life, the bank manager complies. In the vault, the robber reveals that Kate has actually planned and organized the whole operation. Appearing intent on shooting the manager, the robber is stopped by Kate, who instead shoots the leader in the leg, then forces the manager to open a safe deposit box. Inside is a single item: Tom's small toy airplane.

Sometime later, Kate turns up in Australia as a fugitive. Using the name Annie and claiming to be Canadian, she arrives at the house of an Outback farmer, who, in exchange for help around his farm, offers her a wage and a home. Months later, in the middle of the night, Kate attempts to sneak out of the house. The farmer interrupts her in this attempt, and insists he drive her to the train station the next morning.

On the road, their truck is followed by Marshall Mars. The farmer admits that he saw Kate's picture on a wanted poster at the post office and has turned her in for the cash reward. Kate grabs the wheel and drives off the road, rolling the truck. Despite being free to escape, Kate pulls the injured farmer away from the wreck, giving the Marshal time to capture her.

Immediately prior to the flight, the Marshal reveals to an Australian law enforcement officer that he has been chasing Kate for three years, and that he had put the toy airplane in the safe deposit box as bait. He has the toy airplane in his possession, presumably having recovered it from Kate's possessions after capturing her.

On board Flight 815, she is in handcuffs, sitting next to the Marshal. Just prior to the crash, she asks the Marshal a favor, which she later claims was to make sure the farmer received the reward for turning her in. As the plane begins to break apart, the Marshal is injured. Kate steals the keys to her handcuffs, but makes sure to apply the marshal's oxygen mask before putting on her own.

On the island

Since arriving on the island, Kate has been involved with most of the major developments that occur to the survivors, from the recovery of the transceiver, to the discovery of the repeating transmission, the polar bear, the cave-in, and the decision to move to the caves. This is due in no small part to her friendship with Sayid, Charlie, and Hurley, as well as her apparent feelings for both Jack and Sawyer, although her relationship to Jack suffers because of her continued manipulation and equivocation.

Kate agrees to kiss Sawyer only because that is his declared price if he is to tell where Shannon's inhalers are located. After they kiss, though, he tells her that he actually does not have the medicine.

During a game of "I Never" in Outlaws, Kate reveals to Sawyer that she was married previously, though she says the marriage didn't last very long. She also reveals that she has killed a man, although she may have been referring to Tom, as she also tells Jack that the toy airplane "belonged to the man I killed" - although Tom was not the only man she killed, her father Wayne being the first.

Kate delivers Claire's baby boy in the middle of the jungle, while Jack is in the midst of trying to save Boone's life.

When Sawyer dumps out the contents of her backpack, he finds out that she is carrying the passport of a survivor who drowned a few days after the crash, presumably to use for future false identification, in Born to Run.

While taking care of wounded and delirious Sawyer, he tries to choke her and demands to know why she killed him. Confused and frightened Kate runs off into the jungle, leaving Sawyer on the floor. She believes that Sawyer was being possessed by Wayne, her birth father whom she killed. Jack finds Sawyer alone and on the floor, and goes to find Kate in the jungle, demanding to know why she foolishly left a wounded man unattended. An emotionally distraught Kate lashes out at him, saying "I'm sorry I'm not as perfect as you are! I'm sorry that I'm not as good!" and tries to run; Jack won't let her. Kate struggles against Jack's grip, and then relaxes and allows him to comfort her. As Jack hugs her and tells her everything will be ok, Kate gives in to her feelings for Jack, and kisses him. When the kiss is over, a confused Kate stumbles away from Jack and runs further into the jungle. Perhaps as she had yelled at Jack only minutes before, she did not feel she deserved something "good". The kiss greatly complicates Kate and Jack's relationship, which is no longer purely platonic.

After Sawyer, Jack, and Locke decide to go after Michael, Kate demands to go with them. Jack denies her request, but she disobeys his request by following them anyway. Soon after she is captured by "The Others" and is exchanged for the trio's guns and promise to return to their camp.

Claire and Kate go out to find Rousseau so they can find the place Claire was taken to. When Claire asks Kate about Rousseau, she is reluctant to tell Claire about Rousseau killing her team because they were sick.

In "S.O.S," Jack enlists Kate to go with him to recover Walt in exchange for Henry Gale. Kate is flattered that Jack has welcomed her back into the club, but Jack merely states that he has chosen her because Sayid refused him. During the venture into the forbidden line, Kate apologizes for kissing Jack. "I'm sorry," she says, to which Jack replies, "I'm not." Right about the time the two are about to talk about their relationship in further detail, an obviously out-of-breath and possibly injured Michael stumbles toward them, thus halting any more attention regarding Jack and Kate's tempestuous relationship.

Trivia

In the original pilot for Lost where Jack died when the group finds the cockpit, Kate was to emerge as the leader for the survivors, motivating them to build shelter and begin considering life if they are not rescued.

In the original description for Kate, she was a slightly older woman separated from her husband, who went to the bathroom in the tail-section of the plane. However, that idea ended up being used for the character Rose.

The actress Evangeline Lilly who portrayes Kate fell in love in the island and is now engaged to the actor Dominic Monaghan who plays Charlie.

Ana-Lucía Cortez

Prior to Oceanic Flight 815

Ana-Lucia was a Los Angeles police officer. It is revealed that she has conflicts with her captain, who is also her mother, but that she doesn't ask for any special treatment and got along well with all of her fellow officers. Ana-Lucia becomes pregnant, presumably by her boyfriend, Danny. While investigating the scene of a burglary, she encountered a man named Jason who told her that he was a student and not the burglar. As he reached for his ID to prove it, he instead pulled out a gun and shot Ana-Lucia four times. Thanks to her bullet-proof vest, she lives, but she lost her baby.

Ana-Lucia spends the next several months recovering and in therapy. During this time, Danny leaves her.

On her return to the force she becomes noticeably harsh with a man at a domestic disturbance, indicating that her recovery isn't complete. At the station, Jason is brought in, since his fingerprints match those at the burglary. Ana-Lucia maintains that he isn't the man who shot her, even though he has confessed to the crime. After Jason is released, Ana-Lucia finds him at a bar. When he leaves, she follows him outside. After getting his attention, she reveals to him that she was pregnant when he shot her, after which she shoots him six times: three shots at range, three point blank, killing him.

Jason's body is found the next day and brought to the city morgue, where he is recognized as the man recently released from custody. Ana-Lucia's mom knows that her daughter killed him and confronts her about it, but instead of hiring a lawyer, Ana-Lucia quits the force. She eventually gets a new job as an airport security guard. After finishing one of her shifts she has a drink at the airport bar where she meets Jack Shephard's father, Christian Shephard. He invites her to come to Sydney with him suggesting "fate" may have brought them together. He tells her that he needs a bodyguard while he is down in Sydney. They purposefully exchange fake names. She chooses "Tom" for him and he chooses "Sarah" for her.

While in Sydney, the both of them go drinking for four straight days. Christian finally asks for her bodyguard services in the middle of the night. Ana-Lucia drives him to a house in the suburbs of the city, where Christian angrily argues with a woman about his right to see his daughter. Ana-Lucia breaks the argument up. She later tells Christian that they should both leave Sydney and go back to their lives, but he says that he can never go back. The two part ways, and Ana-Lucia decides to head back to Los Angeles.

Prior to boarding Flight 815, Ana-Lucia meets and flirts with Jack at a bar at Sydney airport in the episode "Exodus: Part 1". The pair arranges to get together during the flight, with Ana-Lucia revealing that she is seated in the back of the plane, seat 42F (42 is one of the sequence of numbers in Lost). She also calls her mom from the airport and apologizes for quitting and running away, admitting that she was scared of her mother because she knew she killed Jason.

On the Island

After the tail section of the plane crashes in "The Other 48 Days", Ana unofficially becomes the leader of the survivors. The group does not fare as well as the group on the other side of the island due to a lack of people and supplies (in the form of luggage, to which the "tailies" did not have access, since the tail section crashed into the ocean). Also, without a doctor who is better able to help with the crash survivors' injuries, many of the injured tail-section survivors die within a week of the crash.

On the first day they are stranded, Ana takes a liking to two children. She promises them that she will reunite them with their parents, and becomes relatively friendly with Goodwin, an assumed fellow survivor who claims past service in the Peace Corps.

The first night, the Others attack the camp, taking the three strongest members of their group. They attempt to take Eko, but he manages to kill two of them and escape. Two weeks later the Others attack the camp again and abduct nine of the survivors, including the two children. After killing one of the Others, Ana discovers a piece of paper with the names of all the kidnapped, along with their descriptions.

After the abduction, the Tailies decide to take refuge in the jungle. During the course of the trek, Ana becomes highly suspicious of Nathan, noting that she had not seen him on the plane, and wondering about his long absences from camp. By the time they set up a new camp in the jungle, complete with a pit they dug as a jail cell, Ana accuses Nathan of being in league with those who abducted the other survivors (the Others), and places him into the pit. The other survivors express doubt about this course of action, but do nothing to oppose Ana. One night, when the others are sleeping, Goodwin frees Nathan, but before Nathan can flee, Goodwin breaks his neck, killing him, revealing himself to be in league with the Others.

Goodwin is able to abscond with Nathan's body, giving the impression that he has escaped and fled. However, Goodwin's cover is blown when Ana confronts him with the fact that he had emerged from the jungle just 10 minutes after the plane crash, but with completely dry clothes. Goodwin tells Ana that the children are safe and that those who were on the list were kidnapped because they were "good people". Goodwin attacks Ana, who after a physical struggle, is able to impale him through the chest with a wooden stake, killing him. Whether as a result of her actions that indirectly led to Nathan's death, or having had to kill Goodwin, Ana sobs with grief. Eko, speaking for the first time since the night he was nearly abducted, tells her everything will be all right. She asks him why it took him forty days to speak; he asks her why it took her forty days to cry.

Subsequently, the survivors encounter Sawyer, Michael, and Jin, after they have unsuccessfully attempted to escape the island via a raft, which the Others have destroyed, and have also shot Sawyer in the shoulder. At first the two groups take each other to be the Others, and after the Tailies place the three rafters in the pit, Ana (whom they have not yet met), is also placed in the pit posing as another captive, in order to learn more about the three men. After taking Sawyer's gun away from him, Ana reveals her true allegiance, and leaves the pit.

Eventually, the Tailies, beginning to trust the three, decide to let them lead them to their camp on the other side of the island. During their journey, Sawyer falls unconscious as a result of his wound's infection, and the insistence on carrying him to camp leads to increased tension with Ana. By the time the group is within range of the camp, they hear the telltale whispers associated with the Others, and as Sawyer, Michael and Jin's campmate, Shannon emerge from the jungle after seeing images of Michael's son Walt, Ana shoots her in the abdomen, killing her. Shannon's lover, Sayid, happens on the scene immediately afterward, and (as continued in the episode Collision), Sayid quickly pulls his gun on Ana. Mr. Eko stops him and, after a scuffle, Sayid is knocked unconscious. Ana-Lucia, believing Sayid will not stop until he has revenge on her for Shannon's death, has him tied to a tree, and Ana's fellow Tailies, Eko, Bernard and Libby, increasingly find their loyalty to Ana tested as a result. Ultimately, Eko decides to carry the ailing Sawyer to his camp, and Michael, Jin, Libby and Bernard eventually decide to follow, leaving the restrained Sayid alone with Ana. The two slowly begin to bare their souls to one another. Sayid realizes Ana does not have a plan, but merely her guilt, and reveals to her his own past misdeeds, including his torture of fellow Iraqis during his time in the Republican Guard. By the end of the episode, she unties him and tells him to kill her. He tells her that it wouldn't do her any good, as they are both already dead inside.

She does not attend Shannon's funeral, though Eko explains to her that most of the survivors understand that the girl's death was an accident. Jack tries to reconnect with Ana-Lucia, and the two share a bottle of tequila on the beach. In the days following, however, Ana-Lucia continues to live separately from the other survivors (one exception being the dog Vincent, who she takes care of due to his previous owners, Michael, Walt and Shannon, being absent), until Jack, in "The Hunting Party", asks her to help build an army to fight the Others.

Later, Locke tells Ana-Lucia about Henry Gale, a man captured by Danielle Rousseau, whom they believe to be one of the Others, and whom they've imprisoned in the hatch's armory. Locke asks her to interrogate him. Ana-Lucia is surprisingly sympathetic to Henry and tells him that she wants to believe that he is not an Other, since she feels guilty about mistaking Nathan for one. She asks Henry to draw her a map to his crashed balloon, where he also claims is the grave of his wife, who died. Ana-Lucia hopes that finding the balloon will prove he is not an Other. Sayid and Charlie join her on the trek. While looking for Henry's balloon, Ana-Lucia says that she is sorry for Shannon's death, but Sayid holds no ill will towards her, blaming the Others instead. They eventually find the balloon and the grave, but discover that there is a black man in the grave, with identification that indicates that he is named Henry Gale, and that the man calling himself Henry Gale is indeed one of the Others.

