Lost: Abandoned Rewatch

August 17, 2023 6:25 PM - Season 2, Episode 6

Shannon—

S2E6: Abandoned: (Lostpedia | transcript): air date 19th October 2005 * writer Elizabeth Sarnoff * director Adam Davidson * days 47-48 on the island * Shannon flashbacks

Sayid’s sex shack • wet Walt • au pair, my ass • step-daughter • you’re a shrink? maybe you oughta talk to my shoulder • it’s bad but it’s not real bad • Rose doesn’t like the hatch • Locke swaddles the baby • it’s not until we’re older that we develop a desire to be free • death sucks, doesn’t it? • I liked you better when you weren’t talking • we all have to work, Shannon • that’s an interesting thing to say, for a heroin addict • Cindy, gone • I need you to believe in me • Walt, seen • Shannon, shot, dead

Billie Doux, Doux Reviews: Lost: Abandoned

Wow, am I pissed.

Therese Odell, Houston Chronicle: Lost: Bang Bang, You’re Dead

We FINALLY are given a reason to like Shannon, to identify and sympathize with her, and then boom, she’s dead. I understand that the writers and producers were dealing with the logistics of Grace’s contract coming to an end, but I just feel that her character, and specifically her relationship with Sayid, had great potential that was ultimately squandered. I was irritated that the writers finally drew some emotional connections between Shannon and some of the other characters just as they killed her. Why not expose these connections earlier? Why wait until her death episode to make her likable? It seems cheap and a little lazy.

Myles McNutt, AV Club: Lost (Classic): “...And Found”/“Abandoned”

At one point, Shannon gets frustrated with Sayid’s refusal to believe her about Walt, and asks him a telling question: “You really think that this is all about Boone?” And the problem for “Abandoned,” and Shannon as a character in the television series Lost, is that it kind of is. Shannon never got to have a flashback of her own, meaning that her identity was explicitly tied to Boone and special guest star Ian Somerhalder. And where Jin and Sun’s shared flashbacks in the first season balanced the focus between the two episodes, and were unilaterally stronger, Shannon was a supporting character in Boone’s flashback and had no other opportunity for her character to be developed independently. Her relationship with Sayid has been barely acknowledged this season, and emerges here without much in the way of interest or momentum. At this stage, Shannon has been relegated to the role of reminding the audience about Boone’s death, a sure sign that the writers have no more stories to tell about this character.

Rewatch companion: THE STORM: A Lost Rewatch Podcast - S2, E6: "Abandoned" with Joe Reid

Joanna Robinson: “Tell me why you love Shannon and why you love Boone and why you want to talk about them?”

Joe Reid: “To start with Shannon, because it is her episode, so we'll give her the respect that she deserves for that. I think this show that was so preoccupied with the island bringing out qualities in the people who were stranded there that they maybe didn't have before, or weren't able to fully express before; their senses of adventurousness or heroism or whatever: that to not see the potential that there was in a character like Shannon: this episode especially, this episode feels cruel in a lot of ways. Most especially the part where by the end she just wants to self-actualize, right? Like, everybody thinks I'm worthless. And five minutes after that happens she gets killed to advance the storyline of a brand new character. And I was just like: that is a kick in the teeth and I'm really really sad for Shannon for that.”

Joanna Robinson: “I was getting physically angry watching this episode. Because I actually like this episode; but I think it's sort of silly to put the first and only flashback for a character in the episode where they die. I think this should have been, like, episode two of this season, or something like that, and then her death would have landed a bit better for me.”

Joe Reid: “For as much as I was annoyed that Boone's death happened in a Jack flashback episode, at least it wasn't oh, this is Boone's first flashback and now at the end of it he's just gonna get like pancaked by this airplane.”

Joanna Robinson: “Yeah, exactly. And then she's screaming in the rain to Sayid about how she's worthless and everyone leaves her and then I'm like: oh my god, they're really about to kill her when she's saying all this stuff, and she doesn't get the chance to, like, show, fulfill her potential? Even if that had just happened a couple episodes ago I would feel less stressed about it. That it happened literal minutes before she dies to, as you say, advance— this is obviously a wrinkle for Ana-Lucia, but it's also like a fridging for the Sayid character too.”

Joe Reid: “Yeah, oh totally! That look on his face at the end where he's just sort of like snarling. And also: the fact that Shannon got killed before she could even be introduced to all the possibilities that the hatch opens up. This show was just about to break beyond we're surviving on a beach, which is like most ill-suited to Shannon, obviously. But there were so many places that this storyline was gonna go with the hatch and just, you know: the world of this show was opening up at the beginning of this season and Shannon is mostly kept out of that. Almost entirely kept out of that. She's handed Vincent as almost like a boondoggle of just sort of like: walk this dog around the island until we figure out what we want to do with you. And then the romance with Sayid which I never really — I don't know if it's not that I never bought it, but I was certainly never interested in it. Not at the time, not on the rewatch, like whatever. The scene that they had at the beginning of this episode where they're in the tent and they ended up like sleeping together: I fully, for the first couple of minutes, I'm like, is this a flashback to the night Boone dies when they were off on their little date? Because I couldn't differentiate where, I couldn't place them within their story. Wasn't she mad at him? Was this a reconciliation? I don't know what's going on with them; I kind of don't care; and there were so many other ways that you could define Shannon outside of her relationship with a man. Like, not to get like all huffy about it—”

Joanna Robinson: “Oh, you can get huffy with me.”

Joe Reid: “That's all there was. She was defined by a relationship with her father in the flashback. And then by her relationship with Boone where like: Boone's flashback episode in season one could have been argued as a tandem flashback, sort of like a Sun and Jin thing, but it was obviously more Boone's story. And ultimately you get the sense in season two when they, you know, eventually now that they've killed her off you get the sense that: oh, without Boone there was no real reason to have Shannon around. And that's just like: that's a bummer.”

“They took my son!”
“They took a lot of things.”

L O S T

posted by We had a deal, Kyle (1 comment total)

Currently streaming in the US on Hulu (subscription) and Freevee (free with ads); in the UK on Disney+; and available for purchase just about everywhere. Next episode will post at the weekend. Ish.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:26 PM on August 17, 2023