| Jack Shephard | |
Matthew Fox as Jack Shephard |
|
| First appearance | "Pilot, Part 1" |
|---|---|
| Centric episode(s) |
"Pilot, Part 1" "White Rabbit" "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues" "Do No Harm" "Exodus, Part 1" "Man of Science, Man of Faith" "The Hunting Party" "A Tale of Two Cities" "Stranger in a Strange Land" "Through the Looking Glass" "Something Nice Back Home" "There's No Place Like Home" |
| Information | |
| Name | Jack Shephard |
| Age | 37 |
| Former residence |
Los Angeles, California, USA |
| (Former) profession | Neurosurgeon |
| Portrayed by | Matthew Fox |
Dr. Jack Shephard is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost played by Matthew Fox. Jack is the leader of the crash survivors and the main character of the series.[1] He is the antithesis of John Locke and the love interest of both Kate Austen and Juliet Burke.
Contents |
Jack was born into a successful family, with aspirations of following in the footsteps of his surgeon father, who told Jack at an early age that he would never make a great leader. Following college and early in his career as a spinal surgeon, Jack operated on a young girl, in the process accidentally severing a nerve sac in her spine. Following a brief panic, he counted to five and fully repaired the damage, a story he would later recall to Kate as a way to manage fear. Jack later operated on Sarah, a woman involved in a car accident with Adam Rutherford (Shannon's father). Speaking to Sarah before the operation, he vowed that despite the high likelihood of her becoming a paraplegic, he would "fix her." After the operation, he ran the stairs in a stadium to relieve stress, where he meets Desmond for the first time. Returning to the hospital, Jack was surprised to discover that Sarah could move her toes. Following her recovery, the two marry on August 15.
Months later, as Jack's marriage grew strained, he and Christian were approached by an Italian man with a inoperable tumor, who asked Jack to operate on him. Jack reluctantly agreed, but is unable to save the man during surgery, who died on the table of heart failure. As Jack consoled the man's distraught daughter in the parking lot, he was drawn into a kiss. He returned home to Sarah and apologetically confessed to her, at which point she admitted that despite her love for him, she had been cheating on him, and left him that night. Unable to bear this loss, Jack refused to cooperate during the divorce procedures, demanding to know the identity of the man she was seeing. When Sarah refused, Jack stole her phone bill and called all the listed numbers, one of which belonged to his father. Jack followed his father to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, where he attacked him and was arrested. After Sarah bailed him out of jail, she revealed that Christian had relapsed back into alcoholism.
Jack retreated to Thailand for several months, where he had an affair with Achara, a secretive young woman with a unique gift of seeing a person's true self. Jack followed her one night and demanded that she describe his true character. Achara revealed that he was a great leader, but was also angry and lonely as a result. Jack demanded a tattoo of his description, but Achara secretly branded him an "outsider," prompting the previously friendly locals to banish him from the country. Jack returned to the United States and resumed his surgeon duties, on one occasion relieving his father during an operation on a woman. During the surgery, Jack was informed that Christian was intoxicated during the operation. Although Christian initially persuaded Jack to sign a report and ignore his intoxication, Jack changed his mind upon learning that the woman was pregnant, and exposed his father as a chronic alcoholic, shattering Christian's career.
Two months later, Jack's mother ordered him to find and return Christian, who had exiled himself in Australia. An irate Jack traveled to Sydney to track down his father, but instead discovered his body in a morgue, having died of a severe heart attack from his alcohol abuse. Jack arranged for a funeral back home, but had trouble clearing the casket at the airport. His request was eventually granted, and Jack spent the last few minutes at the airport bar, where he struck up a flirtatious conversation with Ana Lucia before boarding the doomed flight. Mid-flight, air hostess Cindy slipped him two bottles of vodka to ease his tension. He kept Rose company while her husband Bernard was in the toilet at the rear of the plane when turbulence hits. Before crashing, however, Jack passed out.
Jack wakes up in the jungle, with a large gash on his back. He emerges from the jungle, bewildered at first, to discover the crash site. He immediately rushes over to help as many people as possible; he pulls a man from beneath the plane wheel, he rescues Claire and Hurley from a collapsing wing, and manages to revive Rose. Later, he encounters Kate, and asks her to sew up his gash. That night, he and Kate plan to head inland to find the cockpit, as well as the radio transceiver. They are soon joined by Charlie, and the three successfully find the cockpit. After a brief encounter with the "Monster", Jack returns to the beach, where he is called to examine an unconscious United States air marshal impaled on shrapnel. He manages to control his bleeding, and learns of Kate's criminal past. When Sawyer fails to kill him, Jack performs euthanasia on the marshal.