In "Two For the Road", Henry attacks Ana, nearly strangling her to death, and she is only saved by the intervention of John Locke. Ana-Lucia tries to acquire a gun, first by telling Sawyer, who has hoarded them in a secret location, to give one to her. When he refuses, she later follows him, hoping to discover his hidden cache. When he detects her presence, she reveals herself to him. After a brief physical struggle, Ana kisses him passionately and seduces him. Afterwards, she manages to steal his gun because she wants to kill Henry Gale. When Ana-Lucia corners Henry with the gun, he says that Goodwin did not believe she was a bad person; just misunderstood.When Goodwin attacked Ana-Lucia, he apparently was not intending to kill her.

Ana-Lucia cannot go through with killing Henry. She confesses this to Michael Dawson, who had recently returned from an unsuccessful quest to find his son, Walt, who had been kidnapped by the Others. Michael offers to kill Henry for her, asking for the gun and the combination to the armory, both of which Ana-Lucia gives him. Michael suddenly tells her that he is sorry, and then shoots her in the chest, killing her.

Boone Carlyle

Prior to Oceanic Flight 815

In the flashback in "Abandoned", Boone surprises Shannon by appearing at her father's funeral. After the funeral, he offers her a drink and asks her where her "Marky Mark" poster is. Her age at the time is 18. When Shannon asks Boone if she can stay with him in New York, he tells her that he is moving back to L.A. and his mother hired him to work for her wedding business. Prior to this he was a licensed lifeguard, although this has not been mentioned since the Pilot. He tries to help Shannon with her money problems by giving her money, but she does not accept.

Prior to the ill-fated plane flight, Boone Carlyle is the chief operating officer of his mother's wedding business. He is also the step-brother of Shannon, with whom he is secretly in love. Shannon is aware of Boone's feelings for her, and uses that knowledge to manipulate him into giving her money and attention. She accomplishes this by pretending to need rescuing from her abusive boyfriends so that Boone will "rescue" her and pay her boyfriends to leave her.

Boone and Shannon board Oceanic Flight 815 following another such incident in Australia. Just before their flight, Shannon arrives at Boone's hotel room, intoxicated, and seduces Boone into sleeping with her.

On the island

Boone becomes the protégé of John Locke, having initially followed him to hunt for Charlie and Claire after they are kidnapped by Ethan Rom. Locke and Boone then discover and dig up the metal hatch to a mysterious pod. Locke swears Boone to secrecy, claiming that the others are not ready to know about the hatch, and instructs Boone to tell them they were "hunting for boar." Locke is also instrumental in changing Boone's perception of his relationship with his step-sister. In "Deus Ex Machina", Locke has a vision-dream, in which Boone repeats the phrase, "Theresa falls up the stairs; Theresa falls down the stairs." Boone reveals that Theresa was his nanny as a child, upon whom he took out his frustration at the absence of his mother. She fell down the stairs and broke her neck in his house while responding to his summons. The same dream (which Locke took to be a 'sign' from the island) leads the two to discover a heroin runner's Beechcraft stuck high up in the tree canopy. Boone climbs up into the aircraft and finds a working radio in the cockpit, which he uses to transmit a Mayday signal. He receives a response to his message, which causes him to stay in the aircraft longer than is safe. This act causes the aircraft to unbalance and crash nose-first into the ground, collapsing one of Boone's lungs as well as crushing parts of his lower body. In "The Other 48 Days", it is revealed that the response Boone receives is actually from the Tail-End survivors, but that Boone's transmission was dismissed by Ana-Lucia as a ploy from the Others.

Boone dies in "Do No Harm" of the injuries he sustains in the fall.

Boone frequently wears a t-shirt with Chinese characters meaning 84, which are two of the numbers that frequently appear throughout the show. Note that the numbers can also be read when literally inverted to read "48". The Chinese 84 is pronounced "bā shí sì" which can also be interpreted as "likely death". This is also the shirt that Boone is wearing in Locke's vision of him, and the shirt he is wearing when he dies. The survivors bury Boone the next day.

Michael Dawson

Prior to Oceanic Flight 815

Michael has been estranged from his son, Walt — named for Michael's father — for nearly all of Walt's life. Years earlier, Michael was very excited at the prospect of becoming a father and husband, but Walt's mother, Susan Lloyd, had other plans. Michael puts off his intentions to be an artist, in order to find steady construction work to support his family, while Susan goes to law school. When Susan is offered a plum job in international law, she takes their son with her to Amsterdam, leaving Michael alone in New York City. While there, she eventually marries Brian Porter, the man who hired her. When Susan calls to tell Michael about her marriage intentions, he becomes enraged, announces he is coming to Amsterdam to get his son back, and promptly runs off. As he crosses the street, he is hit by a car, which leaves him hospitalized for months, and requires a year off for rehabilitation. Two months after the accident, Susan tracks him down at the hospital and convinces him to give up his parental rights to Walt in return for completely covering his medical expenses, so that her new husband can adopt the boy.

Several years later, in an abrupt visit by Brian, Michael learns about Susan's death. Distraught at the loss of his wife, and seemingly afraid of Walt, Brian requests that Michael fly to Sydney to take custody of Walt. Before leaving on Flight 815 to the United States, Michael calls his mother and asks if she can take Walt, since Michael believes he is unfit to take care of him at the time. She refuses, and when Michael hangs up the phone, he sees Walt standing right beside him, although it is unclear how much of the conversation Walt has heard.

On the island

Because of his inexperience as a father, Michael is sometimes overly strict and protective of Walt, which leads to some difficulties in their developing relationship. For a time, Walt looks to John Locke as a father figure, and this leads to several confrontations between the two, with Michael forbidding Walt to approach Locke. This situation changes after Locke is instrumental in helping Michael save Walt from an attacking polar bear.

It is also Michael's idea to begin the building of the raft, though his initial motivation is primarily to save his son. Michael is the first person to know that Sun can speak English. His association with Sun causes numerous conflicts between him and Sun's husband, Jin. This conflict reaches a head when the first raft Michael builds is burned. Michael at first blames Jin, but after their confrontation, in which Sun reveals to the other survivors that she can speak English, Michael and Jin begin working together to build a new raft.

Michael and Jin overcome their earlier animosity to achieve a kind of friendship while working together, even becoming comfortable enough with each other to learn to accurately interpret each other's speech despite the language barrier. Their close working conditions prove problematic, however, when on the day before the second raft is to be launched, Michael becomes ill, from an apparent poisoning, and blame falls upon numerous people. Eventually, Jack figures out that it was Sun who had spiked Jin's water, which Michael accidentally drank.

After the launch of the raft, Michael, Jin, Sawyer, and Walt find themselves confronted by the Others, who have come to abduct Walt. The Others take Walt by force and blow up the raft, leaving Michael stranded, floating on raft debris with Sawyer. The ocean currents bring the pair back to the island, whereupon they find Jin shortly before being attacked by a small group of people. These captors eventually reveal that they are survivors of the tail section of the plane, and decide to travel across the island to join up with Michael's group.

However, upon learning from Libby that the Others live nearby, Michael abandons the group and heads off into the jungle to search for Walt. It is only after being chased down by Jin and Mr. Eko that Michael decides to hold off his search.

Upon being reunited with the mid-section survivors, Michael learns about the Hatch and the need to input the numbers into the computer. He raises questions about the Hatch, related to its blast doors, which it seems at least Locke has noticed before, but the purpose for which is unknown, and a computer with no other use than punching in numbers. However, while Eko and Locke are discovering the part of the Orientation film that warns not to use the computer for communication, Michael notices a "Hello?" on the computer's screen. He types in that he is Michael, to which the screen responds "Dad?". After seeing this, Michael volunteers for an extra shift in the hatch, hoping to get a chance again since he assumes that he has been communicating with Walt. The communication happens again in "The 23rd Psalm"; this time the screen asks if Michael is alone, and then tells Michael he must come for him because "they are coming back soon".

In "The Hunting Party" Michael knocks out Locke, traps him and Jack in a closet, and sets out to find the Others. Locke, Jack and Sawyer hear seven gunshots as they track him, and find three shells from Michael's gun. They then encounter the so-called "leader" of the Others, who says that Michael will never find them.

A number of days later, in "S.O.S.", when Jack and Kate enter the territory of the Others in order to propose a trade, Michael runs out of the brush, ragged and in a terrible state, then collapses unconscious at their feet.

After being dragged unconscious from the trading point, in "Two For The Road", Michael wakes in the hatch to retell Kate, Jack and Locke about The Others. He mentions their ruthlessness and scraggly, bare-footed appearance. He says they keep the captured survivors in what appears to be another 'hatch'. While Jack, Locke and Kate go off to trade for Sawyers' guns, Michael is kept under Ana-Lucia's guard. Discussion leads to the fact that Henry Gale, an Other, is locked in the next room, and after Ana-Lucia says she couldn't kill him, Michael offers to do so. He takes the gun, asks for the combination to the room, says "I'm sorry" and shoots her in the chest, killing her. Libby stumbles upon the scene, and Michael shoots her twice in the abdomen, mortally wounding her. Where he shot her she was covered with blankets, supposedly dulling the force of the bullets, but she dies around a half an hour later. After unlocking the room for Henry, he then takes the gun and appears to shoot himself in the left shoulder/arm. All the while his hands are shaking heavily, especially when he goes to shoot himself.

In the "?" episode he told Jack that Henry Gale had shot him and that he thought that Ana-Lucia and Libby were dead. They later found out that she wasn't dead but in a critical condition, leaving Michael afraid that Libby would reveal what really happened. Michael kept asking Jack if she said anything, and at the end of the episode Libby coughs "Michael," before finally dying.

Mr. Eko

Prior to Oceanic Flight 815

Before arriving on the island, Eko was a ruthless warlord in Nigeria, renowned for his mercilessness and viciousness. He is drawn into this life at an early age, when guerrillas raid his village in search of young recruits. Taking an older man in the village captive, the guerrillas order Eko's younger brother, Yemi, to kill the man. When he hesitates, the guerillas threaten to kill Yemi as well, leading Eko to intervene to save his brother's life. Taking the gun from Yemi, Eko promptly shoots down the older man. Impressed by his actions, the guerilla leader calls him Mr. Eko. The guerrillas take Eko away instead, and stop to remove a pendant bearing a cross from his neck before departing.

Many years later, after he has become leader of a guerrilla group, Eko acquires a large amount of heroin, which he then seeks to smuggle out of the country. Realizing that the most reliable way to smuggle the drugs out of the country is to take advantage of a privilege given to aid groups and missionary priests, Eko returns to his old village, where his younger brother Yemi has become a priest of the village church. There he asks his brother to aid him in smuggling the drugs from the country, requesting a large number of Virgin Mary statues in which to hide the drugs and the use of his plane. In return, Eko offers a large sum of money, which Yemi would use to provide vaccines to the village. Though momentarily tempted, Yemi refuses. Some time after, Eko returns with a second proposal: sign forged documents to make Eko and his henchmen appear to be priests, for which he'll be paid handsomely, or watch as Eko's men burn down the church. This second time Yemi agrees.

When the shipment is ready to be smuggled from the country, Eko and his men assemble at an airfield dressed as priests. While they are loading the plane, a Beechcraft 18, Yemi arrives to convince Eko not to go through with his plan. Moments after his arrival, however, the military, having been warned by Yemi about the impending operation, arrive to capture Eko and his men. In the ensuing gun battle, Yemi is wounded in the crossfire. Before the military can stop them, however, Eko and his henchman attempt to flee in the plane. After placing Yemi on the plane, the henchman boards the plane, but then suddenly turns and kicks Eko away from the door, leaving him to be captured. As the plane pulls away, the soldiers arrive at Yemi's vehicle. Based on Eko's clothing, the soldiers mistake him for his brother, the priest, and set him free.

At some later point in time, we find Eko serving as a priest in an Australian church, taking confession from a man who has actually arrived to provide a passport so Eko can travel to Los Angeles. He is asked to investigate a reported miracle, the apparent resurrection of a young woman who drowned the day before. Eko visits the undertaker, who plays him the tape of his autopsy procedure. He later visits the home of the woman, Charlotte, and encounters her father, Richard Malkin, who seeks to explain away the "miracle" as a cover-up of the undertaker's incompetence. Richard is the psychic who told Claire to go on the plane, though he admits to Eko that he is a fraud. At the aiport in Sydney, prior to boarding Oceanic Flight 815, Eko encounters Charlotte Malkin, who agitates him by saying that she saw his brother when she was "between places", asking her to tell Eko to have faith.

On the Island

Eko survives the crash of the tail section, and is the first to return to the water to help other survivors to the shore. When the tail-section survivors are attacked by The Others during that first night, he is among those targeted. Unlike three of their other targets, however, Eko fights back against his attackers and wins, killing two of them. Disturbed and saddened by his actions, even though they were done in self-defense, Eko remains silent for the next 40 days, instead channeling his efforts into the carving of a stick that he adorns with references to Biblical passages. He later refers to them as "Things I need to remember".

Among the tail-section survivors, Eko simultaneously comes to be the muscle and the soul of the group. His strength is well evidenced by his single-handedly incapacitating Sawyer, Michael and Jin when they are mistaken for the mysterious attackers. However, he also speaks up in defense of the trio, frequently disagreeing with the merciless Ana Lucia. Moreover, Eko is also the first of the tail-section survivors to support them, as evidenced by his actions when Michael takes off in search of The Others. Even though he was initially assaulted by Jin, it is Eko who goes off with Jin to find Michael.

After the tail-section survivors begin making their way across the island to join the mid-section survivors, Eko proves pivotal in helping the two groups come together in the face of truly terrible circumstances. After Ana-Lucia shoots and kills Shannon after mistaking her for one of the Others, she takes Sayid hostage, and Eko, carrying a dying Sawyer on his back, stands up to her. Then, after arriving at the Station 3 bunker, he meets Locke, to whom he tells the story of Shannon's shooting. When Jack hears this, he begins preparing weapons for an assault on Eko's group. Not wishing to see any more bloodshed, Eko stops Jack, instead offering to take Jack to the other group if he promises to bring no guns.

Soon afterward, in Station 3, Eko meets with Locke once again, who is looking deeper into the mysteries of the bunker. After Michael, Eko, and Locke watch the Dharma Initiative's Station 3 orientation film, Eko pulls Locke to the side. There, Eko shows him an item he'd found in the other bunker: a hollowed-out Bible, which contains a missing piece of the orientation film.

Later, Eko learns from Claire that Charlie has been carrying around a Virgin Mary statue. Surprised and angered, Eko confronts Charlie about the statue and forces him to bring Eko to the plane. While wandering through the jungle, while Charlie is in the trees searching for the plane, the "monster" appears and charges Eko. Undaunted by the dangerous entity before him, Eko stands his ground and stares down the "monster" which displays in its smokey swirls flashes of images from his past. Unshaken by the encounter, Eko continues on, until he and Charlie arrive at the plane, the same Beechcraft plane Eko had used in Nigeria. Inside, Eko finds his brother's body, and, coming full circle, retrieves the cross pendant that had been thrown away by the guerrillas when he was taken from his village. Afterward, he and Charlie set the plane ablaze, as the two recite the 23rd Psalm. As he puts on the cross, he tells Charlie that he is a priest.

After Charlie begins having seemingly prophetic dreams and visions of Aaron in grave danger, Eko baptises Claire and Aaron at Claire's request.

In the episode Maternity Leave, Eko discovers Henry Gale and coerces Jack into permitting a meeting between the two of them. He tells Henry that he is sorry for killing the men who tried to drag him from the beach. He then proceeds to cut a set of two tails from his beard and hand them to Henry, which represent the two men he killed.

In Dave, Charlie comes across Eko chopping wood to build some sort of structure. He jokes that it is a Starbucks, but Eko ignores him and tells him he will find out in time. Later, in "S.O.S.," it is revealed that they are in the progress of building a church.

In "?", Eko has a dream one night where Ana-Lucia and Yemi ask him to help Locke because he is losing faith, and that Eko needs to know about the "question mark." When he wakes up, he asks Locke to help him track "Henry", who has escaped. In truth, Eko wants Locke to show him the "question mark" although Eko himself does not know exactly what it means. When Locke does not cooperate, Eko knocks him out. When he wakes up, Locke shows him the map that he drew from the blastdoor map during the lockdown in the hatch. In the center of the map is a big question mark, and Eko realizes that they both must go there.

Although Locke's faith in the island is suffering, he admits to Eko about having a dream where Yemi appeared, asking him to climb the cliff that the Beechcraft plane was on. They arrive at the cliff and Eko climbs it. The view from the top reveals that the ground below looks like a giant question mark, and when some of the soil is cleared away, another hatch is discovered.

Eko and Locke enter the hatch - called The Pearl - which has numerous television monitors. They watch a video which explains that its purpose is to see if the denizens of the other hatches perform their tasks, a "psychological experiment," as though they are actually meaningless. Although Locke is shattered by this revelation, Eko is rejuvenated by it. He tells Locke that whatever he believes can still be true. Eko explains about the extraordinary circumstances of his brother's plane crashing on the same island that he crashed on. Because of that - and the dream with Yemi telling him about the question mark - Eko believes that the island and the button do indeed mean something. Eko says to Locke if Locke doesn't continue to push the button, he will.

James "Sawyer" Ford

Prior to Oceanic Flight 815

A native of Tennessee, Sawyer, whose real name is James Ford, is a con artist who has taken on the alias of the con man known as "Sawyer", who was responsible for the destruction of his family.

The original Sawyer had an affair with the young James Ford's mother in order to con his family out of their life savings, prompting James' father to murder his mother and then commit suicide out of grief. He later dropped out of school in 9th grade. Vowing revenge, in an ironic twist Ford finds himself in financial trouble and is sucked into the world of con artistry himself, adopting Sawyer's profession and even his specific modus operandi to survive, using his looks to seduce women and divide families. He also takes the original Sawyer's name as an alias and, perhaps, as a symbol of his own self-loathing.

One of Sawyer's cons is a divorced woman named Cassidy, who tells him that she did not get a significant settlement in the divorce proceedings. While getting dressed, Sawyer accidentally opens a briefcase filled with fake cash bundles, which is one of his favorite cons (meant to give off the impression that he is rich, so he can more easily con his victim into giving him money meant for an investment). Cassidy, however, sees through the con immediately, but is also intrigued, asking Sawyer to teach her how to con someone. The two scheme a jewelery con by overpricing fake goods, and con two men at a gas station. Cassidy later asks if he can teach her how to pull off a "long con", and reveals that she got $600,000 from her ex-husband. Sawyer is later at a diner having lunch with Gordy, his partner, who tells him to keep doing his con on Cassidy despite Sawyer's feelings for her. Sawyer returns to the house and tells Cassidy to run because Sawyer's partner Gordy is going to kill them, and points to a car waiting outside. He reveals that the "long con" is Cassidy herself, and that he knew about her money from the beginning. He then sends her off with a bag which he appears to have stuffed with the money. However, this was all part of the con: the car was empty and the real money was hidden in another bag, ready for Sawyer to take once Cassidy left.

Before the crash, James is told that the man who ruined his childhood, the same man from whom he took his alias Sawyer, was in Australia. James goes there and kills him, only to find out he has been set up and the man he has killed was not Sawyer. Before making his final decision to kill the man who he thought was "Sawyer", Sawyer meets a man in a bar who, after the crash, he realizes was Christian Shephard, Jack's father. Sawyer does not reveal this encounter to Jack until Exodus: Part 1.

In Boone's flashback in "Hearts and Minds", an uncooperative Sawyer is dragged into a police station by two police officers. This is later revealed to be because of Sawyer's participation in a bar fight. A policeman informs Sawyer that the man he has head-butted in the bar was the Australian Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. He is deported from Australia and banned from ever returning, thus ending up on the fateful flight. The Australian authorities, who are aware of Sawyer's real identity, deport him under his real name and it is listed as such on the flight manifest. It has not been explained why Hurley, who had the passenger manifest list, continues to refer to him as "Sawyer". Hurley later shares the manifest with Locke, however, and Locke eventually reveals to Sawyer in "The Hunting Party" that he was aware of Sawyer's real name and occasionally calls him James.

On the Island

Sawyer is known for collecting and hoarding items from the plane crash and for being the resident smart-talking rebel on the island. Along with Shannon, he is one of the island's most prolific sources of colorful, often insulting nicknames for other castaways and island locations. These mannerisms make him easily hated and despised by most of the islanders, although it is eventually revealed that he purposely incites others into hostility against him; Kate uncovers his tragic past and forces him to admit his inferiority complex, and Michael, noting that the otherwise entirely self-centered Sawyer seems eager to volunteer for dangerous tasks, theorizes he may be suicidal.

Initially Sawyer is Kate's most aggressive suitor, making various crude advances toward her, at one instance extorting a kiss from her, but as time passes on, the two seem to develop a genuine friendship, both sharing a background as criminals and fugitives tormented by guilt. He kills time on the island by reading books (such as Watership Down, which is "about bunnies", Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, and A Wrinkle in Time) salvaged from the plane; this has caused Sawyer to develop hyperopia, forcing him to wear reading glasses made by Sayid. His voice also seems to entertain and comfort Claire's baby.

While on the raft, he is heard singing Bob Marley's "Redemption Song", in a bit of metaphorical happenstance. When Sawyer, Jin, Michael, and Walt encounter another boat at sea whose passengers demand that Walt come with them, Sawyer pulls a gun, given to him by Jack before they left, to protect Walt. He gets shot by "The Others" and goes overboard. After the boat leaves, he climbs onto the wreckage of the raft with Michael and pulls the bullet out with his fingers from his shoulder. Due to infection and a loss of blood, Sawyer becomes ill and passes out in Abandoned. Michael, Jin, and Mr. Eko make a stretcher for him and proceed to carry him back to their camp. Back at camp, he is taken to the hatch, where Jack declares him septic. In "What Kate Did", he is feverish, and says to Jack "I love her". Several minutes later, he attacks Kate and asks her why she "killed" him. She takes this to be a sign that her deceased stepfather Wayne, whom she killed, is seeking her from beyond the grave, and flees the hatch. She later returns and explains herself to Wayne in the form of Sawyer; he awakens from the fever, having no idea what she is talking about. Kate escorts him through the hatch, and out to the jungle; Kate is visited by the black horse she has been seeing, which Sawyer also witnesses.

After unlocking Locke and Jack out of the gun cache, they go out on a trek to find Michael. John asks Sawyer why he doesn't use his real name, James Ford, and where he got the name Sawyer. When the Others confront the hunting party, Sawyer is shot again, but only grazed in the face by a bullet. The leader of the Others, whom Sawyer nicknames "Zeke," threatens Kate; Sawyer is obviously shaken and angered at the possibility of losing her, and hugs her when she is finally released. When they get back to camp Sawyer comforts Kate in saying that he would have done the same thing that she did.

In "The Long Con" Jack raids Sawyer's tent and tells him that he stole medicine from the hatch. Kate and Sawyer hear Sun screaming and run to her. They find her unconscious and bring her back to camp. They later go back out to where she was attacked and Sawyer says that the bag used to cover Sun's head was not the same as the one used by The Others on Kate, making Sawyer suspect that someone from camp did it. Sawyer goes to the hatch to tell Locke that Jack and other survivors are coming for the guns. That night, Sawyer tells everyone that if they want a gun, they need to get it from him. Kate confronts him later in the night, and asks him why he has to make everyone hate him. He replies that at least she still likes him. Even later that night Sawyer meets up with Charlie. Sawyer had employed Charlie to pretend to be an Other and "kidnap" Sun and that he had planned the entire thing. He later tells Charlie that he has never done a good thing in his life.

In "Lockdown", Sawyer is playing Hurley and Kate in poker, winning a large pile of fruit. As Jack walks by, he comments Hurley should fold, without seeing Hurley's hand, saying Hurley doesn't have a good hand. Sawyer goads Jack into playing a few rounds of poker, thinking he must've got his experience playing online poker. Instead, Jack takes Sawyer for a run at the table, winning all the fruit from him. As Jack goes to leave, Sawyer ups the stakes by offering Jack one last hand where Jack can name the stakes. Jack names the medical supplies as the stakes and wins with a pair of nines. As Jack goes to leave, Sawyer asks him why he didn't ask to get the guns back, to which Jack replies "When I need the guns, I'll get the guns." Sawyer also shows some intellect in talking with Jack, asking him what he was doing in Thailand when Jack says he learned to play poker in Phuket, leaving Jack somewhat suprised that Sawyer knew where Phuket was.