Deprived of sleep, Jack begins experiences what he believes to be hallucinations, and continually has visions of a man in a gray suit. At one point Joanna, one of the crash survivors, is drowning in the ocean. Boone swims out but can't reach her, and Jack rescues Boone. Jack is distraught that he failed to save her and sees the man in the suit again. Several hours later, Jack sees him again, and chases him. He catches up and discovers it's his father. Frightened, he asks, "Dad?", who silently turns and walks away. Jack begins to deliriously stumble through the jungle looking for his father. He falls off a precipice while running. He hangs on to a branch, but cannot climb up. Locke appears and helps him. Locke tells Jack that the others need a leader, and it should be him. Jack reveals that his father is a hallucination. Locke claims the island is "special", and everything that happens on it does so for a reason. He says, "I looked into the eye of this island and what I saw was beautiful." They split up: Locke looks for water and instructs Jack to follow his hallucination, saying "You need to finish what you started."
That night, Jack discovers caves with an abundance of fresh water. More wreckage from the plane is here, including a coffin. Jack opens the coffin after a few hours to find it's empty, and angrily destroys it. He returns to the beach, just in time to save Boone, who stole the water, and the survivors are becoming violent. Jack tells everyone about the caves. He also tells Kate about his father. Later he leads a handful of survivors to take up residence. However, during an argument with Charlie, he is caught in a cave in. Charlie comes to his rescue, and helps him escape. Since then, Jack deals with the survivors' illnesses up until Claire and Charlie's abduction by Ethan. He, Kate, Locke and Boone search for the two. Following footprints, the group eventually finds one of Charlie's knuckle bandages. Jack and Kate go off to trail Charlie, while Locke and Boone continue on the original trail. During a rainstorm, Jack and Kate get separated. Jack stumbles down an embankment after hearing what sounds like Claire screaming, and when he comes to at the bottom, Ethan confronts him. The two men struggle, but the mysterious outsider gets the upper hand, he beats and warns Jack that if he continues to follow, Ethan will kill one of the hostages.Kate soon comes to Jack's aid, and the pair follows Ethan's path until they come across Charlie, blindfolded and hanging by his neck from a tree branch. They cut him down, and Jack furiously performs CPR—despite Kate's pleas that it's a lost cause, Jack does not give up. Charlie eventually comes back to life after Jack helps him. At nightfall, with Jack, Kate, and Charlie back at the caves, Charlie reveals that it was Claire that Ethan had wanted all along.
Jack also takes possession of the guns contained in the marshal's briefcase after taking the key from Kate.
Later, Locke brings an unconscious Claire to Jack. Claire wakes up and panics, asking, "Who are you people?" The last thing that Claire claims to remember is the flight. Jack fills her in about the events since the flight. Charlie later relates his encounter with Ethan in the woods, and Ethan's threats to kill every one of the castaways until Charlie brings him Claire. Locke suggests that the islanders take security measures. That night, one of the survivors, Scott, is murdered by Ethan, and with the guns from the briefcase, and Claire as (willing) bait, Jack, Kate, Locke, Sayid and Sawyer set a trap. Ethan enters the trap, and Jack is forced to fight him again, but this time Jack is able to subdue him, and the others surround him at gunpoint. Although the plan is to keep Ethan alive, a vengeful Charlie fires four rounds into his chest and kills him with a gun that Jack had dropped during the fight. Charlie tells Jack that Ethan "deserved to die".
Later, Locke brings a critically injured Boone to the caves, and Jack and Sun work into the night to try and save him. The next morning, Jack informs Shannon of her brother's demise.