In "Dave", Hurley comes to Sawyer, asking for some medication that would help him "stop seeing things, like a bald man running around in a bathrobe". Sawyer takes his usual demeaning attitude and makes fun of Hurley's problem, which leads to Hurley surprisingly leaping on top of Sawyer and punching him while he's on the ground. A few other survivors see this, but do not pull Hurley off too quickly, instead seeming to enjoy Sawyer getting his comeuppance for the way he treats everyone on the island.

In "Two For The Road", Sawyer holds all the guns and is asked by Ana-Lucia to give her one. He refuses and the two battle on the ground briefly before Ana-Lucia starts to kiss him in which the two hold a passionate love with each other, before Ana-Lucia steals his gun when seducing him.

In "?", it is revealed that Sawyer has the guns and other supplies hidden in a small covered hole in his tent.

Trivia

The character of Sawyer was originally meant to be a slick, suit wearing city con man. However, when Josh Holloway forgot a line at his audition and subsequently kicked a chair in frustration, the writers liked the edge he brought to the Sawyer character and decided to write Sawyer as more of a Southern, edgy con man instead.

Jorge Garcia, Matthew Fox, and Dominic Monaghan all auditioned originally for the part of Sawyer as the other characters had not been developed at the time.

Sawyer is always reading a new book at some point in an episode. Where he obtains these books(seeing as he didn't have the hatch in the beginning, yet still had books) is a mystery. On the other hand, early in the first season he was quick to sift through the unexamined fuselage of the plane and collect a large collection of items from various pieces of luggage. It is certainly not unheard of for people to bring books on planes.

Sayid Jarrah

Prior to Oceanic Flight 815

Born in 1968, Sayid served as a communications officer in the Iraqi Republican Guard. During the Gulf War (when Sayid was 23), Sayid's base is captured by the Americans. As the only Iraqi among his squad who speaks English, the Americans use Sayid to ask his superior officer, Tariq, about a missing US pilot. After learning that Tariq ordered a Sarin gas attack on his village, Sayid is given a box filled with torture tools given to him by the US, which he uses to successfully interrogate Tariq about the location of the pilot. When the Gulf War ends with Saddam still in power, Sayid is released by the US and goes back into the Iraqi Republican Guard. He swears he will never torture again.

Sayid continues his military service using his knowledge of torture. However, his loyalty is shattered when he is ordered to torture his childhood friend, Nadia. When she is set to be executed, Sayid helps her to escape by killing his commanding officer and shooting himself in the leg to make it look like she escaped on her own.

Sometime after the Gulf War, he leaves the Republican Guard, and decides to track down Nadia. He is picked up in England by members of ASIS and the CIA who have been following his movements. They offer him a deal: if Sayid can infiltrate a terrorist cell in Sydney whose members he is familiar with, and uncover 300 pounds (136 kg) of stolen C-4, then the intelligence agency will tell him where Nadia is.

Sayid is tasked with convincing Essam, his college roommate from Cairo University, to go through with being a suicide bomber so the intelligence officers can take possession of the missing explosives. Sayid warns Essam at the last moment to give him time to escape, but Essam becomes distraught that his supposed friend has deceived him over a woman, and kills himself. Sayid is released with a plane ticket to Los Angeles to look for Nadia, who they tell him is living in Irvine, but he asks for a flight for the next day, so that he can arrange a proper Muslim burial for Essam's body. He's then given a ticket on Oceanic flight 815.

Presumably the agents were telling the truth about Nadia's location, as she is later seen living in Los Angeles in one of Locke's flashbacks.

On the Island

Sayid is initially accused by Sawyer of being a terrorist who crashed the plane. He proves himself instrumental by repairing the transceiver recovered from the cockpit and receiving the looped distress signal recorded by Rousseau. Sayid comes close to triangulating the signal, but Locke knocks Sayid out before he is successful. Sayid tortures Sawyer for information on Shannon's asthma medicine. During a struggle he stabs Sawyer with a knife. Sayid feels guilty and leaves to explore the island. Shortly afterwards, he is captured by Rousseau.

Sayid grows closer to Shannon when she helps him translate Rousseau's notes. After Boone's death, Shannon asks Sayid to kill Locke. Sayid refuses to do so, and also stops Shannon from using one of Jack's guns to kill Locke. This leads to an apparent cooling of their relationship. Eventually, Sayid and Shannon consummate their relationship. Shortly after, Shannon is accidentally shot and killed by Ana-Lucia, who proceeds to tie him to a tree. She later lets him go after Sayid sympathizes with her. Sayid digs Shannon's grave and attends her funeral, which he leaves early. Hurley asks Sayid to fix the tail-sectioners' radio. He does and it picks up the song "Moonlight Serenade" by Glenn Miller.

Rousseau captures a man named Henry Gale and gives him to Sayid, claiming he is an Other. Sayid interrogates him, and Henry constantly denies it. Unconvinced, Sayid begins beating him. Jack stops the interrogation, but Sayid still believes that Henry is an Other. Along with Charlie he joins Ana-Lucia in her search for Henry's balloon. He is eager to find out if it even exists, because he blames the Others for Shannon's death and wants to take his vengeance out on Henry. The three discover the balloon, as well as the grave of Henry's wife, but Sayid is still unconvinced. He digs up the grave and discovers a dead man inside. An ID card on the man reveals him to actually be the true Henry Gale, suggesting that the "Henry Gale" in the hatch is indeed an Other, using the dead man's name as a temporary alias when he was caught by Rousseau. After this reveleation, in a heated exchange with "Henry," Sayid almost shoots him, but Ana-Lucia hits his arm so the bullet misses.

Trivia

Sayyid is an honorific title often given to claimed descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The English transliteration from Arabic is "Sayid".

His hometown of Tikrit is also the birthplace of arguably the two most famous Iraqis, Saladin and Saddam Hussein.

Jin-Soo Kwon

Prior to the crash of Oceanic Flight 815

Jin-Soo Kwon is a Korean man under the employ of his wife Sun's father, the wealthy industrialist Mr. Paik. He was born into relatively poor circumstances and, as a child, worked with his father on a fishing boat in a rural village in Namhae. One of his first jobs in the city is at the luxurious Seoul Gateway Hotel managed by an intolerant man named Mr. Kim, who deduces Jin's meager origins, and in hiring Jin as a doorman, instructs him not to allow "people like him" into the hotel. Jin works in this position briefly, quitting after Mr. Kim rebukes him for allowing a slightly disheveled man into the hotel so the man's young son could use the hotel lobby's bathroom. Leaving the hotel after his resignation, Jin runs into a beautiful woman, Sun, who eventually becomes his wife. Upon coming to work for Mr. Paik, Jin denounces and leaves behind his peasant background so as to carry favor with Mr. Paik, and obtain Sun's hand in marriage.

Jin's strained relationship with Sun stems from his employment to her unscrupulous father, who is not above using bribery, blackmail, extortion and possibly even murder to succeed. When Jin comes home one night with blood on his hands, Sun grows afraid of him and the kind of work she fears he is doing for her father. Jin has been assigned to intimidate a government official into overlooking environmental regulation violated by one of Paik's factories; rather than allow one of Paik's cruelly efficient hit men to simply kill the official, Jin violently beats the man in order to save his life. Jin, however, is unable to bring himself to tell Sun about her father's shady dealings and disillusion her about the source of her wealth and replies, "I do what your father tells me".

Despite the growing problems in their relationship, Jin and Sun still want to have children together. However, Sun is unable to become pregnant, which frustrates Jin because he hopes giving Sun's father a grandchild will please him to the point of giving Jin a safer and more legitimate job. When Jin finds out from a doctor that Sun will never be able to become pregnant, he grows angry and yells at Sun, believing that she knew about her condition all along and hid it from him.

Jin is soon assigned a secret mission to deliver watches to Mr. Paik's associates in Sydney and then Los Angeles; Sun assumes that it was a vacation. Before leaving South Korea for Sydney, Jin visits his father. Jin tells his father about the turmoil that has plagued his life since being employed by Mr. Paik. Jin's father advises that he and Sun should stay in the United States once they get there and never return to Korea. This becomes Jin's initial plan until he is confronted by an associate of Mr. Paik in an airport washroom before boarding the doomed flight. The spy informs Jin that his plan to flee with Sun has been found out and he threatens to take Sun away from him should they run away.

Jin has a gift for working harder than most people without tiring and is the best fisher in the group, a skill which he acquired perhaps from his father.

Note: Two largely ignored facets of Jin's personal history involves the mandatory military service (conscription) required of all native born South Korean males from the age of 19 for a minimum period of 24 months, and the fact that a Korean man of his age would have had six years of training in English in school, and more if he attended a university. However, the latter may be explained by his poor roots; perhaps he did not attend school or the school systems in his area were unable to fit government standards.

On the island

Jin's inability to communicate sets him apart from the other castaways and he usually stays away from the others, who initially think of him as violent and abusive to his wife. Jin and Michael share an adversarial relationship for most of the first season, which twice explodes into physical violence. Their initial enmity begins in "House of the Rising Sun" when Jin attacks Michael to retrieve his father-in-law's watch, which Michael has found. Michael is the first to learn that Sun speaks English, which she had learned when preparing to leave Jin, though she eventually changed her mind. This discovery occurs because Sun wanted to explain to Michael why Jin attacked him. Michael seems to form a mutual understanding with Jin by the end of that episode, but their tension later erupts in "...In Translation", in which Michael attacks Jin for the alleged destruction of the raft he is building, not knowing that the raft was actually burned by Michael's son Walt, who does not want to leave the island. Having eventually set aside their issues, Jin aids Michael in constructing a new raft. The two set off on the raft together, along with Walt and fellow castaway Sawyer, and although their attempt to find shipping lanes fails, Michael and Jin have become good friends, with Jin looking after both him and Sawyer.

Jin has a single handcuff on his left wrist for the first season; this dates from his assault on Michael, after which Jin is handcuffed to some wreckage using handcuffs previously owned by the U.S. Marshal (and presumably worn by Kate Austen during the flight and discarded by her in the jungle after the crash, where Walt Lloyd finds them). Michael frees Jin by cutting the chain with an axe, but with the key lost, Jin still wore the handcuff until the second season.

The public revelation in “…In Translation” that Sun speaks English only further widens the gap between Jin and Sun, and they separate. The separation seems serious when Jin becomes part of the raft party that intends to leave the island, but before Jin leaves on the raft, he and Sun reconcile. She gives him a notebook that she has written, containing phonetic spellings, in Korean, of common English words.

When Sawyer is shot by the men who kidnapped Walt and falls into the water, Jin jumps into the ocean to rescue him. He ends up washing ashore and is captured by the tail-end survivors, or “Tailies”, until he escapes, only to find Michael and Sawyer, who have drifted back to the island on the raft’s remnants. The Tailies, who themselves have been attacked by the Others, hold Jin, Sawyer and Michael in a makeshift prison, thinking them to be members of the Others, until Michael convinces them that they are also the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815. In one episode, Jin is shown speaking perfect English in Hurley's dream sequence.

Jin becomes better friends with Michael as they build the second raft together. He also befriends Sawyer following the destruction of the raft, and he looks out for both of them during their journey with the tail-section survivors.

While searching for Michael in the jungle, Jin gets a close up view of the mysterious "Others"... but only their feet.

Jin is reunited with Sun and the other fuselage survivors when the tail-section survivors join that camp. Using a bolt-cutter found in the hatch, Locke is able to remove the remaining handcuff from Jin's wrist.

In The Hunting Party, Hurley tells Sun and Jin that Michael "went all commando" to go look for Walt again. Jin hears the word "Walt" and suddenly begins packing to go find Michael. Sun asks why he is packing, and he tells her that Michael is his friend, but Sun reminds him that she is his wife. Sun tells Jin that she did not like being told what to do for the past four years of their marriage and was very worried when Jin was on the raft, and Jin decides to stay with her instead of risking danger.

Sun is almost kidnapped during an apparent attack from the Others in The Long Con, which causes Jin to become very protective of her. This causes a huge fight between them, and Jin ends up tearing apart Sun's garden. He feels guilty for what he did, and tells Sun that he is sorry and that he needs her because he does not understand what anyone is saying on the island. Sun reveals to Jin that she is pregnant, and that their doctor told her in private that Jin is actually the one who is sterile (he was afraid to tell this to Jin in person because he was an enforcer for Sun's father). Sun then promises Jin that she was never with another man, confirming that the baby is in fact Jin's. Jin believes that the pregnancy is a miracle.