Kate drugs Jack in order to get him to sleep. When he awakens, the key to the guns are missing. His suspicions fall upon Locke, and he, Kate and Sayid enter the jungle to find Shannon holding Locke at gunpoint. The next day, Sayid takes Jack to the hatch, discovered by Locke. Later one morning Danielle Rousseau arrives at the beach to warn the survivors that The Others are coming, and tells them more of her own story. Later, a column of black smoke is seen in the distance. Jack and the others show Rousseau the hatch, and tell her of their need to open it, perhaps with dynamite. Rousseau offers to take them to a wooden shipwreck, the Black Rock, which is a British slaving ship that was found inland on the Island. she takes Jack, Kate, Locke, Hurley and Arzt to the Black Rock, in order to gather some dynamite.Jack runs into Sawyer in the jungle, and hands him a pistol with ammo "just in case". They share an awkward, distant goodbye. As Jack leaves, Sawyer stops him and tells him of the details of when he met a man named Christian (Jack's father) in a bar. He tells Jack what Christian said about his son, and Jack is visibly moved. Jack moves off into the jungle. They eventually make their way to the Black Rock. Rousseau departs, and Jack, Kate, and Locke enter the ship through a hole in the side. They find the skeletons of several slaves, as well as some old mining equipment, including the dynamite. At least two cases of highly-volatile sticks are present inside the ship's hold. While attempting to handle some of the volatile dynamite carefully, the unfortunate Arzt triggers one of the sticks and blows himself up. The remaining survivors decide to continue, wrap the dynamite in wet cloth, draw straws to see who would carry it, and leave the ship with several sticks of dynamite.
On their way back to the hatch, Jack and Kate see what seems to be a small cloud of smoke move through some nearby trees, and they hear the rumbling of the monster, which ensnares Locke's leg and drags him through the jungle. Jack grabs onto Locke to prevent him from being pulled into a hole, though Locke pleads with Jack to let him go. Jack then instructs Kate to drop a stick of dynamite into the tunnel, which causes an underground explosion, resulting in black smoke coming out of a nearby hole on the horizon, and disappearing. The hold on Locke slackens and they are able to extract him. Jack and Locke discuss the situation of the Monster, and they agree that Jack is a man of science, but that Locke is a man of faith. Locke believes everything that has occurred is to "open the hatch." Jack disagrees, and believes it is to survive. They later arrive at the hatch, and manage to set the dynamite up on the hinge, and are about to set it off when Hurley notices the appearance of the numbers on the side. He yells at them not to light the fuse, but Locke does so anyway. Hurley tries to stamp it out, repeating, "the numbers are bad", but fails, and Jack tackles him just in time to save him from the blast. The season ends with Jack and Locke looking down into the hatch as the camera pans down to reveal a very deep dark hole with a broken ladder near the top.
Jack declines to descend the newly opened hatch, telling Locke and Kate not to enter. After they disobey his orders and enter, Jack follows after them, where he discovers Locke being held hostage by Desmond, who had been living in the hatch for the past three years. He shows the three of them an orientation video, but flees when Kate damages the computer. Jack pursues him and realizes he recognizes him from the time before when he ran laps at the stadium. Desmond gives Jack the code to enter into the computer which resets the countdown. Following Desmond's departure, Jack and Locke set up a rotating shift for certain survivors to enter the code into the computer. One day, while Jack and Kate spend a day playing golf, they encounter Mr. Eko carrying a critically injured Sawyer. They take them into the hatch, where Jack plots revenge for Shannon's death, but changes his mind when he learns more about the accident. Jack and Kate take turns tending to Sawyer, and Jack leaves him in her care while he departs. After the funeral, Jack and Locke return to the hatch where they find the counter close to zero and Sawyer unconscious on the ground. After helping Sawyer, a livid Jack searches for and corners Kate, who apologizes for not being “as perfect as you.” Through her tears, she claims that the island is driving her mad, and kisses Jack passionately before running away.
Jack finds Locke unconscious in the hatch armory. As he enters, Michael confronts him, armed with weapons and insisting that neither Jack nor Locke follow him as he leaves to search for his son. Despite the warning, Jack, Locke and Sawyer pursue him, only to encounter the Others, who hold Kate hostage and ransom her for their weapons. Jack, enraged with Kate, ignores her during their return to the beach. Later, Jack becomes an unsuspecting pawn in Sawyer's long con to steal the remaining weapons and medicine. Meanwhile, Danielle reveals that she caught a member of the Others. Jack, Locke and Sayid bring captured man, named "Henry Gale", into the hatch and interrogate him. During the subsequent interrogations, Gale toys with Jack and Locke's grudge, frequently pitting them against each other, before Sayid, Ana Lucia and Charlie expose Henry as an imposter.