Trivia

Jin is notable in that he is the only major character who was unable to speak English before arriving on the island. By contrast, Korean-born actor Daniel Dae Kim was raised in Pennsylvania, and thus in reality speaks American English fluently and Korean with an American accent. He is coached on set by a dialect coach and co-star Yunjin Kim to speak Korean without the American accent.

Sun Kwon

Prior to Oceanic Flight 815

Sun Paik attends Seoul National University, majoring in Art History, but to her mother's dismay, does not return with a husband. One potential suitor, Jae Lee, seems sincere but already has a commitment to an American woman. Shortly after learning this from him, she quite literally bumps into Jin-Soo Kwon, her future husband.

Their marriage begins with great promise, as Jin manages to convince her wealthy father, Mr. Paik, of his intentions. Unbeknownst to Sun, however, her father has placed a significant burden on Jin by demanding he come work for him. Over time, Jin becomes distant and abusive, and Sun, seeking to escape her failing marriage, begins taking English lessons in secret with Jae, who has returned from America after his relationship ended. Although the two are merely friends, there is a romantic moment between them that is not fully explored.

Sun's marriage to Jin is further strained due to their trouble of conceiving a child. When Sun and Jin go to a doctor, he explains Sun has excess scar tissue blocking her fallopian tubes, making it impossible for her to become pregnant, even with surgery. This leaves Jin furious, believing that Sun knew about her condition all along. Later on, however, the doctor tracks Sun down and explains that Sun is perfectly healthy; it is Jin who is sterile. He was afraid to tell them this originally because Jin is an enforcer for Sun's father and may have reacted violently.

Finally, with the help of a friend, Sun is given a chance to escape her husband while at the Sydney airport. A single moment of tenderness from Jin while waiting in the check-in line reminds her of her love for him and she decides not to leave him at the last minute.

On the island

Sun is initially suppressed by Jin, who feels it is his job to protect the two of them from the other survivors. However, over time, as Jin's attitude brings the couple into conflict with the other survivors, she begins to assert herself, and she then becomes a very important contributor to the lives of the survivors.

Sun's knowledge of herbal medicine made from plants and wildlife found throughout the island proves very valuable in a number of instances. Sun saves Shannon's life when Shannon's asthma problem gets vitally serious when they run out of the medicine; she prepares a mixture made from eucalyptus that helps Shannon breathe normally. She and Kate grow a vegetable garden with some of the herbs that she has found useful for curing common ailments. She also proves to be an able medical assistant to Jack, including recommending the use of sea urchin quills to pierce Jack's skin in order to transfuse his blood into Boone, and serves as a voice of calm and reason when some people begin to go too far. Unfortunately, her freedom has come at a price: when Jin finds out that she has been keeping her English language knowledge a secret, he tells her that their marriage was over, and refuses to speak to her.

On Kate's advice, the day before the second raft is scheduled to leave the island, Sun poisons Jin's water bottle to keep him from leaving the island. However, Michael drinks the water instead and falls ill. Only Jack and Kate know that Sun is responsible for the poisoning.

Prior to Jin's departure on the raft, he and Sun reconcile.

When the bottle of messages that was taken onboard the raft is found by Claire, implying the raft's apparent demise and leading to the assumption that its occupants are gone as well, it is given to Sun, who decides to bury it. Unknown to Sun and everyone else, everyone on the raft makes it safely back to the island -— though Sawyer has been shot in the shoulder and Michael's son Walt has been abducted by the "Others." They meet up with survivors from the tail-section of the plane.

Later, Sun misplaces her wedding band. Fearing that she has lost the only thing of worth to her — something connected to Jin — Sun frantically tears through the beach and her garden searching for it. Eventually, with Kate's help, Sun's wedding band is found in the location of the buried message bottle. It is not until a few days later, when the rest of the tail-end survivors — led by those who were on the raft — arrive at the beach where the mid-section suvivors' camp is, that Sun is finally reunited with Jin.

When Jin starts packing all of a sudden after hearing that Michael has run after Walt again, Sun starts asking why he is leaving. Jin tells her that Michael is his friend, but she reminds him that she is his wife, and they later both agree that they don't like being told what to do.

When Sun is working in her garden she hears noises from the jungle. Then something runs towards her and it turns out to be Vincent. Vincent runs off and it begins to rain. Suddenly, a black sack is over her head. She screams and tries to escape. Sawyer and Kate hear her and find her unconcious on the ground. They bring her back to camp and Jack treats her. She eventually recovers and she says that she was working in her garden and Vincent came to her. Then she said that it was raining and she was grabbed. She never saw who did this to her and escaped, but she fell on the ground and was knocked unconcious.

Not long after, Jin destroys Sun's garden when she refuses to stay near him on the beach, even though he is only concerned for her safety. Instead of following him to their tent, she takes off, only to be found by Rose and Bernard, who witness Sun in a brief spell of uncharacteristic sickness. Concerned, they offer her water and company, but she dismisses them to find Sawyer, in hopes of procuring a pregnancy test. Despite Jin's sterility, Sun's pregnancy test results came back positive, and was confirmed by Jack. Sun tells Jin the whole truth - about her pregnancy and his sterility. She swears to him that she has never been with another man. Jin considers it a miracle, and the two are overjoyed.

Trivia

Yunjin Kim is a successful South Korean movie actress who originally auditioned for the role of Kate; the creators were impressed enough to create the character of Sun for her. In addition to acting, Yunjin's involvement with the show also includes serving as a translator between the show's Korean dialect coach and fellow Lost castmember Daniel Dae Kim, for whom Korean is a second language.

Libby

Prior to Oceanic Flight 815

Libby claimed to have attended medical school for one year before deciding to become a clinical psychologist.

She spent time at Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute as a patient. At least part of her stay there overlapped with Hurley's time at the Institute. While at SRMHI, her hair color was brown. The reasons for her being institutionalized in the first place are still unknown, and whether or not her claims to being a clinical psychologist are true is also a mystery.

While at the airport, Libby asked Charlotte and Eko who were having a heated conversation if everything was alright.

On the Island

Libby was a tailsection passenger on Oceanic Airlines Flight 815. Immediately following the crash, she sets the broken leg of another survivor, Donald. Libby is one of the five remaining when Jin, Sawyer and Michael encounter them. She submits to Ana-Lucia's leadership, following orders without question. After Shannon is shot by Ana-Lucia, Libby stands up to Ana-Lucia, by refusing to tie up Sayid, and insisting that Ana-Lucia needs to let the mid-section survivors go.

Hurley comments that he may have met her somewhere else. She distracts him by trying on a purple top and says that Hurley had stepped on her foot while boarding flight 815. Libby helps Claire unblock the memories of what happened to her when Ethan took her. Libby tries to help Hurley with his food-addiction. After Hurley starts hallucinating, she tries to help again, but he refuses her help. Lastly, she talks him out of jumping off the cliff, and they kiss.

In "Two For The Road", Libby walks into the hatch immediately after Michael shot Ana-Lucia. Libby was presumably getting some blankets for her picnic with Hurley when she sees Michael. She calls Michael's name and he turns around and shoots her twice in the abdomen. In "?", Libby survived the shooting, but is in critical condition. She begins to cough up blood and is treated by Jack, who administers her a lethal dose of heroin to ease her suffering. Hurley is notified of Libby's condition and runs to her side. Libby coughs out Michael's name and dies. Damon Lindelof has said(on the Ausiello Report) that Libby's backystory will be revealed posthumously during the third season.

Claire Littleton

Prior to Oceanic Flight 815

Claire, a young Australian woman, has a job at "Fish 'n' Fry". She becomes pregnant, and she intends to give the child up for adoption after the baby's father, Thomas, walks out on her. Her plans to give the baby up are altered by her own guilt and the involvement of a psychic, Mr. Richard Malkin, who hounds Claire for several months, telling her she must raise the child herself or else great danger will come to the baby. When she refuses to listen to his insistent demands, the psychic appears to recant and tells her he has found a couple in Los Angeles for the baby, and arranges the flight for her. After the crash, Claire believes that the psychic may have known of the airplane's impending disaster. Later, the psychic claims that he's a fraud in one of Mr. Eko's flashbacks .

At the airport she is at a coffee shop, sitting at a table handling her cup shakingly. The pilot walks over to her to comfort her. He tells her that he sees pregnant women all the time on long flights. He said that he will make the ride extra smooth for her. She later tells him about the psychic she met. The pilot tells Claire about his mother. He says that his mother went to a psychic too. The psychic told her to marry a guy with a name that started with "R". She went for "Roger". She dumped her husband Bernard and she never found a man named Roger. Bernard then made millions of dollars in later years after the separation.

On the island

Claire is ignored and avoided by the other survivors after the crash. Claire claims it's because she's a "ticking timebomb of responsibility". With the exception of Jack, who takes it upon himself as a physician to monitor her condition, only Charlie approaches Claire frequently, and they become friends. She and Charlie are kidnapped by Ethan Rom. Charlie is found first, soon after the abduction, and Claire wanders back to the castaways two weeks later, still pregnant but with no memory of anything after the crash.

In Maternity Leave, we see in flashbacks what happens to Claire after she was kidnapped by Ethan. Claire is taken to a medical Dharma station, where she is given medication for the baby. She is often in a drugged state of mind. Ethan tells her that they are going to take the baby and return Claire to camp. She begins to trust Ethan with the decision to keep the baby. Ethan shows her the room where the baby will sleep once born, which contains various baby furniture. Among the furniture is the same Oceanic Airlines carousel she saw in her dream in Raised By Another that plays "Catch A Falling Star", which is the same song she requested the adoptive parents in Sydney play for the child. Then, when Claire is sleeping, she awakes to see a young girl, who tells her that they are going to cut the baby out of her and kill her. Claire panics and the girl uses chloroform on her. She wakes up in the jungle and sees Rousseau. Rousseau knocks her unconscious so the "Others" cannot find her, and then takes her back to camp.

She gives birth to a boy, Aaron. Kate has to deliver the baby because Jack is in the midst of trying to save Boone's life. Following the birth Claire has trouble trusting others with Aaron. Nonetheless, Charlie continues to remain ever-present, helping Claire with Aaron when she needs it. Claire wears a necklace with the Chinese character "ai", which means "love".

When Mr. Eko, a tail-section survivor, learns of her son's name, he notes that the Biblical Aaron was the brother of Moses. He asks her why she named her son Aaron and she replies that she simply liked the name. When Eko sees some Virgin Mary statues that Charlie had been keeping, he reveals to Claire that it contains heroin. Soon after, Claire confronts Charlie about the drugs, saying that she remembers something about him being a drug addict. Claire asks Charlie to stay away from her and Aaron. Charlie believes that Aaron must be baptized and steals the baby. This causes Claire to trust him even less, but she asks Eko to baptize her and Aaron. She does not interact with Charlie much anymore, but is often seen with Locke who helps her with the baby.

When Aaron falls suddenly ill, Claire asks Libby (who claims to be a clinical psychologist) to help her remember what happened to her when she was taken by Ethan. Claire begins to have frightening flashbacks of what happened to her. She sets off with Kate and finds the place she was taken to, a medical Dharma station. Afterward, she learns that the girl that saved her might have been Alexandra, Rousseau's daughter, who was abducted by the others at a young age.

Walt Lloyd

Prior to Oceanic Flight 815

Walt is Michael Dawson's 10-year-old son (born August 24th), named after Michael's father. Walt's mother was Susan Lloyd, an attorney, who rejected marriage with his father, a construction worker and part-time artist. His mother split up with Michael while Walt was still a baby, and moved with him to Amsterdam for a plum international law job. Just before Walt's second birthday, Susan married her boss, Brian Porter. Later, while Michael is recovering in a hospital from a car accident, she visits him and insists he give up parental rights to Walt so that Brian can adopt him, and in return she would cover all Michael's medical expenses. When Michael sees Walt for the last time before he picks him up in Australia, he gives the boy a stuffed polar bear.

Nine years later, Brian tracks down Michael, and tells him that Susan had passed away in Australia due to a "blood disorder." He pleads with Michael to take custody of the boy and gives him tickets for the flight to Sydney. Brian reveals that he had not wanted to be Walt's adoptive father, and that he is scared of the boy: "There's something about him... Sometimes when he's around things happen. He's different somehow."

Unusual occurrences have appeared around Walt. Just prior to his mother's death, Walt is studying from a book about native birds, and wants Brian to look at the entry for the Australian Bronze cuckoo. When Brian ignores him, Walt becomes insistent, and a bird suddenly smashes into the window and dies.

On the Island

Walt and John Locke establish a friendship shortly after arriving on the island. Locke sees something special in the boy, and tells his father: "Maybe you haven't spent enough time with him to see it, but he's different... As long as we're here, I think Walt should be allowed to realize his potential." This leads to Michael mistrusting Locke's intentions with the boy.

In "Special", when Walt has been looking through a comic book with a picture of a polar bear rather than listening to his father, Michael takes it away from him. Later, in anger, Michael throw the comic into the fire, and Walt runs off, only to be attacked shortly afterwards by a polar bear in the jungle.

In "Born to Run", without having any apparent knowledge of "the hatch," Walt appears to exhibit some form of psychometric clairvoyance: after touching Locke's arm, he tells him ominously: "Don't open it. Don't open that thing."

During the episode "In Translation" Walt secretly sets fire to the initial raft that Michael has been building. Locke is the only person on the island who realizes this. The day before the second raft is set to be launched, Walt confesses to his father that he was responsible for burning the first raft, because he didn't want to leave the island. With a sudden realization, Michael tells him that they don't have to go, but Walt replies solemnly, "Yes, we do."

Walt has a yellow Labrador retriever named Vincent, which had been owned by Brian. Before leaving the island on the raft, Walt gives Vincent to Shannon, to help her to cope with the loss of her step-brother Boone.

While on the raft, in "Exodus: Part 2", Walt and his companions run into another boat. Instead of rescuing them, however, the crew of the other boat kidnap Walt, destroy the raft and leave Michael, Jin, and Sawyer in the sea. It has recently been revealed that the kidnappers are part of the Others

In "Man of Science, Man of Faith", a water-drenched Walt appears before Shannon, and whispers incomprehensibly, which has been ascribed to reversed speech. Whether this was actually Walt or a vision is unclear.

What Walt's backwards speech translates to is disputed between the possibilites of "Don't press the button, the button is bad" and "Press the button, no button's bad", although most people agree with the former.

Later, Walt is seen twice by Shannon, in the episode "Abandoned". The first time, he again speaks in reversed speech, which according to Entertainment Weekly, sounds like, "They're coming and they're close". When he appears a second time, he puts his index finger to his mouth and made a "sshhh" sound. Then, he turns around and walks back into the jungle, only to be chased by Shannon and Sayid. When asked, Sayid claims he also saw the boy.

At the end of "What Kate Did", while examining the equipment within the DHARMA Initiative station, Michael discovers a message reading "Hello?" on the station's computer screen. Typing in a response and identifying himself by name, Michael is shocked when the other party returns with "Dad?" Convinced that the user on the other end is Walt, Michael continues communication with him in "The 23rd Psalm"; when he inquires if he is alone, Walt responds that he cannot talk long, because "they're coming back soon." Walt concludes by telling Michael he needs to go somewhere, but the audience is unable to see before Jack enters and Walt cuts off the communication.

John Locke

Prior to Oceanic Flight 815

Locke relates to Sawyer that as a child, he and his sister were raised by a foster mother. When his sister died at age six, his foster mother blamed herself, and sunk into depression. A few months later, a dog came into their house and his foster mother began to feel better. The dog even slept in his sister's bed, leading Locke's foster mother to believe that the dog was the sister reincarnated. When asked whether he felt the same, he replies, "That's just silly." He later reveals that he also had a brother; however, it is as yet unclear whether his siblings were biologically related.

Flashbacks in "Deus Ex Machina" reveal a younger Locke, with a full head of hair and use of his legs, working at a large retail store. His real mother, Emily Annabeth Locke (Swoosie Kurtz), makes a sudden appearance at his workplace, claiming that his birth was part of a greater plan, that he had no father and was "immaculately conceived". This leads to Locke hiring a private investigator to track down his biological father, who turns out to be a wealthy hunter named Anthony Cooper (played by Kevin Tighe). Cooper seems to take his newfound son under his wing, teaching him to be a sportsman. However, he is actually laying the groundwork to con Locke into donating his kidney, which Cooper desperately needs. Once the operation is completed, Cooper leaves the hospital and orders his security guard not to admit Locke back into his estate. Locke is crushed when he discovers that he has been emotionally manipulated.

Following the deception by his father, Locke becomes an angry and bitter person, even attending an anger management group. He also loiters outside of his father's house early in the morning in his car every day, hoping to simply ask his father how he could con his own son. When Locke's father finally meets with him again, he shatters Locke by simply telling him to get over being conned, and that no one wants him around. Despite being told that, Locke still continued to loiter outside the house. Locke eventually begins a relationship with a woman named Helen, another member of the support group he attends. She successfully convinces him to stop loitering, and to "take a leap of faith" into the unknown. This is later paralleled in Locke's convincing Jack to "take a leap of faith" by pushing the button.

Locke and Helen eventually end up living together, and Locke wants to propose. Helen finds out in the obituaries that Anthony has died. Locke and Helen are the only people at the funeral, and during the event, Locke sees two mysterious men by another grave, as well as a car that drives away after Locke says that he forgives his father. After Locke, now working as a home inspector, leaves a house he has just inspected, the same car from the funeral appears. When Locke approaches it, he discovers that his father is in the car, alive and well. Anthony reveals that he faked his death because he is in trouble with the two men who Locke saw at the funeral, conning them out of $700,000. The money is in a safe deposit box, but he does not want to risk getting it. He asks Locke to retrieve the money for him with a promise of $200,000 as payment. Locke begrudgingly agrees. After he gets the money, the two men — one of them named Jimmy Bane — appear in Locke's house. They question Locke if Anthony is still alive and about the money. After they leave, Helen asks if Anthony is indeed still alive, but Locke denies it. Later, Locke goes to a hotel and gives Anthony the money. Anthony gives Locke his cut, but Locke does not take it because he only did the job to please his father. As Anthony walks out the door, Helen, who apparently followed Locke, appears. Seeing Anthony and the money, she walks away, furious that Locke lied and seems to prefer his thieving father over her. Locke pleads for Helen to stay and finally proposes, but she says no.

Prior to the flight, John Locke leads a lonely existence as a middle manager at a box company in Tustin, California, where he is constantly belittled by a snide (and younger) higher-up for his interests in wargaming and survivalism. Most critically, Locke is a paraplegic — apparently for the preceding four years — the reasons for which are unexplained. He comes to Australia hoping to fulfill his dream of taking part in a walkabout, but when it is discovered that he is disabled, Locke is forced off the tour and sent back to the United States on the doomed flight.

On the island

After the crash, Locke miraculously recovers the use of his legs. On the island, Locke demonstrates his skills as a hunter, tracker, as well as a sort of spiritual leader. He is the oldest of the principal characters. He appears to have a connection to the island, to which he ascribes mystical powers, claiming, "I've looked into the eye of this island, and what I saw was beautiful." For a number of episodes, he keeps secret his findings and revelations from nearly all, except for his apparent acolyte, Boone Carlyle, with whom he often explores the island's jungles. During one such expedition, the two come across a metal hatch with a glass window, which they unsuccessfully try to force open or break. Later, a seeming vision leads the two to a crashed Beechcraft airplane stuck in trees. When Boone climbs into the cockpit, the plane falls to the ground, crushing Boone and eventually leading to his death. Because Locke initially lies about how Boone's injuries were received, the death drives a wedge between some of the survivors and Locke — and both Jack Shephard and Boone's step-sister, Shannon, hold him responsible for Boone's demise.

Although he connects mainly to Boone, Locke also develops a friendship with Walt Lloyd early on, teaching him backgammon and demonstrating knife throwing. Locke is the one who motivates Jack to leadership when he is struggling with the ghost of his father. He helps Charlie work through his heroin addiction, and builds a cradle with Claire for her baby. He also shares a mutual respect with Sayid. Other survivors are wary of Locke, due in part to his mysterious comings and goings, as well as his collection of hunting knives, which he had transported with him intending to use them on a walkabout of the Australian Outback.

In "The Greater Good," after showing Sayid the location of the Beechcraft, Locke confesses that he was the one who sabotaged the jury-rigged communication equipment that Sayid used to search for the island's radio transmitter. Later, in retaliation for her brother's death, Shannon tries to shoot Locke, but due to the intervention of Sayid, the bullet only grazes his temple.

In "Born to Run," Locke requests that Sayid bring Jack to the hatch with an open mind. When Jack asks why he kept it a secret for three weeks, Locke replies, "Since when does everyone have to report to you, Jack?"

Later, in the double length "Exodus (Part 2)" with the help of Jack and Kate, Locke is successful in blowing open the hatchway with dynamite.

Shortly afterwards, Locke and Kate attempt to descend down the hatch by rope. When Kate is captured by Desmond, Locke enters alone, and is confronted by Desmond. At first Desmond believes Locke might be his replacement, but after asking him a riddle which Locke fails to answer, Desmond holds him at gunpoint and makes him enter "the Numbers" sequence into the computer. After Desmond runs off, Locke creates a duty roster to man the computer console.

Locke first meets Mr. Eko in "Collision" and runs the DHARMA Initiative orientation film for Eko and Michael in "What Kate Did". Eko shows Locke the cored-out Bible found in the Station discovered by the tail section survivors. Inside is a missing piece of the orientation film, which Locke splices back.

Locke trains Michael on how to use the guns in "The 23rd Psalm." In "The Hunting Party," Locke is knocked unconscious by Michael, who locks him in the gun cache with Jack. Locke and Jack are freed shortly thereafter by Sawyer and Kate, and the four go in search of Michael (although the men do not originally know that Kate has followed them). During the search, they are confronted by Mr. Friendly and the "Others" and are forced to return to their camp without Michael.

In "Fire + Water" Locke finds Charlie with a Virgin Mary statue and confiscates all of them. He later puts them in the gun cache. He becomes more protective to Claire by moving his tent closer to hers. When Charlie steals Aaron for the second time, Locke punches Charlie in the face several times.

In "The Long Con" Locke locks the Virgin Mary statues in the cache because, as he tells Jack, they might become helpful later on. He also tells Jack that he did not break them and get the drugs out is because he doesn't want to tempt fate by destroying them. Locke later moves both the guns and the heroin to a new hiding place as a result of being conned by Sawyer.

In "One of Them" Locke is persuaded by Sayid to change the combination on the armory in order that Henry Gale be detained there while being interrogated by Sayid. However, Jack blackmails Locke into opening the door when he realizes that Sayid is torturing Gale. Jack refuses to let Locke enter the station code unless he opens the door for Jack first.

In "Lockdown" Locke's right leg is injured by the blast doors, forcing him to enlist Henry to enter the Numbers. Jack later determines in "Dave" that it is a hairline fracture that will take weeks to heal, forcing Locke to use crutches. While attempting to draw the mysterious map he saw during the lockdown, Locke's faith in the hatch and the entire island is severely shaken when "Henry" — who was revealed to be an "Other" — says he never entered the Numbers at all. He claims that everything simply reverted back to normal.

Henry Gale also is able to stir extreme anger in Locke on numerous occasions by implying that he "lets Jack call all of the shots".

Locke's faith is rekindled slightly when Rose reminds him that the island cured his paralysis and her illness, and it will probably speed up the healing of his leg.

Games

Locke is frequently connected with games. He teaches and plays backgammon with Walt, demonstrates Mouse Trap to a child in a flashback scene in "Deus Ex Machina", and plays Risk with a co-worker in "Walkabout". In "Exodus, Part 2" while handling dynamite, Locke asks Jack if he ever played Operation, joking that he "always got nailed by the funny bone"; he then proceeds to make a buzzing sound while lifting one of the fragile explosives. A startled Jack questions, "Do you like to play games, John?" Locke smiles and says "Absolutely."

Philosophy

John Locke, after whom the character John Locke is named, was a famous social contract philosopher who dealt with the relationship between nature and civilization. Also, the TV Locke's father is named Anthony Cooper, named for Lord Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the real-world John Locke's political mentor and patron. The real Locke believed that, in the state of nature, all men had equal rights to punish transgressors; to ensure fair judgment for all, governments were formed to better administer the laws. This philosophy is paralleled by the character of Locke, who embraces both nature and the need for organization among the survivors.

Charlie Pace

Prior to Oceanic Flight 815

We see a young Charlie going down a flight of stairs and it's Christmas morning. His brother Liam is already hard at work ripping open his presents. But while Liam continues to unwrap gift after gift, Charlie finds nothing at all for him. That is until his mother leads him over to a brand new piano. Charlie is thrilled, but before he can even begin to enjoy the gift, he learns it comes with a price.