Jack and Kate decide to approach the Others to trade Henry for Walt. At the meeting point where Kate was previously held hostage, the Others refuse to appear. Kate and Jack set up camp for the night and while sitting by the fire, Kate apologizes to Jack for kissing him. Jack replies that he has no regrets. The two's intimate moment is interrupted when a wounded and exhausted Michael stumbles from the bushes. After he regains consciousness, Michael promises to take Jack to the Others' camp. As Jack asks Sawyer for the guns, he learns about Ana Lucia's intention to kill Henry. Jack, Kate, Locke and Sawyer rush to the hatch to discover Ana Lucia dead, with Michael and Libby severely injured from gunshot wounds. Initially intent on pursuing Henry, Jack stays and administers confiscated heroin to the dying Libby to ease her pain. Following her death, he agrees to follow Michael to the Others' camp. The group departs the next day, having been cautioned by a wary Sayid that Michael may be a traitor. On the way to the camp, Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley are surprised and gagged and taken to the pier in restraints. Hurley is freed and ordered to return to the survivors as a warning, and Jack witnesses Michael and Walt leaving the island aboard a boat. Jack, Kate and Sawyer are taken away with the Others.
Jack finds himself held in a room with a glass wall, where he is questioned by Juliet. Jack refuses to cooperate with her or Ben, almost flooding the hatch. Since then, he eventually begins to settle down. On his second day as captive, Juliet seeks his medical expertise to operate on Colleen, but she flat lines and dies on the table. Jack notices some x-rays on the wall, and asks about the tumor on the spine. After attending the funeral, Ben reveals that he wants him to operate on him, to which Jack spitefully refuses. Juliet wants Kate to talk to Jack to ask him to do the surgery or they will kill Sawyer. She agrees. She is brought to the room where Jack is, emotion overcomes the both of them. Jack asks Kate why they are letting her talk to him, she says they need him to do the surgery, warning that they will kill Sawyer if he doesn't do it. Jack is initially very hostile after this revelation and demands that they remove Kate from his room. However, after seeing Kate and Sawyer together in the cages, he reluctantly agrees. Under Juliet's secret instruction, during the operation Jack deliberately slices open Ben's kidney, and holds Ben hostage until Kate and Sawyer escape. Juliet attempts to call his bluff, but Jack reveals her intended plan. After a discussion with Juliet and Ben, Jack resumes and completes the surgery. He is then questioned by Isabel about Juliet's motives, to which Jack denies his claims. He succeeds in sparing Juliet execution for killing one of her own, and is taken back to the Others' barracks.
Jack appears to have bonded with some of the Others during his time there, particularly Juliet. When Kate attempts to rescue him, Jack warns her that he is under surveillance, and later admits that he has struck a deal to go home, along with Juliet. However, Locke thwarts his plans by destroying the submarine. Later, Jack is knocked out by nerve gas, and is later found by Kate. When talking to Kate, Jack asks if Juliet has gone too, causing Kate to go silent. She tells him they left her behind too. Noticing the barracks completely abandoned, Jack, Kate, Sayid and Juliet return to the beach. Jack remains protective of Juliet, and intervenes whenever Sayid attempts to interrogate her. Upon arriving back at the beach, Claire suddenly falls critically ill, and Jack learns of the fate of all pregnant women on the island. He allows Juliet to treat her, to which Claire makes a full recovery. Later, Jack and Juliet learn of the arrival of Naomi. Soon after, Jack and Juliet head into the jungle to seek Rousseau's help, and ask her to retrieve some dynamite.
Upon returning to the beach, Jack and Juliet walk in on a camp meeting, who are now aware of Juliet's purpose for being amongst them. However, Jack leads them into the jungle the next day to reveal their true intentions; to rig the targeted tents with dynamite in order to destroy the Others when they invade the camp the following night. However, Jack is forced to drastically change his plan when Karl informs them that the Others are coming very shortly. Jack allows Sayid, Jin and Bernard to remain behind while he leads everyone else to the radio tower. They witness the plan backfire that night, but Jack insists they press on. On the way to the tower Sawyer tells Jack he is going back to the beach and Juliet goes with him, but gives Jack a kiss before she goes. Kate sees this and is very jealous. Later on he talks to Kate about that when Sawyer said he didn't want her to go. He says that he was protecting Kate, that is why he asked Kate not to come back to the others camp for him. Kate then asks him why he is sticking up for Sawyer, Jack replies with "Because I love you". He eventually encounters Ben and Alex in the jungle, to which Ben tricks Jack into thinking that Sayid, Jin and Bernard are dead. Jack takes Ben hostage again, and takes him with them to the tower. After Locke apparently kills Naomi, Jack uses her satellite phone to make contact with her freighter.