The former bass player and principal song-writer for the UK band Drive Shaft from Manchester, England, Charlie is originally very hesitant to capitalize on the band's growing success. The tribulations and temptations of the rock-star lifestyle weigh heavily on him, even as his band gains notoriety. In the end, however, he is convinced by his brother, Liam, to participate in the band's future, Liam explaining that the band needs Charlie because "he is the band." Nonetheless, Charlie only agrees after eliciting a promise from Liam that, if they ever felt it was too much, they would just walk away.

As Drive Shaft becomes a world-famous band, Charlie notices that his brother Liam is becoming both more self-destructive in his addictions and more controlling of the band. Just after a live performance, the situation boils over when Charlie tells Liam that the time has come to walk away. When Liam storms off shouting that he is the band now, Charlie realizes that he has probably let it all go too far. Alone in the dressing room and blinded by the pain of the current situation, Charlie turns to Liam's heroin stash.

Charlie was with Karen when she gave birth to his brother's daughter Megan, named after Charlie and Liam's mother. He had to lie to Karen about where Liam was. His drug problem is at its worst point. One day, while visiting his daughter, Liam drops her, causing her mother to kick Liam out. Drive Shaft then does a diaper commercial featuring their song. They do very badly, with the result that they are fired from the job. Charlie begins writing music again on his piano, as he wants Drive Shaft to make a comeback. However, he comes home one day to find that his piano is missing. Liam tells Charlie that he sold it to buy a plane ticket to Sydney, where his daughter and her mother are, and where he intends to enroll in a rehab clinic so he can be a good father.

With the band gone, Charlie has to resort to theft to feed his heroin addiction. After a failed relationship with a wealthy woman named Lucy, whom he actually wants to rob, Charlie turns to his brother to try to reunite the band for a new eight-week tour, opening for another band. He flies to Australia to get his brother (who is now married, clean, and settled down) on board. Unlike Charlie, however, Liam cannot be swayed by the promise of a return to the rock-star lifestyle. Moreover, when Liam understands that Charlie is still addicted to heroin, he tries to get Charlie to remain in Sydney and enter a treatment program. Angry with Liam and blaming him for getting him hooked on heroin, Charlie storms off, saying he has a plane to catch.

The night before the flight, he meets a female fan in a bar and goes on a heroin binge with her in his hotel room. In the morning, he attempts to hide the remaining heroin from her, causing her to attack him in an attempt to take it from him. On board the airplane, he attempts to cram his bass guitar into a clothes closet. He has brought his remaining heroin aboard the plane and attempts to use some of it during the flight, going to the forward lavatory near the cockpit for privacy. When the turbulence begins, he drops the stash and it remains in the lavatory, until later on the island when he accompanies Jack and Kate on their initial expedition to locate the nose of the plane. While Jack and Kate talk to the pilot in the cockpit, Charlie retrieves his stash and continues to use it periodically until some time later, when Locke helps him quit.

On the island

Since coming to the island, Charlie is involved in several major trials. He deals with withdrawal from his addiction after burning his remaining stash in "The Moth." Then he and Claire are kidnapped by Ethan Rom, and he nearly dies when Ethan blindfolds and hangs him from a tree. After Claire's escape, Ethan comes to him with a threat of killing the remaining survivors one by one until Claire is brought to him. When Ethan makes good on his promise by killing Scott Jackson, the core survivors plan to capture him. In the ensuing fight with Ethan, Charlie takes matters into his own hands and shoots Ethan in "Homecoming", claiming that it had to be done because he would never stop coming after them.

In the double length "Exodus (Part 2)", Rousseau kidnaps Claire's child. While pursuing her, Charlie follows Sayid to the plane where Boone was mortally injured. Not knowing that Charlie is a recovering addict, Sayid casually mentions the plane's cargo of heroin hidden within religious statuettes. Charlie has taken at least five of the Virgin Mary statues from the plane. He was very protective of them. In "Adrift", Claire finds the Virgin Mary Statue in Charlie's bag and asks where it came from. He says he found it in the jungle, but does not mention that it contains heroin.

After other characters open the hatch, Charlie feels he is left in the dark about all the secrets on the island, so he follows Locke in hopes of getting some answers, which Locke gives to him. Hurley gives peanut butter to Charlie and he gives it to Claire. Claire also mentions to Locke that Charlie has a Virgin Mary Statue. Locke is surprised because he thought Charlie was over his habit. After Charlie makes a comment that Claire has a lot to learn about being a mother and is being "irresponsible", Locke says that that is an odd thing for a heroin addict to say. Charlie retorts that he is a recovering addict.

In The 23rd Psalm Charlie tells Eko that his brother helped him start using heroin and he tried to stop his brother from using. Claire kicks Charlie out after suspecting that he is using again. Charlie begins collecting the statues in a discreet location in the jungle.

In Fire + Water Charlie has a series of dreams that lead him to believe that Aaron is in danger. He talks to Eko, who suggests that Aaron may need to be baptized. Later, Locke finds Charlie at his stash with a statue in his hands. Locke confiscates the drugs and tells Charlie that he has lost the privilege of being trusted. That evening Charlie starts a fire as a distraction, steals Aaron from Claire, and runs to the ocean. Claire sees Charlie and runs after him screaming. Charlie claims he is trying to baptize the baby, but is soon surrounded. He hands the baby back to Locke, who gives him to Claire. Locke then punches him in the face repeatedly. Charlie is left laying in the surf, reeling, while the others leave. In the morning Jack stitches Charlie's face, and Charlie admits that he's the one who started the fire, but says that he was not using heroin.

In The Long Con Charlie helps Sawyer with his con to get all of the guns that were locked in the hatch by abducting Sun. After Sawyer has taken control of the island, he offers him one of the Virgin Mary statues. Charlie does not accept it, and retorts that he would have stolen one if he had wanted to. He says he only participated in Sawyer's con in order to humiliate Locke for what Locke did to him.

Although Charlie is looked upon in a different light by his fellow survivors since taking Aaron, Sayid still treats him the same, mainly because he remembers that Charlie was almost killed by Ethan. He even feels comfortable enough to bring Charlie along on the search for Henry Gale's balloon. Charlie assists Mr. Eko with his building project, even though, initially, Mr. Eko doesn't tell him that they are building a church.

Trivia

Charlie was originally intended to be cast as a forty-one-year-old rock star who had fallen from the public's eye but the casting people liked Dominic Monaghan's audition for Sawyer so much that he was given the role of Charlie.

The character of Charlie and his brother in the band Drive Shaft are modeled after the Gallagher Brothers (Liam and Noel) of the band Oasis.

The actor Dominic Monaghan who plays Charlie fell in love in the island and is now engaged to the actress Evangeline Lilly who portrayes Kate.

Hugo "Hurley" Reyes

Prior to Oceanic Flight 815

Hurley is a Latino from the Los Angeles area. Before the crash, Hurley was involved in an accident where a deck that he and 23 other people were standing on collapsed, leaving two people dead. Believing his weight was the cause of the deck's collapse, Hurley felt tremendous guilt and went into a catatonic state, doing nothing except eat constantly. When he snapped out of it, his mother admitted him to a mental hospital. Libby was also a patient at the mental hospital.

In the mental hospital, Hurley's doctor - Dr. Brooks - attempts to ease Hurley's guilt, explaining that the deck was built to only hold eight people, so Hurley's presence was a moot point - the deck would have collapsed whether he was there or not. Hurley also meets Dave, a man who seems to be the only normal person in the place, although he advises Hurley to eat all he wants and ignore Brooks' orders to diet and to take his prescribed Clonazepam, which Hurley follows. Eventually, Brooks takes a picture of Dave and Hurley. When he shows the picture to Hurley, only Hurley is there - Dave does not exist at all. He is only a figment of Hurley's imagination, the part of Hurley's mind that does not want him to get better, and wants him to eat to ease his guilt. Despite Hurley realising that Dave is an imaginary friend - albeit a very real one that even slaps him - he almost escapes the mental hospital with Dave's urging. At the last minute, Hurley refuses to leave because he wants to get better, rejecting Dave. This was a breakthrough in Hurley's recovery, and he was released from the mental hospital soon after.

Hurley gets his old job back at Mr. Cluck's Chicken Shack and moves back in with his mother. One day, he becomes extremely wealthy, winning a $114-million lottery using numbers that were always muttered by a former fellow psychiatric patient named Leonard. The day after the winning draw, Hurley quits his job and spends the day with his friend Johnny (DJ Qualls); he hopes their carefree ways will continue despite his sudden wealth, but Johnny is clearly shaken by the revelation. Afterwards, people around Hurley are afflicted by misfortunes: his grandfather suddenly dies during an interview with news crews; lightning strikes the priest at the funeral; his brother loses his wife to another woman; his mother breaks her ankle while getting out of the car to see the new home Hurley has bought for her; the house then catches fire; he is falsely arrested after being mistaken for a drug dealer; and his previous place of employment (Mr. Cluck's Chicken Shack) is smashed by a meteorite.

Hurley, however, continues to experience incredibly good luck and his acquisitions continue to accumulate: over-insurance on a sneaker company he owns pays off when a fire consumes the factory and causes several deaths; his false arrest results in a hefty settlement; and he acquires ownership of a box company in Tustin, California, which Locke worked at. By the time of the crash, his net worth is $156 million. Despite this, Hurley eventually comes to believe that the lottery numbers he used — 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 — were cursed.

When Hurley returns to the hospital to discover the origin of "the numbers," the patient he acquired them from, Leonard, reveals that he heard them when working with a naval officer named Sam Toomey. The two of them had heard the numbers when monitoring radio signals from the Pacific Ocean. Hurley tracks down Toomey to his home in the outback of Australia, only to find out from his wife that he had also thought the numbers were cursed, and killed himself to finally escape them. Hurley is on Flight 815 while returning from this visit, despite many incidents that almost cause him to miss the flight, because he does not want to miss his mother's birthday. Hurley now believes that the crash of Flight 815 was his fault.

On the Island

Since coming to the island, Hurley quickly bonds with Jack and Charlie, and manages to sustain fairly strong relationships with everyone else, probably due to his apparent friendliness and straightforwardness. However, he opens up to very few people on the island. He reveals his secret — he is worth millions of dollars — only to Charlie and Jack, although Charlie treats it as a joke, and Jack gives little reaction. Hurley appears to be happy-go-lucky and often provides comic relief. He is very active on the island, creating a golf course to ease people's tensions; taking the census that reveals that Ethan was not on the flight; heading into the jungle to find Rousseau; and ultimately recovering a battery for Sayid to use for the raft's radar.

Hurley accompanies Danielle, Jack, Locke, Kate, and Arzt into the jungle in the season finale of Season 1. With Arzt's demise, Hurley again assumes the blame for everyone's misfortune. After returning to the hatch, Hurley discovers that the serial number on the hatch matches the numbers he played in the lottery, and he unsuccessfully tries to keep Locke from blowing the hatch open. Once Desmond abandons the underground bunker to the castaways, Hurley is assigned the job of inventory in the supply closet. His previous experience with sudden privilege makes him fearful of what the food distribution task will mean to his standing with the others. He is prepared to blow up the bunker's pantry with the unused pack of dynamite from the Black Rock, but Rose talks him out of it. He decides instead to hand the food out freely to whomever asks for it, pointing out to Jack there is no feasible way to ration it.

Hurley thinks he has a chance for a romantic relationship with Libby in the episode "The Hunting Party". Hurley becomes closer to Libby while doing laundry with her in "Fire + Water", and although he has the feeling that he knows her from somewhere else, he does not remember that she was a patient in the same mental hospital as him. Although Libby claims it is because Hurley stepped on her foot when he rushed onto Flight 815 in "Exodus: Part 3.", this explanation seems unlikely since Hurley was in the midsection and Libby was seated in the tail section of the plane.

In "One of Them", we find out that Hurley has a secret stash of food from the hatch. Sawyer catches him with the food and makes him find the tree frog that is bothering him. He tells Sawyer that he is aware that he is fat, that he has always been fat. He also says to him that even though he has stolen food, everyone else still loves him. Hurley is also discovered eating from his secret stash of food by Sun in "The Whole Truth".

In "Dave", Hurley destroys his secret stash of food, wanting to diet with Libby's help. This is put to the test when there is a sudden delivery of new food supplies from an unknown source. On top of that, Hurley starts seeing Dave again. He tells Hurley that his recovery from the mental hospital never happened, and life on the island is all a figment of his imagination. According to Dave, he indeed does exist in real life, and after refusing to escape with him, Hurley went into another and more severe catatonic state, which Dave claims Hurley is still in today. He uses examples to back his claim up: Leonard's "numbers" appear everywhere, Hurley hasn't lost any weight, he won the lottery, and an attractive woman like Libby is actually interested in him. Dave says he has suddenly appeared in Hurley's mind because Hurley subconsciously wants to "wake up." Dave suggests that Hurley commit suicide by jumping off a cliff to "wake up." However, Libby stops Hurley just in time and assures him that everything is really happening, supporting the claim by demonstrating that he doesn't know everything that happened to the survivors on the other side of the island. She then kisses him as further evidence.