Jack tells Hurley that they've made contact with the freighter, and that they're all headed back to the beach. As they're about the leave, Jack realizes that the supposedly 'dead' Naomi has disappeared. Rousseau and Kate find two different trails; Jack opts to follow Rousseau's, and tells Kate to take the others back to the beach. Kate hugs him, and then Jack, Rousseau and Ben head out to look for Naomi. When they reach the end of the trail Rousseau explains Naomi has fooled them, and then Jack realizes the satellite phone is missing - Ben tells him Kate took it when she hugged him, and that she obviously found the right trail as well. They eventually meet the other survivors at the cockpit; Jack attacks Locke and aims a gun at his head. Locke tells him that he won't shoot, but before he can finish speaking Jack pulls the trigger - the gun isn't loaded. When Kate returns with news of Naomi's death, Locke explains that they need to hide, prompting Jack to call him crazy. As some of the survivors, including Sawyer and Hurley, head off with Locke to hide in the Barracks, Jack and Kate stay to wait for the helicopter.
When it arrives and a man parachutes out, Jack and Kate run into the jungle and meet him. The man introduces himself as Daniel Faraday and claims he's there to rescue them, however Jack becomes somewhat suspicious when he notices that Daniel is concealing a gun; when he and Kate discover a metal case from Daniel's helicopter containing HAZMAT suits and gas masks, Daniel admits that rescuing them is not their primary objective. Jack, Kate, and Daniel then go to meet one of Daniel's teammates, Miles, who immediately draws his gun on Jack and accuses him of killing Naomi. When Jack and Kate take them to Naomi's body, Miles accepts that Naomi was killed by Locke, but nevertheless does not lower his weapon, ordering Daniel to do the same. Jack gives a reassuring wink to Kate and tells Miles and Daniel to put their guns down, warning them of Sayid and Juliet, who he notices are approaching with guns. Miles does not believe Jack, but then Juliet and Sayid fire warning shots at Miles and Daniel, forcing them to give up their weapons. They then pick up the signal of a third teammate, Charlotte, but when they find Charlotte's GPS beacon attached to Vincent, Jack concludes that Locke has taken Charlotte prisoner. They find the team's pilot, Frank, who takes them to the helicopter. Jack later intervenes when Miles begins to get aggressive with Juliet when he learns she is a native. Here, Miles reveals to Jack, Kate, Sayid, and Juliet that their real mission is to find Ben. Later, he and Juliet pursue Daniel and Charlotte when they run off to find the Tempest.
They later find Kate, who has been pistol-whipped by Charlotte. Juliet continues the search while Jack stays behind to tend to Kate. Later, they catch up to Daniel, Charlotte, and Juliet at the Tempest station. Juliet convinces Jack and Kate that Daniel and Charlotte just saved their lives, convincing them to lower their guns. Later, Juliet explains to Jack that a war is coming between the freighter crew and Ben, and that she believes that Ben will win. She then warns him to be as far away from her as possible when that happens, due to her feelings for him (Jack) and Ben's twisted love for her. Jack says that he is willing to face Ben when that day comes, and proceeds to share a kiss with Juliet. All five later return to the beach. Later, Jack begins to suffer from mysterious stomach pains, while he and the other survivors discover a body that has washed ashore. Faraday claims that it is the body of the Kahana's doctor, Ray. Due to the satellite phone being damaged, Faraday is forced to use Morse Code to get a message through. When a reply comes, he claims that it says that rescue helicopters will be sent soon. However, Bernard Nadler calls him on this lie and reveals that the message actually said "What are you talking about? The doctor is fine". Jack, still suffering from his stomach pain, then forces Faraday to reveal that the Kahana's crew never had any intention of rescuing the survivors.
In the next episode Something Nice Back Home, Jack falls ill with an appendix about to rupture. Juliet claims she has to perform basic surgery on him, and he agrees. As he prepares, he asks Juliet to allow Kate to watch and act as a nurse (hold the mirror), because he wants to watch the surgery on himself, albeit the painful procedure. He gets his wish at first, but after screaming in pain, Bernard knocks him out for his own good. The surgery is a success, and as Juliet sews the wound up, Kate chats with her while Jack is asleep. Juliet reveals to her that Jack kissed her, but he still loves Kate. Kate thanks her for saving his life, and exits. Juliet then tells Jack she knows he is feigning sleep, to which Jack responds by merely opening his eyes, a solemn expression on his face.
Later on, Jack refuses to listen to Juliet about being stationary and gets food. Then, a helicopter flies above, dropping a bag and a satellite phone in the process. This is Lapidus's message telling the survivors to hide, but Jack misinterprets it: he thinks they are to follow the chopper. He heads off with Kate. They encounter Sawyer, Aaron, and Miles, learns what happened to Claire and the true motives of the freighter, and the groups split. Jack and Sawyer head off to face Charles Widmore and rescue Hurley, while the rest returns to the beach. Jack is determined to get all his survivors off the island. The two then arrive at the Orchid Station, where Jack once more argues with Locke regarding the island. Locke orders that should Jack truly leave: he should lie about the entire plance crash incident so as to protect the island. Ben arrives to proceed moving the island with Locke, and at the same time wishes Jack a safe journey home. Jack, Hurley, and Sawyer go back to the helicopter, where Keamy and his team are already defeated by Ben's team. Five of the Oceanic Six, as well as Lapidus and Sawyer, fly off the island without looking back.
The chopper heads toward the freighter, but a bullet hole on the side of the aircraft causes a fuel leak. Sawyer, wanting to take off the extra hundred pounds to allow the chopper to say airborne, kisses Kate, making Jack somewhat jealous. Sawyer then jumps off into the ocean and swims back to the island. Jack promises Kate they will return for him.
On the freighter, Desmond Hume tries to prevent the chopper from landing, since there is a time-wearing bomb on the ship. Jack helps pump fuel onto the chopper, but only a limited number of people can go on. The ship explodes, seemingly killing Michael and Jin. Sun is distraught. The chopper then starts to swerve, and then attempts to land on the island, according to orders by Jack. But the Island disappears, and the passengers take refuge on an inflatable raft. Hurley remarks Locke succeeded on moving the Island, but Jack angrily disagrees. When Penny's rescue ship arrives, Jack orders everyone to lie about the crash, just as Locke told him to do. When Kate is skeptical, Jack claims he will do all the talking. They spend a week on the ship, and then the Oceanic Six head off towards another island inhabited by villagers. Before leaving the ship, Jack tells Lapidus that he hopes that he will never see him again. He also gives a fond farewell to Desmond, repeating the latter's catch-phrase "I'll see you in another life, brother." As the survivors make their way towards civilization, Jack exclaims, "Let's go home".
After reaching shore, Jack agrees to a press conference since the Oceanic 6 were all aware of the cover story. Jack reunites with his mother and begins a relationship with Kate. The relationship ends when Claire's mother comes to visit him and tells him that Claire was on Flight 815. Due to Aaron being his nephew, he wasn't comfortable being around Aaron any longer.
In The Beginning of the End, sometime after leaving the Island, Jack is mixing a drink in his apartment, when he sees a car chase on television, who he recognizes as Hurley. Shortly after that, Jack goes to Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute to check on Hurley's mental condition and starts playing a game of HORSE. Jack asks Hurley if he was "going to tell." Jack then gets his coat and proceeds to leave. Hurley then apologizes to Jack and said that he was sorry that he went with Locke instead of him, and Jack accepts his apology. Hurley finally asks Jack if leaving the Island was a mistake since it keeps calling to him, and Jack responds, "We're never going back!" Hurley then says, "Never say never, dude."