Hurley and Libby then begin a romantic relationship, which is unfortunately short-lived. While in the hatch to get some blankets that Hurley forgot to bring along on a romantic picnic, Libby is shot by Michael. She is mortally wounded, and Hurley is by Libby's side as she dies soon afterwards. He tearfully tells her that he is sorry about forgetting the blankets.

Shannon Rutherford

Prior to Oceanic Flight 815

Shannon's father, Adam Rutherford, died in a car accident caused by Jack's future wife. Her step-mother, Sabrina, tells Shannon that her father didn't have a will, so she will receive none of his money. Shannon asks for money to help her to move to New York where she received an internship at Martha Graham Dance Company, but Sabrina refuses. When Boone attempts to give her money, Shannon turns him down.

Shannon has lived in various places around the world, including France, Australia, and the United States. Because of her step-mother's exclusion of her from the family money, Shannon cons Boone into giving her large sums of money, frequently through his "buying out" of her abusive boyfriends. It was one such con which brought both of them to Australia, and the reason they were on Oceanic Flight 815. However, Shannon's Australian boyfriend steals the money from her, leaving her no choice but to go back to Boone. The night before Oceanic Flight 815, a drunken Shannon seduces and sleeps with her step-brother, Boone.

Shannon was once married, but got divorced. Who the man was, or what made them divorce, is unknown. It may never be known, at least not in detail, now that both she and her brother are both dead.

On the island

Since coming to the island, Shannon does her best to keep everyone at arm's length, frequently behaving selfishly. However, her knowledge of French allows her to translate Rousseau's distress signal for the benefit of other survivors. In addition, Sayid breaks through to her while attempting to decode French words on Rousseau's maps, and they begin developing a romantic relationship. However, Shannon blames John Locke for Boone's death, and when Sayid refuses to kill Locke for her and interferes with her own attempt to kill Locke, their relationship takes a turn for the worse. Young Walt gives her his dog when he leaves on the raft, so that she can talk to (and bond with) Vincent and work out her grief. Shannon and Sayid later rekindle their relationship. After all this, Shannon lost some of her selfishness and became kinder. She also became more involved in the mysteries of the island.

After the "Others" attack the rafters and kidnap Walt, Shannon begins seeing visions of the young boy dripping wet and speaking backwards. The other survivors do not believe her when she tells them that she saw Walt.

When she tells Sayid in Abandoned, he believes she has just had a nightmare, until he follows her into the woods and sees Walt too. As Shannon runs through the jungle, Ana-Lucia Cortez mistakes her for one of the Others and shoots her in the abdomen. She dies in Sayid's arms, and is buried next to her brother in What Kate Did.

Jack Shephard

Prior to the crash of Oceanic Flight 815

Jack is a spinal surgeon who lived in the United States. He traveled to Sydney to find his father, Dr. Christian Shephard.

Early in his medical career, he operates on a car crash victim named Sarah whose spine was damaged in the accident. He is convinced that surgery will not alleviate her paralysis, and he is characteristically cold and direct with her about her chances. Convinced the operation was a failure, both are startled to find that she can "miraculously" move her toes and has regained feeling in her legs. They eventually marry, despite Jack's apprehension in the days preceding the ceremony. Eventually their marriage falls apart under the pressure of his work; by the time of the flight, Jack is unmarried and does not wear a wedding ring. He admits it is currently 'knocking around in his sock drawer'.

Jack and his father are working on a tumor patient named Angelo. His daughter Gabriela is his translator. Jack and his father think that the operation would not work like his miracle operation on Sarah. He gets home to Sarah and she says that her pregnancy test was negative, and Jack is relieved. Christian, Jack's father, sees that Jack is attracted to Gabriela and tells him not to cheat. Angelo dies on the operating table after a month of examination. On his way to his car, Jack sees Gabriela, whom he tries to console. Gabriela ends up kissing Jack; Jack tells her that it is not the right thing to do. When he gets home, Jack confesses to his wife about what happened. She, in turn, tells him that she had been cheating on him and that she is leaving him. Jack, being a workaholic, feels he contributed to the failure of the marriage.

His father, Christian, operates on a woman while under the influence of alcohol; when a nurse tells Jack about this he relieves his father and takes over the surgery. He is unable to repair the damage, however, and the woman dies. Christian pressures Jack to sign a report saying the woman was beyond medical assistance, but during the inquiry Jack discovers that the woman was pregnant and reveals that his father had caused fatal damage by severing a major artery. His father flees with his medical career shattered, eventually ending up in Sydney. While there, Christian encounters Sawyer in a bar and tells him that he wanted to apologize and tell his son that he did the right thing, but is too weak to call him. Christian Shephard later dies of a massive heart attack brought on by alcohol poisoning. When Jack leaves the United States, he knows only that his father is missing. Eventually he finds him in a Sydney morgue. Jack has trouble getting the casket onto the plane but is eventually successful.

Prior to the flight, Jack has a conversation in the airport bar with Ana-Lucia Cortez, who will also be on the same flight. The two flirt and promise to meet each other later during the flight, though they are seated in different sections of the plane. It is later revealed that she was Christians' bodyguard and drinking-buddy while in Australia.

On the plane, he is seated next to Rose. When the turbulence strikes, Rose's husband is in the bathroom and Jack promises to take care of her until he returns. Before the plane's tail section broke off, Jack loses consciousness.

Jack's seat number during the flight is 23 B, one of the numbers is 23.

On the island

At the beginning of "Pilot: Part 1", we see that Jack was thrown into the woods and had multiple gashes, including a large one on his back. Upon finding the plane's wreckage on the beach, he tends to many survivors but is unable to save all of them. He enlists Kate to sew the gash on his back, marking the beginning of their friendship. He leads an expedition with Kate and Charlie to find the cockpit and the plane's transceiver. Together they find it but also witness the pilot's death at the hands of the "monster".

Jack is quickly thrust into a leadership role by the other survivors because of his medical training and take-charge attitude. He quickly develops a rivalry with Sawyer, mainly over Kate and her feelings towards them. Starting in "Walkabout" and continuing in "White Rabbit", Jack begins glimpsing his father distantly. He chases the image, which eventually leads him to a cave shelter and source of fresh water. He also finds his father's casket, empty, and subsequently destroys it. The whereabouts of his father's body is still unknown. Jack gets some of the survivors to join him in the caves, while others refuse to leave the beach, hoping to spot a rescue ship.

Until "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues", Jack is mainly seen performing medical duties, such as trying to help Shannon with her asthma, or Claire with her false labor pains. In that episode, he hastily tries to find Ethan after he abducts Charlie and Claire. When they find Charlie, Jack attempts to save him with CPR, but to little avail at first. Even when Kate tells him to give up, Jack continues until he resuscitates Charlie.

When Kate tries to get a case that belonged to the U.S. Marshal, she gets Jack to help exhume the Marshal's body to find the key. After Jack finds the guns in the case, he takes it and the key and hides it. He first takes them out when he, Sawyer, Charlie and Sayid decide to trap Ethan. In "Deus Ex Machina" and "Do No Harm", Jack works furiously to save Boone, who had suffered fatal injuries in the previous episode. However, he finds himself still having trouble letting go, as evidenced when he reveals that he is O-negative and gives Boone some of his blood. This problem with letting go was foreshadowed in most of his flashbacks. Boone eventually tells Jack to let him go, to which Jack agrees. Since then, Jack's distrust of Locke has grown due to Locke not telling Jack everything that's going on.

In "Exodus", Jack is part of the team that retrieves the dynamite at the "Black Rock" and that plans to open the mysterious hatch. Before he leaves, he and Sawyer make up when Sawyer tells him about the encounter he had with his father. Jack and Locke put aside their differences in order to open it, although Locke says that the reason they don't get along is because Jack is a "man of science," while Locke is a "man of faith."

In "Man of Science Man of Faith" and "Adrift" it is Jack who descends into the hatch after Kate and Locke. He explores the rooms underground and is surprised by Locke and his kidnapper. Jack discovers that the man who has taken them prisoner is a man named Desmond who he met the night he operated on his future wife Sarah.

In "Collision" Jack is surprised to hear that Ana-Lucia survived the crash along with other members of the tail section of the plane, and that she accidentally shot and killed fellow castaway Shannon Rutherford.

In "What Kate Did" Jack struggles with his unresolved feelings for Kate. The situation is complicated when an injured and delirious Sawyer declares his love for her in front of Jack, and when Kate suddenly kisses Jack in the jungle. At the end of the episode Jack reaches out to Ana-Lucia, who has distanced herself from the other survivors. He offers her tequila, the drink she had with him in the bar so many weeks before, and the two reconnect.

In "The Hunting Party", he and Locke search for Michael, who had locked them both in the arms locker and gone in search of Walt. Even though he asked Kate not to come, she follows them anyway, and is taken hostage by Mr. Friendly. After a brief standoff, the flight survivors drop their weapons, and Kate apologizes for following the group. Later, Jack asks Ana-Lucia how long she thinks it would take to "train an army."

In "The Long Con", After Locke moves the guns, he argues with Locke about them trusting each other.

In "One of Them", As the interrogation in the armory get out of control, Jack holds Locke against the wall and demands him to unlock the armory. The timer goes off and with few seconds to spare, Locke complies with Jack and lets him in to stop the interrogation.

In "Lockdown", Jack takes care of Aaron, who is running a fever, and is approached by Libby, who was stung by a sea urchin. He comments to Libby that some Neosporin should help, to which she replies the going rate of exchange for Neosporin is 10 loads of laundry, alluding to Sawyer, who stole all the medical supplies from the hatch. Sawyer is playing poker with Hurley and Kate for mangoes. Jack shows some knowledge of poker when he advises Hurley to fold, implying he can read in Hurley's face that he doesn't have anything good. Sawyer goads Jack into playing a few hands with them, figuring Jack was someone who just played poker online. Jack agrees to play a few hands and ends up winning all the mangoes and fruit. As he gets up to leave, Sawyer raises the stakes, offering one final hand where Jack names the stakes of the game. After thinking for a second, Jack asks for the medical supplies from the hatch, and beats Sawyer with a pair of nines. As Jack goes to leave, Sawyer asks why he didn't ask for the guns at the stakes, to which Jack replies "When I need the guns, I'll get the guns."

In "S.O.S.", Jack, fed up of Henry's unwillingness to co-operate, decides to go into the jungle to propose a trade with the Others; Henry for Walt. Jack heads to the beach looking for Kate and ask her to go with him into the jungle to find the Others. Kate, surprised says yes. Sawyer (who was with Kate at the time) wonders about the gun that Jack is carrying, and asks him where he got the gun, to which Jack repies "Does it really matter?". While in the jungle, Kate finds a small play doll lying on the ground. Jack senses that it's a trap and tries to stop her from picking it up, but Kate picks it up and they both get caught in one of Rosseau's traps. They eventually make their way out of the trap by shooting the rope holding them up and continue into the jungle. They eventually get to the line that Mr. Friendly marked out. Jack starts to call the Others out. By nightfall the Others still haven't appeared. Kate thinks that the Others can't hear Jack, but Jack thinks otherwise. After a while, Kate says, "I'm sorry I kissed you," referring to the episode "What Kate Did." Jack replies, "I'm not." The sound of a twig snapping gets Kate's and Jack's attention. Jack readies his gun as they both watch a torch move through the distant jungle. The figure gets closer and closer and falls over at their makeshift camp. Jack and Kate both help the person up. It's Michael.

In "Two For the Road", Jack is taking care of Michael, when after Michael explains the situation with The Others, Jack confronts Sawyer telling him to give him the guns. After he doesn't get them, Locke tells Jack why Sawyer doesn't have his gun and what happened to Ana-Lucia earlier that day. Jack sets off along with Kate, Sawyer, and Locke back to the Hatch.

In "?", Jack is going back and forth taking care of a wounded Libby and Michael. Jack in unaware that Michael is the shooter, but he tells Sawyer to give him some heroin, so as to put Libby in a happy state. Jack and Hurley are there to hear Libby's last word: "Michael..."

Trivia

In the original outline of the pilot episode, Jack was supposed to be killed halfway through; however, early readers claimed killing him off would lose viewers. Fox was subsequently cast in a permanent role after considerations of a better known guest star such as Michael Keaton.