In Eggtown, Jack takes the stand as a character witness in Kate's trial and testifies that she saved him and eight others including the surviving Oceanic Six. He becomes very emotional on the stand and under cross examination by the prosecution says that he does not love Kate anymore. After Kate's mother refuses to testify against Kate, she is released on a plea deal and is leaving the courthouse when she is confronted by Jack. Again, emotional, he says that he was lying under oath and that he still loves her. She asks him if he wants to follow her, come by for a visit, but he makes an excuse to get to the hospital but he asks if she would be willing to go out with him. Kate gives an exasperated look and tells him that he has to see her son. However she does tell him to come over whenever he feels like seeing her and the baby.
In Something Nice Back Home, Jack has gotten over his hesitation, and is seen living in a relationship with Kate. He is also acting as a stepfather for his nephew Aaron, showing that Jack changed his mind about not wanting to see the child. Later, he asks Kate to marry him, which she happily accepts. A series of mysterious events happen. While visiting Hurley again, Hurley claims that he has been having talks with Charlie, who left a message for Jack. The message is "You're not supposed to raise him", apparently referring to Aaron. Later, while leaving work, Jack briefly sees his father in the waiting room of the hospital. Thoroughly distressed, Jack asks one of his colleagues to write him a prescription for the drug Hurley is taking, Clonazepam(brand name Klonopin), which she does. Jack is seen starting to take pills and drinking. He later confronts Kate, who has been acting mysterious, and she admits that she is doing favors for Sawyer, who is still on the island. During this argument between the two, Jack, by accident, blurts out that Aaron is not even related to Kate, while the former is in the room. Jack then leaves in shame.
Sometime after that, Locke (under the alias of Jeremy Bentham) visits Jack and other people who have left the Island. He tells Jack that he has to come back to the Island, since when he left some very bad things happened. Locke blames it solely on Jack for leaving the Island. Locke also told him that doing that would be the only way to keep Kate and Aaron safe.
In Through the Looking Glass, According to Kate 3 years have passed since leaving the island and Jack is now separated from Kate and has become a drug-addicted alcoholic. He has sunk into despair, desperately trying to get back to the Island to help the people on it as Locke told him to do. While on a plane, he finds a small note in a newspaper, and is obviously deeply disturbed by it. Once he has landed, he takes his car and drives up on a bridge. He looks at the note again, and starts to cry. He gets out of the car and climbs on top of the ledge of the bridge, meaning to jump. Just before he can jump off the bridge, however, a car crashes and he rescues a woman and her son from the wreckage. Back in the hospital, he encounters his pregnant ex-wife, since her name was still listed as his Emergency Contact. The next day, Jack wants to perform back surgery on the woman from the car accident, but the Chief of Surgery, Dr. Hamill, gently rebuffs him and tells him to rest at home.
Jack then goes to a funeral of an unidentified person and is the only person to show up. He chooses not to view the occupant of the coffin. Later he attempts to fill a prescription for Oxycodone; however the prescription is out of refills. Jack pulls out a new prescription and after reviewing it, the pharmacist tells him that he cannot prescribe medicine for himself. He then unsuccessfully tries to explain that it was written for him by his father, also a doctor. She again refuses to fill it. Visibly frustrated, Jack staggers out, knocking over several displays in the process. He then returns to the hospital and steals several small packages of Oxycodone. Confronted by Dr. Hamill, Jack is informed that the woman has awoken from her surgery and had divulged the reason for the accident: she saw a man standing on the bridge railing, about to jump. Upon being accused of being drunk, Jack tells the Chief to get his father so that he can see which Shephard is more drunk.
Jack leaves angrily and returns to his apartment, a mess with dozens of maps of what appears to be the Pacific Ocean and many items that are marked "Oceanic". Here he calls a woman, asking her to meet him at the airport. When she arrives, the woman is revealed to be Kate. He tells her about the funeral, and she claims that there was no reason for her to be there. He then explains, out of nowhere, that he has been flying across the Pacific Ocean every Friday, and coming back,(using a "Golden Pass" provided by Oceanic Airlines), hoping that the plane will crash. Distraught, Jack tells her that it was a mistake to leave the island, that they "were not supposed" to leave the island and that they have to go back. She disagrees and, crying and visibly distraught, comments that "he's going to be wondering where I am" and gets back into her car and drives off into the night. A passenger jet soars off overhead as Jack yells after her "We have to go back!" As seen in There's No Place Like Home, Kate then stops her car, gets out and begins to yell at Jack for abandoning her and Aaron. She tells Jack that Bentham visited her as well and heard what he had to say, but she knew he was crazy and did not take his advice. She says that there is no reason to go back, and then departs, leaving Jack alone.
Later, Jack is seen attempting to enter the funeral home from before. Finding it locked for the night, he breaks the door open with a rock, and enters. Jack opens the coffin containing the man from before (previously revealed to be named Jeremy Bentham, though the his body is not immediately shown), but he is interrupted by Ben. Ben tells him that he heard about how Jack had been flying and trying to crash on the Island, and that this is "Very dark, Jack". He tells him that this won't work because they (the survivors) all have to "go back together". He also asks Jack if he has spoken to "him", and Jack said he did and told Ben what Bentham told him. Jack also responds by saying it would be practically impossible to get the other survivors together, but Ben says he can help. Just as the two are about to leave, Ben reminds him that they will need all the survivors to go back including the man in the coffin. The man in the coffin is then shown to be none other than Locke.
Throughout the series, it has been stated numerous times that Jack is a natural leader. This has been demonstrated many times by his ability to think quickly and analyze crisis situations. Jack intentionally represses many of his emotions of fear and anxiety, usually in order to remain strong for the other crash survivors. The emotion that he seems to repress most, however, is his deep love for Kate Austen, which he has only twice ever fully admitted to, and even then only once in a very emotional tone of voice. This seems to be because he believes that Kate does not/cannot love him, but rather loves Sawyer, and therefore, there is no point in telling her of his deep devotion. Jack's habit of repression sometimes does flare out, usually in his propensity to become violent when he is enraged. He is also prone to become highly obsessive, which also can lead to violence. Jack is deep down a very caring person and has sacrificed himself for his crashmates several times. Later, he sinks into alcoholism and drug use out of severe depression, apparently blaming himself for the deaths of nearly all of his fellow survivors, which includes his missing half sister, Claire. This even leads to his delusions that his father is still alive, and a suicide attempt, indicating that Jack has not been completely able to cope with his traumatic experiences on the island.
In the original outline of Lost, Jack was going to be killed halfway through the first episode. Lost creator J. J. Abrams was interested in Michael Keaton for the role, as Abrams wanted to work with him. However scripts were never even sent to him, as the character was made into a regular, and Keaton wasn’t interested in a series. The producers felt that if the audience became attached to the character during the first episode, and then he was killed, they might resent the show. His death was meant to shock the audience so they would never know what would happen next. The role ended up going to Matthew Fox, who was “very excited” about it, as it was the genre and tone he was looking for.[2]
Jack has the most flashback episodes of all the characters with a total of eleven to date, and was the first to have a flashforward. He is the de facto male lead and the primary protagonist of the series. He is the son of Christian Shephard, half brother of Claire Littleton, and uncle of Aaron Littleton, though neither he nor Claire know this until Claire's mother reveals it to him at his father's wake. Jack is a talented spinal surgeon at St. Sebastian Hospital in the Los Angeles area, where his father, Christian, is Chief of Surgery. Jack had previously attended Columbia University and went on to graduate from medical school a year ahead of the rest of his class.[3] Jack has been portrayed as a “man of science”[4] and a natural leader. He has tattoos on his left arm that he received in Phuket, Thailand, which reads in Chinese, "An Eagle Cleaves the Emptiness", although one of the Others claims it says "He walks among us, but he is not one of us."[5]
After the crash of Oceanic 815, the survivors defer to him as their leader from the start. Though reluctant at first to accept this responsibility, he gradually grows comfortable with taking charge.[6]
| Lost | |
|---|---|
| Production | Cast • Episode list • Music • Season 1 • Season 2 • Season 3 • Season 4 • Season 5 |
| Main characters | Ana Lucia • Ben • Boone • Charlie • Charlotte • Claire • Desmond • Faraday • Hurley • Jack • Jin • Juliet Kate • Libby • Locke • Michael • Miles • Mr. Eko • Nikki and Paulo • Sawyer • Sayid • Shannon • Sun • Walt |
| Supporting characters | Alex • Bernard • Christian • Ethan • Keamy • Rose • Rousseau • Tom |
| Groups | Dharma Initiative • Hanso Foundation • Oceanic Airlines • The Others |
| Miscellaneous | Awards • Find 815 • Lost Experience • Lost: Missing Pieces • Lostpedia • Lost: Via Domus • Mythology |